Post by Dhruv Cornfoot on Jan 28, 2014 14:49:19 GMT -5
[presto]
SEVENTEEN
MALE
RAVENCLAW
PUREBLOOD
HETEROSEXUAL
DEV PATEL
DHRUV ANTHONY CORNFOOT
 Oh, you want to interview me? Well, I'm flattered. Tell me, what do you want to know? Everything? What do you mean, everything? You mean like literally from the start, from when my parents... ugh, I didn't want to think about that. Thanks a lot. Anyway. You want a full history, you're damn well getting one. I can say damn, right? Good. So. My dad was Stephen Cornfoot, and he was in the 'Golden Trio's year, that's what Harry Potter and Ron and Hermione Weasley are called in case you didn't know. He was really quiet, and mostly just hung out with the people of his house. Likewise my mum, Padma. Unlike Aunt Parvati who was always chatty and cheerful, Ma was pretty quiet, and snappy to people who annoyed her. Both of them fought in the Second Wizarding War of course, but after the war my mum was hurt really badly; she was almost on the verge of death for weeks. It took her a full year to recover physically and mentally, and then, finally, she could begin to get back into the world. Obviously, since she was so smart, she started working in the Ministry, in the Department of International Magical Cooperation. Ma's always been a nut for travelling, so it suited her perfectly. So when she had just joined work she discovered that Dad, who had been her her old housemate, also worked in the same department. They had never been the best of friends, but they'd always kept up this sort of friendly rivalry with each other and they would always compete for marks. Even now they're always trying to one-up the other, even for the littlest things; luckily they don't get too heated when they're at odds. Most of the time, anyway. So where was I? Oh yes, they were working at the same place and so naturally their old rivalry got rekindled. You know where I'm going with this then - they would have fights, they slowly grew closer, they realised that they loved each other, they got married. Meh. Not that interesting. The interesting part started when I was born. Obviously. I was born on the twelfth of August, 2008, and my parents named me Dhruv, which is what the Pole Star is called in Sanskrit. So I'm named after a star. Cool, huh? Then there's my middle name, which my dad wanted to be after a friend of his. He was going to go with Terrence, for Mr. Boot, but ultimately decided on Anthony for Mr. Goldstein, and I can't tell you how much of a relief that is. Oh, I haven't told you about my Ma's side of the family much, have I? Basically, Ma and Aunt Paro are identical twins, but they're practically polar opposites. So Aunt Paro was always doing wild things and rebelling against my Nanu and Nani - that's what I call my maternal grandfather and grandmother, by the way. So yes, they were pretty conservative, but she would do her best to do everything that they did not want her to do. I guess some of that might have spilled over into her later life, too, considering who she married. The whole family was shocked when she announced her engagement to Richard Vaisey, who was both a Slytherin and two years younger to her. Ma took it pretty well, but Nanu and Nani were quite shocked and refused to talk to her for quite a while. Finally after like six months of that, she introduced Uncle Richard to my grandparents, and they decided that he was a pretty decent bloke, I guess. Oh, and my cousins! There are three of them, all girls, and all of them have the same initials. Cool, huh? Val is just out of school, Viv is in Tanya's year and Nessa is in fourth. I like to think I get along with all of them pretty well even though they're so different. I grew up with four girls around me and that's probably why I still get along with girls so well. Yeah, I'm a total stud. Why are you laughing? It's true! Back to my story, now. So because both of my parents worked in the DIMC - I'm sure you know what that stands for, I really don't need to repeat it - they had a lot of travelling to do. And by a lot, I mean that either one of them was away about once a month, every month, for at least half a week. I've been to loads of places, and though I don't remember many of them very well, but I do remember that some of them were a lovely change from the UK and I would have loved to spend more time there. This only happened until I was about one and a half, though, so I really don't have many concrete memories of all those places. I just have a vague memory of thinking they were beautiful, and that's all. But that stopped again after a year or so, because then, when I was two, my sister was born. She was just the cutest thing ever, I thought, and I doted on the girl like crazy. My parents doted on her too, and quite frankly, we all spoilt her more than was good for her. As for her name - well, my parents didn't get around to naming her till she was, like, six months old. Ma wanted to give her an English name, but Dad said he wanted her to have an Indian name. They argued for three months before they worked out a compromise, and narrowed it down to two names which could pass for either Indian or British - Tanya and Rhea. It took them another three months before they decided on Tanya and officially christened her. Merlin, my parents sometimes. So we stopped travelling after Tanya was born, since I had to start going to school - my parents put me into a Muggle primary school in London when I was four. And honestly? I loved Muggle school. It was just so much fun! There were so many kids my age to interact with and it was just.. god, I loved it. My first day there is still one of the best memories of my life. So I quickly made friends there. I don't think there was anyone I didn't get along with? People did pick on me because I was kind of scrawny. Ha. But I just kind of ignored them, and they went away. So overall, life at school was pretty great. Since Ma and Dad wanted us to be exposed to both our parents' cultures equally, Tanya and I spent two months every year in Mumbai with our maternal grandparents. I like London, but Mumbai is really just my kind of place. It's got noise and people and activity and colour and I really just love being there. I never used to want to go back to London after I spent time there, honestly. My first sign of magic, too, showed when I was there - it was when I was five, and I'd been roaming about in a narrow alley close to our house, when a cow suddenly blocked my path. I was really scared of it, and had no idea what to do, so I just wished really hard that it would go away... and somehow, it shrank to the size of my palm. I rushed back home and informed my Nani about it, and she immediately burst out laughing. Of course my first sign of magic had to involve a cow. Later, Nani quietly changed the cow back to its normal size before its owner could raise a commotion, because in Mumbai, news gets around fast and I might even have got dragged into a fight. So life went on that way. When I was nine, Val went to Hogwarts, and that made me even more excited to go there. She seemed to be enjoying it thoroughly, and I couldn't wait till it was my turn to go. And sure enough, two years later, there I was, ready to go. I really didn't feel upset or sad while parting from everyone; I was just ecstatic that I was getting to go to the place I'd always dreamed about. On the train, I sat with a bunch of other to-be first years, and I noticed that a lot of them seemed upset or nervous. I wondered why - we weren't going to Hogwarts to be eaten, were we? Anyway, I talked to people and I tried to them like me? I'm not sure if they did, though. After the train ride, we finally reached Hogwarts and by god was it even more impressive than I'd expected. I wouldn't stop chattering to the people who rode with me on the boat about how excited I was, and in fact I got so over-excited that I ended up tipping our boat over. I've always really hated deep water, so that little soaking shut me up for a while. But then, as soon as I was dry and in the school, all the excitement came right back. I was probably embarrassing myself, but I really couldn't care less at the time. Sorting was a blur for me. I remember clearly that the Hat wanted to put me in Gryffindor, but finally decided on Ravenclaw instead because I'm a genius. Haha. No. Just kidding. But I am pretty smart, if I don't say so myself. I made a lot of friends both in and outside my house, because there really wasn't anyone I found any reason to dislike. If they were mean to me, I just gave them a wide berth and moved on. Their problem, not mine. I honestly don't see any reason wasting time on stupid grudges for no reason. Especially because of blood status. Like, that isn't even a valid reason not to like anyone. So what if their parents were Muggles? Big freaking deal, it's not like they carry a disease or something. I never got top marks in my class and I wasn't overly competitive, but I always managed to score quite well. I do take my studies seriously, but not to the point of caring only about them. Worrying about marks 24/7 is just really harmful for health and I think there's a time for everything. I do really love learning though, and I don't think there's a single subject I dislike. Magic is honestly just such a fascinating subject as a whole - I don't understand how you can hate it. Anyway, my third year came around, and both Tanya and Viv started Hogwarts together. They were both sorted into different houses from each other and from me, and I thought they could get around perfectly fine without me, so I didn't really check up on them a lot. Well, not that much, anyway. Does checking up on them twice a month count as a lot? I don't know, okay? It was also around third year that I started to notice girls. The boys of my age had started doing it much earlier, perhaps in an attempt to prove that they were grown-up or something, but the first girl I was attracted to, even in passing, was a beautiful brunette in Val's year. I don't remember her house or what she was like, just her face. But anyway, I got over that one pretty fast. In fourth year, I got put on the Ravenclaw Quidditch team as a Chaser, a position I'd been trying out for since second year. I was overjoyed to have got it, and wouldn't stop telling anyone who would listen. I even wrote to Ma and Dad - separately that too - just to inform them, and their response came soon, along with the latest Nimbus model on the market. This is probably the happiest memory of my life that I have. Though I really don't have many memories that aren't happy, the sheer joy I felt at that moment was pretty incomparable to any other time in my life. Fourth year was also the time I started to try my luck with girls. I found that I got along with them pretty well - which in retrospect really didn't surprise me - and by the end of the year, had managed to smooth-talk more than a few of them. Towards the end of the year, I had my first snog with a girl in the year below me. It was quite an amazing feeling, and we decided that we'd continue with it. So we did, and we ended up becoming really good friends as well, which we are still to this date. Fifth year wasn't much worse than normal, though a little incident did happen which shook me up slightly. I had my first proper crush. And I mean not like physical attraction, a real, honest-to-god crush which gave me this stupid feeling and I hated that feeling so much. The girl was a fellow Chaser on the Quidditch team, and we'd always been pretty good friends... but then I went and screwed it up. First I kissed her out of nowhere and totally on impulse, then when I attempted to tell her about how I felt, she didn't believe me, then I ended up asking someone else out to make her jealous, which only seemed to make her madder. In retrospect, it was just a really stupid thing to have done and I'm pretty ashamed of it. I did really well on my OWLs, scoring O's and E's on all of them. Sixth year was pretty uneventful again; things went back to normal between me and the girl - we both agreed that I'd been an idiot and a prick. I decided I wanted to go into curse-breaking, because I just found the job really cool and I had high enough OWL grades for it, anyway. I also got drunk for the first time in sixth year... but shhh, don't tell Ma. Oh god, I hope you aren't going to tell her all this. She has no idea. So. Now. Seventh year. Everyone's telling us to wise up and start taking life seriously. I don't know whether to listen to them or not. I know we need to concentrate more on our studies but that doesn't mean we can't enjoy life for a bit, right? So, I'm going to try my best to balance work and fun, and keep myself happy. I can't not be happy. That just isn't me. KITTY FIFTEEN GMT+4 |
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