Post by Adé Lamoureux on Feb 21, 2014 15:58:46 GMT -5
[presto]
TWENTY-FOUR
FEMALE
ministry worker
PUREBLOOD
HETEROSEXUAL
JEANINE MASON
HECATE IRIS MONTAGUE
 Purebloods, purebloods. Don't they just have the most interesting histories? Cressida Montague could well vouch for that statement. She was a loving mother to her children, but at the same time, she was extremely strict, and had strong beliefs, not to mention an inclination towards social climbing. While her daughter, Alya, was definitely her favourite child, she found her eldest son, Gerard, less of a handful than either of the other two, and so was slightly less strict with him. If asked, she would definitely have denied that fact - but the fact remained that she gave Gerard allowances that she didn't give her other two children. And so, when it came time to fix his marriage, she allowed him to wait until he was eighteen, and choose a bride for himself - but she had to be suitable and approved by Cressida, of course. And find a bride he did, almost as soon as he was out of school. Her name was Anthoula Arvanitis, and he had met her on a brief excursion he had taken to Greece just before he started his work. She was a member of an influential Greek pureblood family, and was still attending Beauxbatons; she was a year younger to him. Instantly enchanted by her, Gerard began to court her. Very soon, matters became serious enough that he met her parents, and when they heard that he was the Montague heir, they became very eager to marry them immediately. Before the young couple knew it, their parents had got in touch with each other, and their wedding was being planned (Cressida was equally eager to get her son married to someone from such a powerful family). However, the two of them wanted some time before the actual marriage happened, to get to know each other. The parents allowed them two years, during which Gerard began to work at the Ministry, for the Department of International Magical Transportation. Anthoula had wanted to work as a Healer, herself, and she'd even started the process of training at St. Mungo's, when the two of them got married. The elder set of Montagues were fairly slow to have children, so their eldest son, Henry, was born a full three years after their marriage. Another three years passed before the arrival of their second, Harold, and five more before Hecate, the only girl in the family, was born. Among the three Montague siblings, both Graham and Alya had had their children in reverse to Gerard - they'd both had two girls before their first boy was born. Anthoula was delighted at Hecate's birth - finally, she had the daughter she always wanted. She began to raise her just the way she wanted - she didn't hire any nurses. With her boys, she'd taken care of them for the first year, then left them in the care of nurses. But with Hecate, she doted on her completely; so completely, in fact, that she even temporarily gave up her job at St. Mungo's, where she'd risen to quite a high position as Healer in the ten years she'd been working there. Unfortunately for her, though, Hecate seemed to not want her overprotection. As soon as she could walk, she was walking absolutely everywhere, often going into one of the large abandoned rooms in their manor and ending up confused, with no idea where she was. Anthoula despaired of her, but she still hoped that she would grow out of her behaviour as she grew up. As Hecate grew older, her mother decided that her high levels of energy were in desperate need of an outlet. So, she arranged classes in various different disciplines for her - more than the usual amount for a pureblood girl, even. However, she hated almost all of them. Piano, painting and sewing required her to sit still for long periods of time, and that was just not something she could do. She would throw huge tantrums - practically bring the house down with her crying - almost every time she had to go to those lessons. But go she did, albeit without much success. Her complete lack of interest in any of those three activities made her beyond useless at all of them. Her tutors gave up on her, and would have refused to teach her at all if not for her mother's insistence. On the other hand, however, she really loved learning Greek and ballet class. Languages were something that interested her and that she had a natural gift for, and she would attend those lessons without complaint. She enjoyed ballet, too. It gave her a chance to actually do something, to apply her mind and exercise her body, and it was beyond doubt her favourite class. She still dances ballet, of course, and even briefly thought of taking it up as a full-time career. As for her family - she grew up very close to her mother, and still is. She's a complete 'mama's girl'. Despite their contrasting natures, Hecate and Anthoula have always got along very well. They fell out for a bit around Hecate's rebellious phase during her teens, but she has since realised her utter stupidity around that time, and they have mended their relationship. Though Hecate doesn't live with her parents anymore, she still writes to her mother regularly. As for her father, he loves her too, but he's always been a little distant from her. When he is around her, though, he's slightly over-the-top with his platitudes and displays of affection. She feels like they've never really got to know each other properly, and he makes up for that by being overtly affectionate. She's never quite sure how to respond to him at those times, but she loves and respects him anyway. And her brothers - well. Henry is a good eight years older than her, and he's always sort of treated her like a little kid, someone who needs to be taken care of and protected, even now, into her twenties. In the same vein, she's always seen him as a sort of authority figure. She still looks up to him a great deal, but the two of them have never quite been close. Harold, on the other hand, has always been the bane of Hecate's existence. She thinks he's too uptight, he thinks she's annoying. The two of them can barely spend five minutes together without bickering, but despite it all, they'll drop everything and have each other's back if necessary. As Hecate grew a little older, she began to attend the various social functions held by both her parents and other pureblood families. There, her mother always introduced her very proudly: 'my daughter, Hecate.' She would smile and try to behave well for a while, but soon enough, boredom would end up getting the better of her. Initially, she would try making up excuses to escape the party - they ranged from 'my stomach hurts' to 'I think I dropped my earring in my room while I was getting ready - can I go search for it?' But very soon, her parents began to see through her various pretenses, and then they never let her escape the party at all, keeping as close an eye on her as possible. So she began to devise different coping mechanisms. She would try to talk to the other pureblood children, and ended up finding them not that bad company. She also began wondering about her name. She'd always thought she had an odd name, considering that her cousins had names like Evie and Carrie - who named their child Hecate any more? In fact, who had ever named their child Hecate? She asked her mother about this, and her mother quite patiently explained to her that Hecate was the Greek goddess of magic, and she had named her Hecate because she wanted her to be as good at magic as the goddess herself. Hecate was cheered by her mother's explanation, and also found herself being drawn towards learning more about Greek mythology. She read all the books on it in her house's vast library, and she utterly loved everything about it. She loved the fact that she was named after two goddesses; it made her feel important and powerful. Of course, while Hecate was growing up, her Aunt Alya's family was going through their own drama. Since her cousin Evie was the girl closest in age to her, the two of them were fairly close. They never became best friends, but among her cousins, Hecate was the most comfortable in Evie's company; she never quite felt right around her other cousins, with the possible exception of her Uncle Graham's boy, Daniel, who was only one year younger to her. However, when Hecate was eight, the Flint side of the family underwent an upheaval that would change their lives forever. Their eldest daughter, Jemima, was killed by a Muggle car on her way to Diagon Alley. This had a drastic impact on, at least, Alya and Evie. Hecate hardly saw Evie for at least a year after that; her mother kept her away from almost everyone. The next time they saw each other, Evie was a completely different person. She was quiet, introverted and spacey, and didn't even seem to remember Jemima anymore. Worried, Hecate asked her Aunt Alya what was up with Evie, but was brushed off quite rudely. So she talked to her mother, who in turn asked Alya what had happened to Evie. Alya simply told her not to worry; Evie was being taken care of. In truth, neither mother nor daughter quite trusted Alya's word, but they held their tongue from then on. Hecate's next two years at home passed slightly differently. Having no cousin to keep her company now, and with both her brothers away at school, she was incredibly bored most of the time. So, she requested her mother to allow her to learn another language, and obliging her, Anthoula engaged a tutor to teach Hecate French. She was captivated by the beauty of the language, and continued learning it even after she had started her schooling at Hogwarts. She never stayed back at school during breaks, because she was eager to learn more of the language. After French, she progressed to Italian, and she was fluent in four languages by the time she graduated Hogwarts. She was convinced that she would eventually find a career involving languages, and said as much to her parents. They were somewhat skeptical, but supportive and began to try to find viable options for her in the wizarding world by the time she was sixteen. As for her Hogwarts years, she was the only one of her cousins in her year, and so started off feeling somewhat lonely. She was sorted into Slytherin, which came off as something of a shock to her - though it was expected of her by her family, she hadn't wanted to be in Slytherin. For some reason that she couldn't quite pinpoint, she had wanted to shock her family, to show them that she wasn't going to do everything the way they told her to. But as she grew up, she realised that she did, indeed fit into Slytherin house the best. She was ambitious and confident of her ambitions, she didn't really care much about things like honour and rules, and most of all, she was very, very judgmental of people. She never outwardly showed her disdain of people - she was always perfectly nice and polite to everyone - but inwardly, she categorised people very fast. This allowed her to make friends easily, though most of them were within her own house. Coming to the actual schooling part of Hogwarts, she liked it, but she didn't love it. She got decent marks - E's on average - but none of the subjects were particularly to her interest. Her first four years at Hogwarts passed without much incident - she did decently in school and came home every break, but only because she wanted to continue learning her languages. In the summer of her fifth year, however, she began overhearing her parents' conversations about betrothing her. She absolutely hated the idea, and immediately confronted her parents about it. While she didn't kick up a fuss like she was wont to do in her younger years, she made her disdain for the idea clear. She wasn't willing to get married to someone she barely knew, and certainly not as soon as she was out of school. Her parents explained to her that the betrothal didn't mean that she had to get married immediately, but she was completely unwilling to listen or to see reason. She stopped talking to her parents for the rest of the of the holidays, and decided she had to do something drastic. It was a stupid idea, but she was beyond rational thinking at that point. When she got back to school for her fifth year, she slowly began to change. She made a conscious effort to appear the exact opposite of the closed-off, sarcastic, judgmental girl she had been for the last four years. She began to flirt with whichever boy she found, and she began to drink as well. She hated the taste of alcohol, but she did it anyway, thinking that she had to prove a point to her parents, wanting to show them she wouldn't abide by their rules. Rumours began to fly around about her, but quite frankly, she didn't care. In fact, she was happy about the rumours. She wanted them to reach her parents' ears. Slowly, she progressed from just flirting to snogging, even more at times. However, she began to spiral out of control without her even realising it. Her marks fell, and she began to gain a bad reputation in school - they called her all sorts of names, behind her back and even to her face. However, she didn't truly realise the impact of her actions, until she went home for Easter. Her parents didn't yell at her - they never did - but they were sorely disappointed in her, and they showed it. They barely talked to her over the whole holiday, until she had fully realised exactly what she had done. When she did, she was so ashamed of herself, she didn't want to show her face to anyone. Just to prove a stupid point, she had spoiled her reputation and her family's, and she didn't think she could live with that humiliation. It took her a while, but she weaned herself off alcohol - she still enjoyed it occasionally, but never as frequently as she had taken to doing. She closed herself off even more, hardly talking to anyone and only concentrating on her OWLs. And it paid off - she earned very good scores on them, only O's and E's. She was very glad - at least she hadn't screwed up her entire life. She apologised to her parents over and over; she knew she had been stupid and she was worried that they would still not wish to talk to her. However, her mother, who had always been very supportive of her, reassured her that this wasn't the case. She conceded to Hecate's request, however - she still hasn't betrothed her to anyone. She has put an ultimatum on her, though. She wants her to get married at least in the next few years, before she turns thirty at the very least, and to someone her parents approve of. Hecate has no plans of getting married anytime soon, but she doesn't wish to disappoint her parents any further - so she is somewhat conflicted on this issue. In her last two years, she managed to change back into the person she had been before her rebellious phase; friendly, but sarcastic and brutally honest. She had lost more than a few friends because of her idiotic behaviour, but she managed to gain some back and though she didn't have as many friends as she did previously, she was happy with the few she had then. She graduated with exceptional grades, but none of the usual career options particularly interested her. So, for three years more, she continued studying languages, and by the time she was 21, she was fluent in all the major European languages. Finally, her parents had been able to find a job opening for her, as a translator for the Department of International Magical Cooperation. She began her work there, and it interested her a lot. Initially, her job was simply to translate official documents sent out from other countries and the like, but as time passed and she became better at the job, she was hired as a verbal translator for one of the senior officials in her department. She's still in that same position, and she really enjoys her job. The one thing she doesn't like about it is that it doesn't really allow her to express her own thoughts and opinions, instead simply having to parrot back what others are saying. However, she can live with this, and she hopes to work as a translator for the Minister himself one day. While Hecate had been settling into her new life, Evie was still going through problems. Hecate visited her regularly after she graduated Hogwarts, and one of those times, she found her to be a completely different person. She was sarcastic and snappy, and called herself 'Fiona'. While she liked Fiona, she instantly recognised that this wasn't normal behaviour for Evie, and asked her mother about it. It was then that Anthoula told Hecate that Evie had been diagnosed with Multiple Personality Disorder, a secret that no one outside the family knew about. Hecate didn't quite know how to react to this news; however, she hasn't ever encountered 'Fiona' since that day, even though she visits Evie regularly. She wishes the two of them were a little bit closer than they are, because she's extremely concerned for Evie. However, Evie seemed to have grown close to her fiance's sister, Helena Vaisey, and that's all the companionship she appears to need. However, Hecate is still very concerned about Evie and her health, and tries her best not to be her usual self around her, and to act at least a little nicer. Other than that, Hecate has not had much drama in her own life. She's been working hard towards advancing her career at the Ministry, and has struck a balance in her personal life as well. While she isn't so closed-off as she was most of the time at Hogwarts, she hasn't gone completely wild either. She's still only got a few friends because of her brutally honest nature, and she hasn't been in any serious relationships at all. There is the marriage issue, which she is dreading talking about with her mother (who reminds her of it every six months or so), but other than that, she's quite happy. KITTY FIFTEEN GMT+4 |
TABLE BY TRINITY @ ADOXOGRAPHY
i don't know if i should wait for brooke's approval, i think this needs it but i don't know when she's going to be on next?
