Post by amanda on Jul 13, 2010 10:15:16 GMT -5
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{ A B O U T . Y O U }
Name: fief.
Gender: femme.
Age: seventeen.
E-mail: you has.
Twitter: you has.
Years of RPG Experience: about six.
Other: teddy.__________________________________________________________
{ Q U I C K . Q U I Z }
How did you find us? google search i think!
What about ISS inspired you to join? everthang.
Do you have any suggestions for us? nuuupe!__________________________________________________________
{ A B O U T . T H E . C H A R A C T E R }
Name: Amanda Jane Darwin (Brown).
Age: Eighteen.
Gender: Female.
Year: Graduated.
Face Claim: Emmy Rossum.
Canon or Original? Canon.
Facial Properties:
With her alabaster-white skin, her sparkling brown eyes, and her square jaw, Amanda might be typified on the first glance as a classical beauty. Her spools of chocolate brown hair spilling elegantly down her back in gentle waves are, too, an asset of hers that contributes to her overall antiquated look––the look of someone removed from one era and planted in the modern. She’s got a plethora of brown on her face––a small mole right between her lips and her chin. Her mother affectionately termed it a ‘beauty mark,’ and though she’s matured beyond those years, Mandy still regards it as such. Her hair, too, is a dark brown to match her tastefully thick and shapely eyebrows, set a good distance over her top lids and constantly creased into worried frowns or pulled apart into joyous smiles. Her teeth, tiny pearls set against soft pink lips, are often shown to add a ripe happiness to a situation or even to counter the grimaces of the most unfriendly looking strangers. Amanda smiles frequently––perhaps too much for her own good. Her facial muscles are always taut into a smile or smarting from grinning like a fool for too long. She hates that, as well; that she smiles when she’s scared, or even when she’s nervous, or even when she’s sad. It’s almost become a nervous tick. She just––constantly smiles. Though, with the new hardships the year of her graduation has brought, those smiles come less and less genuine and more and more haunted. You can see it in her eyes, too––that strain of knowing she’s happy when others aren’t. When others are dying. And when others, still, are plotting to destroy the happiness of whoever is left. But Amanda is good at lying, good at putting on a ‘game face’ and ignoring the small tremors of fear that run through her spine whenever she hears the name of the unthinkable. Amanda is shrewd, though. She’s intelligent, not so much in a conventional sense but in a way that allots her the ability to notice certain things that are better left unnoticed. In herself, she notices flaws. Such as her small, angular nose with a button tip. It’s unflattering to her face shape, really, and she quite dislikes it. She notices the rings of darkness around her eyes from late nights working on the advice columns for her work. She notices her large––ungainly large––lips. She notices all these flaws, true, but years of having two sisters look up to her fondly and a mother to dote on her has cured any of the past insecurities she’d dealt with in her youth.
Physique:
Amanda has always been taller than most girls, but not in a very noticeable way. An inch or two, minus hair, was usually how higher she stood––and even then, that might have been a stretch. But still, she considers herself tall, at five foot six inches. Taller, at least, than her younger sister Rose, and certainly taller than her youngest sister Sophia. She’s also always been thin, partially due to her high metabolism but also do to the fact that she’s a strict vegan––by necessity. She has an extremely sensitive stomach and, on top of that, a dramatic allergy to lactase and all dairy products. As much as she adores milk and eggs and baked goods, she simply can’t eat them without being bedridden and all kinds of sick for days. Unfortunately for Mandy, she learned this the hard way, having gotten extremely ill even from her mother’s nursing as a child. Thankfully she was issued a reprieve from all dairy substances by her first physician and was raised on soy milk for the rest of her infancy. At any rate, her inability to digest dairy has contributed to her slim figure––that, and her athletic lifestyle. Up until her seventh year, Amanda played as Keeper on the Gryffindor Quidditch team, and that always has kept her toned and in shape. Shapely, that is, and angular. She has a very muted feminine shape: Mandy’s body is largely full of sharp bone structure and cutting edges that can only be attributed to her French heritage. Being tall and angular though, has its benefits––Amanda’s body is demure and despite her many tendencies of klutziness, she exudes an overall appearance of grace. Her arms are long and taut with thin but built muscle, leading up to her very sloped, elegant neck sitting on top of two perfectly rounded shoulders. She feels like sometimes her small bust and narrow waist presents her as a more adolescent figure than an adult, but thankfully her wider hips have distinguished her as an eighteen year old woman.
Wand Type: 13 inches, Juniper tree, Veela hair core.
Wand Expertise: Divination & Care of Magical Creatures.
Patronus: Pygmy goat.
Boggart: Water.
Personality:a paradoxical coward !
Having been a graduate of Gryffindor house, it’s strange to regard Amanda as a bit of a coward. But, a coward she can be, at times. For instance––her Boggart is water. Just water. A small, trickling stream. When the exercise was done in class, she was met by a tirade of laughs for weeks after. Yes, Amanda Darwin is afraid of water. See, when she was little, and when her mother and father were teaching her to swim, she’d had a brief drowning scare. Her parents had set her down for a moment on the side of the pool and during the split second they turned their heads, Mandy slid off the edge and plummeted into the shallow range, too eager to get back in the water to wait for her parents to rest. Granted, she was in a five foot deep range, but that didn’t make things any less terrifying for her, only two years old at the time. So, ever since then, Amanda has had a particular aversion to water that not even the pushing or assurance of her closest friends and family can cure. She even so much as has panic attacks when she gets too close to the edge of a lake or a pool. Thankfully, however, she has overcome her fear of the shower and can handle a steady downpour of rain, as well. But trying to get her in the bathtub simply won’t work. For the first five years of her life, Amanda had to be sponge-bathed because she simply refused to get in the tub. So, she’s afraid of water––she’s also intimidated greatly by bigger domestic animals like horses––but she’s not afraid of Death Eaters, or of You-Know-Who. Honestly, she’d rather face a Death Eater than a swimming pool, as ludicrous as that sounds. But Amanda, in herself, is a walking contradiction. She still wonders, to this day, why the Sorting Hat placed her in Gryffindor without a moment’s hesitation. She’s excellent at dueling and skilled in many of her classes, especially Defense Against the Dark Arts, but she’s never seen herself as brave. Fearless, maybe, but more reckless than anything. Mandy’s willing to lay her neck on the line for you if she thinks you deserve it, but perhaps she’s too fast to act. It’s a major flaw of hers; one that gets her in a lot of trouble, at least when she was back in school....and yes. This does mean she’s eighteen years old and doesn’t know how to swim. Shuddup.socially conscious !
She’s not a pop culture junkie or anything, but Amanda does like keeping up with the times. Perhaps that’s why she was selected to be an intern at Witch’s Weekly––she keeps up on the magical celebrities, the gossip about them and such, but also is well-versed in her knowledge of the muggle community. Though she sometimes gets beef for it from her more racially prejudiced acquaintances, Mandy indulges in many muggle pastimes, such as listening to the Beatles or reading muggle tabloids. She’ll even go to penny arcades sometimes to play Pong, or Asteroid, or Space Invaders. Amanda loves both cultures––magical and muggle––and she won’t let some silly prejudice stop her from engaging in both. Having been raised in a largely muggle neighborhood taught Amanda from an early age to practice tolerance, and frankly, she’s never swayed in that practice. Even when subjected to the racist influence at Hogwarts, Amanda treated muggle-borns and purebloods just the same, with even a little more respect for muggle-borns, who had to abandon the life they thought they would live for a world of magic unfamiliar and frightening to them. She made it a point to always be friendly to the muggle-born first years, and on more than one occasion she’d folded a crying and scared eleven year old into her arms. She’s respectful of all backgrounds, really––of the purebloods, of the muggle-borns, of the half-bloods, torn in-between. Having been raised by a family of witches and wizards, Amanda considers herself to be something close to a pureblood, though she never lets on like it’s such. She was raised as a witch, but not a pureblood. She prefers not to label herself in such a way. It’s not like she wants to go around shouting that she’s a pureblood––that’s rather offensive. And, really, that’s the one thing Amanda hates being. Offensive, that is. She’s so careful about being politically correct that sometimes, in heated situations, she’s afraid to even speak. Really, her paranoia of touchy topics can hinder her conversation style, and a lot of times she’ll be stunned into silence, unable to breach it for fear of saying the wrong thing. It’s not necessarily cowardly, per se, but it can be viewed as such by the unskilled eye. Really, it’s hypersensitivity to the feelings of others. As if, by stopping herself from saying something that might be construed as offensive, she can protect that person’s feelings. Like her cousin, Ian. But we’ll get to that later.writer !
Ever since she was a little girl, Amanda was somewhat of a sensationalist. She loved telling stories, loved listening to stories––but, most of all, she loved writing stories. She was five when she got her first typewriter (she was fascinated by the muggle contraption and begged for one for her birthday) and seven when she’d completed her first story. It was, of course, about she and her two sisters, Rose and Sophia, and how they all turned into mermaids and lived in the ocean, coming up to visit their parents from time to time. She’d never really considered herself much of an avid fantasy writer or reader, but it turns out that fiction happens to be her forte. At least, when she was younger. Mandy sees herself as a versatile type of writer: that is, she can see herself being a reporter for the Daily Prophet, her dream job, or being a fiction novelist. Her style ranges and varies and she learns from mimicry rather than how-to books or lessons from others. She’ll see a certain style of writing and pick it up, making it her own for the next scroll or article or story she writes. For the longest time she learned most every tactic from muggle writing and employed their grammatical patterns in everything she wrote. She learns, now, from the Prophet and her current avenue of employment, Witch’s Weekly (though she detests it privately). Being offered a position as an advice columnist intern as both refreshing and disappointing for Amanda, who had high hopes of emerging from Hogwarts and freshly being tacked on to the Daily Prophet team. However, she had few credentials and the Prophet failed to even consider her as an intern, so she had to aim slightly lower and write for the tabloids. She used to love Weekly, really, she did, but now it’s become such a chore that the joy has been sapped out of it. Answering the ‘does he love me?’ questions over and over is only tiring and annoying, and makes Amanda want to write back with ‘please, get a life.’ But she refrains, pockets her disdain, and does her job. She loves writing and even though she has come to hate her job, honestly? Without Hogwarts in her life any longer, Amanda is fairly certain she would have died without writing.singer !
Matched evenly with her passion and talent for writing, Amanda is an excellent vocalist. She’s never really done much with it beside singing in the shower or humming while she works or does chores, but she has always been recognized as a good singer. She was in the choir with Miss Burbage for her entire seven years at Hogwarts, as an alto and a soprano when needed. Her range is very significant and though it needs some serious refining, it is lovely. Professor Burbage had always commented on how she should pursue a career in the vocal industry, but Mandy has always shied away from the performing arts. It’s not that she doesn’t like them per se, or even find a career as such admirable, for she does. It’s just that she prefers job security, and though her passion for singing is a passion, it is just that. And a secondary one, even, to writing. She realizes that she sounds rather hypocritical in declaring that she prefers not to pursue a career in the arts, for she fears competition––since she is a writer, and that is and has been one of the most competitive fields of occupation for ages. Even so, Amanda’s perseverance is strong and bright within her chocolate eyes, and she doesn’t easily give up on her dreams. Except for singing. It’s not that she gave up, really, so much as it is that she has never really believed all the positive feedback she’s gotten. Sure, she’s good, but she’s never seen herself as that good. So she’s content for singing to just remain a hobby––a closet passion of hers that she employs when she wants to break the silence, or, more likely, when she believes no one else is listening.flirt !
It’s bad. It’s really bad. But Amanda is possibly the biggest flirt you’ll ever meet in your entire life. It’s almost like a hobby for her. She sees a guy? She flirts. Doesn’t matter who the guy is, doesn’t matter how he looks or what his name is or what type of guy he is, she just flirts with him. For the hell of it. She develops crushes extremely easily and has multiples at a time, all lined up in her brain. She writes stories, too, about them all––lots and lots of stories about herself and these boys and how one day they run off together in a field of bliss. The thing to understand about Mandy is that she’s got an extremely active imagination and usually, when she first meets a boy, her first thoughts are those muddled of marriage and children and the ever-present question, ‘what if he’s the one?’ Amanda’s been dreaming of her knight in shining armor since she knew what boys were. And, really, you never know just where life’s going to take you, right? So what if the boy at the library who winks at you from time to time is your soulmate? Or what if the broomstick salesman is destined to be your secret lover? See, you never know! And if you don’t make a move first sometimes, who knows if that fated romance will ever come to be? However, despite this ardent belief of hers, Mandy is the type of girl to admire and to love from afar. She’s much too sheepish to make the first move most of the time and that’s precisely how she managed to remain single for most of her career at Hogwarts. Oh, she had plenty of crushes, and perhaps a few of them were even reciprocated––but when push came to shove, Amanda was far too wary of rejection to go out on a limb. So, she writes the stories, and that’s where she lives out her romantic dreams. In her stories, she’s always the dominant parter and is often much stronger on paper than she appears to be off... but who’s judging? Amanda lives her life and she crushes on boys and sometimes those crushes develop into flings and... well. It’s just most of the time, none of them are stable relationships. There have been a few boys in her past who she’s kissed––and apparently, she’s a pretty good kisser. Or so she’s been told, anyway. But for some reason unbeknownst to her, Amanda never gets more than a kiss or a date to a dance. It’s frustrating for certain, but she’s rather optimistic about it and thinks that it’s just due to the fact that she hasn’t find the right person yet, anyway.protective !
When Amanda loves someone––I mean really loves them––she’d be willing to die for them. That’s how she feels about her mother, her father, her sisters... and even for a few lucky boys from afar out there. She’s always been skilled at protection spells; always been good with charms and combating darker magic. So, it’s only natural for Amanda to see herself as a sort of protectress for her family and those she loves. But not just in a physical or even magical way, so much as in every way. Mandy has a problem of shouldering too much responsibility for people, of believing that it’s her responsibility to protect them all. She’s the eldest daughter, she’s the one who can practice magic now of age... if her mother and father aren’t there, it’s her responsibility to protect them all, to keep them out of harm’s way. Especially with these trying times––no one knows who’s the next target. That’s partially why Amanda’s begun to associate herself with Sirius Black and James Potter and those folks, who are trying to organize an effective resistance. Whatever it is, Mandy’s counted herself in––she’s not about to stand around and watch as You-Know-Who attempts to tear the wizarding and muggle worlds in two. Because she knows about him, about his intentions, was present at the Hogsmeade attack the year before... she feels like she has the responsibility to work against it. She can’t just sit around churning out articles for Witch’s Weekly and live in ignorant bliss. Amanda’s not an onlooker. She’s not someone who stands on the sidelines and cheers for the outnumbered good guys. No, she’s out there with them. And that’s not about to change anytime soon.
Likes:
+ Boys.
+ Writing.
+ Singing.
+ Shopping.
+ Her family.
+ Small animals.
+ Music.
+ Muggle pop culture.
+ Charms class.
+ The Daily Prophet.
Dislikes:
– Water.
– Horses, or other bigger domestic animals.
– Witch’s Weekly.
– Death Eaters and their liege.
– Laziness.
– Substance abuse.
– Criticism.
– Snob-nosed purebloods.
– Bathing suits.
– The Carrows. -grumbles-
History:
Mother: Layla Lisette Darwin (nee Marks).
Father: Jonathan William Darwin.
Sisters:
- Rosalie Ann Darwin, born April 26th. ‘Rose’
- Sophia Layla Darwin, born February 1st. ‘Sophie’
layla marks & jonathan darwin !
Born and raised in the sleepy countryside of Provence, Layla Marks was of good wizarding stock. She was a demure young thing––pretty, humble, talented––everything a young French girl could possibly want to be and more. Her family, however, was large and money wasn’t aplenty, so when Layla had graduated with high marks from Beauxbarons Wizarding Academy, she was fairly certain of the fact that she would need to settle down and get a secure job immediately. And there was her whole life laid out in front of her: wasted in working. It’s not like Layla didn’t have a work ethic, it’s just that the thought of graduating and getting a job right after and slaving away to save her family from debt didn’t sound all that appealing to her. But she knew she had to do it, and though it wasn’t something she’d ever fancied for herself, her loyalties were to her family above all else. So, she traveled around France, mostly in Paris, searching for work. She was all of eighteen years old, a fresh graduate with a summer birthday, and what she found in Paris was not exactly a job but... something far, far better. His name was Jonathan Darwin, and he was an Englishman from London, on holiday in la belle France. At first, it began with a fleeting glance in the cafe, but then it turned into a whirlwind romance that neither party could have predicted. They must have been soul mates––they had to be, for their romance to take flight so quickly, and for the two young lovebirds to feel like they’d known one another all their lives. But they were truly well matched, and before they even knew it, Layla was being escorted by her father down the aisle at eighteen years of age. No one thought it was last. I mean, come on, the kids––for they were still kids––were eighteen and they’d known each other for all of maybe a month before Jonathan popped the question. But Layla and her groom were both firm in intent. They were going to make this work, because it had become quite clear that they couldn’t live without the other. and besides, Layla’s father had received a much-needed promotion at his office, and no longer needed his daughter’s extra financial support. All her brothers were fond of Jonathan, as were her parents, and Layla made a very good impression on his family, too. All the pieces fell into place, and whenever that happens, it was divine will.
welcome, Amanda !
[/center]So Layla made her farewells and returned to England with her new groom, where he purchased a small townhouse in London and the two commenced a new, married life with one another. They had very pleasant neighbors in the Cunninghams, to their right, and the Smiths, to their left, and felt immediately welcomed in the neighborhood. It was only a year before their first child was born, with a summer birthday, just like her mother––a beautiful, healthy baby girl whom they affectionately called Amanda Jane Darwin. Around the same time she was born, Jonathan had received word from the Ministry of Magic that he was accepted into the Improper Use of Magic Office and would start work immediately. It was a very highly paying job, working for the Ministry, and the Darwins couldn’t be any happier. Little Amanda was alive and well, as was Layla after her first birth, and now Jonathan had the promise of a steady job. The only slight down turn to their reign of joy was when Amanda, a week after being released from the hospital, began getting violently ill. Layla feared for her little daughter’s life and went to St. Mungo’s with her husband, only to hear the calming news that it was nothing serious––just that Mandy had an allergy to dairy and lactose, and the breastfeeding Layla had been competently doing since Amanda was born had to be stopped. Relieved and yet slightly stressed about the idea of their daughter being lactose intolerant, Jonathan and Layla put Amanda on a soy-milk diet and bottle-fed her until until she could be weaned. Eventually, at the age of one and a half, Mandy was able to drink from trainer cups and was given more juice than expensive alternatives such as soy-milk. But, as it turned out, fruits and veggies and juices all were very agreeable to the young child, and she rarely complained at having been taken off her soy regimen (in fact, she abhorred the stuff when she got older). About a week after Amanda had turned two years old on July 3rd, Layla discovered she was expecting another child. To celebrate, Jonathan took a week off work and took his small family on vacation, to a little resort off the coast of France. It was there that the two attempted to teach Amanda to swim.
They’d gone to the hotel pool, taken Amanda into the shallow end and taught her how to doggie paddle as they held on to her for support. They took a break, though, for it was still very early in Layla’s pregnancy and she was starting to feel nauseated, and for the one split second they’d turned their heads, Amanda slid off the side of the pool, eager to try swimming on her own like a ‘big girl,’ and plummeted straight to the bottom. Her floaties had slid off her arms in the initial friction of her jump, and, unaware of what to do without the security of her father’s arms about her tiny waist, she panicked and fell to the basin of the five-foot shallow end. It was a shallow end, yes, but at two years old, and at two, maybe three feet tall, five feet was still a long way from the surface. It didn’t take long for her parents to realize what had happened, and within minutes they had swooped in to the rescue. But a few minutes underwater, hyperventilating and swallowing large gulps of saline, seems like an eternity to a little girl who’d only just begun learning to swim––enough to turn her off to the activity completely. She was fine, though, obviously. She lived through the ordeal relatively unscathed, except for a small bit of water in her lungs which was dislodged by the Healers at St. Mungo’s––where Amanda, sobbing and sputtering, had been rushed, putting a solemn end to the family vacation. The Healers said she might experience a day or two of post-traumatic stress, but none of them expected it to last very long. So, she was returned home, and spoiled rotten by her guilty-feeling parents for the next month. The Healers were wrong, however, and the fear of water still lingers. Even to this day, she wakes up screaming to nightmares about drowning.
welcome, rose !
But soon that drama was quickly forgotten and Amanda got over herself long enough to be extremely jovial upon the occasion of her first sister’s birth. Her name was Rosalie Ann Darwin, and she was beautiful. Perfect. A new baby, and everyone loved her. Amanda had never really been jealous before, or even envious, but sometimes she felt it with Rose. However, that didn’t last long. Rose soon became one of her constant companions, and the two grew very close to one another in their early youth, forming bonds that are still thick as cement today. Around the same time that Rose was born, Jonathan’s sister Melanie and her husband welcomed a little boy into their lives, called Sebastian. Amanda remembered him as being a very cute baby, and she enjoyed playing with he and Rose whenever they visited. Mandy enjoyed having two little friends who looked up to her, she being older, and languished in the attention it brought her. Rose was the best little sister anyone could have ever asked for, and Amanda treated her like the angel she was on a daily basis. It was interesting––the two rarely fought. It seemed as though they were just meant to be sisters, and they pulled it off well. With Rose a little toddler and Amanda growing to be an older infant, the two were matched well as playmates, and even so much as shared a room in the townhouse. The Darwin girls, the neighbors called them: the cutest little pair of brunettes this side of London. And they were. A pair, that was. Until when Rose was two and Amanda was four and Layla was expecting again. It came as a welcome surprise to the little family, though Amanda, having lived through one of her mother’s pregnancies before, had a bit of a frame of reference to it. She helped explain to Rose what a pregnancy meant, in her infant-terms, and soon enough the two of them had gotten themselves so excited about the incumbent reality of a third Darwin that when the day actually came and Sophia Layla Darwin was born, the girls hardly knew what to do with themselves.
welcome, sophia !
The third Darwin girl. They were now a trio! And Sohpia was just as cute and just as lovable as Rose and Amanda had been as newborns. The entire family doted unnecessarily on the girl––the youngest, the sweetest, the cutest of them all. But this time, Amanda doted with them and held no feelings of envy. She loved Sophie just the same as Rose, and perhaps even more so for her infant’s pure innocence. Amanda developed a passion for babies and children at around this age, having an instant liking to them. However, as she would soon grow to learn, it was most definitely her sister, Rose, who was better at handling them. For the time being, though, everything was bliss. The Darwin girls and their parents couldn’t have been more happy with their lives, and they seemed to be the picture perfect family for two years after Sophie’s birth. However, within a short span of time, that would be altered forever. For, Aunt Melanie, Jonathan’s sister, had died in childbirth unexpectedly, and had lost her baby too. She’d been first expecting earlier in the year and had been warned about possible complications by the Healers, but no one had expected her to die. To have a rough childbirth, yes, but to die? The Darwins hadn’t known that kind of grief in their whole lives. All three girls were deeply affected by it––both by their mutual grief at their loss of a beloved aunt, and by their pity for her young husband and son, their uncle and cousin. Amanda, being about eight at the time, understood the meaning of the word ‘death’ more so than her sisters, and consequently felt the most awkward around her six year old cousin. Especially after his father died, too. She didn’t quite know what to do, or what to say to make things better. She’d often keep things from people, to try and fix things––Amanda always had been about fixing things, about helping people. But in this situation, what could she possibly do or say? Was it even a fixable situation? Frustrated by her confusion and still struggling with her own grief, Amanda withdrew emotionally somewhat from Sebastian: an action she would later come to deeply regret.
welcome, hogwarts !
But soon enough, the Darwin family was able to recover from the swift blow fate had dealt them, and life went on without Melanie and Derrick, however lovingly remembered they were. The three girls aged and grew into their own spheres of influence––Amanda, with her talent for singing and writing; Rose, with her passion for children and dreams of being a florist; and Sophie, with her head always in a colorful children’s book. The three of them were well matched in their differences, but compatible in their similarities as well. The three of them were still extremely close, though with Sophie being the baby of the family, she often spent more time getting coddled than Amanda and Rose, who clung together even more closely than before. However, Amanda, too, received her bits of favoritism. She was the first born and received special benefits for that, whether she realized it or not. New things, whereas Rose got hand-me-downs. New toys, whereas Rose got her discarded ones. Amanda never really noticed that these things were occurring, before, until her parents had exclaimed it guiltily after Rose’s illness. Rose, too, was born with a minor defect, like Amanda––only in the case of Rose, it was slightly more serious. Apparently she had a weak immune system, and any time she got a little cold, her life was essentially on the line. When Mandy thought about it, she did recall that Rose got sick very often, and her sicknesses often lasted longer than usual. But she hadn’t ever given much thought to that before, and... oh, soon enough, Amanda was feeling just as awful as her parents. How could they have never realized this about poor Rosie?! Their sweet, their innocent, their beautiful little daughter! Amanda, smarting with guilt, would no longer accept new clothes or new supplies or new anything unless Rose, too, received new things. Thankfully, the Darwin family all learned from this experience and was able to treat everyone with equal respect and attention. It afforded them all more opportunities to bond, such as when the three girls would sit and giggle about which houses they wanted to be sorted into at Hogwarts––for that was only the most equal process known to the northern wizarding world––and soon enough, Mandy received her letter and was off to find out if her sisters’ predictions had been true.
Oddly enough, they were. Both sisters had been thoroughly convinced that Amanda would be received into Gryffindor house, and she was. The Sorting Hat had barely even touched the top of wavy brown head before it shouted out the name of her house, and the corresponding table welcomed her with cheers. She was thrilled to have been sorted into Gryffindor, truth be told, but she didn’t quite know why. She wasn’t brave by any conventional definition of the word, but apparently she was thought so by the Sorting Hat. The next morning, the first thing she did was run to the owlery and send her little snow owl all the way back to London with a pleasant letter for each of her family members, explaining her adventures thus far and which house she’d been sorted into. Pride had filled her, but she did indeed miss her family and her home. It was the first time that the little eleven year old girl had been away, and for an entire year, no less. She was terrified, s she quickly attempted to made friends and joined just about every single club her schedule could hold. First, was choir practice, with Professor Burbage, and Mandy liked that very well for it earned her some respect on the behalf of the musically inclined students. She’d also joined the In-Air Sports group, to help her practice for the Quidditch tryouts next year for which she endeavored to be a player. She joined the homework club, too, to receive extra help from Ravenclaws and such on her assignments––and soon enough, Amanda had made just as many friends as her brain could possibly retain. There were the girls in her bunk, too, who had initially mocked her for still sleeping with her little black bear stuffed animal, called Bandit, but soon they came to understand why Amanda got so homesick all the time and ceased their ridicule. So, Amanda was doing fairly well––as well as she could have been doing with how homesick she was, despite her friends and Bandit.
The summer holidays couldn’t have come soon enough for Amanda, and when she finally packed her trunks and was welcomed into the open arms of her family at the train, she couldn’t have possibly been more relieved. A whole summer back with her sisters! They went back to the townhouse in high spirits and once they had arrived were introduced to a new member of the Cunnigham family––one called Benjamin Burke. He was very handsome for his young age––Rose’s age––Amanda couldn’t help but think, and she introduced herself to him sweetly, as did her other two sisters. For that entire summer, Rose had been convinced that Benjamin, or Benji, as he preferred to be called, were ‘meant to be together’ because they were ‘both writers.’ So, she’d whiled away her summer trying to get the two smushed together in various situations, without ever realizing that it was she herself that he was smitten with, and not Amanda. Still, he and Amanda shared their mutual passion for writing and became close, which helped to make the poor orphaned boy feel more welcome in this new environment. Yet, the next fall called Amanda back to school and she left behind her summer life of Benji and her sisters with nostalgia. However, she found it was actually quite nice to be back within the walls of Hogwarts once more, and she vowed to do even better this year than she had the previous. She tried out for the position of Gryffindor Keeper, but was actually given the position of Second Chaser due to her small body and lithe frame. It wouldn’t be until her third year that she would be accepted as a Keeper, which would last until her sixth. Amanda’s seventh year went by in a breeze: she was no longer on the Quidditch team due to the fact that she had been given the honor of being a Prefect and didn’t want the two responsibilities to conflict. She was happy as a Prefect; happy that Professor Dumbledore had even considered her for such. But she enjoyed her new position and did it well, or so her teachers had remarked. Everything in her seventh year passed by like a dream... except for the final Hogsmeade trip, in which there was a Death Eater attack. Amanda had lost more than one acquaintance and friend that day, and it took her long to recover. But when she did, she survived graduation free of tears and returned home with a heavy heart but a determined face.
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[/center]Amanda was forlorn. For the first couple weeks of being a graduate, she hardly knew what to do with herself. She was depressed at having lost some of her companions at the Hogsmeade attack and she was even more depressed at the knowledge that there would be no more Hogwarts for her to go to during the year. All childish homesickness had seemed to fade and now, she was longing for those years once more. She just wanted to go back to the way things were when she was younger, when Death Eaters didn’t exist, and when the two friends she lost were still alive. But one of her friends, Lily Evans, was of course still alive and at least she could be thankful for that. In fact, Lily was getting married, and Mandy was invited to attend. She arrayed herself for the occasion and Rose tagged along, and everything was beautiful except after the Death Eaters arrived. A fiendfyre was conjured and Lily’s parents were killed, and before she even thought of herself Amanda grabbed hold of Rose and apparated them back to their townhouse. Amanda, so distraught from the events, locked herself into her room and wouldn’t come out for days. She began sleeping with Bandit again and became so steeped in depression and sadness and guilt that she could hardly eat. Why hadn’t she just gotten Rose out of there and then went back? She could have helped, she could have done something... but no. She’d been a coward. She’d fled. She was no Gryffindor after all. The whole family could tell she was disgusted with herself, and her parents, being concerned for her well being, suggested she maybe leave her room and try to find work so as to occupy her thoughts. Perhaps, her father thought, if she started writing again, she’d feel somewhat better. Mandy had always listened to her parents and though she was in no mood to go job-hunting, she decided to try for an internship at The Daily Prophet, where she’d always dreamed of working. However, they refused to hire her due to her lack of experience and told her to try again in a few years after she’d gained some credentials. Angry and hurt that her dream had been denied her, Amanda would have taken to her bed again if it weren’t for the gentle urgings of her father to try another magazine and work her way up the chain. So, she tried a few places and, in the end, ended up at Witch's Weekly. A tabloid. But it was a job and they gave her an internship as an advice columnist and, well, she enjoyed it for a while.
But her mind now is focused on bigger things. Focused on the currently organizing opposition to the Death Eaters, which she is determined to join. When the world is coming down in flames around you, do you pick up and run or do you stay and try to stop it? Easy.
To Amanda, there really is no other option.
Sample Post: Please refer to posts made by Alice Logan, Regulus Black, Theodore Tonks. Severus Snape, and Alecto Carrow!
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I solemnly swear that I, FIEF, have read the rules, understand clearly what my responsibilities are now that I am joining ISS, and will abide by these standards set by the staff.[/color][/blockquote]