CHARACTER INFORMATIONCharacter name:Willow Foxglove
Previous and/or Current Character(s) if applicable: Roisin Hale, Juliette Lisse, Lydia Blackwell, Koraline McCormick
Character age:Thirty-four (17 June 1934)
Character education:Hogwarts, class of 1952
Strength and weaknesses (details please):Willow’s weakness at Hogwarts would be quite the same outside: her sister Holly. Due to the guilt she still feels for what happened when they were younger, she can be a bit overprotective of her youngest sibling. However, Willow is also a Gryffindor at heart. She has a lot of House pride and will potentially favor those who are Lions.
Physical description:Willow is very petite, standing at only 5’2” tall. While most of the students will tower over her, she can handle herself in tough situations.
Personality (nice, rude, funny etc. Paragraph please.):When she was a student at Hogwarts, Willow was a rebel. Her group of friends loved to break curfew so they would be out at all hours of the night. (She got really good at not getting caught.) However, once her father died, she began to take life a lot more seriously. She knew she had to focus on her younger siblings because they were relying on her. That took some of her carefree attitude away. She found herself growing a bit darker, even after she moved to Australia and found love. The loss of that love, the moving back to London, the facing her siblings - all of those events brought on a determination that Willow hadn’t felt since she was a student all those years ago.
Hopes and dreams. Why are you teaching at Hogwarts?:Willow has gone through a bit of a renaissance. She started out at the
Daily Prophet when she first returned to England and has, within the last couple years, begun working at the Ministry of Magic. She loves helping out magical families in ways that she hadn’t been helped when she was younger. Upon thinking more about her future and what she wanted, Willow decided that she was curious about Hogwarts these days. She missed those hallowed halls. Writing is her passion, and therefore so are books. When she heard there was an opening for Librarian, she had to apply.
Biography (500 words minimum. There is never such a thing as too much.): Willow Foxglove is not a stranger to mistakes. She attributes it to her biological mother’s lack of love and her step-mother’s lack of attention. Those two things combined really did a number on her when she was younger. As a student at Hogwarts, Willow liked to sneak out at night with her friends and do things that she knew she should not do. But she wasn’t a bad student. She managed to pass all of her NEWTs and was lucky enough to secure a job at the
Daily Prophet right after graduating.
It was not long after, however, that life threw a huge curveball her way. Her step-mother had died years before, leaving her as the woman of the house, but when her father died her whole world changed drastically. She was the sole provider for her three younger siblings. She felt very ill-equipped to take care of children in her early twenties. She did what she thought was best and took the best care of them that she could, but that was not good enough for fate.
Her little sister got sick. Very sick. Holly was admitted to the hospital and Willow was faced with a fork in the road. Did she continue down the path she was on, playing God to three little ones, or did she let go and let someone else do a much better job at raising them than she could? Honestly, the decision was hard. But it was not until someone offered her an out that she realized they would thrive more without her.
Wiping her hands clean of the situation, Willow relocated to Australia. She had dedicated so much time to the children and the everyday monotony of being, essentially, a mother that she had no interest anymore. That was the first big mistake she made. The second was dropping all contact with Robbie, Alder, and Holly. She was ashamed of herself and carried that guilt around with her for the whole time she was gone.
Willow found love finally, and was actually considering starting a family of her own, when all of that was ripped away from her in a split second. One moment she and her boyfriend were surfing, and the next he was gone. That changed her. She’d finally found happiness where she had not seen any, only for it to be taken from her. She felt alone. She felt isolated. Sure, she had friends, but she did not have any family.
So then Willow moved back to London. She wanted to reconnect with her siblings, if they would let her. But that was not as easy as she hoped. There were hard feelings, and she could not blame them for being hurt. Mostly it was Robbie. Robbie had always been ‘her’ baby, and now he would not even smile at her. His pain was deep and she could not fault him for that. Alder was more willing to give her a chance. Thankfully. And little Holly was even more ready to have her big sister back.
When she originally returned, Willow worked as a bartender until she could secure her old job at the
Daily Prophet. Writing was still her passion, but it was not paying well enough. She wanted to thrive, for once in her life. So she began working at the Ministry of Magic as a trainee Social Worker. She had not used their services when she was younger because she had been determined to make things work on her own, but her efforts were futile. She wanted to be sure that others in similar situations had the resources they needed to succeed where she had failed.
Once she heard that Hogwarts was hiring for a Librarian, Willow felt something within her telling her to apply. So she did. With the opportunity to walk the same halls she did all those years ago, she hoped she could find the magic in life again.
SAMPLE ROLEPLAY(Please respond to this in third person past tense. Do not write the other characters' reactions. Only your own.) It was the largest office in Hogwarts and, perhaps to students and newcomers, the most intimidating. The shelves were filled with various odds and ends, with a place of honor for the Sorting Hat, and the walls held all the portraits of past Headmasters and Headmistresses.
In the middle of the room sat a large desk. Everything was in order, for the current occupant had always despised a messy desk. It was the sign of a messy mind, and she had always favored neatness.
A clock sat on the desk, which currently showed the time to be 2:05. The meeting was supposed to begin at 2:00 precisely.
Along with order, Anneka valued punctuality. She was a very busy woman these days. Even during the summer, she had a number of matters to attend to. Interviewing and hiring staff was only one of those matters. The newest potential member of her staff wasn't making a good impression.
She paced the room, black heels clicking against the stone floor. When the door finally opened, Anneka turned, her expression reminiscent of a Russian winter. "You are
late."
Explain yourself was what her face said.
Roleplay Response:The last time Willow Foxglove entered Hogwarts, she had been entering her final year at school. That felt like a literal lifetime ago now, and in a way it had been. Things had been so much different back then. She still had the responsibility of caring for her siblings when she was home, but the world was not resting on her shoulders. Her step-mother and father had still been alive then. She wrote to Robbie daily. She snuck out after curfew. She was heavily involved in the Gryffindor Quidditch team.
Now Willow was an adult. She was in her thirties, and she was about to speak to the headmistress about a position at the school. How wild was that? She was nervous, knowing that she did not really have the best track record within these walls, but she was hopeful. She had changed a lot since then, had actual responsibilities, and knew that the way she had acted back then had been reckless and dangerous.
She just hoped that the headmistress could see past her mistakes and see that she had grown into a responsible adult who could be trusted with authority. But would that even happen if she could not even get to the interview on time? Willow looked down at her watch and her eyes widened in panic when she saw she was going to be late.
You gotta be kiddin’ me, she thought to herself as she began walking quicker. If she was late, she may as well not even show up. Or would that be worse? That would definitely be worse. It would be seen as an insult. The least she could do was show up so that Professor Ivanova would get the feeling that she was reliable. If she did not show up, then it all was for nothing.
Willow had forgotten just how confusing the halls of Hogwarts were. She recalled that when she was a student, it had taken her forever to remember which way to go to get to each class. While some of it was returning to her quickly, other bits were confusing. But finally she found her way to the headmistress’ office. She took a deep breath, then opened the door.
The woman on the other side was older than she remembered, but she was still the headmistress of Willow’s class. “Professor Ivanova,” Willow began after the older woman stated that she was late. “I apologize for being so late, but I really hope that you will still give me a chance to interview, please. I am usually quite punctual and this is not the norm, I assure you.”
Willow waited for some sign that she had not completely botched her interview by being so late.
Please, please, please, she thought to herself, pleading with Anneka.
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