Post by BECCA on Jan 31, 2014 11:08:15 GMT -5
[presto]
twenty four
female
care of magical creatures professor
halfblood
pansexual
carey mulligan
emily kay marsdon
 Emily Kay Marsdon was born the second child of parents Tanya and Gregory. Tanya was a Muggleborn witch and Gregory a Muggle; the two met the summer that Gregory moved onto the same North London street as Tanya’s family, when they were both sixteen. It was not a teen romance, however; at the time, Tanya had a boyfriend at Hogwarts, and they did not get together until they were twenty two. By that point, they hadn’t seen each other for about three years. Gregory had been away at university, studying Biology, and Tanya, after leaving Hogwarts, had got a low-grade job at the Ministry, and was living with some friends from school. Then Gregory’s father died, and Tanya happened to be at home at the time of the funeral. Their friendship quickly developed into more, and they married at twenty five, after they had been together three years. Tanya told Gregory about the Wizarding World the night that he proposed to her. Their first child, Caitlin, was born when they had been married two years. She was only a toddler, however, when the Second Wizarding War began, a dangerous time for a Muggleborn married to a Muggle, with a halfblood child. They survived by living entirely in the Muggle world; Tanya hid her wand and did no magic, they moved in with Gregory’s now widowed mother (who believed that they were just short of money), and to all appearances were an ordinary Muggle couple with their little girl. Caitlin was three years old when the Battle of Hogwarts took place, and Tanya was able to rejoin the Wizarding World. Gregory had just been promoted to a well-paid job for a horticultural business, and Tanya decided that she didn’t miss her admin work at the Ministry enough to go back to it if she didn’t absolutely have to, and became a fulltime mother. They got their own house, not that far from where both their parents lived, and moved into it shortly before Emily was born in August 1999. Emily’s childhood was relatively uneventful. The family were averagely well-off, though never by any means wealthy, and quite close to one another. Caitlin was a peaceful, motherly little thing who adored having a baby sister, even one as chaotic and mischievous as Emily was. Emily was less pleased when, at the age of three, she was herself presented with a baby sister, Olivia. Emily, unlike Caitlin, had always had a hot temper, and the new baby made her both angry and jealous. Seven-year-old Caitlin wanted to mother Olivia, and Emily found herself desperately competing for the attention of both her parents and her older sister. Eventually, of course, she got used to Olivia’s presence, but their relationship never really grew any closer. Olivia, the baby of the family, because something of a spoilt child, and Emily’s childhood jealousy of this turned into teenage resentment, and then into adult exasperation. She has never really acknowledged that the poor relationship she has with her younger sister is as much a result of her own early jealousy as it is of Olivia’s behaviour. Despite her constant squabbles with Olivia, Emily’s childhood was, on the whole, a happy one. The girls mixed with both the Muggle and Magical worlds (due to their Muggle father and grandmother), and attended an ordinary Muggle Primary School. Of the three, Emily was the wild child, the one who could not sit still indoors but always had to be outside, running and climbing and getting herself dirty. She tended to be loud and badly behaved, pushing boundaries and breaking rules. For the most part, it was only mischief, although her parents occasionally despaired. She was also kind-hearted and friendly, albeit somewhat careless and tactless, cared passionately about justice, always stuck up for the underdog, and enjoyed a good laugh. At eleven, of course, she departed for Hogwarts, where Caitlin had already been for several years. There, she was sorted into Gryffindor, no great shock for anyone who knew her. She settled in well, although she was no better behaved than she had been before. She was a bright enough student, with a natural aptitude for flying and charm work, and when she worked, she could work very hard. That tended to come in fits and starts, though – she would go through periods when she did next to no work, slept through her lessons and turned in no homework. Detentions didn’t faze her; she was in them often enough anyway. Eventually, one of other of her teachers would have a very serious talk with her, and for a while she would work harder, her grades would go up and she would suddenly take an active part in class, but it never lasted. Her uniform was rarely worn correctly, and breaking rules was always too much of a temptation for her, as she discovered the delights of playing pranks and breaking curfew. Over the next few years, she hit puberty, and the wild mischievous child turned into a wild rebellious teenager. Having never taken the slightest trouble over her appearance before, she found that she liked to dress up, though not usually in clothes adults approved of. Her uniform, previously carelessly sloppy, now became carefully styled and sloppy instead. She wore short skirts and high heels, and one day in Fifth Year, cut her hair off short, a style she kept for many years. From Third Year onwards, her favourite subject became Care of Magical Creatures, because she loved animals, especially slightly dangerous ones, and liked the practical, out-of-doors nature of it much better than the book-reading and essays of other subjects. She got into parties and alcohol and boys, and generally enjoyed life to the max. Her friendship group was wide and varied, including members of other houses, and older students (younger ones she avoided as being too similar to Olivia, now also at Hogwarts), and one of the people she became closest with was Digger Powell, a boy two years older than her, with a similar penchant for rule-breaking. For several years, they were strictly friends-only, although they both had numerous flings with other people. Looking back, Emily thinks that maybe she was always a little bit in love with him – it was always Digger she had most fun with. They got together when she was in her Fifth Year and he was in his Seventh, and for a brief time were apparently happy. Underneath, though, Emily was struggling with unexpected insecurities. She had never been with anyone she liked as much as Digger, but both of them were well known for their casual flings and lack of serious commitment, and Emily (her sixteen-year-old emotions all over the place) became miserably convinced that Digger was nowhere near as serious about their relationship as she was. Then, of course, at the end of the year, Digger left Hogwarts, and she could no longer see much of him at all. Those two years were very hard for Emily. She loved him desperately and missed him constantly, but was tortured by the thought that he didn’t miss her as much. To be sure, he always seemed pleased to see her, but a lot of their relationship remained unspoken; they had never once mentioned love. Now he was working, while she was still a schoolgirl, and she was just waiting for the day he announced that he had met someone else, or that a long-distance relationship just wasn’t working for him. What came instead was in fact much more painful. A member of Emily’s large friendship group informed her that Digger was cheating on her; her own older sister, who was Digger’s age, had seen the evidence. Emily, despite her insecurities about the relationship, refused to believe this of him until she was shown the proof – a photograph of Digger kissing another girl. Emily was devastated. By then nearing half way through her Seventh Year, she visited Digger during the Easter Holidays and confronted him. However, she was so hurt and angry that she did not allow him to explain or defend himself, or even really tell him what was wrong. She simply called him every name she could think of, told him that it was over, and stormed out. After NEWTs, she took a post on a magical creatures research team, and left the country, leaving Digger and everything that reminded her of him behind. She did not return to live in the UK for some years. Emily had always wanted to travel, and getting away helped her deal with the grief and heartbreak. Always a restless person, she stayed on the move, never settling for long in any one place. She worked in various jobs, mostly related to magical creatures, either caring for them or carrying out tracking and research projects, and she lived in some of the most remote areas of the world, from a spell up in the Russian Tundra to six months in the Malaysian jungle. During this time, she kept in touch only with her family and occasionally with the odd one of her closest friends. Even with them, though, her contact was fleeting; she told her parents where she was living, but rarely gave them much more information than that. Gradually, her heart healed, and she believed herself to be over Digger Powell. She was twenty one when she moved back to Britain. In the years she had been away, she had returned only once, for a brief visit, when Caitlin gave birth to a baby girl, Daisy. Despite everything, Emily had remained close to Caitlin, although she had not told her sister much about what had happened between her and Digger. Never having had much experience with babies, Emily nevertheless fell promptly in love with little Daisy, and while bonding with Caitlin over this, she finally confided the whole story to her older sister. Caitlin suggested that running away from it was not perhaps the best way of dealing with it, but Emily at that point refused to listen, and after a few days, returned to her job in the Transylvanian mountains. A year later, however, she finally returned on a more permanent basis, accepting a job on a dragon reserve in the Hebrides. It was a six month contract only, but Emily had always wanted to work with dragons. There, Emily had her first approaching-serious relationship since Digger. She had had multiple one-night-stands and casual flings during the previous few years, but never a real boyfriend. Even this one was not particularly serious – Emily did not feel ready to settle down, or so she told herself, but she was quite fond of Callum, it was fun for a while, and she finally found that she could be with someone without constantly comparing him with Digger, and even that she could think about Digger without it hurting too much. When her six months ended, though, she realised that there was not enough in her relationship to sustain it long-distance. Callum had a permanent job at the dragon reserve, and Emily did not want to stay in the Hebrides. Emily broke it off (she knows, guiltily, that she did not treat him terribly well, but Emily’s problem is that she runs away from situations and ignores them, rather than deal with them thoroughly) and moved back to the mainland, looking for another job. The one she found was unexpected. A vacancy had come up at Hogwarts, for the Care of Magical Creatures position. Never expecting to get it – her reputation at school hadn’t exactly been good – Emily nonetheless applied, and to her own astonishment, was successful. At the age of twenty two, the restless wild-child and rebel became a professor. A month before she was due to take up the position, however, she had a much less pleasant shock; a mutual friend informed her that the new Transfiguration teacher at Hogwarts was none other than one Digger Powell. For a brief period of panic, Emily considered turning the job down after all. Then she pulled herself together. She had done enough running away; this was her life, it was a good job, and anyway, she was Emily Marsdon, who was embarrassed and afraid of nothing. So she took the post, and although seeing Digger again was quite a shock, she brazened her way through it, and the two managed to get back on fairly friendly work-colleague terms, although it was some time before they managed to talk anything out. Teaching was not exactly a natural calling for Emily, and for a long while, she was unsure whether it was really for her. That was partly because she had never stayed in a job for longer than six months before, and commitment of any sort scared her. Responsibility had never been her strong point, though, and she was still much fonder of breaking rules than enforcing them. Although she enjoyed the contact with her students, and even came to quite like lesson planning, she was unconvinced that this was her long term career. However, she had a steady income, she reconnected with some of her old friends, managed to see quite a bit of Caitlin and Daisy (and avoided any explosive fall-outs with Olivia) and generally thought that life could be worse. Meanwhile, she and Digger were finding themselves becoming closer again. Emily was reminded of all the reasons she had fallen for him in the first place, although she could never quite forget that he had cheated on her. Eventually, however, they managed to have the long-overdue conversation, in which Emily was dealt another huge shock, when Digger denied ever cheating on her. Presented with the photograph (which she had morbidly kept for reasons she was unsure of) he claimed it was a fake, and that the whole thing had been a plan to split them up, on the part of Emily’s so-called friend and her sister, who had quite fancied Digger herself. Bewildered and unsure what to think, Emily was forced to reassess everything she had believed for the last four years. The upshot – after talking to various other friends – was that she realised she was still in love with Digger, and that she had been unfair and stupid not to listen to him and trust him in the first place. Tentatively, the two rekindled their old relationship, with the added understanding that four years’ extra maturity brings. Since then, Emily’s life has settled quite comfortably, and she has surprised herself by being very happy with the settling, despite her restless nature. The longer she teaches, the more she finds that she likes it – in many ways, it fulfils her need for constant change and refreshment, since working with young people is so unpredictable, and she gets a new class of them every year. She is also unexpectedly good at it, although a little unconventional in her approach. She tends to take a fairly informal line with her students, and enjoys having a laugh with them, and she can be quite tolerant of certain types of bad behaviour (it secretly amuses her vastly). There are some things she does not tolerate, however; in return for a fairly loose rein and not too much in the way of lengthy written work, she requires that students complete work on time, and are not late for lessons (she isn’t exactly the best at time-keeping herself, but she makes a huge effort and is never late for her own classes, so she asks the same of her students), and she is merciless in handing out punishments to people who overstep the line. Over her three years of teaching (she’s almost twenty five), she’s developed a reputation for being a fun teacher, but not quite as laidback and easygoing as she seems. She’s also found herself in the position of confidante for the odd student, which has disconcerted her, since Emily considers herself the last person qualified to give advice to teenagers. She’s managed to rein in her tactlessness over the years, but she still tends to say exactly what she thinks, and would be very surprised to be told that her advice (tough talking though it may be at times) is usually good. Outside of work, she lives the life of a fairly normal fun-loving young woman in her mid-twenties. She’s not into quite such wild partying as she was when she was younger (the risk of meeting her students while pissed out of her mind has contributed to that) but she still enjoys a good night out with her friends. She and Digger have a stronger relationship than ever before and are very happy; Digger proposed last year, Emily said yes, and now proudly flaunts a very pretty ring. She sees her parents and Caitlin quite frequently and has a generally good relationship with them, and she dotes on her five-year-old niece, although she still does not get on with Olivia. She is a little more thoughtful and responsible these days; she trusts both less easily and more deeply, and so has stronger and more meaningful relationships. However, she can still be reckless at times, and on the outside appears to take very little seriously. becca 25 gmt |
TABLE BY TRINITY @ ADOXOGRAPHY
