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Messages - Anneliesse Sauveterre

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Archived Applications / Anneliesse Sauveterre
« on: 21/12/2020 at 03:30 »

Application for Hogwarts School




→ CHARACTER INFORMATION.

Name: Anneliesse Hélène Sauveterre

Birthday: 13 December 1946

Hometown: Aix-en-Provence, France

Bloodline: Halfblood

Magical Strength (pick one): Conjuring & Summoning

Magical Weakness (pick one): Charms

Year (pick two): Fourth, Fifth

Biography:

Her mother Pascaline was an unlucky woman with two different daughters from two different fathers who had died two different deaths in the war. Once and frequently, Pascaline had told her daughters that there were angels following them, and that those angels were their fathers, and that those fathers would look after them when her eyes were elsewhere. To Anna, an angel was no better than a ghost, a weight and a pair of eyes she couldn’t even see. There were many things to wail about. Too cold, too wet, too dry, too hot. Too many sounds, not enough. What Anneliesse hated was clatter for clatter’s sake, noise that made no point of itself. She pretended she was a mouse, whisper-quiet, sitting alone in the dustier parts of grand-père’s château, folded in amongst the old books and linens.

Rosemarie was two years older and had hair the color of summer. Rosemarie’s papa was grand-père’s son, had married maman when they were nineteen, and then was killed. Anna’s papa had not married maman. Anna’s papa had only sent letters. Anna had never met him. Time went on, maman grew lines around her eyes and mouth. Very quietly, the letters stopped coming.

The world was a tunnel she moved through. There was a light she could see at the end of it, a distant pinprick of-- something, she thought. If she closed her eyes and imagined, she swam through ink and pitch toward it, a little firefly, a flickering star.

-----

Scattered all on the floor in the parlor, Anna scratched at the scab on her knee where she’d skinned it a week earlier. Maman had tried to cover it with long stockings, so she would be presentable to grand-pere in the afternoon, but the stockings itched and sagged. Maman had scolded her. Little ladies did not run about in the garden. Little ladies did not present themselves to grand-père with lopsided stockings and mussed hair. Anna did not think that she could have been born a lady if she was only half Rosemarie’s sister. The pile of cards was askew on the rug. Anna nudged it into order.

“Please give me an eight.”

Perhaps she would have asked Rosemarie for more. Her satin frocks and her shined black mary jane shoes, lovely illustrated books and pretty china dolls. But those things were not for her. Half of Anna was someone else.

“Go fish,” Rosemarie told her. Anna picked a card from the little pile, and she frowned. It was not an eight.

“I do not like this game.” Anneliesse said.

-------

It is most natural, of course, to start at the beginning, but the beginning was so very long ago. Anneliesse had once been born; that was what she knew. First, she wasn’t, and then, suddenly, she was. There were some things that had come before her, like Rosemarie, and grand-père, and the very large  tree in the back of the garden, but they were not what mattered. They were not hers.

Once Anna found that she could draw breath, she had found that she could scream. If she thought very hard, Anna thought she could remember that feeling: sucking in a crackling lungful of chilly air and then rejecting it, expelling it, banishing it from herself in a rending, sustained wail. She was born in the winter, after the war was done. The intricacies of this part Anna could not remember. There was not a reason for her to remember. It was too long ago.

------

Anna could remember sitting beneath the very large tree at the back of the garden. Maman had dressed them in white, because it was Easter and one wore white for Easter. Anneliesse stood brandishing a daffodil like a bobbing rapier, Rosemarie near.

She is perfect, Anneliesse had thought. Her sister’s gleaming hair was tied up with a white lace trimmed ribbon, and she was practicing her poems. Rosemarie had gone to her girl’s school where she learned arithmetic, and painting, and poetry. Anneliesse had stayed behind and practiced her letters with the irritable old governess, upon whom Anna had recently spat and been punished for. Grand-père wanted to hear Rosemarie’s recitation, so she would stand near the roses and tell her poem to the family.

Anna had heard her practice it now at least one hundred times. Two hundred. Rosemarie had her gestures exactly choreographed, the lift and fall of her lovely voice perfectly measured.

“Demain, dès l’aube, à l’heure où blanchit la campagne,” Here, a pause. “Je partirai.”

Anna was tired. She flopped down into the soft grass and pulled a fistful of it up, listening for the particular sound of the individual blades separating from themselves; then, she flung them into the air. They floated down gentle to rest on her, earthen confetti, preceded only by the speckling of moist spring dirt that fell a little heavier. Rosemarie huffed, but did not raise her voice. Rosemarie did not ever become cross.

“Anna, you mustn’t get dirty. Maman said--”

“I will not,” Anna replied. She rolled over in the grass. Rosemarie had drawn breath to reply, but did not manage it.

“Girls,” Sounded a voice from opposite the garden. “Come along! The guests are arriving.”

Maman appeared, all in white, and her pleasant face leaned unhappily into the creases downward of her mouth as she saw Anna in the grass, dirt in her hands and beneath her fingernails. Anna righted herself, moving to stand.

“Anna, what did I tell you? You are no wild beast. Rolling in dirt is not--”

“I told her,” Rosemarie cut in breathlessly. “But--”

Lovely Rosemarie. Perfect Rosemarie. Before she could think what she was doing, Anna had dug her hands deeper into the still dirt, scratching down into the firmness of the ground, and managed a full handful of earth. Her perception felt blurred, red, opaque. Rosemarie was perfect, her white dress and rosy cheeks. Her poems and her learning. Anneliesse found that her hands were moving on their own: they rose to her face, and down both cheeks she left horrible streaks of dark, wet dirt.

”Anna!”

But Anna snarled, and reached down for another hard fistful of earth. She rushed at her sister, and in one swift moment her dirty hands had found their mark on the bodice of Rosemarie’s pretty white dress, smearing the muck down her front. Rosemarie shrieked, looking down at her ruined dress. Anneliesse opened her mouth, showed her teeth, and shrieked right back.

-----

She was sent away in the summertime. She was eight years old. She was not grand-père’s blood. She was his Sauveterre granddaughter only because his son had married her mother before he had been killed in war. Grand-père’s pity for her mother was what had kept Anneliesse at the chateau, had given her the name she carried.
“You have a grandfather,” grand-père told her, in his study, in June, through dizzying heat. “in Wales, who is willing to see to your--”

her herness, her rending, her whirlpools.

“--to your education and upbringing. You will go pack your things, and you will travel there.”

Anna felt damp and warm, unable to take in a full breath in the stifling heat of his study. She was dismissed.

Anna went to pack her things.

-----

Rosemarie burst all into tears, rushed to Anna and wrapped her arms round her, knocking her hat askew. Maman had not come to the parlor where the fireplace was, and grand-pere was away. The governess took Anna’s hand and they stepped into the crackling green fire. Rosemarie spun away from them, tear-stricken.

The sitting room they came upon was thinly furnished, but comfortable. A greying man with dark eyes looked up from an armchair by a latticed window, surprised.

“You’re early,” he began to say in English, rising from his chair as they stepped from the fireplace, but stopped short as his eyes fell upon Anneliesse.

Anna, in her hat and traveling clothes, was scowling. The governess pinched her. “Anna, maintenant, presente-toi. Vite!”

She did not untangle her scowl.

”Monsieur,” Anna said, standing stiff. “I am Anneliesse. I am happy to make your acquaintance.”

The man who was her grandfather moved to her. “Anneliesse,” he said quietly, bending to her level. “I am very pleased you are here. I am Nehemius--”

She frowned deeper at this nonsense name.

“--but you must call me Nem.”

-----

Her grandfather’s cottage was in a wooded glen not far from the sea. There was a garden, and an oak, and a swing. There was a kind matronly woman called Mrs. Fisher who came in the morning to cook and clean and then left in the evening, who packed Anna lunches after breakfast and sent her out into the wood to play. Most often, her grandfather-- whom stubbornly she called Uncle, because in English grand-fa-ther felt too unwieldly, felt too close to the tyranny of the non-blood that had sent her away from her maman-- was away, gone to see to his jobs. Uncle was an Auror, which she understood to be a vocation which required superior courage and moral fortitude. Anna imagined him beneath a dark umbrella in London, tracking down evildoers, speaking to them quietly before he struck them silently down from their wrongs.

But Uncle would not tell her what he did. He greeted her kindly when he returned home, asked her how her time had been with Mrs. Fisher but would not elaborate further than the short answers he gave to Anna's peppering of questions. After many goings and returnings, Anna decided she would stop asking.

-----

One night, after two winters and a summer, Uncle told her that she resembled her father. Anna had come to say good-night, had already brushed and braided her hair, washed her face, changed into her nightgown. The room was dim as she had approached him sat in his armchair by the latticed window, the fire in the hearth casting shadows that danced under his eyes, a flickering glimmer against their natural shine. He did not have photographs; not anymore.

The little grey cat that lived in the house wound all round her ankles. She reached down and scooped him up, holding him paws over her shoulder. The little grey cat twisted around to look at Uncle, and mewled.

Anna was sure she imagined the flickers shift to glistening in Uncle's eyes, and turned away to go to bed.

She paused to gaze in the mirror in the hall. She did not see her father. She did not see maman, she did not see Rosemarie. There was no one in the mirror but herself, and the little grey cat who purred and purred, butted his wee head against her soft cheek.

Her feet were cold. The little grey cat slept on her pillow that night.

She dreamt of flames engulfing a fine, old house, a château like grand-père's, but elsewhere, by cliffs and sea. Leaded windows exploding outward in a roaring blaze, books and portraits ruined, acres of heath and lavender reduced to a charred nothing. It felt like a memory, an experience, one she could taste and hear and smell. Salt and stone and ash. It was dreadfully quiet but for the ripping flames, deafening in the silence of the night beyond the fire but meltingly hot in its audience. It crept to her without stopping as she stood frozen in the heath, a dragging crawl, blistering, until she woke again.

In the morning, after breakfast, Uncle sat her upon the bench near the kitchen and told her she was old enough to board at the school his sister's husband had hand in, at Blackhill Wood in Norwich. It was not a large school, but it would suit her. The professors were kind. She would do well to socialize with other children her age. As he spoke, Uncle's soft dark eyes did not find hers.

She was eleven years old. She would be sent away again. It would not be the last time.


→ ADDITIONAL INFORMATION.
Note: This section is optional, and is up to you to complete.

House Request: surprise me!

Personality:
In the revolving door that has been Anna's life, she has had few trusting relationships. As such, the person upon whom she relies the most-- to the detriment of much other human interaction-- is herself. She has a convincing construct of the world's workings that makes sense to perhaps only her, and she is slow to accommodate change. Anna is prone to lashing out when she feels confused, or threatened, or betrayed. Mostly solitary for the bulk of her childhood, she thinks of herself as more of a creature, fanged and sharp, and has trouble relating to girls her age. Conversely, the moment she is shown kindness, she will latch on, very much craving care, and will do anything for the person who shows it to her. Anna likes cats, books, mysteries, violent weather, and identifying mushrooms in the forest. She dislikes dogs, withheld information, wearing stockings, creamed spinach, and sharing.

Appearance:
With grey-blue eyes and dark brown hair, Anneliesse is thin and rather sallow. Her eyes are wide and round, and she blinks rather over-often, being somewhat discerning and calculative. She aims to notice every detail around herself, cataloguing and remembering and stowing away. Anna tends to fidget, and will pick up any nearby object to examine and play with it; though this does, more than occasionally, culminate with her breaking the object, purposefully or not. Her hair is quite long and quite dark, and she sometimes will braid it to keep it tidy; but usually, she does not.

→ SAMPLE ROLEPLAY.

Option I:

The dungeons. A place eleven-year-old Evangeline had not yet travelled since her arrival at Hogwarts.

A place she really was just fine with not knowing; but it was too late. The dare had been accepted, even if it had been done in fear of being kicked out of Gryffindor, like the older girls had said she would because Gryffindors were supposed to be brave.

The air changed instantly when she hit the main corridor of the dungeons. The dampness was almost too much for her and she instinctively took a deep breath to avoid the sensation of being suffocated. There was also a sour burning smell which Evangeline assumed was from many, many Potions lessons.

Further and further she walked, her steps so slow and gentle they made no noise against the stone walls and floor. The feeling that she wasn't alone crept up her spine and raised the tiny hair on the back of her neck. Shivering, Evangeline wrapped her arms around herself. Suddenly, she missed the warmth and comfort of the Gryffindor common room. The fire was always going and it made her feel at ease.

Why had she let those girls talk her into this? She was only eleven, she didn't have to be brave. Surely the Headmistress would not kick her out of Hogwarts for not being brave.

If only she had these thoughts while being dared to search for the ghost of one Emma Birch, whom supposedly haunted the dungeons. It was not, Evangeline had learned, the place where the sixteen-year-old girl's life had ended but as she had been from the house with a snake as its mascot, it was the place her spirit had returned to. That common room was down here somewhere, she'd been told.

Something - the small blonde girl wasn't quite sure what - but something made her stop in her tracks suddenly. There was a low, dull thumping noise. Or maybe that was her heart beating so loudly she thought it was coming from outside her body.

"H-h-hello?" Her voice was barely above a whisper.

Remembering that she was supposed to be brave, Evangeline tried again.

"Hello! Is Emma Birch here?"

The sound of her own words bouncing back at her off the walls made her jump.



The flagstones were cool and damp and Anna had curled herself behind the statue of some wizard-or-other, grown over with something rather slimy, and was digging through her bag for the sweets that she'd snuck into it from the Great Hall the night before. The caramels were rather long, like the elf who'd cut them had done a sneak job of it, and wrapped clumsily in waxed paper. Anneliesse had, in total, six pieces of soft caramel.

She dug. No- five pieces of soft caramel. She had forgotten the piece she had snuck into her mouth during Transfiguration and sucked down to a paper-thin paste, all while the professor went on in lecture on what Anna could only surmise was the difference between pins and needles. It was a marvelous thrill, secreting a caramel during class. The boy at the seat beside hers had given her a withering, tired look, but Anna had not cared.

After this, she would have four pieces. She extracted a prize, held it out in front of her face, and frowned at it. Two inches long, half an inch wide. Speckled along the length with little pockmarks of salt. Light in color; brown. Anneliesse pulled with forefinger and thumb evenly on either end of the twisted wax paper, and the candy began to unfurl from within.

"Hello! Is Emma Birch here?"

Anna snapped the candy down into two hands, hiding it cupped against her chest. She had not heard the footsteps that ordinarily announced an intruder to her dungeons; her error in the close inspection of her treat.

She waited a moment, listening, and she did hear footsteps. The gentle click-clack of someone's wood-soled patent leathers on stone.

Anna took in a cool breath.

"There is no Emma here." She hissed, unmoving, her eyes cocked to the direction of the steps. "You ought to go. You should not be here now."

→ ABOUT YOU.

Please list any characters you have  on the site (current and previous): ellwood-luxe llc. i am sorry for the length of today's novel.

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