B E N O I T, Juliette Jolene

[jules]

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About You - -

Name: Fief.
Gender: Female.
Age: Sixteen.
Years of RPG Experience: Almost five.
Other: Removed by Admin

NOTE: THIS APPLICATION MUST BE READ ACCORDING TO THE FOLLOWING:
[x] It would probably make the most sense to read the history first.
[x] Now, I know it’s a lot, but don’t freak out! Skip the family history if you wish and jump right to her own personal history (which is the third post).
[x] If you have a weak stomach, skip over the parts I have indicated in bolded, oblique, and underlined words.
[x] And, lastly, the credit for the lyrics goes to the Fox movie, Anastasia.

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Quick Quiz - -

How did you find us? Webriiiing.
What about ISS inspired you to join? Everything. n_n
Do you have any suggestions for us? Noppers!

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About the Character- -

Name: Juliette Jolene Benoit. [Also referred to as Jules throughout this application.]
Age: Fifteen.
Gender: Female.
Year: Fifth.
Face Claim: Amanda Seyfried.

Canon or Original? Original.

Facial Properties:

With a thin layer of pale skin smoothly stretched against a strongly set, firm jaw and cleanly chiseled cheekbones, Juliette’s face appears to have been crafted by an artisan. Her light, golden-blonde locks curving gently around her chin frame her angular visage perfectly until they curl past her clavicle and reach her elbows. Even with her small yet wide forehead, Juliette requires no bangs to enhance her appearance; in her youth she experimented with them once and disliked them to such an extent that she constantly wore a headband to push them back and out of sight. They obscured her eyes, she thought, and therefore were not to be worn down. Her eyes, one a soft, light blue, and another a bright green, fringed with a thick row of black lashes, were her best physical attribute – or so she thought – and therefore to jeopardize their being seen would be a dire mistake. Besides, the eyes? They can get her attention too, can’t they? The scars, the eyes... they worked in tandem to draw heads her way. And, when it all comes down to it, that’s what she wants. In addition to her eyes, though, Jules feels her lips are also a very attractive part of her. Soft, red, and delectably kissable, they stand out against her pale skin in a very pretty way, and are very noticeable whenever she speaks or sings.

Physique:

All across her torso there are remnants of that terrible accident which plagued her youth – remnants in the form of thick, white bands of scars. Lining her legs, her arms, and even reaching as far as one deep slit about an inch away from her ear, and were the cause of much embarrassment and awkwardness for Juliette during the years of her youth when she had to get used to the idea of not being able to wear dresses, short-sleeves, shorts, and other various clothing items that would reveal too much skin and lead to pervasive questions by the viewers. Which was sad because Jules really used to adore flaunting her summer tans and her nice, firm legs. And now? Now she can’t so much as wear a swimsuit without turning heads. But... isn’t that what she wanted, anyway? To turn heads, to get attention? This is what Jules realized when she was about twelve years of age: she could use the scars to her advantage, turn heads, attract attention, be the center of it all. And attention is something Jules really likes. So, she started showing skin, wearing a little more revealing outfits, and sure enough heads began to swivel an pivot and crane and eyes strain just to catch a glimpse of those thin and thick and small and large and jagged white bands all over her legs. And Jules? She just smiles and basks.

Standing at five-foot-four inches, a relatively average height for a female, Juliette is well-proportioned and built like a runner. Her long, rather bony fingers were suited well for her early piano and cello lessons, much to the pleasure of her parents. Jules’s torso, flat and of middling length, fit well into her many personalized outfits, and her breasts, filling a normal B cup, rest nicely on her chest – not too low, not too high. With long, spindly legs laced with strong muscles and thin arms, she could easily outrun anyone.

Wand Type: Birchwood, 12 1/2 inches, Thestral hair core. { The wand most likely chose Jules on account of the fact that she had dealt with death in her life and it had really changed her, had really defined parts of her. Therefore the Thestral hair core was attracted to her connection with death. White, for birchwood, symbolizes purity, which Juliette most certainly was not prior to the “accident” but had become later. The striking length of the wand represents how much she had grown after dealing with death at such a young age. }
Wand Expertise: Healing and protection spells, chiefly those such as the Shield charm, though it is difficult to master and she hasn’t quite gotten it yet. Her wand is also skilled at Charms and Transfiguration. So much so that one day she’d like very much to become an Animagus, though she realizes that is difficult and nearly impossible.
Patronus: Polar bear. { A polar bear represents life, death, and rebirth, all three themes figuring largely in Juliette’s life thus far, particularly the last, ‘rebirth.’ Really, she was reborn as a completely different person after her parents’ death, so it makes perfect sense for her Patronus to signify that. Also, polar bears are extremely protective over their young, just like Juliette is over her younger brother, Christopher. These arctic ursine are also very territorial when it comes to their dwellings, just as Juliette is with the Hammond Manor. }
Boggart: Her brother, Christopher, becoming a wizard. { If that were to occur, Jules wouldn’t really have a reason to protect him anymore, as he would learn easily to fend for himself. That would really hurt her because she practically lives for protecting him, for making sure he’s always all right, for guarding him like a mother hen. If he became a wizard he would have to go to Hogwarts, where he would be exposed to so many different horrific things. Jules really wouldn’t be able to bear that. Because, partly, she doesn’t completely know how to protect him from the wizarding world. It’s still very new to her as well, and having to protect him against magic too would make her too vulnerable for her own good. She likes to perform magic in front of Christopher, adores pleasing him in various ways, but would never ever want him to be like her, to have to see the things she’s seen. The curses, the jinxes... it would be too frightening for him. Thus, Jules vows to herself, he should never have to endure it. }


Personality:

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MANIC

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As a lingering side effect from the “accident,” Jules was diagnosed with manic depression. In the case of mania, she gets on a bubbly, crazy, irrational high that takes her a while from which to come down. She just gets... so excited, her inhibitions are weakened, her reflex to resist nearly fades into the background, and as she succumbs to a seemingly never-ending giggle-fit, so does her common sense succumb to the black hole that is her mania, getting swallowed alive by it. It is in situations such as these that she often finds herself regretting her actions because, as was aforementioned, her common sense and inhibitions seem to recede farther and farther back into the recesses of her mind, almost disappearing entirely. It is in this mania that she takes greater risks than she would if she were in her ‘mellow’ phase: such as jumping off buildings and using an Accio spell for her broom to see how close she would come from splatting on the ground, or to see how many doses of Veritaserum it would take for her to speak nothing but the truth, or how tight she can lace a corset before killing herself, or... well, you get the picture. You see, it is during her mania that Jules experiments with death. Shocker, eh? She has a bit of a morbid fascination with it, an attraction to it – she recognizes it as something that brings her closer to her mother and father and baby sister. While mellow, Jules absolutely despises the idea of anyone toying with their life so recklessly, but... well, when her mental stability is questionable, she can’t really do anything about it, can she? Now, this mania doesn’t happen too often. Usually at parties or when she’s with her friends and that makes her giddy. But there are levels: happiness to excitement to giggling to laughing to giddiness to jubilance, and, finally, to mania. The stages are usually easy to see, but they stack up quickly, so it’s hard to stop once it’s started.

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DEPRESSIVE

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With every spectrum there comes two extreme ends, and depression is the reverse extreme of the above paragraph, mania. When Juliette sinks deeper and deeper into a state of imperturbable depression, there’s no telling how long it will last. The mania, requiring incredible amounts of energy, usually only lasts for a few hours before her body gives out. But depression doesn’t cost nearly as much energy, no – depression, in fact, gives her a bit of a break because it causes her to expend as little energy as possible. She really just lies around, acting lethargic, apathetic toward everything, and too tired and unmotivated to do anything let alone move. She usually slips into depression when alone, or even in the common room, but, really, anywhere where she can just... sit down and become one with the furniture for a few hours. Or days. Or weeks. Really, the depression can last up to two weeks (the longest for Jules was two weeks, anyway) where it’s all she can do to move from one place to another, to stick a toothbrush in her mouth, to feed herself, to do practically anything that requires moving. Because when she’s depressed, she just... doesn’t do anything. She neglects her homework, her friends, her social life, her owl, even her fashion designs. She has no will to do anything, no desire to pull herself out of the dumps... all she wants to do is lie around and sleep and think and cry. Sleep because she wants to escape the world and because she’s too bored to do anything else. Think about nothing else but depressing, morbid thoughts that lower her self esteem and will to live. Cry because of regret, of pity, of remorse for what she should have done that night of the “accident,” how she should have done something, should have said something to her mother beyond blankly staring at her... and when Jules is reduced to tears, you know there’s nothing to be done. And there’s no telling how long it’ll last.

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MELLOW

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This is the emotional phase in which Juliette finds herself most days. To any other person, this would be classified as ’normal’ or ‘average’ but Jules chooses to call it her mellow phase because she doesn’t like being called normal or average. But, really, that’s what this stage is – her ‘normal’ stage, everyday, regular... what have you. Either way, when Jules is mellow, she feels at her best: healthy, strong, active, positive. It is during this time where she’s her normal confidant, loving, happy self. When she’s able to function normally, do her homework, hang out with friends without the risk of getting manic, laze around the common room alone without the fear of getting depressed. This phase can last up to several weeks, but usually not beyond that as it is interrupted by instances of either mania or depression (which, sadly, can’t be kept away for too long). She strives to be in this phase for the majority if her days, and her psychiatrist said that her holistic forms of medication should help her to balance out the mania and depression. Which was her goal, obviously. However, Jules is still required to visit her psychiatrist monthly over the summer and during breaks in the school year for routine mental check-ups, just to see how she’s doing, how she’s handling her illness. And, so far, Jules has been doing phenomenally well. At first she was having trouble having a mellow phase for even part of the day; usually she was either manic or depressed, never anything in between, and then the psychiatrist decided to try to temper the chemical imbalance in Jules’s brain by giving her more supplementary vitamins and such, which also seemed to help quite a bit. So soon, with every increasing year, there was more space between her mania and depression, much to her pleasure. Not that the manic depression is over, though. Far from it. It just doesn’t come as often as it used to anymore.

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DAREDEVIL

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This is something that she undoubtedly inherited from her mother and the rest of the Benoits (Brigitte, the founder, being the case and point). Nicolette’s ways had most definitely rubbed off on her firstborn daughter, and Jules couldn’t have been more proud to showcase such a prominent family trait. She’s always the first to volunteer for certain activities, always the first to be willing to try strange and unfamiliar foods, always the first to listen to new music, new points of view, refreshingly different opinions, philosophies, and the like. Now, being a daredevil doesn’t necessarily mean she’s brave, because she’s not. Jules just likes to take chances, to take risks, to live a little. But there’s nothing she would ever do while in her mellow phase, at least, that would cause her to take chances on her life. Because Jules doesn’t play with something that fucking killed her family. And if anyone ever tries to get her to? Well, they can expect a verbal whipping. Because Jules is serious about life – she doesn’t screw around, doesn’t do anything stupid (except when she’s manic and loses her inhibition). She values life more than that; she even aspires to be a Healer at St. Mungo’s, so she doesn’t take death lightly. Either way, Jules is still a daredevil at soul, never fearing consequences, never letting herself limit her potential or discovery of life. She wants to eat new and exciting food, wants to try playing an instrument, wants to taste different aspects of life and become worldly, really. Because to Jules, that’s what matters: it’s not how long your life is, it’s not how it ends. No. It’s how you live it. Right?

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OPTIMISTIC & CHARISMATIC

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Being manic depressive really has little to do with her optimism, nor does it affect it... on most days, anyway. Jules is just a naturally upbeat and positive girl who’s always got a smile pasted on her lips and joy dancing in her eyes. Because Juliette learned to move on with her life, learned to honor her family with joy, learned through this miraculous gift that she has a reason to still be alive and needs to respect that reason, flesh it out, give it a face, live to her full potential for her family’s sake. So, Jules feels like she’s got nothing to lose that she’s already lost (with the exception of her remaining, fragmented family at the Hammond Manor). She’s convivial, she’s joyous, she’s always looking for the silver lining and doesn’t settle for anything less. Juliette is the kind of girl who can make something out of nothing and fun out of the most boring situations: which is why she passes so many notes in class. Because, really, notes spice up her day, add flavor to her bland schedule, and increase her social influence. Which is desirable, anyway. She’s always the life of the party, the social butterfly, the little fashionista, the little diva who draws all the attention – not because she’s pretty, not because of her scars, not because of anything physical. It’s because of her charisma, her warmth. She’s an incredibly approachable person and people like that, are attracted to her approachability and her constant stream of optimism. And who can blame them? The earth is full of pessimism. It’s easier to be pessimistic, non? So when there’s someone with a little bit of hope for the future, those who are constantly surrounded with dismal and dreary criticisms of the world are drawn to that someone. And that someone? It’s more than likely Juliette Benoit.

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FASHIONISTA

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In every sense of the word. Jules is absolutely, utterly, completely obsessed with the world of fashion – and no, not just any fashion. High fashion. As in, bright lights, avant garde models with frizzy hair and teeny, tall bodies, with crazy, boxy, silky clothes and runways and photographs and paparazzi and ten-inch heels and... she could go on forever. But, really, she practically lives for the world of fashion designing (she was never really interested in being a model, and the “accident” kinda ruined that for her anyway) and can hardly ever distract her thoughts from it; even when she sleeps she can’t escape from the flashing lights and tight dresses. She loves it all – the fantastically ornate, gaudy, and ostentatious make up, the ridiculously high heels, the insane outfits, the painful-to-look-at-hairstyles... hell, she even loves the backstage drama for Merlin’s sake! But, in all truth, this is more of a hobby than it is a prospective profession. Because Juliette now realizes that she as a duty to the wizarding world, that her place is not with the so-called ‘muggles,’ no, not now that she has a gift. That she has a talent beyond pretty dresses and matching purses. No, Juliette views her powers, her talents as something much more than a sudden supernatural gift – they are her calling in life, her connection to something more than herself. And the world of fashion? Well, it sure is great, isn’t it? But in the end, will it be as spiritually beneficial as the usage of magic will be? She thinks not. So, she’s content to simply keep this as a hobby, as a thing to do during boring classes: just sketch and come up with crazy new outfits to make for her friends to model. Now that always brings a smile to her face: seeing her friends wear her designs, to flaunt them around the school, to praise her. However... well, Jules’s designs aren’t necessarily very good. In fact, they’re particularly dreadful. They’re interesting, surely, but they’re the kind of thing you’d never want to be caught dead in. The whole avant garde idea? It really appeals to Jules, and she utilizes it in every single thing she designs. She never really has been able to design something even remotely wearable. But... it looks nice on paper? Just not when she stuffs you in it with that light but intimidating French accent of hers and informs you that you must wear it to such-and-such occasion. No. Then, it’s not very cool, and it’s the reason why many of her friends purposely avoid her when she’s in one of her designing-moods.

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COMPETITIVE

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Ever since she was little, Juliette felt that she had to be the best she could be, in every sense of the word. She would always try to eat her food really quickly to be the first done, or would hurry and tell her father exciting news first before her mother got to it. And, for a while, Nicolette felt this was an incredibly endearing trait, but after living with it for several years she decided enough was enough and began to slowly try to extract the competitive nature from her daughter. This availed to a small measure – Jules no longer resolves to being first at petty, small, trivial things, no, now she channels her innate competitiveness toward her schoolwork, her singing, her fashion designing. She wastes her time trying to be the best at the things that matter, now, and is not nearly so ostentatious about it. With age, she learned the wonders of discretion and has been utilizing it throughout her life ever since. She’d very good at being very discreetly competitive, not gasping at the sight of a challenge, not nearly jumping out of her seat every time a competition was proposed. Now, we must not get Juliette’s competitive nature mixed with her intelligence level – while, yes, she does like to be the best at everything, she generally fails at the more difficult schoolwork. She strays from arts such as Arithmancy and Ancient Runes because she lacks the cognitive skills required for such classes. No, she isn’t dumb. She’s just good a handful of things, and those handful of things are much more opinion-oriented than analytically-oriented. Jules is good at Muggle Studies (obviously), Potions (she finds Professor Slughorn very endearing), and even Transfiguration (Professor McGonagall is her favorite teacher). Herbology, however, is by far her favorite. So, during those classes in which she excels, Juliette becomes extremely competitive. She wants to be the first one to pull out the writhing weeds from the ground, the first to pacify a screaming plant, the first to answer any question, whether or not her answer is right. Doesn’t matter. She just wants to be the first. And because she doesn’t care for right or wrong, she’s not necessarily a poor loser, either. That’s where her optimism kicks in. When she loses a game of wizard’s chess or the like, she simply throws back her head and laughs. Because her love of life trumps any other negative emotion. So? So she giggles and forfeits and tries again. Perseverance, it can be said, dovetails with competitiveness. Just because she takes her loss well doesn’t mean she isn’t going to try to win again.

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CRITICAL

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When we say ‘critical,’ we refer primarily to literature. Juliette is incredibly selective of her literature and goes to great lengths to ensure its decency or worth. She abhors the books targeted toward her age group, deeming them ‘silly, titillating excuses for books directed toward a largely hormonal audience.’ So, she doesn’t think too highly of teen fiction. However, what she does like is poetry. And not just any poetry. She will only read Poe or Shakespeare. She likes snippets of other authors, Rosetti, Moliere, and both Brownings, for instance, but she doesn’t like all of their works like she does Poe’s and Shakespeare’s. She loves Poe’s novellas, his short stories, his florid, sweeping, exalting verses, his lilting words of love tainted by death... it all really floats her boat. As for Shakespeare, his language is phenomenal. It takes Jules weeks to get through one of his plays and understand what he’s trying to say, and often times she must reread it, but when the lightbulb goes off above her head she falls in love with him all over again. Selfishly, she has fantasies that back four hundred years ago she was his elusive Dark Lady, that he wrote these words for her. She’ll often pass time that way; it helps her go to sleep. She started this when she was about thirteen and had read her first Shakespearian play, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, which she had thought was absolutely phenomenal (she had decided upon reading it that if she ever has a daughter she would like to name her Hermia). She would lie in bed and stare at the ceiling, letting her mind carry her hundreds of years into the past, into a swirling, golden English court where she, garbed in shimmering silk attire, would dance and Shakespeare would smile at her from the corner in which he sat, scribbling away at some parchment in between his stolen glances at her. She would fall asleep, dreaming that she was the namesake of his most famous heroine, and wake up with her heart still full of childish dreams. Other times, she would imagine herself as Poe’s Annabel Lee, frolicking happily on the seashore of their island as he stared wistfully at her, never able to quite catch her.

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GLUTTON

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Yeah, she’s thin. Yeah, she’s tall. Yeah, she’s pretty. Okay, so, where are the flaws, you ask (beyond the scarring, heterochromia, and competitiveness, that is)? Well, Jules just can’t keep her hands off the food. She absolutely, undeniably, eternally, and utterly adulates food. She’s always savoring each bite and, after her mother removed the competitive eating habits, is always the last finish. She takes her time on a meal, trying to properly appreciate all the booming flavors and delectable textures. Juliette blames this on her mother, as, often, on their excursions to Paris, she would accompany her mother and her aunt, Francoise, to posh French restaurants and really got a taste – pun intended – of how the other side lived. She loved going to France not because she liked to practice her fluent French, or even because she wanted to show off her Barbie doll clothes to all of Nicolette’s designer friends, no: it was because she wanted to eat. And who can blame her? Paris has the best food in Europe! At least, in Jules’s eyes. When she discovered the wizarding world of good eats, Juliette was also incredibly overwhelmed. Bouncing chocolate frogs, every-flavor (literally) jelly beans... and, being the daredevil she is, Juliette totally attacked all these strange and unfamiliar foods with little hesitation. The first night at Hogwarts? She spent it sick in the bathroom because she’d eaten too much and over-loaded her gall bladder with gummies and jelly beans and sentient chocolate. But hey, she learned her lesson, right? Wrong, Jules over-powered her gall bladder probably once a week for her entire first year! Old habits die hard, eh? But, eventually, she did grow out of it, learning to temper her eating habits and regulate what she did and didn’t stuff her face with. But, still... first stop on Hogsmeade trips? Honeyduke’s. And then for a butterbeer at the Broomsticks. But she never overdoes it anymore – her metabolism was so moderate that she gained a significant amount of weight in her first year and had to exercise regularly in order to achieve her former weight. And after that, Jules was much more careful. No more midnight snacking for her!

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LOVING, LOYAL & SELFLESS

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Juliette has, as Albus Dumbledore said, ‘a knack for protection.’ Having lost most of her family to that horrific “accident“ in her youth, Jules is fierily protective of her remaining family and friend group. This includes Bernard, Francoise, and Christopher. She isn’t normally the type to have best friends, per se. Though Jules is extremely charismatic and likable, she prefers to fly solo most of the time, reserving her socialite self to emerge through parties and other various gatherings. Not that she doesn’t like hanging out with her friends, no, that’s not it. She loves sleepovers and things like that with a passion – she’s always the first to take the dare instead of tell the truth, simply because the dares are more fun and she loves the attention it brings her – but she is more of a sit-and-journal type of girl as opposed to a party-all-night-long one. Plus, Jules was never even used to having lots of people around her as she’d never attended public school, she’d only ever had a private tutor. So, when she’d first arrived at Hogwarts, it was culture shock for her in several different ways. Sure, she’d played with the children of her parents’ friends before, but this was different. She’d never had to share living quarters with any of them, had she? However, Juliette likes to think she adjusted quite well to her new surroundings, having learned very good adjustment skills after the death of her parents and the end of her therapy, and made friends fast. And those friends? They’re still her friends. Because she’s that loyal, that steadfast. When Jules makes a friend, even if it’s not a long-term thing, or even if she’s not even so close to that friend, she remains faithful. Jules never forgets anyone. She’s incredibly loving to those friends too, no matter how many she has and even if they’re not her best friends. She has quite a few very good, even very close friends, and she loves them all dearly. Since she has such a surplus of wealth, Juliette always purchases the best birthday and Christmas presents for them as well, and is the type of person to tack ‘no presents allowed’ underneath her own party invitations. Jules has learned, after the ”accident,“ that material is not everything. She learned how to be selfless, how to be magnanimous, how to share her good luck and fortune with those she loves. And, those she loves? She loves till death do them part.

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DRAMA QUEEN

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No, not in the common meaning of the world with the negative connotation. This is meant in the absolute literal sense – Juliette adores drama, acting, and the works of Shakespeare. And only the works of Shakespeare. Call her a hypocrite for claiming to be open-minded, call her a purist, call her judgmental. And all those things would be true, But, really, Jules feels that while she has read many, many other authors and playwrights, she has never found one that is capable of sending the thrills down her spine she gets when reading Shakespeare. So, she dedicates herself to the study of his fabulous masterpieces, often reciting monologues whilst in the courtyard or common room (her frequent haunts). Her favorite play is Othello, as she believes it is the highest testimony of a love which transcended all evils. Most commonly you’ll hear her reciting monologues written for both the heroines – Desdemona and Emilia – though Desdemona is her favorite, as she is the pinnacle of all innocence and the epitome of the faithful wife (and she is the most beautiful, so what young girl wouldn’t stake her as her favorite?). Juliette, despite the obvious reference, does not enjoy the play of her namesake. She enjoys the story, but she feels as though it lacked the beautiful maturity that Othello possesses. Though she loves his works and enjoys acting out his plays both in her head and verbally, Jules does not wish to pursue acting as a career or the like for the same reasons she didn’t want to apply herself to the fashion world: she feels that since she was given a gift she might as well use it to help others, to actually make a difference in the world. So, acting remains a hobby, as does fashion, and healing takes the top priority.

Likes:
+ Boys. { Juliette has always had a thing for them, being an instinctual flirt as far back as she could remember. }
+ Flirting. { One of her earliest and most long-lived hobbies. }
+ Playing hard-to-get. { As a byproduct of her inherent ability to flirt, playing hard-to-get is another of Jules’s enjoyable pastimes; a trait, it can be safely said, of the Benoit family, starting with their founder, Brigitte, though it brought her more harm than good. }
+ Fashion. { A rather cultural escape, Juliette adores high fashion – when young she would frequently play dress-up with her Barbie dolls and visit France with her mother, who knew all the prominent designers in Paris. She also enjoys designing her own clothes, though they are extremely avant-garde and not very appealing. }
+ Gothic Literature. { Those dark, dreary romances really attract Jules for some reason. Her favorites are ‘Wuthering Heights,’ ‘Jane Eyre,’ and ‘Dracula.’ }
+ Jewelry. { Having been fascinated by the stuff since she peeked into her mother’s jewelry box, the accessories store is the first place Juliette goes when shopping. }
+ Romeo, her dog. { Adorable, tiny, and sweet, Jules was incredibly upset that she couldn’t bring her fluffy little fifteenth birthday present from Auntie Francoise to school. }
+ Make-up.{ From an elite and wealthy family, Juliette began making public appearances to various parties when young and thus wore quite a bit of make-up at her mother’s insistence. }
+ Medicine (both Muggle and Wizard). { Juliette devotes most of her free time to studying various methods of medicine and has decided her place in the wizarding world is at St. Mungo’s as a Healer – she is taking the necessary prerequisite classes at Hogwarts. She feels that this is the best way for her to give back to the world for sparing her life. }
+ Herbology class. { Dovetailing with her dedication to medicine, Juliette adores learning more about herbal remedies for diseases and sicknesses, thus one of her favorite classes is Herbology. }
+ Potions class. { Another prerequisite of Healer training, Juliette enjoys this class and tries her best to impress dear Professor Slughorn, her favorite teacher next to Professor Sprout. }
+ Christopher. { Nothing will be able to lessen or describe the love Juliette harbors for her only surviving family member. }
+ Uncle Bernie. { He’s become like a second father to her and ultimately saved her from depression.}
+ Auntie Francoise. { Almost like a second mother to her, Jules is the child that Francoise never got to have, and treats her as such. Though she is a strict disciplinarian Jules couldn’t imagine her life without her. }
+ The Hammond Manor. { It’s her home, her retreat, her special place. The memories of her parents still linger in every corridor, in every room, comforting Juliette when she despairs. }
+ Journaling. { After the death of her parents, Juliette found it very cathartic for her to release her tension and sadness into her diary. Now that almost five years have passed and the grief is not as blinding, she still keeps the diary as more of a daily log of her activities, using it for its original purposes when necessary. }
Dislikes:
– Automobiles. { They took her parents’ lives. }
– Reading. { It’s not that she dislikes reading per se, it’s more that she’s highly selective of what she reads and can be rather critical of everything else. }
– Thievery. { Such an action goes against all her morals. }
– Pretension. { People who are social climbers do not deserve to be rewarded, she believes. }
– Parties. { At least, when she throws them. She used to adore them but now finds them rather tiresome as she has to make rounds and speak with all the guests instead of her parents. And that always brings unwelcome memories, anyway, as she obviously misses her parents and seeing their friends reminds her of them. }
– Sleeping. { The ”accident“ will occasionally haunt her in her sleep, especially on its anniversary. }
– Bugs. { They are disgusting little creatures to her and she absolutely abhors them. }
– Prejudice. { Being a muggle in a wizarding world, Juliette has come to understand what it is like to be disliked on the basis of what’s flowing in her veins. }
– Disloyalty. { She believes it is one of man’s greatest sins. }
– Astronomy class. { The concept of the universe, of stars, of constellations scares her. She’s not sure why. Perhaps it’s that it’s too big to comprehend. }
– Divination class. { It reminds her of cheap fortune-tellers at carnivals. }
– Regulus Black. { She hates what he’s become. She was looking forward to seeing him again during her first year at Hogwarts, but he ignores her existence, favoring the other pretty girls instead. }
– Being vulnerable. { The feeling of being exposed, having her fate be in someone else’s hands, thoroughly frightens her. }
– Needles. { She just... hates sharp objects used by Muggles doctors. Needles in particular. She hates shots. }
– Assignments. { Though Juliette is and has been a diligent worker, she really hates the heaviness of responsibility being thrust upon her whenever she is assigned homework of any kind. It’s not that she’s lazy, it’s just that she procrastinates terribly and hates pressure. }
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[jules]

[THIS IS THE FAMILY HISTORY. SKIP IF YOU SO DESIRE.]

History:

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HEART DON’T FAIL ME NOW, COURAGE DON’T DESERT ME

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Brigitte Benoit’s life began the day her father died.

Three years prior, the beautiful young woman had been tending the cattle outside on her father’s farm when the handsome – albeit frail – king of France had paraded by on his velvet cushion. His jeweled scepter representing his love of peace was in his hand as he viewed the agrarian countryside of Languedoc, the poorer half of his country (to be frank). When his beady black eyes caught sight of the muddied maiden, he was so utterly taken by her than he knew he must have her. And Brigitte, covered with dirt and leaves and grease, was so amazed that the King of France had actually taken interest in her, a poor cattle maiden, that she couldn’t help but feel flattered. So, she smiled prettily at him with what teeth she had left and encouraged his glances. However, Brigitte’s senile father, Albert, a confirmed anarchist and hater of monarchy, refused to allow his daughter to acquiesce with the king’s request – the king, Louis the Stammerer, had asked Brigitte to accompany him back to his castle and become his official mistress. Brigitte was intoxicated by this power and respect she suddenly had, and immediately said yes. She’d hopped onto the carriage with the king... only to be swiftly tugged back down by her crippled and insane father. Albert had shouted obscenities at the king, threatening him and the like, to which the king’s knights responded angrily. They asked King Louis for permission to ‘eradicate the urchin,’ however Louis, ever-pacifying, would have none of it and sent Albert back into his house with a golden coin. He instructed Brigitte to visit the palace as soon as her father died, as she would then be able to freely give herself to Louis.

So, Brigitte Benoit’s life began the day her father died. Make sense now?

She was seventeen years old and had waited for three long years for her sickly, limp father to kick the bucket. And when he finally succumbed to a particularly nasty bout of dysentery, Brigitte couldn’t have been more elated. She took a swift steed from her measly stable and practically flew across the countryside to the king’s grand stone palace, where she finally met with its occupants: the king, obviously, Louis the Stammerer, his two handsome sons, Louis and Carloman, and his wife, Adelaide. The king ushered her into an empty chamber, where he lavished gifts, money, and clothing on her, gave her servants to bathe and dress her, and made her extremely welcome. Brigitte, drunk on the splendor, was so overwhelmed that she nearly fainted. She’d never felt silk on her skin, never felt warm water, never had been completely clean before. But now she was. And when she looked in the mirror, she was a completely different girl. Her pale blonde hair was smooth and lustrous and her skin was glowing, her eyes were twinkling, her cheeks were a pleasant pink. Brigitte had never been happier then when she flounced out of that chamber and was led into the king’s, where the two were finally able to consummate their attraction. And for the next few months, King Louis and Brigitte actually began to fall in love. She found his stammering endearing and he thought her nearly toothless mouth was cute. Disgusting? Yes. But romantic? Oh yes. Brigitte truly did fall in love with King Louis, and, much to Adelaide’s despair, King Louis reciprocated those feelings until his untimely death in the year 879.

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DON’T TURN BACK NOW THAT WE’RE HERE

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He had fallen in battle against the encroaching Viking forces and had returned home to Brigitte and his sons in order to a) visit his only love and b) figure out who was going to be king after him. After deciding to grant his children dual sovereignty, King Louis died in Brigitte’s arms. She was now nineteen and had been his mistress for two whole, passionate years. This had not gone unnoticed by the king’s sons, Carloman and Louis, who had been wonderful companions to Brigitte during her stay at the palace. They decided to allow her to continue living with them in respect of their father, and it became painfully obvious that each boy had a small attraction to their father’s previous mistress. This didn’t really bother Brigitte, as she had grown accustomed to the longing stares of men during her stay at court. Besides, she even liked it. And moving from one king to the other, be they related or not? She didn’t have a problem with it. No, the only hesitation she had was which boy to encourage first. And, as Louis was the older of the two, she decided to pursue him. Louis was a strapping young fellow: handsome, athletic, smart. In short, everything a king should be. He was three years older than Brigitte but was her age mentally: however, he was frivolous, partied too much for his own good, and womanized like no other. Brigitte was simply another one of his conquests, though he did seem to genuinely harbor some feelings for her. It didn’t matter in the long run. He’d had her more times than he could count on his fingers and toes combined, and he still enjoyed having her, he just liked some variety. Which angered Brigitte, since she was used to being the center of attention for so long.

Brigitte Benoit did not like being second-best. So, she decided she wouldn’t be anymore. What was the best way to win a guy’s attention? Easy. Play hard-to-get. So, that’s what she did. She didn’t let Louis have her whenever he wanted her: no, he had to work for it. And one sunny afternoon he was chasing her throughout the castle gardens, weaving through the brush and the trees as he sought to capture her. Feeling himself loosing the chase, he grabbed a horse from the stables and flew after her. He chased Brigitte all around the castle and back into the stables, where she had easily jumped over the fence and secreted herself in one of the stalls, readying herself for a compromise. However, compromise did not come, for Louis’s horse did not make the jump. Instead, its hoof got caught on the bottom rung of the fence and propelled Louis forward into the meadow on the other side. This would have been a very funny scene had Louis’s neck not been snapped upon contact with the ground. Brigitte, feeling personally responsible for his death, would have killed herself as an act of penance had she not discovered she was carrying his child. Removing herself from the luxuries of court and trying to live a little quieter, Brigitte Benoit retired to a tiny, paeanistic village where a kindly group of priestesses took her in and assisted her in her pregnancy, caring for her and promising to help her look after her child when it was born. Brigitte really did love them, and it broke her heart to part with them when she died in childbirth, leaving her newborn son in their care.

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PEOPLE ALWAYS SAY LIFE IS FULL OF CHOICES, BUT NO ONE EVER MENTIONS FEAR

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The priestesses held a solemn burial service for Brigitte and laid her body to rest with all the other priests and priestesses in the village cemetery. They christened her infant Albert. Albert Benoit grew up just like any other boy, except he had an advantage. Living the majority of his life in the pagan village ensured his education and proper upbringing, for which Albert was eternally grateful. He loved his family of bumbling little priestesses and grew to be a peaceable young man, much like his grandfather. He was obsessed with scrolls and knowledge and the like and dedicated the rest of his life to increasing his brilliance. He traveled all across France, meeting nobles, fighting Vikings, and studying rare scrolls in other pagan villages all along the way. By the end of his travels, he was as wealthy in the mind as any man could hope to be: this goal accomplished, he moved on to more menial tasks, such as selecting a wife and rearing a family. Albert was a fairly handsome boy, having inherited his father’s and mother’s good looks, so this task was not a difficult one. The tavern he often visited when he wished to study with a good cup of mead had many prospective women around it, thus he journeyed there in search of such a one. When he arrived, the first thing he noticed was a young girl, perhaps fourteen, standing outside with her father, receiving a rather harsh beating for having done something apparently unforgivable. Albert quickly challenged the girl’s father to a duel, feeling for some reason or another swayed to do so, and quickly put the fat man in his place. The girl, bloodied and bruised, now belonged to Albert, as he had won the duel, and he escorted her to the village where he had been raised. The priestesses washed, clothed and fed her and took her as their new charge. Albert became particularly attached to this girl, Nichola, and spent many days and hours of his time improving her life by teaching her the ways of life.

Needless to say, Nichola fell in love with him.

And, also needless to say, Albert fell in love with her.

So, when Nichola had reached fifteen, she and Albert, nineteen, were quietly wed inside the village meeting center and were alloted a small piece of land behind the building – Albert had been hired as their new stable-master. There was a tiny stone cottage tucked underneath an extremely tall hill right next to the stables, and this is where Nichola and Albert settled. Soon, they had another son, Ethelred Benoit. When Nichola turned sixteen, Albert decided to go into the town surrounding the royal palace and purchase a small gift for her. While in town, he heard rumors circulating about the new king, Charles the Fat, cousin to Carloman (who had died hunting shortly after Brigitte’s death), and his right to the crown. Many believed he was a usurper, others believed he had truer blood than Carloman and Louis had. Either way, that rumor didn’t bother Albert. It was the second rumor that bothered him the most: was there a son of Carloman running about? And hadn’t he been seen with one woman in particular, a pretty blonde who had previously been the mistress of his father? Albert was shaken, because that description of the beautiful blonde woman fit his mother to a T. He grabbed a little bauble and ran for the village, pleading the priestesses to level with him and tell him the truth regarding his birth. One eventually did, against her better judgment, and informed him that he was indeed the son of the former King Carloman, and that he had strong royal blood pulsing through his veins. Albert, not sure whether to be devastated or happy, told Nichola of the news. The young family then journeyed to the castle and requested an audience with King Charles the Fat, who granted them one. Albert pleaded his case, but Charles would have none of it and ordered his execution for threatening the security of the throne. Three days later he was beheaded.

Nichola was destroyed by her husband’s death.

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OR HOW THE WORLD CAN SEEM SO VAST ON THIS JOURNEY TO THE PAST

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She was plunged into a constant state of mourning that not even the kindly priestesses could distill. She was unable to eat, unable to drink, unable to raise her young son. Eventually, she starved herself to death. Ethelred was three. Saddened by the loss of both parents, Ethelred stayed only in the village as long as he had to, wanting only to break away from the smell of death it carried as soon as possible. When he was twelve, he left the village in search of himself. He was searching for ten years across the plains of rural France until he found himself in the sparkling blue eyes of a lovely young girl named Alieanor. He and Alienor were swiftly wed and began farming in Languedoc, ironically enough, the place where Ethelred’s grandmother Brigitte had lived for most of her life.

Ethelred and Alienor’s line extended its fingers for hundreds of years across time until it nearly was stopped dead in its track upon the birth of three heirs in 1050 A.D.: Charles, Margarette, and Adelaide, the brood of Mathilde and Robert (Robert was a direct descendent of the children of Alieanor and Ethelred). The children grew up very favorably, hardly ever arguing. They were very fond of each other, you see, and stuck together to try and stay alive in the turbulent times in which they lived. But, as we all know, turbulent times mean heightened death rates, and poor little Adelaide perished from an unidentified illness at the age of nine, following her mother and father. Devastated and lost, Charles and Margarette clung to one another for security. Charles, being the elder, assumed the position of Head of Family and Margarette as his dutiful sister, primarily focused on carrying on the line through a son. Charles sought both a wife for himself and a husband for Margarette when he’d reached the age of sixteen and she of thirteen, and found a particularly favorable match in a squire to the current king. Margarette, having come from lowly birth, was fascinated by the lavish court lifestyle and took to it very well, living happily with her husband. He was soon promoted to knighthood and Margarette became Lady Margarette, much to her pleasure – shortly after this, she became pregnant, much to the knight’s and to Charles’s pleasure.

Charles, on the other hand, spent more time amassing some wealth through farming and eventually got to a position where he could comfortably purchase a small manor in Languedoc, away from the court and from his sister and back into the agrarian world from which he came. Charles was unable to keep servants or the like, but he did find a suitable wife with a pleasant dowry in a young girl of fourteen named Elizabeth, daughter to the medical practitioner of the king’s most cherished knight. Elizabeth struggled with this new lifestyle, as she and her father had been very close and it was difficult for her to separate herself from him, but in the end she and Charles grew very fond of each other and through their twelve years of marriage she bore him three sons: Gaston, Guillaume, and Robert. Guillaume, nicknamed Guy, was the only son whom survived infancy. Elizabeth had died in the birthing of Robert, the youngest, who had been born still, and Charles had never really gotten over her death. A year later, Gaston was involved in accident with a careless equestrian, which left Guillaume the sole heir to the Benoit name (the Lady Margarette had only given birth to a daughter, the beautiful Blanche, who was quite popular with the knights and even with the king himself, though she was not able to carry on the Benoit name herself). Guillaume married Blanche after he had been promoted to knighthood as well, and the two lived in the palace, though they had a small country home in Languedoc, the official retreat of the Benoit family. Blanche and Guy had a very angry and desolate marriage fraught with fights, tension, and bitterness. Blanche was unfaithful to her husband with many knights, and Guillaume just couldn’t handle that. When he’d found out about it, anyway. And, according the custom of the time, Guy murdered his wife on charges of adultery.

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SOMEWHERE DOWN THIS ROAD, I KNOW SOMEONE’S WAITING

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The two had never produced any children, thus Guy, now preparing to enter his thirties, became desperate for another wife through which to carry on the Benoit name. Since he was a prestigious and well-respected knight, however, this was not a difficult feat. He was surrounded by countless ladies daily and had but to select one. Rosalie Beaumont, a lovely girl of sixteen, happened to be the one whom struck Guy’s fancy. Rosalie, however, was utterly uninterested in him and tried her best to evade his poorly masked advances. Yet this was all in vain, as Rosalie’s father had decided this match would be a favorable one and forced her to marry a man almost twice her age. Guy treated Rosalie very poorly from the get-go, viewing her as property and treating her as such in order to avoid another situation like Blanche’s, where he let her get away with far too much. Rosalie hated her husband with a passion and on several accounts tried to murder him in his sleep, though all were unsuccessful. She was impregnated by him a year after their marriage and gave birth to a beautiful baby boy, christened Hugh, who became her sole reason for life. Soon after Rosalie was widowed, leaving her to care for Hugh and keep her house all on her own; which she did with stunning grace. She never remarried, preferring instead to devote all her attention to raising her son to be the perfect man. He and his mother were thus very close throughout her small lifetime, and when she perished from a chill at the age of twenty-nine (Hugh then being thirteen) he was crippled with grief. However, he had a life to live and a name to carry, thus he kept the Benoit manor (it had by this point been rebuilt several times, as it was falling apart with age) and became a squire. When he had reached the age of seventeen he was finally promoted to knighthood and married a homely-looking girl named Beatrice. Though she was plain, Hugh loved and cherished her very much for her incredible wit and kindness and was glad to learn of her pregnancy shortly after their union. With the birth of their first son, Verill, Hugh was granted a small dukedom by the new king, William the Conqueror, and his wife the Empress Matilda (they ruled both England and France).

Hugh, now the Duke of Languedoc, and his wife, now the Duchess, welcomed three more children in addition to Verill into the world before their marriage had ended: Lionel, Jean, and Agnes. The girls, Jean and Agnes, were twins, and had actually caused the untimely death of their mother, Beatrice, due to her frail body. Thus, Verill and Lionel were the only two left and were two years apart in age. Hugh, destroyed, hesitated to remarry. However, he knew he must, so he married a longtime friend of his wife, though the two never had children. Verill and Lionel didn’t really take well to their step-mother, as they had both been very fond of their birth-mother, though dealt with her for their father’s sake. Hugh died in service to his king and Verill, of-age, had accompanied his father in the battle and had also fallen. Lionel and his stepmother were left, though Lionel only had to live with her for another year till he became of age and could leave for court. Which he did promptly after his birthday: he rode to the castle in England and served for a few years as the formal Duke of Languedoc. However, he soon became bored with the rocky English terrain and longed for France. He departed for his country only three years after moving to England. When he returned, he had married a nice girl and moved back in to the seat of the Dukedom in Languedoc, the manor having been vacated by his stepmother’s death. There, he raised his two children, Katherine and Arthur, and married them off to wealthy knights and ladies in the French court.

Katherine’s line extended to the the late seventeen-hundreds, just after France won its independence, but slowly dwindled and finally died by eighteen-hundred.

Arthur’s line made it all the way to the twentieth century and continues to thrive in its youngest descendant, Juliette, daughter of Nicolette Benoit and Howard Hammond.
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[jules]

[JULIETTE'S PERSONAL HISTORY: THIS IS SOMETHING YOU PROBABLY SHOULD READ IN ORDER TO UNDERSTAND HER CHARACTER.]

Mother: [36] Nicolette Veronique Hammond (nee Benoit). Deceased.
Father: [40] Howard Michael Hammond. Deceased.
Brother: [2] Christopher Brian Hammond.
Sister: [0] Angelique Hammond. Deceased.
Butler: [42] Bernard Damien Beauregard.
Aunt: [38] Francoise Isabelle Jeanot (nee Benoit).
Uncle: [38] Marc Louis Jeanot.

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COURAGE SEE ME THROUGH, HEART I’M TRUSTING YOU

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Nicolette was absolutely, divinely, perfectly beautiful. With her thick, luscious black curls and her big, violet eyes (a birth defect but a beneficial one, nonetheless), she was the envy of every woman in Paris and the desire of every man. She was tempestuous, fiery, and passionate and let her desire for excitement get in the way of her personal safety. Many a time was her pale skin marred by the scratches, by dirt, mud, water, etc. of her latest illegal adventure with her daredevil friends, but she didn’t seem to mind. Nicolette loved so very much to feel alive. It didn’t necessarily matter if she was nearly killed in the process of getting an adrenaline rush – she wanted the thrill, the tingling in her spine and stomach as the terrifying and exciting realization seized her that she was doing something naughty. She adored that feeling and would do anything, literally, to get it. Nicolette often brought shame to her prestigious, old, and noble family, the Benoits, but she didn’t seem to mind. For her scandalous deeds were countered by her sister’s, Francoise’s, innate perfection. Francoise was slightly less beautiful than her sister, was shrewd, proud, and very down-to-earth. She didn’t like creating scenes, drawing attention to herself. No, Francoise preferred the quiet life, for which her family was eternally grateful. Nicolette and Francoise were extremely close, despite their many differences, and shared a bedroom until they were both married. Francoise, bookish and speculative, loved to hear Nicolette’s fantastic adventure stories – though they sometimes horrified and frightened her, or made her fear for her sister’s life – and Nicolette adored having an audience. The sisters were extremely dependent on each other and could hardly have survived without the other’s support.

When the Second World War began and their father, the General Serge Benoit, who had fought in the First World War as well, was shipped off to fight against the Axis powers, Nicolette’s selfishly reckless ways began in fear of her father’s life. She was four, Francoise was six. Francoise bonded with her sister on many new levels, and the two became even more inter-dependent. Their mother, Marie-France, was in emotional shambles and refused to leave her bedroom, preferring to sit and watch television and eat chocolates. However, Serge returned home at the end of the war in one piece, physically, anyway. Mentally, Serge was destroyed. Marie-France tried her best to rouse him to his former, booming, pleasant self, but it seemed as though the war was too detrimental for him and it soon became apparent that he would never recover. This was particularly devastating news to Nicolette (and Francoise, of course, though primarily Nicolette) as she had been extremely close to her father in her youth. In fact, it was because of him that she was a daredevil, that she took risks, because she wanted to please him as if she were the son that he always wanted. Serge was particularly attached to Nicolette, or ‘Nicki,’ as he called her, but their relationship was all but shattered upon his return. The Benoit manor became shrouded in an imperturbable veil of depression that could not even be lifted by the joyous occasion of Francoise’s marriage to an admiral veteran of the war, one Marc Jeanot, some twelve years after Serge returned. Francoise moved away with Marc and settled in his comfortable home just outside of Paris. Nicolette dearly missed her sister and was unable to sleep without her for a very long time, almost six months, without experiencing violent nightmares.

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YEARS OF DREAMS JUST CAN'T BE WRONG

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Nicolette had fallen very ill one spring from influenza and very nearly died – she narrowly escaped the same fate of many others who had not been fortunate enough to receive the vaccine. She was extremely sickly and her parents had suggested she travel around, leave Paris, and try to get a feel for the rest of the world. It wouldn’t be a bad idea to get some fresh air away from France, anyway. So Nicolette, at the age of nineteen, packed her bags and made for England. When she arrived, she stayed at the house of one of Marie-France’s friends. She saw all the tourist sites, went to the Tower, the palaces, watched as the broken society scrambled to repair its shattered infrastructure. Nicolette really fell in love with England and stayed there for several months, and when she was about to depart for America, she met a wonderfully handsome man at the train station. ‘Miss, you dropped your handkerchief!’ was the phrase that started their fated union. Howard Hammond, son of a bootlegger extraordinaire, knew how to charm women, and Nicolette, foreign and beautiful to his eyes, was a special subject. Howard loved French women. And Nicolette, young and impressionable, was taken with the English gentlemen. So, she stayed for another week, in which she got to know Howard. Then she stayed for another week. And then a month. And then two more months. And then Howard had proposed. And then Nicolette was forced to return to France, where she confronted her father with the desire to marry Howard. Serge and Marie-France had been expecting something like this to happen, but not with one of the Hammonds, the most renowned bootleggers of the twenties. Serge didn’t want his name to be tainted with illegal activity, be it old or new. So, Serge was forced to deny Howard and Nicolette the right to marry, despite his Nicki’s tearful protests.

Howard, determined to marry his love, suggested to Nicolette they elope back to England. Nicolette, ever-willing to take risks, agreed, and, with the few belongings she’d brought with her, she and Howard fled to England. Serge and Marie-France were not expecting this, however, and decided to sever all contact with their daughter as a punishment for her tarnishing the family name. Nicolette, feeling rather miserable at that, contacted Francoise and told her the dismal story, to which Francoise responded she thought their parents were wrong and that she would at least continue to speak to her. Nicolette was extremely grateful for that, and the two continued to write to one another and telephone one another all through Nicolette’s marriage to Howard. However, there was one other who remained faithful to Nicolette, and that was her longtime butler and friend, Bernard Beauregard. Bernard was a handsome, dark-featured and dark-complexioned man with an open face and kind disposition. He had always been good friends with Nicolette in her youth and had accompanied her on many of her wild pleasure-seeking missions. It was during one of these trips that he fell in love with her, and now, at age thirty, he was still madly in love with her and this was partially the reason he accompanied her and her new husband to England. Howard was incredibly wealthy, as he had attained permanent wealth from his bootlegger father, Michael, and never had to work. Especially when his father died and left him, his sole child, a huge fortune in his place.

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ARMS WILL OPEN WIDE, I’LL BE SAFE AND WANTED

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Howard and Nicolette bought a huge mansion, so huge it could almost be called a palace, right smack dab in the middle of London and lived there rather comfortably, throwing lavish galas and parties and balls and what have yous all year, at least once a month. Nicolette prided herself in her uncanny ability to plan amazing social events and the like in such short spans of time, and Howard adored his wife, her endearing love for society, and her zeal for parties, fashion, and excitement. However, Howard was having some difficulties keeping up with these lavish parties financially – he didn’t want to tell his wife that they had to cease the parties, as they were her pride and joy in life and he couldn’t bear to take it away from her, so he borrowed some money from an American mafia that his father had done dealings with before. Nicolette went on as happily as before, spending money this way and that as her husband sank deeper and deeper into financial ruin. One night, Nicolette had gotten so wasted on alcohol that at the close of the party she went into Bernard’s bedroom instead of her own on accident, climbed into bed, and fell asleep. When Bernard came to his room and found her in this state, he was overcome with desire and tricked her into believing he was Howard. She believed him, in her compromised mental state of drunkenness, and gave herself to him. In the morning she awoke and realized what she had done, scurried out of the room, and went into a guest bedroom to try and collect her thoughts. Things between she and Bernard were rocky from then on, especially when Nicolette discovered she was carrying his child.

Privately even more disgusted that her firstborn child was not to be with the man whom she loved, Howard, Nicolette decided against telling her husband the truth of his child’s conception. Instead, she made him believe it was his child, saying he was too drunk to remember their midnight rendezvous. Howard believed in Nicolette and her fidelity, thus he didn’t question her rather poor attempt to convince him of his fatherhood. Howard was just elated that he was going to have a child, though he was internally despairing in his current situation: he was running even out of the loan money, and he was going to have to get a job. He explained to Nicolette that he didn’t want their child to grow up with a seemingly weak and jobless father, to which Nicolette responded with agreement, so Howard set out to do the only thing he knew how to do and had gone to college for: entrepreneurship. As it so happened, his uncle owned a large and profitable textile industry which was without an heir, as his uncle was unmarried and childless. After sweet-talking his uncle quite a bit, Howard succeeded in convincing his uncle to change his will, leaving not the vice president in charge of the company when he died, but his nephew, Howard Hammond. And shortly after this, his uncle died of a mysterious and unidentified illness. Howard assumed leadership of the company and soon was making more money than he knew what to do with. So, he and his wife made an impressive and sizable nursery for their soon-to-be child; filling it was the gender-neutral color of yellow and gold, and with myriad toys and playthings. They hired more staff specifically dedicated to helping Nicolette with the baby, made the entire house baby-proof, and were finally ready for it.

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FINALLY HOME WHERE I BELONG

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Things were even getting steadily better for Howard, who had finally amassed enough money to repay the mafia. He began paying them back in small increments and then eventually stopped, having become too proud to repay the debt, relying on his father’s memory to gain their respect and lead them on as if he were going to repay them (the leader of the mafia and Michael Hammond had been good friends, and one day Michael had saved the leader’s life by hiding him from the police in his speakeasy, so the leader owed him big time, thus Howard thought that since he was the son of Michael the mafia would give him the benefit of the doubt). So, naively, Howard was plunged into a false sense of security and waited happily for Nicolette to go into labor. Which she did on Valentine’s Day, 1962. She was rushed to the hospital at four o’clock in the morning and delivered a beautiful baby girl six hours later. Howard and Nicolette had already decided on a name for a girl, thus one hour after her birth she was dubbed Juliette Jolene Hammond. Little Jules, as her mother affectionately nicknamed her, entered the world with a bang. With her vibrant gray eyes, her tiny tuft of blonde hair, and her powerful lungs, she was surely a sight to make a parent proud. A day after her birth she and her mother were escorted home and Howard received them with an unparalleled joy, so elated he forgot the threat note he’d received earlier that morning from a certain angry mafia. Juliette took very well to her new house, enjoying the toys in the nursery as only a little baby could. A change had come over Nicolette: she was so much more attentive to her daughter, so much more motherly and tender, and the monthly parties had come to a stop as she grew even more attached to little Jules. However, Nicolette had also become extremely self-important and felt as though she was even more entitled to order the servants about now that she was a mother. Howard noticed this change in his wife but felt no need to address it as he, too, had felt the same way with his newfound wealth and child. Bernard, however, the real father of Juliette, gave in to brooding and sadness as he stewed over the fact that Howard was living the life he wanted.

As Juliette got older, she grew close to all her family members and even to Bernard, whom she called Uncle Bernie. Soon, Bernard fell more in love with his daughter than with her mother, and he subconsciously became more of a father to her during the day when Howard was away at work. Nicolette was completely in love with her beautiful daughter, as well, and lavished all kinds of gifts upon her. She taught her how to speak both French and English and traveled very often to France to visit Francoise, where the three girls would go out and shop in Paris. This is where Jules had discovered her passion for fashion, when she was but six years old and began drawing up new designs for her Barbie dolls to wear, learning how to sew so she could make clothes for her dolls and try out her own styles (with the assistance of Nicolette, of course). Francoise, who had discovered she was barren, loved having a young child around the house and encouraged many visits. Soon, Nicolette was hosting her parties again, and little Jules was attending them in full regalia. It was around this time when Juliette began calling herself Juliette Benoit, preferring to go by her mother’s maiden name because it was French, and she was soon growing to be a Francophile. When Juliette had reached the age of nine, her mother realized she was pregnant again, this time with her husband’s child. Howard was extremely excited for this new arrival, as was Nicolette, though Jules was slightly concerned that she wouldn’t receive as much attention as normal if there was a baby in the house. Nicolette, however, disregarded her daughter’s worries and assured her that they would still be the best of friends and that a new baby wouldn’t be able to break their bond. Jules believed her mother, but it still consumed her thoughts, even when she was being schooled by her private tutor, she found it very difficult to focus on the lesson.

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WELL STARTING HERE MY LIFE BEGINS, STARTING HERE I’M LEARNING FAST

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When Nicolette went into labor in the middle of the night, Halloween, 1975, Juliette was sent into a fit of rage mixed with excitement as she lay awake in her bed, waiting for her father to come home and tell her whether she had a little brother or a little sister. Which he did, at eight or nine in the morning. He flew into her room, picked her up, spun her around, and informed her that she was to have a little brother. A little brother named Christopher Brian Hammond. Juliette stewed privately when her father had left to go pick up his wife from the hospital with the chauffeur, thinking that her mother would forget about her little girl with a little boy around, and had taken to quiet reflection in the nursery as she sewed and patched a new dress onto one of her Barbies, waiting for her mother, her father, and her brother to return. At around seven o’clock in the evening they arrived home, and Juliette, upon seeing her brother’s sweet face, soon forgot all jealousy and resentment and flung her arms around her mother, father, and new brother, crying tears of remorse for having thought such evil things. If it could safely be said that Nicolette was attached to Jules, it could also safely be said that Jules was obsessed with Christopher. She took to calling him Christophe in the French style, as had Nicolette, and played with him every minute of every day that she had free. The two were inseparable, and Christopher was surrounded with so much attention he didn’t know what to do with it all.

Again, Howard ignored the second note from the mafia, who had promised to kill him if he didn’t return the money by Valentine’s Day. He was too caught up in the joy of having a son in the house to remember those threats.

On Juliette’s tenth birthday, the family decided to, instead of throwing their own Valentine’s Day party, attend a friend’s on the other side of London. So, they all dressed in their fineries, piled into their black limo, and sped off into the night. Christopher was very difficult in cars, as he often dealt with motion sickness, and had to sit on Juliette’s lap to avoid vomiting. Nicolette sat next to Juliette and was wagging a rattle in front of Christopher’s face to entertain him and distract him from nausea. Howard was sitting in the front, directing the chauffeur, who was new and unfamiliar with the side of London to which they were going (the only reason they hired him was because Nicolette said she liked him – he was a cute little old man with a white handlebar mustache and knew how to flatter – however, he was a little scatterbrained). They got lucky with a few lights, not having to stop or slow for any, until they got to one of the busiest intersections in London. It was a four-way one with dozens of cars on each side, and the light on their side turned red as their car approached. They were going sixty miles an hour when they suddenly discovered that the brakes weren’t functioning. Nicolette turned to Juliette, her face ashen, her eyes welling, her voice far-away and resigned, and whispered, ‘I love you.’

Before she’d even had time to register what had happened, Juliette’s world exploded.

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COURAGE SEE ME THROUGH

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[F YOU HAVE A WEAK STOMACH, DO NOT READ THESE NEXT FEW PARAGRAPHS.]

Glass was everywhere, bright lights blinded her, the car scrunched in on both side, having been hit by two cars on both sides... but worst of all, blood was everywhere. Everywhere. Her mother’s blood, her father’s blood, the kind chauffeur’s blood, Christopher’s blood, her own blood. She screamed, tears searing through her eyes, blocking out everything. She screamed and screamed and screamed until her throat was raw and she could taste blood in her mouth. She sobbed until she ran out of tears. She closed her eyes, unable to bear the scene. The pain was numbing, the glass sticking in every crevice of her body, blood ruining her beautiful golden dress. It hurt so badly, so unbearably, that she just wished she was dead. Dead. Wait. Why wasn’t her mother screaming? Why wasn’t Christopher screaming? Why wasn’t her father screaming, why not the chauffeur, even? Juliette opened her eyes and tried to look around without moving her head, which was stuck in place by glass shards all around her. She saw her mother’s form slumped against the seat in front of her, but her mother’s dress, which had been light pink, was stained blood red. Her arms were covered with blood, and her face, which was obscured from Jule’s view, must have been bloody, as Jules could see it dripping from her chin. Now, that was a thing no child ever wanted to see. Their mother covered in blood, slumped against a car seat. So, Juliette screamed again, the worst scream yet.

Because with that scream, Juliette knew she her mother was dead.

And that? It was too much to bear.

She forgot about her pain, forgot about her brother, her father, the chauffeur, forgot about everything. Because her mother was dead. Her mother was dead. Her mother was dead. Those words formed strangely in her head, like they weren’t true, like she never thought or fathomed or dreamed she’d ever have to say them, let alone think them. Her mother was dead. She closed her eyes, unable to stomach the scene, and willed it away, pretended it was a dream. And with her broken sobs she tried to wash the memory away. She pleaded to God to kill her, to let her die too, to let her join her father and her mother and her brother. Hell, even to join the kindly chauffeur she barely knew. She just wanted to die. She knew she would never be able to live again. Never. Not without her mother. Moaning quietly, she held her brother’s limp form to her body and prayed. Prayed to God that he would deliver her.

But he didn’t. An ambulance did.

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HOME, LOVE, FAMILY; THERE WAS ONCE A TIME I MUST HAVE HAD THEM TOO

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It took an hour for the police and the ambulance to assess the situation. It took two hours for them to realize that the little girl inside was still alive. It took four hours to get her out of the crushed vehicle. But when they did, they extracted her as gently as they could, removing the little baby from her lap and putting them both on separate stretchers. They soon discovered that both children had a pulse. When they pulled the rest of the family out and the chauffeur, they realized that while the father and chauffeur had died upon impact, the mother hadn’t died until roughly an hour before they were able to remove her. They beat themselves up about it, told themselves if they were faster she could have survived, but in their hearts they knew it to be false, for when she was removed they discovered that her intestines had been punctured by the glass, and she had slowly bled to death. The doctors couldn’t repair intestines, so they knew that if they’d gotten their sooner the best they could have done for the woman would have been to let her die comfortably and without pain. The steering wheel of the vehicle had shattered the chauffeur’s ribcage, rupturing his heart. The old man had been weak as it was and it didn’t take much to kill him. He probably knew no pain, for he hadn’t been alive long enough to register he had even been in an accident. Howard, on the other hand, had lived for a few seconds hitherto the collision, though he probably was not conscious, as half his torso and his legs had been severed from his body. However, these were not the only casualties. There had been four other cars involved in the accident: one driven by a young man who on his way to proposing to his longtime girlfriend, another was a van full of children from a daycare center going on a field trip, one was an older married couple going to the Savoy for a show, and, finally, the last was a history professor at Oxford and his wife and mother, as they were going to another Valentine’s day party. All of these people listed above were also killed, save one child from the daycare center’s bus and the elderly man.

The doctors declared several of them dead on the scene, but hurried others to the hospital for immediate treatment. Juliette, suffering from severe internal bleeding, was also wheeled into the ambulance and taken to the hospital, along with Christopher, who seemed to be virtually spotless save for the unconscious state he’d went in to upon the shock of the impact. The doctors just couldn’t figure out why there wasn’t a spot on him. So they focused most of their time on trying to save Juliette’s life, as she was fading fast. The other victims of the crash were dying one after another from massive head wounds and the like and soon there was only Jules left. Bernard, who had been phoned twenty five minutes after Juliette’s admission to the hospital, rushed to her bedside. Which proved to be a bad idea, as he had a weak stomach and was vomiting all over the place when he saw her: mangled, covered in blood, and shards of glass still sticking to every part of visible skin. He sobbed for the duration of her surgery for Nicolette, but also for Juliette, who he believed to be a goner. So, when she was wheeled out of the operating room in one piece, his tears turned from sadness to shock to elation. Because Juliette was alive. They were able to pinpoint the source of the internal bleeding and put a stop to it (her appendix and part of her stomach had ruptured, but they were able to repair them quickly enough, though she did flatline for most of the surgery and they had to revive her multiple times). She also had several broken ribs, but the doctors assured those would heal with time. Their only concern, now, was that she wouldn’t wake up, due to the intense surgery and the overall shock of what had happened. The doctors also knew that even if she did awake, she would have extensive mental defects and problems that would have to be addressed, and that it was very likely she wouldn’t be the same if and when she woke up.

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HOME, LOVE, FAMILY; I WILL NEVER BE COMPLETE UNTIL I FIND YOU

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[NOW SAFE FOR THOSE WITH WEAK STOMACHS TO CONTINUE READING.]

She was comatose for two whole days, during which time Bernard had never left her side. Not even when she got stitches all over her body from the deep scars the glass had left and he felt like screaming and puking and crying all at the same time. He held her hand, wouldn’t let her go. Christopher was in the same room as Jules, which made things easier for Bernard, and he tried as best he could to divide his attention between the two children. Christopher knew something was wrong with his older sister, though he couldn’t talk, and was prone to having emotional fits when she didn’t respond to his mewling. Bernard tried his best to comfort the boy, but he himself was so desolate that he didn’t do such a great job of it. Francoise had flown in from France as soon as she heard the news and made arrangements for a group funeral for all the victims of the accident, her sister and her brother-in-law included. Francoise was destroyed, but years of professional dog-training (this is what she did in place of rearing children) had steeled her emotions, and instead she focused on remaining strong for Bernard, Christopher, and, God willing, Juliette. She and Bernard lived at the hospital for those two days, spending their time eating, sleeping, and praying for Juliette. At this point, they didn’t even care if she was a raving lunatic when she woke up. They just wanted her to wake up. And, at midnight on day two, she did. Her eyes fluttered open and she looked around, saw Francoise and Bernard asleep on two cots in the corner (lent by the hospital), and saw Christopher in a crib a few paces away from her. Christopher, who had just woken up and started another fit, made eye contact with his haggard sister, and began to giggle uncontrollably. Juliette was so shocked that her brother was alive when she thought he was dead that she began to sob again, recalling the nightmarish circumstances of her stay at the hospital, recalling her mother, her mother’s last words: ’I love you.’

And, soon, those same words were being said tearfully by Francoise and Bernard, who had showered Juliette with kisses and hugs and whispered vows of protection. Jules was still so shocked, so forlorn, so empty inside that she didn’t fully register the happenings around her. All she knew was that God hadn’t answered her prayers. And she hated Him for it. The doctors had rushed in to the room, having heard the elated yells, and began to get sucked into the beautiful scene, tearing up themselves. They gave Juliette another physical, examining he now that she was awake and could respond to them. They noticed that there were a few things they had missed when she was comatose, one being the color of her eyes. They had turned from a bright, twinkling gray to one blue and one green. These occurrences, the doctors noted, were normal with trauma victims, as the body would often respond in such ways to extreme shock. Juliette was slightly horrified by this change, as she decided it would make her stick our like a sore thumb whenever she went shopping – wait, shopping? When could she ever do that again? When, without her mother? The doctors also noted that the scars all over Jule’s arms, legs, and torso would fade into thick spots of scar tissues with time, but would never fully go away. Also, they suggested that while Juliette was in physical rehabilitation she should go to a psychiatrist for mental rehabilitation, for certainly there would be some emotional aftershock issues to deal with and catching those as early as possible should be a top priority in treating them before they got out of control.

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ONE STEP AT A TIME, ONE HOPE THEN ANOTHER

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Francoise and Bernard were able to take Christopher home, but they left Juliette in the hospital for her physical and psychotherapy, where she was to stay for six months, or until she proved she was stable. Juliette, consequently, was unable to attend her parents’ funeral, but she decided it was for the best, as she would only feel worse if she were there. Of course, it was closed-casket, as the mangled bodies beneath had no business being displayed to the general public, and Francoise and Bernard had sobbed through the entire ceremony. Marie-France and Serge had attended as well, and perhaps it was their cries of regret and remorse that were heard the loudest. In any case, Francoise was in charge of reading the wills of both parties, and she was shocked to discover that as opposed to her, Nicolette had chosen Bernard as the guardians for both children. Not that she was offended or anything, but Francoise was slightly perplexed at her sister’s reasoning. However, she didn’t question it, and carried out the rest of the will as planned. She spoke with her husband, Marc, and the two decided it would be best to move to the Hammond Manor and help Bernard raise Christopher and Juliette. So they did, and settled into the left wing of the mansion with their two greyhounds. Christopher adored those dogs, and it was often up to them to distract him from the fact that his sister wasn’t home yet.

Back at the hospital, Juliette was doing extremely well in physical and psychotherapy, improving leaps and bounds daily. She was personable and easy to work with, which the doctors appreciated, and had seemingly lost her ability of resistance. She trusted the doctors, as they had saved her brother’s life, however inadvertently, and allowed them to help her. Soon, she was able to remove the bandages all over her body, as the scars were beginning to heal, and she was also able to eat normally again, as her stomach had finally healed. She gladly welcomed solids back into her diet. She had learned to walk again, as the scars had been so bad they had inhibited movement, and she was soon restored to health. Mentally, though, she was diagnosed with manic depression, and recommended constant therapy and medication (however, Francoise was not so keen on the idea of her niece being medicated, so instead she and Jules turned to holistic methods of controlling the disorder). Finally, six months after the accident, Juliette returned home. Christopher was almost a year old, and, Juliette had forgotten, she was a year older. With a sinking feeling, Jules realized her parents had died on her birthday.

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WHO KNOWS WHERE THIS ROAD MAY GO?

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For three months, the party of five decided to get away from England. They bought a large RV and decided to just traverse Europe in an attempt to distract Juliette from what had just happened. They went to Spain, to France, to Germany, to Greece, to Rome... in short they went everywhere (everywhere except Russia, of course). A change of scenery and a breath of fresh air away from hospitals and medicine did Juliette worlds of good, and when she returned home she was much better than she had been. However, she still wasn’t perfect.

Adjusting to her new and unfamiliar familial situation, Juliette sometimes would refuse to leave her room, other times she would refuse to go into her room. Said there were too many memories. Sometimes, Juliette liked to play outside, liked to play with her brother, and other times she couldn’t bear it. She would transition from depression, to mellowness, to mania and back again, being utterly unpredictable in all three states. The holistic and herbal healing was serving her well, as it kept her on a lower scale when she was manic or depressive, but it also kept her mellow for most of the time, which was what she wanted anyway. When she was mellow she felt much more normal. Still, it was hard for her to do many of the things she’d done prior to the accident. She had a hard time shopping, playing dress up, designing outfits, playing with her brother, or even picking up a book of Edgar Allan Poe’s works, as her mother had read ‘Annabel Lee’ to her every night before she went to sleep. There were just too many memories everywhere, Juliette insisted when she was depressive and trying to come up with excuses for the way she felt so that Bernard and Francoise would leave her be to stew in her misery. However, Jules soon learned to cope with her sadness, to register when she was manic or depressive and try her hardest to cope, to not let the disease take over. And eventually Jules was starting to heal emotionally, mentally, physically, and had gradually come to terms with the accident, with her new living situation, with the irregularity her life had taken on.

Then, she wanted answers.

She wanted to know what had happened to her mother, what had caused the collision, why her parents couldn’t have been saved. And Bernard, who knew the answers, decided to be honest with her: while looking for another copy of Howard’s will, he had found several threatening notes from a mafia in America who had apparently lent money to Howard and were wanting it returned. However, he had apparently never returned it. So, the mafia had sent an official to go incognito as a servant to the Hammond’s and, before they left for the party that night, snip the brake wires inside the car. So, when the car approached a busy intersection and was unable to stop at the red light, it smashed through moving traffic, getting hit from several different angles by four other cars. The death toll reached fifteen. Another little boy, an older man, Christopher, and Jules were the sole survivors. However, there had been one more casualty, one that was completely unexpected: upon the autopsy before Nicolette’s funeral, it was discovered she was pregnant again, this time with a tiny baby girl. Juliette, devastated by the loss of a second sibling and shocked by her father’s shameful debt and angry with him for being too selfish to pay the mafia back and save his family’s lives, began to wish she hadn’t asked Bernard. However, she was glad she knew, as she decided speculation was worse than knowing. One day, while she was rummaging through her mother’s old things, she found a leather bound journal which appeared to be her mother’s diary. Juliette took the next few days to read it, and when she got the final entry, which had been about her new pregnancy. She had decided to keep the pregnancy a surprise until the morning after Valentine’s Day, as the biggest present for Howard would be a new addition to the family. She had wanted to name it Angelique if it was a girl and Dominic if it was a boy. Having those questions answered, Juliette still had one more.

Now, she wanted to know why Christopher didn’t have so much as a hair out of place on his body when he was found.

And that? That took a man by the name of Albus Dumbledore to explain.

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BACK TO WHO I WAS, ON TO FIND MY FUTURE, MY HEART STILL NEEDS TO KNOW

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The old, rickety man with the half-moon glasses and the long white beard had a kindly face and a warm smile when he knocked on the door that February morning, and when Juliette had answered she was immediately overcome with a strange feeling, like she could trust him with everything and anything. He entered the beautiful mansion, made a few quips about how nice it was to relieve the tension in the air, and seated himself in the lavish living room, where he and Jules were joined by Christopher, Bernard, and Francoise. He was a strange man, Jules remembered thinking, in the way he dressed and the way he spoke, but she liked him instantly and found that he made her giggle just like she used to before the ”accident.“ The man, whose name she soon learned was Albus Dumbledore, was the head of a private wizarding academy and wanted her, Juliette Benoit, to attend and learn to be a witch upon the start of the next school year. He informed her that normally she would have received a letter, like any other student, but since hers was a unique case in which she still failed to realize she had magical powers, he felt himself inclined to visit her dwelling and explain to her what exactly had gone on that Valentine’s Day eve.

As it so happened, he explained, Juliette had used a primitive protection spell comparable to the Protego charm as soon as the car had been smashed. What was interesting, however, was that she hadn’t used it to protect herself, but her brother: and most witches or wizards in her case would not have been able to separate their first spell from themselves and direct it to another person. Thus explaining why she was so badly injured and her brother was not, as the outer reaches of the spell had extended to her but had only been enough to keep her alive and in one piece. Dumbledore informed her that she had a knack for protection, as it took a truly selfless wizard or witch to be able to do what she did that night. Juliette had asked why the spell had not been strong enough, then, to protect all the people from harm, to which Dumbledore had sadly responded that she wasn’t that strong, and that the spell was only strong enough for Christopher and parts of herself. Jules was saddened that she wasn’t able to save all those people, but understood that she did have a gift and at least it was enough to save her tiny brother. Dumbledore had stayed long enough for tea, during which he explained to her exactly what she would need for the next school year and gave her a list of supplies. He gave her instructions on how to get to this place, Diagon Alley, and told her to go at her earliest possible convenience. He said that if she went to the bank there, Gringotts, she would work out a system where she could exchange Muggle money for wizard money and purchase some nice supplies.

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LET THIS BE A SIGN, LET THIS ROAD BE MINE, LET IT LEAD ME TO MY PAST; COURAGE SEE ME THROUGH, HEART I’M TRUSTING YOU TO BRING ME HOME AT LAST, AT LAST

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Albus Dumbledore left as swiftly as he’d arrived; however, he had sown a seed of hope in Juliette like she’d never experienced before. Here she was, just recovering from the traumatic ”accident“ and now... now she was magical. She was... special. How could this be? She had been shocked at first, but now... now Jules felt like she was wanted in the world, like she’d finally found her place, and that realization was a welcome relief from her current mental state. So, Jules and Bernard set out for Diagon Alley (and with quite a bit of trial and error found it) and were introduced to a world beyond their wildest dreams. Chocolate frogs, sentient owls, quills, owls, cauldrons... it was almost too much to handle. However, Jules drunk it all in, admiring its splendor, shocked and almost in disbelief that she, Juliette Jolene Benoit, muggleborn extraordinaire, was a part of it. However, that residual reluctance to believe was soon abolished by the hustle and bustle around her, the encouraging smiles, the supportive shopkeepers. Thankfully, the goblins at Gringotts were game for the muggle money exchange, so Jules had a sizable sum with which to work. Their first stop was Ollivander’s, where she was immediately drawn to a beautiful, slender and long white wand. She was informed it carried the core of Thestral hair, a beast, she learned, only visible to those whom have witnessed death. The significance in this choice of wand stands on its own. Then, Juliette and Bernard bought the robes, the cauldron, the spell books, and various other things until they’d gotten to the task of purchasing an owl. Jules had picked a lovely tawny owl whom she dubbed ‘Othello’ for the hero of one of her favorite Shakespearian tragedies for his dark coloring and expressive eyes.

When she’d returned home, she was exhausted yet unable to sleep. Overcome with excitement, with passion, with desire to learn, Jules knew that night as she stared at her ceiling trying to fall asleep that Hogwarts?

It was her new beginning. It was a fresh start, a clean slate, another life, another place...

To Jules, Hogwarts was another reason to continue living. And that? That was all that mattered.

Sample Post: See my other posts as Priscilla Pryce, Alice Logan, Regulus Black, and Xenophilius Lovegood, pretty please? :3

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And Finally - -

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]

[Andromeda Black]

ACCEPTED !