Accepted! ~Elle/Fauna

About You, the Writer:
We will never ask any member to disclose any personal information.
Your Nickname: (A moniker to identify you, the writer.
Can be your first name or a nickname.) Gem

Have you read and do you agree to the Code of Conduct?: Yes

How did you find us and decide to write with us? Through SR

If you have written other characters here, list them all:
Arianna Trenford, Benjamin Timmins

Full Character Name: Nora Millicent Dobbins

Character Birthday & Age: 21/05/1938, 69

City & Country of Birth: Embleton, Northumberland, North east England

Pureblood, Halfblood or Muggleborn?: Halfblood

Alma Mater: Hufflepuff

Job: Retired. Was previously a seamstress, worked for Gladrags Wizarding wear, Hogsmeade for 45 years.

Wand: Willow, 6 1/2 inches, unicorn hair

Physical Description: Short and petite statue at only 5ft 3. She has light brown hair, greying in places. She looks younger than her years, probably more to do with a near permenant expression that she has just remembered, seen or thought up something exciting and wonderful than anything else.  

After spending so many of her years  bound down in the plain uniform of her job she has spent her days after her retirement wearing as many different colours and shades as humanely possible not tying herself to basic matters such co-ordination and practicality.

Personality Description:

Kind at heart, though rather bossy, as the eldest of eight she always been used to getting her own way. Loves to gossip, though she will always deny it. She loves to feel at the centre of whatever is going on.

She loves company and conversation...lots of conversation. Her retirement has given her a new lease of life, the spare hours she never had before bringing out a more creative and inventive and adventurous side, not always a good thing!  Known as mildly eccentric to some, she has her own ideas on the way of things and firmly believes that it is everyone else who is wrong to think otherwise.  She can occasionally come across as rather excitable.

Known to many and often thought of with mostly affection with a little mild irritation at times. She is occasionally a little tactless at times  and doesn't always think of the consequences of her actions, especially her gossiping. She would be mortified if she knew she been the cause of someones upset and would go out of her way to fix it if possible. If you tell her a secret, she will do her very best to keep it, though it will probably nearly kill her and end up slipping out in conversation quite by accident.

She has a great list of hobbies, many of which change on a week to week basis, one love staying constant, her love of experimentation. She has discovered a great thirst for anything new. This is currently within baking, her cake recipes lately can only be described as.....unique.    

History:

Born to Timothy and Celeste Dobbins in the early summer of 1938 on the coast of Northumberland. Nora (named after her grandmother Cynthia Nora Dobbins), was the eldest of eight sisters.

Her childhood was not filled with material wealth, but it was a relatively happy one. Her father was a Sylvamage - someone who harvest wand wood. It was a skilled job and one that brought in a moderate sum, even a moderate sum isn't much split ten ways. It put food on the table, there was little left for much else but then they didn't need much more than that. Her mother had also been a seamstress so clothes appeared easily enough.

She attended Hogwarts, if in body rather than mind. She liked the socializing of school, but was not so keen on the study and when she left in 1956 it was not a moment too soon.

She had a sweetheart once, a curse breaker and explorer by the name of Edward Bruton. They were only six weeks from the date of their wedding when she waved him off to Egypt for the final expedition he would be doing without her. They had planned out the next, a trip to South America for their honeymoon, written itineraries and colourful brochure pictures overflowing the small palm sized book she kept her hopes locked inside.

She waited for him to return but when the wedding date came and went she had to acknowledge, he wasn't coming back. She received a letter two days later explaining that he had met someone else, another curse breaker by the name of Cecily Cartwright. They were engaged and due to be married later that year.  

Nora packed away her dreams with that notebook, cried a little, drank copious amounts of tea and then tried to get on with life with a steady determination. She applied for a job and started work in Gladrags the very next week. She was determined to give her life some purpose back, some meaning when meaning seemed in short supply.  

Her job brought in reasonable money, but extremely long hours. An excellent saving strategy as she never had any time to spend it. She worked hard for forty five years, never stopping, never changing course. The dreams she'd had once were locked fast in that drawer, it was only when retired that she heard the drawer rattling....and opened it.

2005-2006, Nora was travelling the world. She went to America, South Africa, visited cousin Jimmy in China, Susan and Vin in Australia and loved every minute of it. Her little cottage in Hogsmeade is filled to bursting with the artifacts and souvenirs she brought back with her when she finally returned.

She now has more energy then she ever had before. She involves herself  in anything and everything she takes an interest in and has a long and ever changing list of hobbies. Two weeks ago she enrolled in Mr Magissa's Magical owled home study course and is now improving her education in the vast field of magical experimentation...this months subject is experimentation in cookery.

She is a dedicated member of the Mature Adventurers Distinguished Society of witches and wizards, Hogsmeade branch...of which there are currently a grand total of five members, as well as a member of the Experimentation Elders Kindred society to which she has been recently sworn it.    

Sadly, of the eight sisters only four are alive now. The youngest of the sisters, little Josephine, died when she was just five in a freak accident. The family moved to Hogsmeade shortly after this event.  Two of her sisters were killed during the first wizarding war, the last war taking another from their midst. Her mother is still alive and fairly fit, age considering, and lives three doors down from Nora. She remains close to her other sisters and their families.
  
What is your occupation? How do you go about it?
How did you get your current occupation?
How does your past and abilities justify your current skills?: Explained above.

Writing Sample:
Show your character in a scene that illustrates the best and worst aspects
of their personality. Include action, dialog and thought.

"Did you hear about the minister?" Nora said to one of her friends ahead of her.
" Um...."
"Dating the Head Unspeakable lass, or so I heard last. " She continued, pausing momentarily, tongue poking slightly out of her mouth as she read the next line of the instructions on the slightly mottled parchment in front of her. She seemed not to hear the voice in front of her.

"Of course I'm.... Nora....not one to gossip but... NORA!

"What is it Betty??" She asked the small woman behind her.  

"OH...Merlins soggy beard...Kathy...push open that window will you. " She said hurriedly, spluttering a little. The cauldron behind her was on fire, emitting belches of purple smelly smoke into the air. Betty flapped her arms about a bit, glasses steaming up on her small pointy nose before remembering that she had a wand and spurting jets of water over the flames.

"Well why didn't you say something? " She asked her friend in disbelief, missing completely the eye rolls from her two companions.  


Sum up your character in one paragraph:

Nora's retirement has given her a new lease of life. She's bright, adventurous, chatty, courageous and just a little eccentric. Deliberately aims to be something different to what you expect. Taking her freedom to whatever extremes she (and her neighbours) can tolerate.