Quill Som
 | |
| Quill Som | |
|---|---|
| Biographical Information | |
| Born | 11 November 1955, 62 |
| City of Birth | Manchester, England |
| Current City | London |
| Blood status | Half-blood |
| Physical Information | |
| Gender | Female |
| Height | 5'8" |
| Hair Colour | Black |
| Eye Colour | Brown |
| Skin Colour | Olive |
| Relationships | |
| Father | Oliver Som |
| Mother | Haliza Hisham |
| Siblings | |
| Magical Characteristics | |
| Wand(s) | |
| |
| Patronus | Borzoi |
| Education | |
| School | Hogwarts |
| House | Hufflepuff |
| Class of | 1974 |
| Occupation | |
| |
| Character Information | |
| Playby | Michelle Yeoh |
| Niobe | |
Quill Som is aged beyond her years and carries the trauma of the two Wizarding Wars perhaps too deeply. She is serious, seemingly humorless (to those who don't know her), professional, distant, kind, and good at her work. Her only surviving family is her mother whom she lives with.
Appearance
Quill is a witch of Singaporese descent. She has olive skin, straight black hair. She's tall (5'8") and wiry. Her hands are thin and long-fingered, and her face lined with stressed wrinkles.
Quill has prominent cheekbones, arched brows, and a sharp edge to her jaw.
She looks like a woman who has seen too much in her days and is doing what she can to keep it at bay.
Quill's wardrobe is nearly entirely professional, and prefers rusty browns, golds, and subdued reds. She keeps her hair tied back tastefully - not to tight, but well contained. She has a habit of constantly tucking strands of hair behind her ear as they come undone from their bindings.
Personality
Quill seems impenetrable. She comes off as rigid, serious, humorless, although professional and mostly kind. (She'll sign a birthday card, but avoid the party. )
But Quill is relentlessly detailed and hyperfocused. With an icy, expressionless expression, she will stomp through the halls with an armful of scrolls and slay the presentations, reports, and briefings that she's required to do. When her post calls her to the streets, she changes her shoes, rolls up her sleeves and tersely orders confused muggles to remain calm.
Surprisingly enough, her apparent lack of concern is calming. Quill Som will handle it.
Quill is from a traumatized generation and feels acutely aware that the youth coming up don't properly remember. She feels isolated in her grief and deeply ashamed of her actions during the war. Instead of remembering her many small heroisms, she's focused on the times when a devastating ultimatum forced her into impossible compromises.
She just wants to desperately keep it together. She's truly happy at home with her mother, both of them enjoying the others' calming comfort, resting in their shared experiences, able to smile and laugh.
Needless to say, she makes friends very slowly. It's not introversion, but a deliberate isolation.
History
Quill was born in 1966 to Oliver Som and Haliza Hisham, UK citizens of Singaporese descent, both magical from muggle families in Manchester. She had a sister called Elliot, two years older. In 1967, Quill attended Hogwarts and was sorted into Hufflepuff. She liked school very much and was a bright and cheerful student. She loved being in the Dueling Club and Herbology Society.
The growing threat from He Who Must Not Be Named and his Death Eaters terrified Quill and her family, but her parents kept her at Hogwarts as it was the safest place for their daughters. At school, tension was high and the Daily Prophet continued to provide harrowing reports of missing and killed witches and wizards. (She was at school with Lupin, Black, Potter, Pettigrew, and Evans, but ran in different circles, different houses.)
In 1973, Quill's sister Elliot left Hogwarts and went missing while visiting London. It isn't until three months later that she is confirmed dead. Quill is rocked to her core, and when she leaves Hogwarts two years later, she lives for a brief time with her parents in Manchester.
Having done well in Potions and Herbology in school, she was accepted as a Healer-in-Training at St. Mungo's and so traveled to London in 1975. She saw firsthand the horrors of what He Who Must Not Be Named, his followers, and the Aurors are inflicting upon witches and wizards. Quill began to erect barriers around her heart and mind so that she could grit her teeth and bear what she was seeing. She became horrified at the brutality her people were capable of.
In 1978, she finished her program and returned to Manchester. Her father had fallen ill and again her family needed her.
The thirty-first of October of 1981 was a day of music and intense emotion and relief. All of Manchester was illuminated with fireworks, food, and celebration. The whole of Wizarding Britain and Ireland were able to expel all the pain and fear they'd been keeping in for nearly a decade. In the euphoria of pride and relief, Quill applied and was accepted to a position in the Department of Magical Accidents & Catastrophes as a Healer-on-Call. For seven years, she responded to emergency magical situations and treated both magic folk and muggles on the scene until they could be directed to an appropriate hospital. It was during this time she befriended Lawrence Musgrave.
In 1990, she was promoted to an administrative position within the Department. Her steely demeanor and acute ability to organize and motivate those around her proved to be valuable. She was 34 now and her career was developing. It was that year that her father succumbed to his illness and passed. She moved her mother to London with her.
By 1994, the Ministry was prospering under Cornelius Fudge, but ill winds were blowing. The Department of Accidents & Catastrophe's began to see stranger and stranger events. Quill Som was tested and triumphed. In the chaos of You Know Who allegedly returning, there was a great deal of turnover in her Department, and she served as Head of the Department for a week. Politics were complicated and hostile as loyalties were tested. Again, Quill proved herself to be stalwart. She resumed her role as Deputy Head and many said that despite the presence of her boss, she kept the Department running smoothly.
The Second War official began in July 1996 with the destruction of Brockdale Bridge, and her Department is thrown into the fray. Giants attacked Somerset. Quill had to be at the top of her game, and keep her mother safe at the same time. As a muggleborn witch, she knows that once again she is in peril.
Rufus Scrimgeour took the helm and Quill and others from her generation cannot shake the horrible feeling that It Is Happening Again. She is chilled to the bone, but only becomes more resolved to keep things together. It is perhaps her Deputy position that protects her from the Death Eaters who had begun to infiltrate the Ministry of Magic.
To her shame, she did nothing to resist them, having been threatened by Lawrence Musgrave. She kept her head low and kept the Department moving as best she could. She was forced to make decisions she'd later regret - her only concern being to protect herself and her mother who would undoubtedly be targeted if anyone found out.
And it all ended in 1998 after four dismantling years. Quill Som, weary and worn, left her post at the Ministry. She and her mother had their lives to put back together. There was healing to be done, regret to redress.
A month ago, May 2010, she received an invitation to submit her credentials to Accidents & Catastrophes once more. Upon her mother's encouragement, she accepted the role of Deputy Head.
In April 11, she moved up to Department Head. In October 2012, she left the post voluntarily.
