Juniper Ellwood-Luxe (Magical Defence)

[Juniper E-L Steele]

CHARACTER INFORMATION
Character name: Juniper Ellwood-Luxe

Previous and/or Current Character(s) if applicable: Juniper Ellwood-Luxe, Clio Rolfensen, Pepper Grace Grimm, Magnus Callum Kedding

Character age: 20

Character education: Hogwarts '37, Gryffindor

Strength and weaknesses:

Magically, she's strongest in Transfiguration and Charms with Divination trailing slightly behind. As a student, she dueled for all three terms (5th to 7th) she attended Hogwarts and captained in her seventh year. Post graduation, she spent several months training to become an Auror until she resigned as per her husband's wishes. Paired with practical application, she also consistently remained one of the top minds in her graduation class with several Valedictorian titles under her belt. She finds tangible magic to be more to her tastes than "illusionary" which is why Conjuring and Summoning is her weakest subject.

Physical description:

Juniper has honey blonde hair and forest green eyes. She's only a modest 5'3, so her stance isn't exactly intimidating. What she lacks in height, she makes up for in commanding presence. There are faint freckles that cross the bridge of her nose, but they become more prominent when she's been exposed to the sun for long periods of time.

Personality:

With the death of Lysander, Juniper has been focused only upon getting her feet back on the ground and building up the family name that Nero has inherited. She is fiercely overprotective of her son, yet fears that one day this will work to his disadvantage as sons should not cling to their mothers' apron strings. Ultimately, she is attempting to do what is in Nero's best interest and that includes building both social and political ties leaving her with very little personal time to mourn the passing of her husband. While visible and typically cordial to everyone she encounters, she much prefers her solitude.

Hopes and dreams. Why are you teaching at Hogwarts?:

She needs the occasional peace and quiet away from the world of socialites and politicians. Hogwarts reminds her of simpler times spent with Lysander. It's a place to clear her head and attempt to return to a state of semi-normalcy. Besides, she's always enjoyed sharing her knowledge with others.

Biography:

Juniper Kedding's life only truly began at the tender age of four when her beloved younger brother Charlie was brought into the world. He was so tiny with his pudgy hands, button nose and bright green eyes. Her father had proudly beamed at her, gave her an affectionate pat to the head and introduced her to Charlie as his "big sister". Never had those words been so profound to a four-year-old child. Just one look at Charlie was all it took to spark a kinship that not many would ever be able to comprehend. It was never quite a brother complex. It was something infinitely deeper than that. To a precocious child like Juniper who soaked in everything like a super absorbent sponge, "big sister" was a term that she took to heart. While Dad was busy working, she would have to watch over Charlie and teach him everything that she knew (which was only so much considering she was merely four). However, considering how small Charlie was, obviously she would have to protect him from things that were bigger than him. That was what a "big sister" did or, at least, that was what she believed.

Everything was not peaches and cream in the Kedding household. Charlie was too young and blissfully innocent to realize that something was amiss with their mother. Juniper, on the other hand, was not so naive. She was just a little too smart for her age, which turned out to be a blessing and a curse. The change her mother experienced was like a slow cancer that gradually ate away at the familial bliss they had previously enjoyed. Perhaps it had always been there and Juniper had simply been too small to understand, but irregardless the situation dramatically worsened when her second brother arrived in the world.

There were so many times that Claret had asked Charlie if he missed Daddy. It was a passive aggressive question, something meant to plant a seed of unhappiness in the child's heart. The questions stopped when Juniper had interrupted and posed a simple question. "Mommy, do you miss Daddy?" In retrospect, it was probably Juniper's fault that things had turned out the way they did. It was possible if she had simply kept quiet that her mother never would have turned into a shadow of herself. When Claret ceased her motherly functions, Juniper was the one took up the reins and assumed the role of matriarch. It was a bittersweet role that she played. On one hand, she very much loved and adored her younger brothers. On the other, she felt robbed of her own childhood. It was a forced maturation into adulthood and she secretly resented her mother for being so selfish. However, those feelings were ugly and Juniper hated herself for feeling that way for someone she had once loved and admired. Despite her suppressed black emotions, Juniper never once spoke back to her mother. It turned out to be her second mistake and eventually put the proverbial nail in the coffin for their once picture-perfect family.

Juniper had her temporary freedom when her acceptance letter came from Hogwarts. She would be studying there at the start of the year...or, at least, she would have had IT not happened. The memory itself would always remain fuzzy, but in the month just prior to the start of her first year, everything fell apart. Juniper had been upstairs paging through her brand new books that her father had given to her just prior to leaving again. He had taken her on a trip to Diagon Alley to pick up her school supplies and she had picked out her wand. It was an unusual instrument considering what it contained on the inside. There was an undeniable sensation that made her uneasy when she learned that it contained the fang of a werewolf. However, she had dismissed it as most would do.

Her studies stopped when the yelling started. She had barely dropped the book when she heard Lowell start to cry and the muffled shout from Charlie. Dear, sweet, adorable Charlie who never raised his voice or got upset. By the time she had made it down the stairs it was already too late. Lowell was running into the forest, Charlie was behind him and then IT happened. Time stopped. Crimson rained everywhere until it pooled into a puddle beneath the spot where Charlie laid. It was a memory that would continue to haunt her for the rest of her life.

The ultimate betrayal happened when Charlie was released from St. Mungo's and her mother finally left and never came home. In order to help her father who was now struggling to raise three children alone, Juniper opted not to go to Hogwarts. She home schooled herself with the books that would have otherwise been assigned to her and studied whenever she could while simultaneously raising her two younger brothers in place of her missing mother. It was only when Charlie finally came of age and received his own acceptance letter that Juniper decided to finally go to wizarding school. After all, Charlie had changed and as she had seen with her own eyes, people could be quite cruel.

At Hogwarts, Juniper excelled in everything she applied herself to including dueling as a house captain, playing Quidditch captain as a seeker or chaser, editing the school paper, assisting younger students as a teaching assistant and manning the hospital wing as a nursing assistant. Consistently at the top of her class with her grades, she was named Gryffindor Prefect at the beginning of her seventh year. Somehow, she still made time for a social life beyond school activities and developed a rather tumultuous love/hate relationship with Lysander Ellwood-Luxe that spanned all three years of her schooling.

A brief stint as a trainee Auror ended with her rather sudden marriage to Lysander in November 1938. In September 1939, they welcomed their first (and only) son named Nero into the world. Unfortunately, Juniper was thrown another curveball when Lysander's life was cut woefully short with his assassination on January 7th, 1939. With her son now poised to inherit the title of Head of Family, Juniper was left with very little time to grieve. With the absence of Lysander, there were many social and political bridges left half-constructed for her to complete.

Time waits for no man or woman and Ellwood-Luxes do not mourn.

SAMPLE ROLEPLAY
(Please respond to to this in third person past tense. Do not write the other characters' reactions. Only your own.)

The water by the lakeshore rippled, dark under the overcast sky, and thick with moss growth. Ripples grew into small waves, spreading in concentric circles that sloshed against the rocks and sent a small family of mice living in a rotted out log above the waterline scurrying for cover.

And then the lake exploded.

A fountain erupted, splattering muddy water and assorted bits of lake bottom. Something very, very large thrashed and roiled, tentacles slapping wildly at the surface.

Elizabeth despised the squid, and more importantly, she disapproved of it. It was disorderly. Truth be told, she was the sort of woman who disapproved of a great many things, the disorderly ones most particularly. A tall, severe woman in her forties who never smiled, Elizabeth was so parsimonious with praise that it was said that if good will could be saved up she'd be sitting on a pile of it like dragon over a horde. The school's Headmistress was very good at disapproval.

Brown water flowed in a tent around her upraised wand, blocked by an invisible umbrella.

“He has a cold again!” Pythagorea Proud, the school’s much-harried Deputy Headmistress fussed, as she shook a spatter of mud off of her arm. She hadn’t been as quick with her wand work. “He won’t take his medicine. We’ve been trying all morning. Someone is going to have to deal with him!”

Arms folded, the tip of Elizabeth’s pointed black and very sensible shoe tapped against the rocky bank. She glanced over at their newest Professor, her expression thoughtful. “You’ll do,” she offered flatly, her tone leaving little room for argument. This was going to prove to be a very different sort of interview...

Roleplay Response:

It was strange to return to the school property after two years of separation that seemed more like a lifetime apart. Truthfully, she had anticipated the sense of nostalgia to be very similar to the ripples currently disturbing the surface of the brackish water. Instead, the memories surged like powerful waves upon sight of the lake and a very familiar oak tree. It was their tree - hers and his - and this was their lake. This was the spot where balmy summer nights were spent in languish and cigarettes were stolen just as frequently as kisses.

The thought caused her stomach to lurch as the colour rapidly drained from her cheeks. Perhaps she wasn't ready to return here, after all? It was a childish yearning to return to a simpler time after reality had so harshly stripped her of the one person who had completely understood her. She was alone save for Nero, but he was only a baby and how could he possibly understand the gravity of their situation? Together they were a widow and her fatherless child. No one knew what it was like for her to come home to a dark, dismal townhome and an empty bed. No one knew the way she flinched whenever Nero to accidentally stumbled upon the syllable da in the midst of his babbling. Most of all, no one knew the weight of rings she wore upon her fingers - one from a woman whose life had ended upon a tragic note and one from a legacy of equally dead men.

“You’ll do.”

Reality returned and she blinked back salty dew that had formed at the edges of her eyes without her permission. At her side, her hands had reflexively balled into trembling fists and it took a moment of flexing her fingers to stop the tremors. Green eyes flickered to the writhing mess of tentacles that was currently disturbing what was otherwise a rather touching, tranquil scene from her fractured memories. Yes, the calamari would have to be handled.

Shoulders rolled in casual indifference as a hand moved to draw her wand from the interior of her robes. A sharp look was passed to the Deputy Headmistress before lips parted in a tiny sigh of exasperation. Was the woman so flustered that she couldn't even think of the simplest of charms to handle this situation? If she needed the squid to stop flailing about like a petulant child throwing a temper tantrum, then all she needed to do was hit it with a spell that made it stop moving for a short period of time while she distributed the medicine.

A lazy flick of her wand was given in the direction of the squid as she silently cast a Petrificus Totalus. "Done." She just hoped the sodding thing wouldn't sink to the bottom of the lake like a stone. If it started to go under, she'd follow it up with a Wingardium Leviosa. Contingency plans were never in short commodity.