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Full Character Name: Maya Anne Haworth
Character Birthday & Age: 6th July 1993 / 15
City & Country of Birth: Norfolk, England
Pureblood, Halfblood or Muggleborn: Muggleborn
House & Year: Gryffindor / 5th Year

Wand: Maya's wand is eleven and a half inches, holly wood with a single unicorn tail hair. It was described by Ollivander as 'swishy and excellent for Charm work.'

Physical Description: 'Small' is a very apt word to describe Maya. Standing at a mere 5'4" (although she always insists that there is a 3 quarters in there somewhere), she, at first glance, does not create an impressive figure. However, set a lighter to her equally short temper and prepare to make yourself scarce, because she is not afraid to let loose when her anger is concerned. She blames this on her hair, which is long and most certainly ginger, and her mother and grandmother. She is a mixture of both of these figures; she has her mother's nose (a little on the large side), lips (very on the large side), and blue-grey eyes (not really on the large side), and her grandmother's thick hair and tiny stature.

However, despite her shortness, Maya has a shapely hour-glass figure and long legs in proportion to her torso; a sharp contrast to her grandmother, who is tiny and bird-like, and more like her mother. On the days she doesn't wear her Hogwarts uniform, she wears skirts and dresses more often than jeans and shorts, although that doesn't mean that she doesn't like wearing them either, and on the days when she can't be bothered to go anywhere she'll stay in her pajamas all day. She views herself as maybe a little attractive, with a fairly nice curves and a pouty mouth, though she despises her pale skin and crooked teeth.

Personality Description: Maya is, without a doubt, quite the little spitfire. Incredibly stubborn with a fiery temper, she blames her hotheadedness on her Muggle mother and Muggle grandmother, who she resembles in looks greatly, no matter how many times she tries to deny it. She can also be quite jealous and snappy as a result; a prime example of this is with her younger brother, for although she loves him dearly, sometimes she watches her parents affections towards him with a little envy, despite trying to remind herself, for once, of her age. Even though she appears loud and brazen, and is likely to snap something sarcastic if you rub her nerves the wrong way, Maya is quite sensitive on the inside, and is prone to secret tears if she is criticised or hurt. She feels the need to protect herself and others with sarcasm and dry humour, all of which she is renowned for, and it's very easy for her to make somebody laugh with her confidence, which borders almost on cockiness. However, despite this facade, Maya despises the thought that somebody out there doesn't like her, especially if it's somebody from her own House or somebody she thought a friend, and she tries her very best to help out her colleagues and family whenever she can. She is very loyal and cares deeply for her friends and family, both of which can be played to people's advantages; she would have no second thought about putting herself first if it meant saving people she loved from anguish. She is more likely to put her own neck on the line, sometimes when she doesn't even need to, then to see the people that she cares for suffer, and that has got her into one or two sticky situations in the past. This doesn't deter her, though; she feels as if it was all worth it, despite the consequences that followed afterwards.

Speaking of consequences, Maya has no concept of them. She is impulsive and a dreamer, with a very creative imagination, and she likes to think of the future and 'what-if''s and less on the present and the past. She is also quite immature for her age, finding petty jokes and silly words all too funny, and it's more often than not that you'll see her laughing or joking than serious and solemn, although she does experience astonishing mood swings. She's not above childish pranks, and finds acting mature and like an adult for... well, adults. However, if the time calls for it, she can place a mask of her emotions and find her long-lost responsibilites and use them, though she'll hate doing it all the while.

Maya is a Cancer, and like most Cancers, when she has an emotional attachment to something, she will work twice as hard to protect it and love it than anything else. Home is not just where her heart is, it's where she likes to spend her days, and so often during her first years she became homesick -- though now she does consider Hogwarts her second home. Also like other Cancers, Maya wears her heart on her sleeve and is wary to give it to other people initially, but after a careful assessment, she will hand it over and trust you to keep good care of it, which, again, has left her quite broken in the past.  Despite her fiery temper, Maya can be quite motherly, especially if it's to someone younger than herself, and she can be influenced highly by others if they manipulate her; however, if they are ever discovered, they'd better run for the high hills because there's no doubt that, after a bout of angry tears, Maya will -- to put it politely -- hex them into oblivion, and have no regrets about it either. Finally, as mentioned above, although Maya suffers with highly-strung mood swings, she usually is quite happy, and able to push away her jealously and anger, and people know that if they approach her and ask if they can talk, she will drop whatever she is holding and listen to their heart's content, providing valuable advice that, more often than not, proves extremely worthy.

History: Maya Anne Haworth is the oldest child of Muggle couple, Benjamin Haworth and his wife Camilla Drakeford. Born on a hot July morning, she was considered as a surprise -- neither Benjamin nor Camilla had even been thinking about having children, what with only being married just over a year at twenty and twenty-four years old respectively -- but a welcome surprise nevertheless.

For the next eleven years, she was showered with love and affection, although she longed for a younger brother or sister to play with and watched with envy at her friends and their siblings. Instead, when her parents amended that she would be an only child (in her younger years, Maya was quite prone to even more gigantic temper tantrums than she is now, which they'd learnt since were because of her magic, and anyway Camilla and Benjamin were determined to keep their hair its natural colour until after they turned forty), she turned to her imagination and her friends, enchanting them all with rich and diverse stories of princesses and towers and wicked witches that kept them begging to stay at her house for one more night when their parents came to collect them. And when acting out these parts, for Maya was quite the little drama queen, when her friends chose to be the sighing princesses and charming princes, Maya always opted to be the wicked old witch, painting her face green, sticking raisins on the end of her nose with superglue and cackling evilly like wicked old witches do.

So you can imagine Maya's -- and her parents -- surprise when not one, but two, bombshells erupted, one after the other: firstly, she was a real witch and she was going to a real witch school and learn real witchy things, and secondly, her mother was pregnant. Maya was going to have, finally, a little brother or sister.

After that, life became a whirlwind. She was taken to Diagon Alley, met goblins that changed her Muggle money into shiny gold, silver and bronze coins, saw broomsticks and beetle eyes and floating lollipops, ate Cockroach Clusters and Chocolate Frogs and Ice Mice, bought her school things, a robe and a hat and textbooks and a wand, a real-life wand! She couldn't believe that this was all a part of her, that she was all a part of this, that from now on not only was she in the boring Muggle world where pictures stood still and chocolate didn't try to leap out of your fingers, she belonged here. This was all hers.

Unsuprisingly to anyone, Maya settled quite well at Hogwarts. For the first two years, she did experience sudden bouts of homesickness, despite barely being seen for the two months leading up to her first year. This homesickness she counteracted by sending letters every few weeks via school owl to home; her parents replied straight away, informing her of her mother's progress each time and -- during her last few days of her first year -- of her baby brother, Ethan Paul Haworth, with non-moving pictures and scribbled words underneath them. And when she returned, sad but excited, she met him in person, this little red-faced thing, with a mess of dark hair and big dark eyes like her dad.

After that, her years at Hogwarts and home were relatively... normal. Sometimes she found it difficult, the exchange between Muggle and Wizarding world; twice she'd gotten her wand out at home absent-mindedly to do something before realising halfway that she wasn't allowed to do magic outside of school, and occasionally at Hogwarts she'd said something about Muggle television or football and nobody had got the joke -- but generally life was good. She did, however, watch Ethan closely, not just because she was jealous of the affections, but because she wanted to see if he was magical like her. Part of her wanted to him to be magical; how wonderful it would be, to help him pick out a pet (Maya had her own by this time -- bought in her fourth year, a Kneazle named Naydia) to see him Sorted, help him with homework and spells... but the other part of her wished dearly that he remained Muggle, so that she was the special one of the family, so that her parents would look at her with some kind of reverence, instead of a busy half-glance when they were chasing after Ethan. So far, she'd been half-pleased, half-sad to realise that Ethan showed no signs so far, but then, she reckoned, she thought she might have been quite late too.

How Do You Fit Into Your House?: Maya is practically everything a Gryffindor represents: head-strong, stubborn and determined. She is brave, too, although occasionally her fears get the better of her and it is difficult for her to overcome them. However, when the need calls for it -- such as when a friend or family member needs help or is in danger -- she immediately forgets her fears and stands up to face whatever she needs to, because nothing is more important to her than her friends and family and those that she holds dear to her heart.

Writing Sample: Maya Haworth stared down at her Potions essay, rubbing the end of her quill feather on the tip of her nose in frustrated, but weary, thought. How on earth am I supposed to have this and Transfiguration by tomorrow morning? she thought, and glanced at her watch. Sighing, she cast her quill down and sank back against the chair, covering her face with her hands. It's quarter to one already...

She remained there for a few moments, thinking longingly of her warm comfy bed, only upstairs. It wouldn't take long, just to roll the parchment up and walk to the girls' dorms and sink into the mattress... she could finish the essay in the morning, surely...

She took another glance at the half-finished essay, and then at her open Potions textbook. And then back again. And then upstairs. And then back to her parchment.

With a groan, she leant forward and picked her quill up again. Time to get to work...

Sum up your character in one paragraph: Maya is stubborn, hotheaded and sarcastic, but she has a soft heart. She is loyal to those she loves and cares so deeply she would put her neck on line for them even if it meant getting hurt herself. She is impulsive and thinks more of the future than the past, but she works hard for things she believes in and acts motherly to those younger than herself.