Hogwarts School: A Harry Potter RPG

THE BASICS
Name: Magdalena "Maddie" Harken, other nicknames: Mags (her family mostly)

Former Character's Name (if you had one):


CHARACTER DETAILS
House Request: Most likely Gryffindor or Slytherin. Maddie is quick-witted and bright but very impulsive and tends to act on her emotions rather than logic. She lives for all the glory and fame that life has to offer her. She is bold, brash, and foolish in her decisions.

Year: First or second, but it’s not a big deal if she can’t be one of those.

Bloodline: Half-blood

Magical Strength (pick one): Transfiguration

Magical Weakness (pick one): Conjuring & Summoning

Biography:
“You do realize you’re going to have to eventually come down from there, right?” her father called to her from below.

Maddie peered down through the swaying leaves of the willow tree and shouted, “I’m not coming down until I don’t have to go away!”

“Mark, I’m so sorry, I wouldn’t have brought it up if I’d known she would be so against- .” A soft voice had started only to be cut off.

“Oh Harper it’s not your fault, we’ve needed to talk about this for a while now.” She heard his voice get softer as he turned to talk to his wife before he called out again to his daughter up in the tree. “Please, Maddie, you’re worrying your mother. Come down so we can talk about this.”

“She’s not my mother.” Maddie grumbled under her breath.

“I don’t know why I have to go to school.” She continued speaking towards the sound of her father’s voice. “Why can’t I stay here? Why can’t you teach me?”

“Maddie, I’m sorry but I don’t have the time to teach you myself and neither does Harper.”

“But I don’t want to leave!”

She heard him sigh and murmur to Harper. “You might want to go inside, this could take a while.”

Only when Harper’s retreating footsteps reached the house did her father continue. “Maddie, Hogwarts is a prestigious school. I went there myself. Don’t you want to learn how to be a proper witch?”

“I just want you to teach me, like you used to.” She moved slowly, shifting among the thick branches to get closer to where her dad was on the ground. “I want things to be the way they used to be.” Before you married Harper, she thought, when it was just you and me.

Her father had started dating Harper when she was seven and they were married by the time she turned nine. Maddie supposed that she was rather nice, as far as step-mothers go, and probably wouldn’t admit it but she had started to grow on her. Even then, though, she still wasn’t her mom, and it would be years before Maddie ever thought of her as such.

“But Maddie things have changed. Besides, I couldn’t teach you all the things you’d learn at school. They can make you a great witch, like your mother was.”

Mom. She had never really known the woman that was her real mother because she had died when she was four from a muggle accident. Maddie wished she could ask more about her mother -her dad didn’t tell her much about her- but before she could she bit her tongue, remembering that she was supposed to be mad at her father.

She moved further down towards the bottom branches so she could see her dad. “I bet Mom would have wanted me to be near her. She wouldn’t have sent me away to school.”

“Yes, your mother would have wanted what’s best for you and I’m certain that going to school would be something she would have had in mind.”

“What if I’m no good at school, and I fail and they kick me out?”

“I know you’ll do great.”

She paused on the branches right above her father; he was watching her, his eyes earnest but his expression firm. Maddie realized at that point that the argument was already won, which shouldn’t have surprised her. Although she was an only child, her father almost never gave in to her antics or tantrums, no matter how much whining was involved.

She huffed before weakly adding, in a voice barely above a whisper, “I don’t want to leave home.”

Her father opened his arms, gesturing for her to come down; he caught her when she reluctantly jumped. He set her standing on the ground and knelt down in front of her, taking both her hands before saying softly. “I know. I don’t really want you to leave either.” He continued quietly. “But I promise you it will be worth it.”

She paused, looking above her father’s head at the faint light filtering through the vines of the willow tree. Sun set had always been her favorite part of the day because it was so tranquil and beautiful. Now the quiet felt suffocating and the brilliance of the setting sun seemed to mock her.

It would make him proud. And mom. Maddie sighed once more before she smiled slightly and said, “Alright. I’ll go.”


ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

Personality: Maddie likes to live in the moment and typically acts without thinking of the future consequences. She speaks without holding back and her emotions can be read like an open book. She can be insecure and unsure of herself but she is fairly confident or feigns it when she needs to. She is rather proud of the things she is good at.

Appearance: Maddie has brown hair and dark brown eyes. She is fairly short but expects to grow much taller as she ages. She has a few freckles and is especially self conscious of the mole on her back. She is usually seen wearing whatever she felt like wearing that day, whether it’s in fashion or not.


SAMPLE ROLEPLAY.

Option I:

Maddie had been one of the last people into the Great Hall for dinner and the bedlam inside was almost overwhelming. Nonetheless, she was glad to be out of the cold and away from the stadium and that terrible game. Unfortunately the hall was filled with many reminders of the winning house’s victory.

Even though she didn’t play she was very familiar with the game due to her father’s great interest in it and as such, she took her quidditch games very seriously. Especially losses. Her mood was only worsened by the overall solemn air of her table and she found that she wasn’t very hungry after all. She eventually decided to sit for a few minutes before heading back to the common room.

Managing to wedge herself in between some friends from her classes, Maddie listened to the conversations around her. Two boys near her were talking very adamantly about the game, despite their house losing, and appeared to be dissecting it play by play. While sipping on some pumpkin juice, Maddie spotted the source of many of the conversations around her enter the hall and sit by himself towards the end of the table.

“Look, there’s the little runt who cost us the game.” She heard someone said in a quiet, clipped tone, inciting even more comments on the boy’s performance at the game.

Maddie drank the last of her juice before getting up to leave the crowded and gossiping table. As she was leaving she saw the boy, James, get up too, clearly upset. She happened to be walking several steps behind him as he left the Great Hall. She didn’t think he had heard her behind him and she had hoped to avoid having to make awkward conversation with the pitiable boy, but once they were both in the corridor he turned around abruptly, shouting at her for following him.

The tears in his eyes almost made her hold back her comment but his surly attitude pushed her to say, “You know, maybe if you handled yourself a bit better, perhaps with a little more dignity, then people would respect you more.”

Now the words were out and she couldn’t take them back so she continued as she walked past him towards their common room. “If you stop acting like a sniveling crybaby, then people won’t treat you like one. Have some respect for yourself. Or if not for yourself then at least have some for your housemates; you kind of owe it to us.”