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Your Nickname: Sarah
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Full Character Name: Ylva Frida Maras
Character Birthday & Age: 1 November 1942; 67
City & Country of Birth: Herrang, Sweden
Blood Purity: Halfblood
Alma Mater: Durmstrang
Job/Position: Tangibles Professors - Specialty in Runic Magic

Wand: 14", Juniper, dragon heartstring.  The wand is very long and sharp.  Precise runic wards cover its handle.  A Gregorovich.

Physical Description: Professor Maras is seen by her students as a short old witch with wild curly hair - and that eye patch!  Her most striking feature, the hardest thing to ignore, is the silver patch over her right eye.  It sits there suspended without straps, hiding behind it who knows what grusome secrets.

Ylva's eyebrows shoot around wildly on her forehead, swinging from critical to approving in slick swoops.  She wears dark red lipstick and probably too much eye color.  Her smiles are not usually occasions for comfort, rather it's a display that marks a more private joy.  The joy of a 'teachable moment', or the omen of her impending victory in some imagined competition.

She's wirey and her hands show her age better than her face.  Underneath those thick, dark Durmstrang robes and layers she's probably more frail than her students imagine. 

Personality Description: Ylva barks and snaps with rapidly fired words.  She's angular and smiles with gritted teeth.  If others consider her cruel, she'll say she's a reality check, the harsh lesson, the facts of life.  She has little care for tears having shed so many herself as a student, and she does not hesitate, no not a second to slap a student back to the Dregs.

She's merciless but not malicious.  She a product of the old ways, the traditional wizarding way.  The ways that founded Durmstrang, that ways that were corrupted to produce purists.  Ylva's no purist herself, but easily considered a staunch traditionalist.

In her world, there's little room for compromise or softness.  All the joys to be had are the ones you take for yourself, the ones you earn, not the sad ones handed you.

It would be a mistake though, to call her humorless.  There's something manic about her, something delighted.  Even when she's angry she doesn't seem to be wrathful, but oddly pleased with herself.  She's no grouch, certainly, and her cackle, if somewhat eerie, is hard to resist. 

In her private life, she enjoys competition - Wizards' Poker, dueling, broom racing, even Quidditch can draw her attention.   She drinks to unwind and dotes on her furry familiar, a giant striped cat with green eyes called Zanzibar. 

Something inside her is still looking for some love and comfort.  Some sort of repose, some permission to relax and retire. 

History: Ylva Maras was a little girl who Durmstrang tore down to nothing and built into something much stronger. 

She began in 1953 and for much of her time there, she struggled with great effort to keep her head above water.  She was a soft, sensitive thing, but was driven by a great need to please.  But failure after failure hardened her.  The punishments steeled her, motivated her.  And eventually the victories began to come.  Her studying was paying off, her hours of practice, her artful manipulations of her classmates.  She was never an Obertiel, but she left Durmstrang without seeing the Dregs for two entire years. 

As a student of Tangibles, she landed a very good apprenticeship to one of Gregorovich's students (and there were few) assisting in crafting wands.  She learned the craft herself, and even sold a few exceptional pieces, but she found her true passion in runes and magical inscriptions.  (It was about this time, in the 1960s, that the eyepatch appeared.)

But as it often happens, her ambitions were postponed to start a family.  She married, bore children, and settled down for nearly a decade in her husband's very nice house in Stockholm.  Despite loving her children, the life of a kept witch had never been hers.  And, hardened and victory bent as she was even in those days, she took the drastic step outward and divorced her husband. 

The arrangement left her with nothing, and she took her two children with her and moved back in with her mother in the small town of Herrang.  With the help of her mother, the children were cared for and she began to study. 

She found work in hospitals, artifacts shops, wandsmithies, and inscriptionaries.  She began writing her own grimoire - a dense collection of runic magic.  By the time she was 50, she achieved a master's reputation in the Futhark, and was presented with the seal of Yggdrasil. 

Her work attracted the attention of Durmstrang, and in 1994 she began as a Tangibles instructor. 



Describe your job duties and how you go about them: Professor Maras is one of the Tangibles professors and along with her colleagues she creates and exacts a curriculum that focuses on all aspects of the more physical magic - Professor Maras specializes in runes and any inscribed magic. 

She teaches both generalized Tangible magic (which could be anything from Herbology to Potions to Astronomy), and classes dedicated to inscribed magic.

Her students, depending on the class, are required to memorize alphabets and gylphs, transcribe and translate from old and more modern grimoires, inscribe and alter various runic enchantments, how to break and identify runic enchantments, advanced rune circles, runes in Potions, runes on wands, runes in wards, etc.  Any instance when  magic is written, carved, sewn, or traced in the air.

She takes the strata very seriously and is an advocate for its effectiveness.  She has no qualms about hammering a student down to the Dregs to teach them a hard lesson. 

As a professor and Master of the Mark, Maven of Inscription, Rektor of the Runes, Ylva finds her true niche, her 'moment'.   To inscribe runes requires exactitude! Precision! Nuance! Craft! Art! Talent!  It's not mere scribbling, it's crafted magic of infinite possibilities.  She demands perfection, and will drill drill drill to get the desired outcome.

Professor Maras demands absolute respect and excellent from her students. 

Elaborate on your expertise in your field: Ylva Maras is a dedicated student of Runes and has acheived peer-acclaim and certified mastery.  She ahs published her own collection of written runes in a grimoire known as the Maras Grimoire. 

Leading up to her Seal of Yggdrasil, she has practical experience using runes in a wide variety of media including wands, enchantments, and on objects.

She knows how to make wands (although does not anymore), and she could also make a Pensive should she have a wish to. 

Writing Sample: -

Sum up your character in one paragraph: Ylva Maras is a manic, born-from-the-crucible old witch with a silver eye patch.  She teaches on Runes as if it's the most important magic there is, and is a merciless disciplinarian.  She's not a joyless woman, though, not at all.  There's something about the way she goes about her trade that includes a spark of mirth, a happiness she won't hide, but probably won't explain.