Post by sprightly on Feb 18, 2007 17:46:10 GMT -5
Name: Sprightly Mireille Raffington
Age: 12
Appearance: Sprightly is a waifish girl. Her dark hair is cut very short, only about an inch long, and sticks up at odd angles, she cut it herself with a pair of scissors. In spite of the fact that she just haphazardly cut her hair she managed to come out of the experience looking very nice. Her eyes are very wide and round like she’s can see something very shocking that other people simply fail to notice. She is dangerously thin, like a sudden gust of wind might blow her away, and also very short for her age. She looks rather like the muggle interpretation of a fairy.
Personality: Weird, strange, and a little frightening. Her personality is very mercurial, most of the time she’s sweetly puppyish following people around and letting them bully her as they want. However, a rather sinister creature lurks near her heart and when she’s had enough she shows it in extremely violent ways, or collapses into tears. She’s funny that way. Also, she’s borderline schizophrenic, a psychologist would identify her with schizotypal personality disorder which means her speech is often overly eloquent and cryptic and sometimes she has minor hallucinations. In spite of her problems she manages to be a roughly acceptable member of the wizarding world and is very intelligent and powerful. Madness just isn’t the handicap it used to be, especially when you can successfully knock someone twice your size to the ground with only a small piece of wood and a spoken word.
History: Sprightly was born about a month too early, she was sickly and the doctors said she would probably die before her first birthday but they were wrong. Her mother was not so lucky, she died minutes after the girl’s birth. Her family circumstances were rather complicated, her father married because he was deeply and unrepentantly in love, he would have given his life for his wife but sadly offers like that are rarely accepted. She died holding his hand and he was utterly crushed. When he went into the waiting room to tell his friends and family he was drowning in his own misery.
“We named her Sprightly” he said not meeting anyone’s eyes
“Yes, well, why?” Deo asked with an impish grin “Do you hate her or something? It the name some kind of sick revenge on the kid for hurting Mireille? Because really Raffy, childbirth is always like that”
“D, I want you to know that I love you, but now I have to break your pretty face” he said in the same flat tone. He glanced at his friend’s wife and their young daughter Cassie. “Take her away Malissa, I’m about to hurt her papa very badly”
“Raffy…” Deo began, but that was all he managed to say, the other man tackled him to the ground and started to brutally pound at his head. They scuffled for several minutes before onlookers managed to pry them apart. Deo was looking pretty bad, one of his eyes and swollen shut and the other one looked like it was going to be black. Blood poured from his clearly broken nose and also from a nasty gash on his forehead caused by his friend’s wedding band.
“She’s dead you bastard, she’s f**k**g dead you insensitive creep” he yelled trying to pull free from the grip of the men who were only barely holding him back.
“I told you to marry for money, Raffy” Deo said simply and calmly, blood dribbling sluggishly from his mouth.
Young Sprightly looked like her fragile mother in miniature, and some days her father couldn’t stand to look at her. She was practically raised by nannies for the first six years of her life, occasionally her father would take her out for a day together. He always showered her with gifts and affection and smiled at her sadly but he was always a million miles away and always seemed to be looking at someone who existed just beyond her left shoulder.
The only children she saw for her early childhood were cousins who looked at her strangely and made fun of her, (it seemed her father and mother had been second cousins which hadn’t gone over well with the families) and Nicodemus and Cassandra. Cassandra was six years older than her and quite disliked her, being that she was clever and Cassandra didn’t like her position of resident genius being threatened. Perhaps even more offensively Cassandra’s father, Deo, was especially fond of Sprightly and seemed to like her better than his own children. Nicodemus adored the girl, seeing her first as a too fragile to touch thing and then as a grand playmate. Until they were six they were nearly inseparable. Nico was the only person her own age she knew then. Then her father, apparently no longer able to look at her without wanting to drink until he was incapable of remembering, sent her to boarding school.
She didn’t do well there, the structure absolutely killed her. There were so many rules, she had to have an ironed uniform on all day, have clean perfectly trimmed nails, eat all the food she was given, brush her teeth and go to bed at the same time as twenty other girls, make her own bed, not to mention classes. She couldn’t stand it, especially having her hands slapped every time she broke a rule which was often. One day she just ran away, disappeared with no trace. She was found three days after her disappearance by an Auror and taken home, she’d been begging in London. Everyone was horrified but slightly impressed. Needless to say she wasn’t invited back to her school, but she was enrolled in another one, she didn’t run away from that one but endured it for almost two years before she snapped. By that time she had become a different person than the friendly sprightly girl she had been, she’d grown world-weary and a little unstable. A boy stuck gum in her hair and instead of mumbling an apology or asking him to stop she had bitten him on the neck, a bit to hard as it happened, blood had gushed into her mouth and the boy had nearly died before a teacher stopped the bleeding. Again she’d been kicked out of school, though miraculously no charges had been pressed. There hadn’t been any punishment for either of these incidents, they had just been ignored, and for a few weeks she had gotten to stay at home and sometimes see Nico and Deo.
Nico looked at the girl for a moment “You got kicked out of school again?” he sounded a little confused
“Yes, I bit a boy on the neck” she paused for a moment “Blood tastes really bad, Nico. I mean it’s not awful like, say, Brussels’ sprouts, but when there’s a whole lot of it and there’s a boy gurgling on the ground, it tastes like hate”
“Do you know what Father would do to me if I did the things you did?” he asked looking at her bitterly
“Yes” she said coldly. “At least he loves you”
“Does not, your father loves you a lot more. He always buys you nice things and he doesn’t make you do things you hate like violin” Nico stuck out his tongue
“Nicodemus Grey, you’re dumber than a sack of rocks. D cares about what you do, about what happens to you. I… I” she glared at the ground “Once I heard them talking, Papa and D. Papa said he wished he’d made my mother have an abortion, because then she’d still be alive”
“What’s that?” Nico asked with a child’s innocence
“It means he wishes he’d had a doctor kill me before I was born. My mother died because of complications with my birth” she explained
“They don’t really do that! No one kills babies before they’re even born!” he shouted at her, horrified that she could even think up such a thing.
“Nico, you’re a sweetie” she’d leaned over and given him a sticky kiss on the cheek “Totally thick, but really sweet”
For the next three years she went to a different school every year, always a boarding school and always horrible. In some places she was beaten up, in others she was merely ignored but she was always terribly unhappy and found herself turning more and more to fantasy to distract herself from the pain. By the end of her final year of primary school she was hardly part of the same world as the rest of the population. The next summer she spent mostly with Nico and his family, trying to fill the gap Cassandra had left and partially succeeding. At any rate everyone seemed a little happier with her there and she certainly took Nico’s mind off of his prodigal sister and his relationship with his father seemed less strained while she was there. Also she didn’t have to be with her half-there father which counted as good in her book. She wanted to be near him, of course, he was her father and she loved him but it seemed to hurt him to be around her so she contented herself with contenting him.
The end of the summer brought new challenges. She turned eleven on the first of September and as such it should have taken her to Hogwarts. Her father told her he was concerned about the political climate and how people were getting hurt in England, about the riots and such. There was however a lovely school in America though, Aiden Academy, that had accepted her application. She and Nico suspected that Scotland was just too close for comfort and it would be no problem for her to run away again.
Going to Aiden terrified her, suddenly she was tiny again, the smallest person in the entire school. At least in the primary schools there had been smaller children and she hadn’t stuck out so badly. Everyone noticed her and not in a good way. She was even more different at Aiden than anywhere, she had the accent, the tininess, and the inherent strangeness that she’d always had. People thought she was exceedingly bizarre and mostly ignored her, except for one group that was part friendship and part gang. They adopted her as one of their own and used her as a general gopher (go for this, go for that). When one of them had a bad day they’d take it out on her, not that she really seemed to mind, she almost seemed glad of the attention. Some of them genuinely seemed to like her because she was cute and easy to dress up, not to mention amiable and funny. The year went by well enough, and she passed her classes, with most of her teachers either fascinated or horrified by her. She was a remarkably skilled witch for her age and rather innocuous appearance.
The next summer she was hardly allowed to see Nico at all and what little she did see of him shocked her. He had a hangdog look about him and was terribly jumpy. Whatever had gotten him so bothered he refused to discuss at all with her. Being herself, and therefore very curious she had found out what had happened on her own.
“Hello Uncle D, Nicodemus” Sprightly greeted both of them in turn with a hug.
“It’s good to have you back, Spry” D had said, nearly crushing her in a bear hug “How was school this past year?”
“Oh, you know, just magical” she grinned “I’m going to go see Malissa, is she upstairs?”
“No, she’s out in the back gardens” D answered.
“Okay” she chirped and raced out of the room. A soon as she turned the corner she pressed her back to the wall and listened.
“Good to see you too, Raffy” D greeted her father
“Good to see you too, Deo” he returned “How are you Nicodemus?”
“I got kicked out of school, I’m rotten” he answered darkly.
“Ah, I heard about that. Don’t let anybody get you down about that, there’s not a thing wrong with it, lad” her father said encouragingly
“For God’s sake, don’t tell him that! There’s everything in the world wrong with it, clothes, the boy was designing clothes! d**n dresses, Raffy, encourage him and I can tell you where it’ll end up” D had shot back venomously
“I said I was sorry! What else do you want?” Nico squalled, his voice cracking as he spoke.
“Watch your mouth, you little pansy. I want a son, not another Goddam daughter is what I want” D yelled back.
Sprightly winced from her hiding place, she wanted to run to Nicodemus and comfort him but that would have been stupid. Instead she ran to the garden to see Malissa, she couldn’t bear to hear another word between Nico and D.
Her summer was dull and short. Her next semester at Aiden went badly, her sort-of friends didn’t treat her as well as they had the previous year and she was starting to feel this sort of pinch that indicated she was about to snap again. Worse, she was seeing things, butterflies. Sometimes the butterflies talked, usually the didn't and they really weren't that bad, mostly because she knew they weren't real. Nonetheless, it was abundantly clear that she was edging towards a breakdown.
There was one thing about the school that was not only tolerable, it was good. A girl named Darcy, a fifth year, had taken an interest in her. Darcy was a half-blood and nearly as much an outcast as Sprightly was. While not exactly nice Darcy made a good friend in her own way, she taught Sprightly how to sneak out and how to act in the muggle world, as well as how things worked and why muggles were every bit as good as wizards. In fact Darcy was the only one who seemed to care when Sprightly got hurt, she’d help her up when she tripped and try to comfort her in a gruff sort of way. Darcy was almost worth staying for, but not quite. In typical Sprightly fashion she snapped one day during Herbology. Someone dropped a clump of a reddish plant named leachweed down the back of her robes. Leachweed feed mostly on earthworms and the occasional mole but would latch onto a person or animal and drink their blood if the situation arouse. Sprightly brought a pot down on their head and then performed a curse so far above her year that if it hadn’t been, well, used offensively it might have earned her merits. As it was she got kicked out for ‘emotional instability’. Darcy was extremely angry, but Sprightly just felt relieved.
“What the hell is wrong with you Raffington?” Darcy demanded pinning the smaller girl against a wall.
“According to the school I’m emotionally unstable, I guess that’s what it’d be” she smiled
“You’re crazy, you know that? Freaking crazy” Darcy shook her head and looked pissed
“Well, que sera sera and all that” the girl shrugged “Look, I’m sorry, I really am. I like you, and that’s rare for me but it isn’t enough. Eventually a person needs more, I don’t feel safe in my own bed for goodness sake, asking me to stay for you is a bit selfish”
“Gah, I hate it when you make sense” Darcy let her go “Good luck, I’ll try to write you sometime… Umm”
“Yeah?” Sprightly asked
“Just… just” Darcy bent down and kissed the girl softly on the lips “Just go”
“Oh” she touched her mouth gingerly “Okay…”
Through careful manipulation of her father she had managed to ensure that she would go to Hogwarts. Unfortunately something about being emotionally unstable and teeny-tiny also meant she wasn’t ready for her second year of school and she was bumped unwillingly back to first. Still, none of it mattered, she would be with Nicodemus and things would be good. She was sure of it.
Age: 12
Appearance: Sprightly is a waifish girl. Her dark hair is cut very short, only about an inch long, and sticks up at odd angles, she cut it herself with a pair of scissors. In spite of the fact that she just haphazardly cut her hair she managed to come out of the experience looking very nice. Her eyes are very wide and round like she’s can see something very shocking that other people simply fail to notice. She is dangerously thin, like a sudden gust of wind might blow her away, and also very short for her age. She looks rather like the muggle interpretation of a fairy.
Personality: Weird, strange, and a little frightening. Her personality is very mercurial, most of the time she’s sweetly puppyish following people around and letting them bully her as they want. However, a rather sinister creature lurks near her heart and when she’s had enough she shows it in extremely violent ways, or collapses into tears. She’s funny that way. Also, she’s borderline schizophrenic, a psychologist would identify her with schizotypal personality disorder which means her speech is often overly eloquent and cryptic and sometimes she has minor hallucinations. In spite of her problems she manages to be a roughly acceptable member of the wizarding world and is very intelligent and powerful. Madness just isn’t the handicap it used to be, especially when you can successfully knock someone twice your size to the ground with only a small piece of wood and a spoken word.
History: Sprightly was born about a month too early, she was sickly and the doctors said she would probably die before her first birthday but they were wrong. Her mother was not so lucky, she died minutes after the girl’s birth. Her family circumstances were rather complicated, her father married because he was deeply and unrepentantly in love, he would have given his life for his wife but sadly offers like that are rarely accepted. She died holding his hand and he was utterly crushed. When he went into the waiting room to tell his friends and family he was drowning in his own misery.
“We named her Sprightly” he said not meeting anyone’s eyes
“Yes, well, why?” Deo asked with an impish grin “Do you hate her or something? It the name some kind of sick revenge on the kid for hurting Mireille? Because really Raffy, childbirth is always like that”
“D, I want you to know that I love you, but now I have to break your pretty face” he said in the same flat tone. He glanced at his friend’s wife and their young daughter Cassie. “Take her away Malissa, I’m about to hurt her papa very badly”
“Raffy…” Deo began, but that was all he managed to say, the other man tackled him to the ground and started to brutally pound at his head. They scuffled for several minutes before onlookers managed to pry them apart. Deo was looking pretty bad, one of his eyes and swollen shut and the other one looked like it was going to be black. Blood poured from his clearly broken nose and also from a nasty gash on his forehead caused by his friend’s wedding band.
“She’s dead you bastard, she’s f**k**g dead you insensitive creep” he yelled trying to pull free from the grip of the men who were only barely holding him back.
“I told you to marry for money, Raffy” Deo said simply and calmly, blood dribbling sluggishly from his mouth.
Young Sprightly looked like her fragile mother in miniature, and some days her father couldn’t stand to look at her. She was practically raised by nannies for the first six years of her life, occasionally her father would take her out for a day together. He always showered her with gifts and affection and smiled at her sadly but he was always a million miles away and always seemed to be looking at someone who existed just beyond her left shoulder.
The only children she saw for her early childhood were cousins who looked at her strangely and made fun of her, (it seemed her father and mother had been second cousins which hadn’t gone over well with the families) and Nicodemus and Cassandra. Cassandra was six years older than her and quite disliked her, being that she was clever and Cassandra didn’t like her position of resident genius being threatened. Perhaps even more offensively Cassandra’s father, Deo, was especially fond of Sprightly and seemed to like her better than his own children. Nicodemus adored the girl, seeing her first as a too fragile to touch thing and then as a grand playmate. Until they were six they were nearly inseparable. Nico was the only person her own age she knew then. Then her father, apparently no longer able to look at her without wanting to drink until he was incapable of remembering, sent her to boarding school.
She didn’t do well there, the structure absolutely killed her. There were so many rules, she had to have an ironed uniform on all day, have clean perfectly trimmed nails, eat all the food she was given, brush her teeth and go to bed at the same time as twenty other girls, make her own bed, not to mention classes. She couldn’t stand it, especially having her hands slapped every time she broke a rule which was often. One day she just ran away, disappeared with no trace. She was found three days after her disappearance by an Auror and taken home, she’d been begging in London. Everyone was horrified but slightly impressed. Needless to say she wasn’t invited back to her school, but she was enrolled in another one, she didn’t run away from that one but endured it for almost two years before she snapped. By that time she had become a different person than the friendly sprightly girl she had been, she’d grown world-weary and a little unstable. A boy stuck gum in her hair and instead of mumbling an apology or asking him to stop she had bitten him on the neck, a bit to hard as it happened, blood had gushed into her mouth and the boy had nearly died before a teacher stopped the bleeding. Again she’d been kicked out of school, though miraculously no charges had been pressed. There hadn’t been any punishment for either of these incidents, they had just been ignored, and for a few weeks she had gotten to stay at home and sometimes see Nico and Deo.
Nico looked at the girl for a moment “You got kicked out of school again?” he sounded a little confused
“Yes, I bit a boy on the neck” she paused for a moment “Blood tastes really bad, Nico. I mean it’s not awful like, say, Brussels’ sprouts, but when there’s a whole lot of it and there’s a boy gurgling on the ground, it tastes like hate”
“Do you know what Father would do to me if I did the things you did?” he asked looking at her bitterly
“Yes” she said coldly. “At least he loves you”
“Does not, your father loves you a lot more. He always buys you nice things and he doesn’t make you do things you hate like violin” Nico stuck out his tongue
“Nicodemus Grey, you’re dumber than a sack of rocks. D cares about what you do, about what happens to you. I… I” she glared at the ground “Once I heard them talking, Papa and D. Papa said he wished he’d made my mother have an abortion, because then she’d still be alive”
“What’s that?” Nico asked with a child’s innocence
“It means he wishes he’d had a doctor kill me before I was born. My mother died because of complications with my birth” she explained
“They don’t really do that! No one kills babies before they’re even born!” he shouted at her, horrified that she could even think up such a thing.
“Nico, you’re a sweetie” she’d leaned over and given him a sticky kiss on the cheek “Totally thick, but really sweet”
For the next three years she went to a different school every year, always a boarding school and always horrible. In some places she was beaten up, in others she was merely ignored but she was always terribly unhappy and found herself turning more and more to fantasy to distract herself from the pain. By the end of her final year of primary school she was hardly part of the same world as the rest of the population. The next summer she spent mostly with Nico and his family, trying to fill the gap Cassandra had left and partially succeeding. At any rate everyone seemed a little happier with her there and she certainly took Nico’s mind off of his prodigal sister and his relationship with his father seemed less strained while she was there. Also she didn’t have to be with her half-there father which counted as good in her book. She wanted to be near him, of course, he was her father and she loved him but it seemed to hurt him to be around her so she contented herself with contenting him.
The end of the summer brought new challenges. She turned eleven on the first of September and as such it should have taken her to Hogwarts. Her father told her he was concerned about the political climate and how people were getting hurt in England, about the riots and such. There was however a lovely school in America though, Aiden Academy, that had accepted her application. She and Nico suspected that Scotland was just too close for comfort and it would be no problem for her to run away again.
Going to Aiden terrified her, suddenly she was tiny again, the smallest person in the entire school. At least in the primary schools there had been smaller children and she hadn’t stuck out so badly. Everyone noticed her and not in a good way. She was even more different at Aiden than anywhere, she had the accent, the tininess, and the inherent strangeness that she’d always had. People thought she was exceedingly bizarre and mostly ignored her, except for one group that was part friendship and part gang. They adopted her as one of their own and used her as a general gopher (go for this, go for that). When one of them had a bad day they’d take it out on her, not that she really seemed to mind, she almost seemed glad of the attention. Some of them genuinely seemed to like her because she was cute and easy to dress up, not to mention amiable and funny. The year went by well enough, and she passed her classes, with most of her teachers either fascinated or horrified by her. She was a remarkably skilled witch for her age and rather innocuous appearance.
The next summer she was hardly allowed to see Nico at all and what little she did see of him shocked her. He had a hangdog look about him and was terribly jumpy. Whatever had gotten him so bothered he refused to discuss at all with her. Being herself, and therefore very curious she had found out what had happened on her own.
“Hello Uncle D, Nicodemus” Sprightly greeted both of them in turn with a hug.
“It’s good to have you back, Spry” D had said, nearly crushing her in a bear hug “How was school this past year?”
“Oh, you know, just magical” she grinned “I’m going to go see Malissa, is she upstairs?”
“No, she’s out in the back gardens” D answered.
“Okay” she chirped and raced out of the room. A soon as she turned the corner she pressed her back to the wall and listened.
“Good to see you too, Raffy” D greeted her father
“Good to see you too, Deo” he returned “How are you Nicodemus?”
“I got kicked out of school, I’m rotten” he answered darkly.
“Ah, I heard about that. Don’t let anybody get you down about that, there’s not a thing wrong with it, lad” her father said encouragingly
“For God’s sake, don’t tell him that! There’s everything in the world wrong with it, clothes, the boy was designing clothes! d**n dresses, Raffy, encourage him and I can tell you where it’ll end up” D had shot back venomously
“I said I was sorry! What else do you want?” Nico squalled, his voice cracking as he spoke.
“Watch your mouth, you little pansy. I want a son, not another Goddam daughter is what I want” D yelled back.
Sprightly winced from her hiding place, she wanted to run to Nicodemus and comfort him but that would have been stupid. Instead she ran to the garden to see Malissa, she couldn’t bear to hear another word between Nico and D.
Her summer was dull and short. Her next semester at Aiden went badly, her sort-of friends didn’t treat her as well as they had the previous year and she was starting to feel this sort of pinch that indicated she was about to snap again. Worse, she was seeing things, butterflies. Sometimes the butterflies talked, usually the didn't and they really weren't that bad, mostly because she knew they weren't real. Nonetheless, it was abundantly clear that she was edging towards a breakdown.
There was one thing about the school that was not only tolerable, it was good. A girl named Darcy, a fifth year, had taken an interest in her. Darcy was a half-blood and nearly as much an outcast as Sprightly was. While not exactly nice Darcy made a good friend in her own way, she taught Sprightly how to sneak out and how to act in the muggle world, as well as how things worked and why muggles were every bit as good as wizards. In fact Darcy was the only one who seemed to care when Sprightly got hurt, she’d help her up when she tripped and try to comfort her in a gruff sort of way. Darcy was almost worth staying for, but not quite. In typical Sprightly fashion she snapped one day during Herbology. Someone dropped a clump of a reddish plant named leachweed down the back of her robes. Leachweed feed mostly on earthworms and the occasional mole but would latch onto a person or animal and drink their blood if the situation arouse. Sprightly brought a pot down on their head and then performed a curse so far above her year that if it hadn’t been, well, used offensively it might have earned her merits. As it was she got kicked out for ‘emotional instability’. Darcy was extremely angry, but Sprightly just felt relieved.
“What the hell is wrong with you Raffington?” Darcy demanded pinning the smaller girl against a wall.
“According to the school I’m emotionally unstable, I guess that’s what it’d be” she smiled
“You’re crazy, you know that? Freaking crazy” Darcy shook her head and looked pissed
“Well, que sera sera and all that” the girl shrugged “Look, I’m sorry, I really am. I like you, and that’s rare for me but it isn’t enough. Eventually a person needs more, I don’t feel safe in my own bed for goodness sake, asking me to stay for you is a bit selfish”
“Gah, I hate it when you make sense” Darcy let her go “Good luck, I’ll try to write you sometime… Umm”
“Yeah?” Sprightly asked
“Just… just” Darcy bent down and kissed the girl softly on the lips “Just go”
“Oh” she touched her mouth gingerly “Okay…”
Through careful manipulation of her father she had managed to ensure that she would go to Hogwarts. Unfortunately something about being emotionally unstable and teeny-tiny also meant she wasn’t ready for her second year of school and she was bumped unwillingly back to first. Still, none of it mattered, she would be with Nicodemus and things would be good. She was sure of it.
*)