Innamorata, Seraphina: History, Etc.

[Seraphina Innamorata]

Character History:
Angelus Innamorata, a wizard well known in Italy, France, and Spain for his roguish ways and crisp spellwork, finally met his match when he tried to woo the beautiful and austere Amora D'enchanté.

Amora was known to be a brilliant witch, and not only were her potions highly sought after, she herself had only been two years out of Beauxbaton Academy when she was approached for a job opening in France's Gouvernement la Magie. It was around this time that she met Angelus Innamorata.

Unfortunately for Angelus, Amora was not the type of young woman to be woo'd... however, she was the type to accept love when it was given truly and freely, and it didn't take long for Angelus to fall in love with the gorgeous witch.

A year later, she had turned down the job in the France and moved to Italy with her husband, where they promptly got to work trying to build a family.

Only that part didn't work out as planned. Witches and wizards can do all sorts of things, but a witch can no more make herself fruitful than she can choose the sex of the child in her womb. And try as they might, Amora's womb was barren.

They tried potions, they tried spells. They kept their little disappointment to themselves, terrified that their good standing in the wizarding community would be tarnished if anyone ever discovered that one of the most highly gossiped-about marriages in over twenty years might end in tears over the beautiful witch's inability to have a child.

Amora pleaded with Angelus to take another witch under the guile of a love potion, the trickery of a Confundus Charm, even through the unforgivable use of the Imperius Curse, but he had fallen in love with her, and swore that his days of lying with women at whim were over. Even for a child, that which they wanted above all else, he refused to lie with another.

Desperate, Amora did something so unthinkable, so monstrous, that if the truth of it ever surfaced, she knew no one would ever be able to believe it were true.

She kidnapped a muggle woman, put her under the Imperius Curse, and fed her Polyjuice Potion every hour on the hour for ten long months. By the time her beloved husband began to suspect something was amiss, it was already too late. The muggle-Amora was pregnant, and the real Amora refused to give up the hoax until the wizarding world had seen her out and about, glowing in the glory of pregnancy, and the child was born.

Fearful of the repercussions for his wife if her plan were discovered, he played along with it, but something of their perfect love was destroyed by her betrayal. Nine long months after the muggle-Amora had become with child, Seraphina was born. The muggle woman was left at a muggle hospital in the dead of night a few days after the birth, memory modified with several charms, and Angelus and his beautiful wife added a name to their family tree.

Seraphina Mentira Innamorata.

Seraphina grew up as most young witches in a wizarding community; taught at her mother and father's knee from a young age, she learned her letters, numbers, and basic household spells well before she ever went to school. Her father wanted her to attend the school he'd gone to in Italy, but Seraphina refused, and it was Beauxbaton Academy that Seraphina found herself in at 11 years of age, quiet, shy and studious.

When she was in her fifth year - having blossomed from a string-bean of a girl to a promising young woman - she received an urgent message summoning her home well before the holiday.

Her mother had touched a cursed necklace. It was never made clear to her how she had come across the necklace in the first place; if it was just lying around the house, or sent to her, or something she'd touched in a shop. Indeed, the story seemed to change as her father told it, leaving the entire situation shrouded in a mystery that cast him in a very suspicious, ugly light in Seraphina's mind.

She stayed for the funeral, then returned to school, never to have the same friendship and untainted love for her father ever again.

She finished school at the top of her class, especially proficient in potions, just as her mother had been. Partly at her father's urging, and partly because she couldn't bear to be back at home with him, she went on the traditional tour of the world, meeting all manner of strange magical beings, creatures and things, learning all about cultures her schooling had never touched upon and new recipes for her potion book. For four years she remained abroad, returning home to Italy in the year of 1997, when news of the Battle at Hogwarts spread throughout the world in hushed whispers amongst witches and wizards. As much as she wanted to remain abroad for another year or so, she reluctantly packed her things and came home, assuring herself that she had learned much more in the world than she had in school. It was partially true, but she learned much more the night she came home.

Her father was both miserable and determined; he made her sit down and look him in the eye as he haltingly told the story of her birth. How they had tried and failed to have a child, how the woman she always thought of as her mother had used kidnapping, trickery and lies to bring a child into the world, and how, as the days turned into months and the months into years, he loved her less and less and hated her more and more... until finally, he had bought the necklace from the darkest of wizard shops and purposely 'misplaced' it on the dining room table while Seraphina was safely away at school.

She was stunned, horrified, and angry. When she asked him why he waited until now to tell her - now, after all these years! - he simply said that he could no longer bear the truth alone. The truth will eat you, he said, staring bleakly into her furious eyes. It is not meant to be chained, caged or silenced. He wanted to turn himself in for the murder of his wife, for the Italian wizarding government was still working hard to discover how Amora had come across the cursed necklace. Before he could do that, however, he wanted Seraphina away; he couldn't deal with the shame of seeing the only girl he ever loved, in the purest and truest of senses, staring at him with such fear and loathing as he was clapped in irons and sentenced to Life in Azkaban.

Still stunned over all that she had learned, Seraphina fled from that house and went to the only place she could think of - Beauxbatons. She applied for a teaching post there and got it at 21 years of age, one of the youngest teachers in over a century; while she was there, she made friends with the Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher, and after months of thinking it over (and during which time her father did indeed confess to murdering his wife and was sent to Azkaban), Seraphina finally made the decision.

Though he was reluctant at first, the Defense Against the Dark Arts professor modified her memory, wiping away everything she had learned on that fateful night she returned home from her four year journey.

She continued to teach at Beauxbaton Academy for another four years, but has decided to move to England to see for herself if the rumors are true about the horrors currently taking place there... and if there's anything she can do to help.




»»A LITTLE INSIGHT

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Likes:
give a list of at least five things that your character likes.

• 
  
• Quiet
  
• Hard work
  
• Languages (she speaks 5)
  
  • Italian
    
  • French
    
  • Spanish
    
  • English
    
  • Latin
  
  
• Potion making
  
• Independence
  

Dislikes:
what your character doesn't like. at least five things.

• Lazy loaf-abouts
  
• Social engagements
  
• Discussing her parents
  
• People with a lot of talk and very little talent
  
• People who assume she's a child or incompetent based on her looks
  

Fears:

• Failure: Few have ever set higher standards for Seraphina than she has set for herself. Both of her parents were somewhat famous in their day, and even as a child, Seraphina worked hard to build such a reputation for herself. A potion turned sour is taken every bit as hard as a death in the family would be for another witch or wizard.
  
• Marriage/Love: Her mother died mysteriously, only for her father to publicly admit, years later, that he had set it up. She knows she should make a respectable union with a wizard, but is understandably weary of relationships.
  
• Trust: Similar to her fear of romantic relationships, she is also afraid that if she trusts anyone, or puts too much faith in others, they will disappoint and/or hurt her.
  
• Dying Alone: Women are allowed to be capricious, even downright contradictory. Despite her fear of relationships large and small, she is also aware of her mortality and doesn't want to die alone and friendless, with no one to realize she's gone until days or even weeks after dying.
  

Goals:

• Success: Be it as an accomplished and renowned Potions maker, owner and proprietor of her own shop, or for some other reason, Seraphina most desperately craves to climb the ranks and gain a foothold as a successful and highly sought after witch (professionally, of course).
  
• Knowledge: The road to success is paved with stones of wisdom, learning and knowledge. A book is hard pressed to ignore her scrutiny and witches or wizards older and wiser than she are prone to intense questioning.
  
• Friendship: While she's not actively pursuing this goal, relying more on acquaintances and colleagues in her day to day interactions, she does realize that despite her fear of putting trust in others, she does need at least one good friend wherever she lives.
  
• Personal Growth: Without change, one becomes stagnant.
  

Skills:

• The ability to read about, understand, and produce the desired results with spells (critical thinking and practical application skills)
  
• Exceptionally good at potion brewing.
  
• Logical and objective thinker - able to remove herself mentally from situation to examine it from many different angles.
  
• Strong memory and retention skills; she was top of her class for a reason.
  

Quirks:
Seraphina is.. a brain. Socially, she's a bit inept, but get her on a subject she's interested in and you'll be hard pressed to shut her up. She doesn't know a single joke and can't take practical jokes well at all. Serious to a fault, she has a habit of chewing the skin of her inner lip when she's deep in thought and frowns deeply when upset or disappointed. She looks ill at ease in a smile, perhaps because she's never had much practice at it.

BOGGART
The important thing about fear is that it evolves. As a child, a boggart she found in her closet took on the appearance of a giant, only weeks after her father had been teasing her about them coming to squash her if she wouldn't finish her soup. Too young to banish a boggart on her own, she had had to scream for her father to rescue her.

Taking care of one at school, almost twenty years later, the boggart was her father. She had had to enlist the aid of a fellow teacher to banish the boggart - having very little sense of humor, it's one of the few things she has ever had trouble doing. (Note: This was after her father explained everything to her, and before her memory was modified, removing all knowledge that she was a halfblood and why her father had killed her mother. She remembers the boggart assuming her father's shape, however, she just doesn't understand why, and merely assumes it had to do with him coming out publicly with his confession and her mind trying to cope with it)

Right now if she were faced with a boggart, it would probably represent herself, homeless and broken, having failed horribly somewhere along the road to success in England. If she becomes secure in England, however, it could change to any number of things, including seeing herself dead, either old and alone, or close to her own age and betrayed by someone she could possibly care about.

PATRONUS
Her first Corporeal Patronus was cast at seventeen years of age; it took on the shape of a crane (the bird, not the machinery). It still takes on that shape, as far as she knows. She hasn't casted the Patronus Charm in some time.

ERISED
Herself, successful, completely unencumbered of irrational fears and surrounded by friends and loved ones.

Personality:
While she can come off as cold, aloof, and uncaring, Seraphina is really just exceptionally shy and fearful. Spiders, snakes, things that go bump in the night; they hardly give her a worry. It's the closeness factor that keeps her awake at night, beating herself up for a faux-pas made while meeting someone, hating the part of herself that's afraid, wanting more and yet never brave enough to take it.

Seraphina loves her books and potion making; she's happiest beside a simmering cauldron or curled in a chair, with no one around her to listen, interrupt or tease. Her strong sense of logic and objectivity make her a difficult friend when you're wanting compassion, but a great person to come to for advice when you're at your last straw and can take the criticism implied or otherwise.

She's been teased before saying that she has no personality - or that if she has one, it came from all the damn books she's read - but in truth, she's simply a very emotionally reserved, private and intellectual individual.
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»»SCHOOLING[/color]

Year:
Beauxbaton Academy Alumni 1993
Preferred House:
Sorted into the Beauxbaton equivalent of Ravenclaw.
Classes:
All core classes
Charms, Potions, Transfiguration, DADA, History of Magic, History of Magic (Localized version, taught in first 3 years)
Electives
Potions, History of Magic, Herbology, Astronomy, Arithmancy, Ancient Runes

WAND
Olivewood, 12¹/₄", supple, containing a core of dragon heartstring.

BROOMSTICK
Cleansweep Eleven, though she only uses it for travel, and even then only sparingly.

OTHER MAGICAL DEVICES
She never travels without a virtual store of potion supplies and paraphernalia.

She has a tawny owl named Napolean, a gift to her after getting several O.W.L's in her 5th year (yes, very fitting, I know). She had a cat while working at Beauxbatons, but as many of the teachers had grown fond of it and she needed to travel lightly, she left it behind.

»»THE WAR[/color]

Affiliation:
To herself... for now.
Why:
She's not from England; while France and Italy keep up with the general picture of what's going on in the wizarding world all around them, nothing much was heard of Voldemort's return until the battle of Hogwarts, where he came right out and left no doubt in anyone's mind what he was up to. Before that, anything heard was merely speculation and rumor, or perhaps pure wishful thinking for more elite-minded purebloods.

She's come to find out for herself what's going on, and if there's a place for her in these perilous times.