V.R.V.

[nessarose]

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{ A B O U T . Y O U }

Name: fief.
Gender: female.
Age: eighteen.
E-mail: you has.
Twitter: you has.
Years of RPG Experience: six years.
Other: teddy.

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{ Q U I C K . Q U I Z }

How did you find us? <3
What about ISS inspired you to join? <3
Do you have any suggestions for us? <3

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{ A B O U T . T H E . C H A R A C T E R }

Name: Vanessa Rose Vaughn.
Age: Fifteen.
Gender: Female.
Year: Fifth.

Face Claim: Heather Morris.

Canon or Original? Original.

Facial Properties:

Long, oval, and of a porcelain hue, Vanessa’s face much resembles one of those old, Victorian silhouettes, painted white against a blue background and fastened into a silver set to be worn by only the most fashionable of ladies. Her eyes, a sparkling, vivid blue, are probably her most outstanding feature, though she erroneously believes they are a bit too small for her head and insists upon using copious amounts of mascara to make them more noticeable. Her eyebrows, femininely shaped with a gentle slope toward her narrow, slightly-hooked nose, are often arched in an expressive state, reflective of her mood. Nessa’s lips, as pink and soft as can be, are often peeled back to reveal her neatly arranged pearly-whites; she believes her thin upper lip, a true representation of her English heritage, contrasts supremely well with her fuller, rounder bottom lip, creating an almost rose-bud effect. When she smiles (well, rather, when she grins from ear to ear, as is more her style), her rather pronounced dimples surface on the sides of her face, and force whoever she’s smiling at to simply smile back. She often jokes that the reason her cheeks are so slim is because she smiles so much that she gives them a constant workout. Vanessa’s just that way; constantly happy. Yes, so, maybe she’s the stereotype of the perky, dumb blond, but... well, there’s nothing she can do about it, and she’s not willing to change her hair color. You see, Nessa loves her blond hair. She’s kept it long and wavy insofar as she can remember––au naturale is more her speed. Sometimes she curls it, sometimes she uses those silly straighten-spells, but most of the time, she just leaves it hang as it is, wavy, just past her shoulders. Her bangs, too, she keeps relatively long, and usually pushed to the side or divided in the middle. She’s all about low maintenance, and consequently, her hair is often thrown up into a high ponytail on lazy days. It’s not that she’s always lazy, but she’s not the kind of girl to spend forever making her hair look perfect; or any part of her appearance, that is. Make-up is fine, and of course she uses a brush, but beyond that... she’s all about organic.

Physique:

Vanessa has always been a tall, long-legged girl, usually a few inches above her target, average height-range of girls her age. She’s a dancer, though, so she puts her graceful stature to good enough use, gravitating toward traditional forms of ballet and others that compliment her size. Growing up in an environment with so many purist ballerinas made it damned near unavoidable for them to pick up on her natural flexibility and encourage her tall, little self to dabble in the art of dancing. So, ever since she was about six years old, Nessa had been pushed in the ballerina direction. And she went with it. Consequently, she’s got a very slender build from all that exercising and physical exertion, which thankfully counteracts the fact that she eats like a pig. Vanessa is pretty much a sugar addict. She eats so much of it all the time that even though she should be passed out in the common room from all the junk she eats, she’s constantly buzzed. She’s indefatigable; a constant source of energy. Her mum’s always telling her that she needs to eat better, or else she won’t be able to keep up with the dancing, and eventually her metabolism will fail her, but... well, Nessa figures she’s still young, and she’s only young once, and... she just doesn’t care much what her mum says. Bring on the sugar. She supplements her diet, or at least tries to, with fruits and vegetables and fiber and everything, so it’s not like she’s on a straight chips-and-cookies diet, but probably not nearly enough. An apple a day... keeps Vanessa’s mum away? Yeah, something like that. Anyway, her tummy’s pretty much as flat as it wants to be, and everything else is satisfactory to her. She often wishes she was more curvy and less tall, but you get what you get, and that’s what you get, and you make the best out of it, right? Her body is very athletic, and she’s very tall and spindly, and that’s just the way it is. It suits her.

Wand Type: Cherry wood, twelve and a half inches, Unicorn tail core.
Wand Expertise: Charms.
Patronus: A little dappled kitten.
Boggart: Herself, with short hair. Don’t laugh. It’s not funny. It’s a legitimate fear.

Personality:

Vanessa is secretive by nature. Not that she means to be, per se, but she was simply raised in a home environment which leant itself to that sort of elusive behavior. Mommy never talked about her problems, and Daddy never talked about his, therefore Nessy never talked about hers, either. And that’s just the way it’s been, for years. Vanessa doesn’t like to inconvenience people with her whining, as she so believes it to be, and contents herself to simply record all her woes in her diary, which she’s been doing ever since she could write and ever since she had problems. She’s a closed book in this way, no pun intended. But she listens well, in the sense that she can give advice and is often the one to whom her friends come in times of strife when they are desirous of counsel. But getting Vanessa to return the favor, getting her to open up? It’s nearly impossible. She’s gone through those times, at home, where her mother sometimes does want her to open up, and talk about her problems: this usually only happened once or twice a year, and usually around when she had conflicts at the dancing institute or at muggle primary school (often as a result of bottled-up frustration). Her mother would sit her down at the kitchen table and ask her, point blank, what was going on. These times were always excessively uncomfortable for Vanessa, and would end quickly after she struggled to spew out some half-assed version of what was really bothering her. She didn’t want her mother to know that she was frustrated by the fact that she didn’t find boys cute or attractive or even interesting. Was that always the problem? Well, no. But most of the time, it was the root of the frustration. Of feeling so and not knowing how to explain it––just knowing that it was wrong, that it was unnatural, and that she felt it. She always did struggle with managing her anger––at least, such as it became when she just couldn’t bottle it up inside of her any longer. Sometimes she was careless physically when she succumbed to rage, aggressing toward her peers in what seemed like random outbursts to onlookers. Her dancing instructor, though, noticed those violent tendencies in her: those flashes of uncontrollable asperity that would occasionally dance across her bright blue eyes.

But for the most part, Vanessa is an amiable girl. She’s easy enough to talk to, likable to the point where she has a stable group of supportive and loving companions, and trustworthy enough to where many of her friends come to her for advice. Not that she thinks she knows how to give it, but for some reason unbeknownst to her, she does. Vanessa is usually the designated ‘mommy’ of the group, in the sense that she’s everyone’s moral compass. At parties, she’s the one holding back the hair of the puking teen, she’s the one keeping time checks, she’s the one manning the door and keeping a lookout for parents, monitoring the amount of alcohol intake of her peers, controlling the volume of the music and zipping girls back into their skin-tight dresses. She doesn’t like drinking or even the mere thought of getting drunk, and it pains her that her friends enjoy such a pastime––but she’s not one to judge, always just quietly acquiescing with their desires, too afraid of getting left behind and forgotten, branded with the label of ‘boring’ or ‘dull.’ Vanessa comes along and adapts to what she views as a hostile situation by being the responsible one. And, in the end, her friends appreciate it, as much as they give her a hard time for not popping just one pill, for not taking just one shot. The mere thought of being high, or being drunk, makes her nauseated to the point of not being able to stand––she hates the idea of being out of control with her body, because... well, there’s no telling what she’d do if her walls came down in the presence of other girls. She’s extremely adamant about remaining in control, of piloting her own self, of maintaining her lies. She’s kissed boys before, at parties. You know, to prove a point. To satisfy her friends. To keep up with the lie. But she hates doing it. She just... hates parties, to be honest. She carries on like she loves them, but that’s just part of the lie that has come to constitute much of her life. Here’s the thing: parties are places that are supposed to attract young, attractive girls and boys, and they will party, and they will see and be seen, and most of them will end up in a car or a closet later at least to second base. Parties make Vanessa think about what it is to be normal; what it is, exactly, that she’s missing out on. It is at parties, really, where her usual, bright-eyed optimism is overcast by the shadows of doubt and unconscious longing: where she is faced both what she wants and what she cannot have in the same, heart-wrenching instant. It is as George Bernard Shaw said: There are two tragedies in life. One is to lose your heart’s desire, and the other is to gain it. Social functions usually represent such a conflict to Vanessa, though she just grins and bears it anyway. Such is the lie.

Sometimes, she comes off as painfully naive. Most of it, granted, is pretense: an explanation of her motherly, anti-partygoing ways, faulty at best. But a lot of it, too, is truth. Comparably, she’s had a rather sheltered existence, free from such taboo conversations as sex and intimacy. For god’s sake, the girl crochets. Scarves, hats, shrugs, afghans, gloves... you name it, she’s made it multiple times and distributed it among her friends as gifts for various occasions. She’s probably the most domestic girl you’ll ever meet, in the sense that she’s exceptionally talented in the kitchen and quite handy with a needle and thread (and yarn of course) and can clean the socks off anything at the drop of a pin. Perhaps it’s because she tends to overcompensate for what she lacks in conventionality in femininity: we shall probably never know. Either way, Vanessa’s excessive (at times obnoxious) need to remain girly and feminine is a huge motivator for everything she does, and really presides over every decision she’s ever made. Her hair being long and wavy and treated with special ointments every day to make it glossy and smooth, her make-up (what little of it she wears) always perfectly applied to her little porcelain face, her wardrobe chic and womanish, her nails painted and clipped, a bright smile always on her face, displaying rows of dazzlingly, spell-whitened teeth. But, deep down, Vanessa really is that little princess that her daddy called her when she was little. Deep down, she always has been a prissy little ballerina, enamored with rainbows and fairies and sparkles and pink things. Deep down, she knows she’ll always be that way. But she feels a desperate need for everyone else to know it, too. So, yeah, sometimes she goes a bit overboard, with the dresses and frills. Sometimes she plays dumb just because she thinks it’s cute. But a lot of it it is real. Vanessa is by no means a genuine person, with herself, or with anyone: but, this part of her? Nothing could possibly be more real, despite the gaudiness of it all. It doesn’t bother her, because she’s convincing. As long as no one suspects, she’s safe. And besides, it’s amusing––it gets people to laugh. She likes making people smile, making them happy to the point of bubbly, girlish laughter. She’s always been a stickler for that sort of stuff. It’s the reason why she doesn’t utilize swear words: she feels they’re too negative, they’re too hurtful and too lancing, and they certainly don’t make people happy. So, she abstains. She has many colorful and creative substitutes, and, honestly, it suits her just fine. They make people laugh. And that makes her happy.

Really, Vanessa is what one might term a crowd-pleaser. She tends to remain apathetic when it comes to arguments, sitting out and listening to both sides before she deviates and places herself in between in the form of a happy medium. She’s all about compromise. She may not be the most intelligent person in the world, but she’s got a special talent for working things out between people––perhaps that’s why her friends approach her so frequently for advice. Vanessa has extremely good problem-solving skills, inherited most likely from her mother, which she has been putting to use since as far back as she can remember. She doesn’t panic, she doesn’t lose her cool in adverse situations: she can remain calm, cool, and collected, and can quickly conceive a logical course of action within seconds of being presented with a challenge. Now, obviously, this doesn’t work every time, but for the most part, she’s just accepted it as a particular skill of hers, on which she can rely perhaps seventy percent of the time. She’s got a lot of common sense that thankfully makes up for the overall-intelligence that she seems to lack, or so her mother always used to jokingly tell her as she chucked her under the chin. It’s okay, though: Vanessa’s never really struggled with her self esteem when it comes to smarts. It’s whatever, you’re either smart or you’re not, and she’s not. She likes reading, but none of that hifalutin, philosophical junk that makes her head hurt. Witch’s Weekly? Yes, please. Romance novels? Um, yes to that too. But all the classics, and all the stingy old dusty crusty books expostulating on morality and the nature of the human soul just bores her to tears, because she can’t understand a lick of it. She has difficulty simply spelling the word morality. She... can’t really... spell. At all. Her friends think it’s endearing, but her teachers despise it. Vanessa doesn’t care. A word is a word is a word is a word, no matter how it’s spelled, it means the same thing. She gets so frustrated with her teachers, sometimes, honestly: they get what she meant, so what’s the problem? She’s been thinking about investing in one of those special spell-checking quills, but for now she’s short on galleons and it’ll have to wait. Her teachers will deal with it. She’s willing to compromise on many things to make others happy, but this she just can’t fix. She sucks at spelling. Whatever. Build a bridge and get over it.

It’s sort of paradoxical, how Vanessa carries out her existence: on the one hand, she cares immensely what people think of her. But on the other hand, she just... doesn’t. She’s comfortable with every aspect of herself except that one, that unspeakable one. She’s just big on comfort with everything else. Vanessa has a comparatively high sense of self-worth when it comes down to it: her appearance suits her, even though she thinks her ears are dumb-looking, and her personality’s fine, and as was already touched on, she isn’t so much bothered by her sub-par intelligence. She wants people to think well of her, naturally, but she isn’t going to die if they don’t. When she was younger, this meant more to her: she just didn’t want to fit into the typical muggleborn stereotype, and she strove against that, but now that she’s essentially proved herself, with her adequate grades and substantial group of friends, what more is there to care about? She’s never really been ambitious, something she also inherited from her mother. One might assume that since she was a competitive ballerina, or at least geared toward that lifestyle since youth, that she would naturally be somewhat of an enterprising girl, but she really isn’t. Vanessa simply wants the group to succeed: she’s never been an individualist, though she does have the necessary resources for being promoted to such a status. She’s a conformist in the sense that she prefers to remain out of sight, at the back of the crowd, following the lead of someone else. She likes the regimented, set-in-stone social customs of being under the radar, and follows them with few to no quips. Vanessa is not a diva by any stretch of the imagination, and thinks first to the welfare of the whole than to the welfare of a single part. She’s a regular communist, her parents used to jokingly accuse her, because all she was ever concerned about was learning her dance moves for her little dance recitals so that she wouldn’t let everyone else down, not just embarrass herself. Vanessa’s own interests concern her last, and that’s the way it’s always been, and the way she always wants it to be.


Likes:
+ Ballet & dancing.
+ Candy & sugar.
+ Gossiping.
+ Jewelry.
+ Muggle music.
+ Witch’s Weekly.
+ Care of Magical Creatures class.
+ Relaxing in pajamas.
+ Romance novels.
+ Crocheting.
+ Girls.
Dislikes:
– Being bored.
– Freestyle dancing.
– Loneliness.
– Disappointing others.
– Confusion.
– Her ears.
– Swear words.
– Plain black ink
– Ugly handwriting.
– Looking masculine.
– Boys.

History:

mother: Agnes Elise Dagmar-Vaughn.
father: Victor Joseph Vaughn.

When one thinks of a ballerina, one thinks of beauty, of majesty, of grace, of agility and flexibility. One calls to mind the image of a lithe, pretty little thing clad in a frilly tutu, pirouetting across a lively stage decorated not only with daunting and impressive set pieces but also with that certain degree of magic that only classical music––stringed instruments and pianos––can bring. Simply put, when one thinks of a ballerina, one does not think of a tall, sickly looking, awkward girl with nothing but legs. That is to say, one does not think about Agnes Dagmar. With her lank, brittle blond hair, dyed so many times she’d lost track, and her obnoxious height, and her embarrassingly clumsy demeanor only facilitated by her long, spindly legs, Agnes had never been the prototypical ballerina. Perhaps that is why she was so favored by the public––why she received so many starring roles. She was fresh, she was unique, and she was talented, that was plain to see. The public loved her. The Royal Ballet School had never turned out a more driven and exceptional young pupil than Agnes Dagmar into the professional dancing world. The Royal Ballet at Covent Garden had snatched her up before she’d even had a chance, at nineteen years of age upon graduation, to experience the world. Not that she’d really wanted to, anyway. Everything she’d ever worked for was to be accepted to The Royal Ballet. Everything. It was her life’s ambition to someday be on that stage, some way, no matter what role she did or did not have. Yes, Agnes had always been driven, and always been ambitious, but, again, she did not fit the typical ballerina stereotype––bitchy, obsessive, and manipulative. She was somewhat abnormal in that way; in her lack of a competitive spirit. As far as she was concerned, the ballerinas were all meant to be a team, and it didn’t matter who had which part, so long as everyone was made to look good. But that may have just been her philosophy since she seemed to always snag the principals. Indeed, Agnes was living somewhat of a ballerina’s dream: when she wasn’t starring in The Royal Ballet productions, she alternated as a chorus member and dedicated her time to guest appearances at the Royal Opera House, in which she generate dozens of extra tickets without fail. Truly, it was a wonder that Agnes hadn’t been offed by all the jealous competition she had in all the other ballet girls––she’d been threatened, for sure, and even accused of sleeping with the Chief Executive... who, at the time, was a woman. But Agnes just wasn’t bothered by rumors, and wasn’t perturbed by the hollow threats of girls who were so daft they could barely spell their own names let alone dance. They were nothing to her, meant nothing to her. All that mattered was her own talent, her own career, and how she appeared to the public, not to those beneath her. It was probably that stubborn apathy that was her biggest mistake; one that would end her career altogether. However, it cannot be dwelt upon with sadness––and isn’t. Agnes has relived the moment in her head for years and still, even for all the humiliation and the pain, she would have done it again in a heartbeat––would have let it happen, again, in order to achieve that which it brought her, that which was infinitely more important than fame and social rank. Everything happens for a reason, she believed, to a fault. And everything happened for a reason, even this. Even when she piquéd onto the floor during a dress rehearsal for ’Giselle, ou Les Wilis’ and everything was seemingly perfect; even when her leg roughly hit the ground, en-pointe, as it was supposed to; even when it hit a little too roughly; even when she crashed to the floor with a deafening scream; even when her dance career ended at twenty-two years of age. Yes, even then, all she could think about was that everything happened for a reason. She had to––had to cling to something, anything to get her through the next torturous hours, and then, the next torturous years of her life. Agnes was intelligent. She knew, immediately, before the emergency phone call and the hospital visit and the tests and the grim-faced doctors, she knew she would never dance again. She was exceptionally in-tune with her body, and when she felt her ankle snap, and her metatarsal bones shatter, she knew it was over.

It was all over.

Irreparable. That was the word that was used. Irreparable. Normally, the doctor had said, these things could be fixed, the bones could be re-grafted, and she would make a full recovery in a year or two’s time, back on the dance floor after some intense physical therapy. But this was different. The way her bones had broken, and the way she had landed and her muscles had contracted around the shards had permanently damaged her right leg, and there was simply no hope. Not only was it irreparable, but inoperable as well. Essentially, it all boiled down to this: Agnes Dagmar, at the age of twenty-two, with her whole life and a dazzling career ahead of her, was reduced to a cripple. A full boot-cast for six months and a good two to three years of physical therapy might restore her to full upright status, but she’d more than likely always need a walking stick or cane for the rest of her life. To a young girl, it was a death sentence. To a young ballerina, it was a fate far worse than death. She was visited by her friends, and consoled, and petted and cheered insofar as she could be at the hospital, bedridden for days on end, but it wasn’t enough. What was even worse was that her near-fatal accident? Well, it hadn’t really been an accident at all. Before the rehearsal, Agnes’s pointe shoes had been commandeered by one of her envious, so-called ‘underlings’ and replaced by a brand new pair, which, obviously, had not yet been broken in. Agnes had always had difficulty adjusting to new pointe shoes––it was a fault of hers about which she was perhaps far too obvious. Whenever she sported new shoes, she felt at a slight disadvantage, because she had terribly sensitive feet, despite their calloused and rough exterior. She hadn’t noticed, until she had laced them up, what had occurred, and even when she did, she did not immediately assume there was any malicious reason behind the switching of the shoes. She thought––well, she didn’t know quite what she thought, but she didn’t think lowly enough of the other ballerinas to jump to conclusions. So she’d put them on and went out and danced and she’d fallen. And, only until later, sitting in her hospital bed eating a bag of grapes and crying her eyes out, did she discover the truth. But what’s done was done, and her career was over, and the ballerina who’d done the deed had gotten what she wanted. But everything happened for a reason. It had to. So Agnes was just waiting for that reason, for that affirmation that, later, would make her look back at her ‘accident’ and be grateful that it had happened. It wouldn’t come for a while, though, or so she would later realize. It would be two weeks––two weeks spent lying in her hospital bed, so depressed and anxious that she could scarcely keep herself from screaming, listening to the hollow, comfortless words of her parents––before she would meet her physical therapist. Her physical therapist, a tall, handsome, rugged-looking man on whom almost all the tittering nurses had crushes, bothered her at first sight. He was a jackass, a jokester, and he didn’t take her seriously. He pushed her harder than she thought she could go, and he teased her, and he called her names, and he laughed at her for being a ballerina, and soon she started teasing him back, and soon they started to bicker more than an old married couple, and soon she began to improve. She began to improve. More than she had expected. More than he had expected. ‘You’ve got spunk, kid,’ he used to tell her, in the final stages of their first-year session, ‘who’d have thought a floozy like you would.’ And she’d punch him and he’d punch her back, and then, one time, instead of punching her back, he kissed her. And that was the beginning of the silver lining. That was the beginning of the reason, the reason why it had all happened, the reason why her career was over and she was a fragile emotional mess. The reason this had all happened was so that she could meet Doctor Vaughn––Victor, as she came to call him––and come to love him. Yes, even come to marry him. So, it was a beginning. The beginning. For them, and for Vanessa, their daughter, who was born two years after they pledged to each other their Forevers.

Vanessa Rose Vaughn was born on May the twentieth, to an excited and indulgent mother and a petrified and naive father. It had been a relatively easy pregnancy for Agnes Vaughn, comparatively: she had reached a point in her physical therapy where she could now walk with the aid of a lovely bejeweled cane, and had taken up a teaching post at the Royal Ballet School, where she instructed the beginning level dancers on the proper techniques for success––simple enough to where she could demonstrate with little discomfort. Her stress, therefore, was not at an unmanageable level, and, truthfully, she was prepared to have a child. More than prepared. It had been a little dream she’d nourished since she was little, having a daughter (she was sure it had been a girl, from the second she knew she was pregnant, and was elated to realize that her mother’s intuition had indeed proved true upon Vanessa’s birth) to dress up and play with and tote around and show off to all her friends. But, of course, it was more than that. To Agnes, mothering came naturally. But that didn’t mean it was the same for her new husband. Now, he wasn’t a bad father, to give him credit where credit was due. But... he wasn’t exactly a very knowledgeable one, either. Agnes had purchased stacks and stacks and stacks of books in preparation for the child, and Victor had just failed to peruse them before Vanessa was born. It’s not that he was apathetic toward the idea, because he did want a child––he just lacked the drive to actively prepare for one. He procrastinated, one might say. And so, when he first held his little, pink daughter in his large hands, all he could think about was how damned much he wished he had prepared, because he was scared shitless. For the first two weeks after she was born, he wandered around the house much like a deer caught in the glare of the headlights, not really knowing what to do, or when to do it, or how do it. Victor was steeped in what seemed to be an irrevocable state of apprehension toward Vanessa, or Nessy, so he called her, as well: he was afraid to touch her, because she was so tiny, and so frail, and he thought he might break her just by looking at her. Gone was the mocking, jokester Victor and serving as his replacement was the terrified, new-dad Mr. Vaughn. He was distracted at work, with the sheer volume of time he spent worrying about Agnes at home with the baby on maternity leave, and he very nearly got laid off before he got his act together and decided to fix this situation by taking it into his own hands and doing some committed supplementary reading. He felt bad because he didn’t want Agnes to know that he hadn’t invested any time in all those books she’d bought him, so, day by day, week by week, he grabbed two or three at a time, stuffed them in his bag, and read them secretly during his lunch break, so he could gain knowledge and eliminate nervousness without her knowing. Soon enough, he’d read just about as much as he could handle of the ‘gushy-mushy baby talk’ or so he termed it (he’d gotten about one third of the way through the pile) and he ceased reading them, satisfied that he knew enough now to at least conduct his daily business with an inkling of what was going on with Nessy and Agnes. That whole mother-daughter bond thing, he recalled it as. Well, he knew what that was! And a lot of other things. He was pleased with himself, Victor was: he had vowed to himself that he was going to be a good father. Or... at least, partially decent. He owed it to Agnes, at the very least. And Vanessa, too, obviously. She had become his world, though he would have never admitted it (he still was very much a cocky arse). But just because he thought he knew what he was doing with her didn’t mean he... did. Because oh, he didn’t, and Agnes would be the first one to vocalize that fact. She often got exceedingly frustrated with him, accusing him of behaving like a bachelor, like a college kid frat boy with his head up his ass and his priorities centered upon football (which, all right, was partially true, he’d admit...). They had lots of arguments, Vanessa recollected from the far reaches of her youth, about her father’s maturity. She often sided with her mother on that one, because Victor was just so gosh-darned hard to defend.

But Agnes and Victor were not the kind of people to hold grudges, or to be able to sustain fights for very long. Eventually, they would make up, and they would do so very overtly in front of baby Vanessa so that they could later assure her that all her memories of them had to be good. Fine, so, they were sneaky parents. Whatever, right? The system worked, and Vanessa, to this very day, always more vividly recalls them making up after their fights than she does their actual fights. She was a spoiled child, that way: her parents always endeavored to reveal their more appealing sides to her, obscuring from her their problems, hiding their faults. She came to view the world through a bit of a rose-colored glass, in a sense, assuming that people just didn’t have problems. At least, not that she’d really seen. The most of the world that the little girl had been exposed to was a dinky ballet studio downtown and her kindergarden class, and little five and six year olds just didn’t have problems, and adults didn’t show their problems, and so Vanessa just didn’t believe in problems. Her world consisted of ponies and rainbows and tutus and that was that. Agnes had taken extra pains to ensure that, incidentally: she had already vowed to herself that she wasn’t going to be one of those horrid, embittered, crusty old, washed up ballerinas who attempted to live vicariously through their daughters: no, she was going to be the cool mom, who supported her daughter at everything she wanted to do. The first, of which, was obviously ballet. ...Okay, so, maybe that hadn’t exactly been Vanessa’s idea, but... whatever, she was talented, she had the build for it, and she was the daughter of Agnes Dagmar, though that name didn’t mean so much to anyone anymore. It didn’t change the fact that Vanessa Vaughn was born with her destiny decided: she was to be a ballet dancer, just like her mother. And, truthfully, she was okay with that. Ballet was her world. She hadn’t known anything else. She grew up with ballerina dolls and pink and frills and ballet shoes and Tchaikovsky and she loved it. Vanessa had never, and she doesn’t think will ever feel encroached upon by her mother. She accepts that ballet was just simply something she was meant to do. It’s a calling, and as long as she’s doing it, she doesn’t care how or in what role––she’s much like her mother in that sense. But, also like her mother, Vanessa had a natural, inherent flexibility and talent which was coveted by the other little girls in the company, and by them she was often treated with contempt. A particular girl, Cora, was grating on Vanessa’s nerves, and one day, as she was practicing her jeté, Vanessa... well, she made her fall. She could remember distinctly, as she was leaning against the bar doing her stretches, skewering Cora with this horrid, foul glare and picturing in her mind over and over just how fabulous it would be if the girl were to accidentally slip on the way down from her jeté, and then all of the sudden.... it happened, and exactly as Vanessa had imagined it. She didn’t really realize what it could mean until later, when she was sitting at home in her room, replaying the scene over and over in her mind, not sure if she’d dreamt it or not. But no, no, of course it had happened, and she was absolutely convinced that she had made it happen. It had shaken her, considerably, for she’d only been seven years old at the time, and it wasn’t like anyone would believe her, so she’d just kept it in, internalized, and reflected. Could it be that she was magical? Of course, it was every little girl’s wish, every little girl’s dream, to harbor some secret, magical power; to be part of a world where the fantastic could become real and inevitable.

It wasn’t until she reached the age of eleven that things started to get sort of... fantastical for real. On her birthday, she received a letter from a magical school. Not the school she had been hoping to receive a letter of acceptance from, either. Of course, she endeavored to follow in her mother’s footsteps and attend the Royal Ballet School, and so she had auditioned for the Lower School a few months prior and was waiting to receive word on that when, instead, she was notified of an acceptance to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, in Scotland. Her parents where both entirely flabbergasted, deemed it as some sick joke, and threw the letter away. The next day, another came. Vanessa was starting to feel anxious about it, for she was still young enough to recall her first use of magic––when she made Cora fall down in ballet class––and she knew, inwardly, that this couldn’t be a joke. Everything lined up far too well for that. But Agnes didn’t trust it, and neither did Victor, and so it was rain-checked for two months before, finally, they were sick of receiving a letter a day and decided to investigate. Agnes asked around, tried to find anyone locally who would have heard of this ‘Hogwarts’ place, and only succeeded in freaking out the neighbors. All hope was almost lost until, one night, Agnes returned home from work with a look on her face that could have only been described by passers-by as agog: she had bumped into a woman that evening by the name of Minerva McGonagall, who apparently taught at this school, and proved to Agnes that magic did actually exist, and that Vanessa possessed the ability to wield it. Agnes wasn’t necessarily afraid of her daughter, but she viewed her in a new light, to say the least. Her daughter was a witch. An honest to goodness, magic-practicing witch. Sorceress. Vanessa could sense her mother’s discomfort with the idea and so tried to quell her own excitement, only really exploding about it to her father (who was often the good cop in the good cop-bad cop parenting dynamic of Mr. and Mrs. Vaughn) and really thinking, to herself, and saying aloud, with subdued wonderment, ’I’m a witch.’ She said that, every night, before she went to bed, until the weight of those words truly sunk in. She walked around the house with a private smile all day, every day, because, dammit, she was a witch, and she was going to a magic school. She had to admit, though, she felt some small twinge of regret at having missed out on the opportunity to attend the Royal Ballet School at which her mother worked––she felt like it really was her destiny to, and that it was her duty as Agnes Dagmar’s daughter to pick up the mantle of talent and carry it to fruition, but... what child could really resist the allure of magic school? And now, especially since her parents believed in it, and were starting to slowly get used to the idea, she felt more secure about it––more in tune with her own confidence than she had ever been before. She’d been raised with the expectations of going to a boarding school, anyway, so the fact that this one was only just slightly farther away didn’t really frighten her. Vanessa had always been an adaptable girl, and it took a lot to scare her. Besides, she was assured that there were others like her––other, um, what was the word, muggleborns, like her, who didn’t know the first thing about this alternate, magical world. So long as she wasn’t alone in her freakish newbie-ness, then she really wasn’t all that concerned. She was a witch, and she’d figure things out eventually, right? It couldn’t be that hard.

Except it was that hard. Hard enough to figure out how to get to Diagon Alley and maneuver in the crowded streets, balancing cauldrons and spell-books and getting around the random critters on the ground. Hard to get the right supplies, and convert pounds to galleons, and not get dizzied by the moving maps and pamphlets on which they relied for navigation. But eventually everything had been completed, and Vanessa had ascertained a lovely, springy wand and a sophisticated looking dappled owl, whom she named Coda, as a reflection of her musical knowledge, in addition to her myriad books and her nice little cauldron. She felt a little ridiculous, wending her way home with all this stuff, but it was worth it. Because she knew something that the people who gave her weird stares on the way home didn’t know: she was a witch, and she was going to magic school, so they could really just suck on that. The next few weeks were torture, as she waited to go to this school, but then, finally, the day came. She couldn’t sleep all night, or eat, or breathe, or think––all she knew was that she was going to a magic school and she was going now. She had to admit, the whole, not-really-there-but-there-platform-nine-and-three-quarters thing was extremely confusing, and, well, she didn’t exactly like the idea of barreling toward a brick pillar, but after she’d seen a few others do it, she felt a renewed sense of confidence, kissed her parents goodbye, and flew on through, safely emerging on the other side and boarding a train to what would become the most important place in her life: Hogwarts. The ride there could have been better, as she was too shy to really speak up and talk to anyone, and mostly just sat and stared agape at all the different candies and trinkets that the other children in her compartment had. She’d brought a book to read, but all she ended up doing was staring like that... the entire way. Some of them tried to initiate conversation with her, but she was just––frozen. And then she got extremely homesick and scared. And... yeah. She was the stupid muggleborn girl who cried on the train. But despite that being her first memory of Hogwarts, Vanessa didn’t let that ruin her first year. Sure, she was terrified, and shy, and totally freaked out, but... she was also adaptable. And she was determined to prove herself. She hadn’t ever been the most social of all the girls, at least, not at first. Sure, she had friends, and they were really welcoming and kind to her, and that was great, because, really, Nessa knew how to have a good time, but for the most part, she dedicated her first three years to excelling in her studies, which she did. She’d never been the most astute student, but, as she soon learned, there was a certain degree of prejudice toward muggleborns, and she didn’t want to suffer the degradation of being not only the muggleborn who cried on the train, but the dumb one, as well. That, and there were some... other reasons she sequestered herself away from her peers. It started out as a fleeting glance. A quickening heartbeat. But then it grew into something a lot bigger than that. And she knew. She’d only been thirteen at the time, but she’d known for longer than that that boys... they didn’t do much for her. She’d kept it in, hidden it, buried it alive. But there was only so long she could keep lying to herself. And then there was this girl. She didn’t know the girl’s name, or anything, but she was beautiful. And she was the catalyst. Some dark haired Slytherin girl who wouldn’t ever give Vanessa the time of day. It didn’t matter, of course. Because Vanessa didn’t want the time of day. What she wanted was to sit with her friends in their dormitory, up late at night, gossiping about cute boys and crushes. What she wanted was normalcy. What she wanted was what she couldn’t have, what she knew she could never have. So, she had to keep herself away from it. She didn’t want to deal with what her mother, or her father would think––the very thought made her stomach do horrible flips. As long as she could keep it inside her head, keep it under control, then it would never be a factor. Then she could just pretend it wasn’t there. And so, no ones knows. No one will know. And as long as it stays that way, Vanessa is safe. She intends for it to stay that way.

As for her fifth year, Vanessa plans to throw herself more rigorously into her dancing (she’s afraid she’ll get rusty if she doesn’t practice), and is strongly considering joining the new cheerleading team for her House in order to keep in shape and keep up with her dance moves. She’s concerned for her O.W.L.s and has also been dedicating much time to studying for them, but at the same time, she’s starting to slip back with the rest of her classes. Motivation can be a bit difficult when you’re so focused on maintaining a lie.

But that’s just the way it is.

Sample Post: <3

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{ C O N T R A C T }

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.

[Marlene McKinnon]

accepted!