0
The Basics:
Full Character Name: Iphigeneia Lockhart. Iphigeneia means 'strong-born' and is a variant of the more common 'Iphigenia' though both are extremely uncommon. 'Lockhart' is an ancient nickname for someone who was brave. Her parents, especially her father, wanted their child to be strong and to stand for her rights and those of her peers and loved ones.
Likes to be called: Genie
Birthdate: August 20th, 1782
Age: 11
Residence: Genie lives in a shophouse near the river Thames in Oxford. Along with her parents, elder brother and elder sister, they live above her late father's small candle-shop which is managed by her brother.
Blood: Muggleborn
Social Class/father’s occupation: As said before, Genie's father used to run a small candle-shop in Oxford which was passed down to her brother upon his death. Business is relatively smooth, with a good number of regulars. The family, though not wealthy, are able to live quite comfortably with enough money to give the children normal lives.
The Personality
Emotional Disposition: Genie is usually in a dreamy, happy mood and often ponders about life's smallest wonders.
Core Value: Thirsty for Knowledge
Positive Characteristics: Genie, though stubborn at times, will usually give in to people if she doesn't really want her way that much. She will help those she sees in need without hesitation, especially her friends or loved ones, sometimes at her own expense. She hates ever hurting people, though sometimes unaware of it because of her insensitivity. Genie loves animals and hates anyone even stepping on an insect, which is the reason why her siblings think her quite strange as her sister is horribly afraid of insects while her brother delights in torturing them. In her areas of interest, Genie will work hard and achieve excellent results. She is also very intelligent and even sometimes helps her father think up new ideas to boost his business, much to the disapproval of her mother who thinks little children should be seen and not heard- especially girls. Genie also does not believe in discrimination as she thinks boys and girls should be treated the same- a belief that has gotten her into trouble with her mother and other adults countless times. Having grown up with little luxury around her, Genie is also contented with having simple luxuries in life. Although she sometimes dreams of more, she is not afraid of hardship and can take physical pain almost as much as any boy can- a fact she is very proud of. As for talents, Genie has a flair for writing, drawing, most academics (not numbers though) and acting, all things which her mother would be very appalled should she know of her doing them.
Negative Characteristics: Despite giving in to people usually, Genie sometimes can be very hard-headed when her beliefs are challenged. She can also say things to people that will upset them or hurt them badly without her knowing it, as she is rather insensitive and quick to speak before thinking. She is also quite hot-headed and loses her temper quite often when people try to force her into things, which is again something that lands her in trouble with the adults. Genie is also very muddleheaded and cannot remember things very well because she is so distracted, especially how to sew because she hates sewing lessons. Her mother thinks she is rather dim because she cannot do fine things such as stitching and dressmaking well, but Genie hardly cared about that as long as she had her father's secret lessons to rely on. For a girl, Genie is also very clumsy and has torn her dresses many times while sneaking out to play, even sometimes her undergarments. Her mother always makes her stitch them back herself, which she fails to do until she tries many times.
Conflict and hardship: Genie hates the way adults treat children, especially girls. She wishes she were born as a boy sometimes, because boys get to learn useful things and do more than just sitting around and looking pretty. Although her mother makes her and her sister sit down and learn sewing and dressmaking for six hours a day, she hates that sort of lessons. She once talked to her sister about it, but her sister just told her to keep quiet because little children should be seen and not heard(what everyone says) and she was too young to understand a woman's place in society. Genie only stuck her tongue out at her sister for this, an action that warranted a smack on the face. That day, she had run out of the room crying and tearing the hem of her dress a little in the process, and feeling rather stupid for telling her sister everything.
Because Genie loved to learn and wanted to do 'all the things the boys did', her father, a far more liberal person than her mother, taught her how to read and write in secret, after the six hours of torture her mother made her go through every day. Though in her mother's eyes, she was a useless and incompetent girl who could not even stitch a daffodil properly, to her father she was a faster and more intelligent learner than any boy. Sometimes she would show him clever imitations of people, like the pompous fat man who patronised his shop often. He would clap and laugh, saying she would make a fine actress. He was the only one in the family who supported her ambitions and cheered her on, unlike her siblings who loved her very much but scorned her for having such 'childish, silly dreams'.
After her father's death when she was ten due to an unusually high fever, Genie lost the pleasure of those secret lessons and learned things herself, going into her father's study and spending large amounts of time there though the room was only kept there for her brother. As her brother was busy working in the shop and her mother doing extra sewing with her over-enthusiastic elder sister, Genie played by herself often after her father's death, often spending a lot of time in his study marvelling at the books. Though she misses those lessons a great deal, what she misses most is still the person who egged her on and encouraged her to do what she wanted, believing her being a girl was not an important factor- her father.
Motivation, Passion and Drive: More than anything, Genie wants to be an actress on the big stage. Only her father knows about this goal because her mother has insisted so many times on her learning a woman's basic skills so she can marry a good-looking, well-to-do lad that she decided it was better she did not know. Even though sometimes Genie feels like giving up when she trains on her own and immerses herself in fantasies of being on stage, she remembers the way her father used to say that anything was worth a try, no matter how impossible. If you fail, at least you did try. So Genie vowed she would try, and try until she succeeded even though women as actresses were highly uncommon, especially ordinary women such as her.
Motto or catchphrase: If you try and then fail, at least you did try. If you do not even try, you have already failed.
Overall personality: Genie is a bubbly, talkative girl who comes across to the adults as rather rebellious. She refuses to accept society's hierarchy of men and women and where they belong, so she is a little short of what would be considered a proper lady. Often the adults shake their heads and whisper how much a pity it is that she had such a delightful disposition and such a way with people but did not carry herself well- and her mother worries she might just become a spinster for life. Though Genie desperately wishes her mother would understand how terrible it was to differentiate openly between both genders, all her mother would say when she told her this was that she had to accept it.
Though she comes across as not so pleasing to the adults, she has quite a few friends who think she's a little strange(because she loves bugs and does things girls don't do) but still like her. She has friends who are both boys and girls, and sometimes she sneaks out of the house to play with the neighbour boys around the street. Despite her stubbornness and unwillingness to conform, Genie still loves her mother and is a filial daughter- she promises herself that she will send half her earnings to her mother and a quarter to her siblings when she becomes an actress. Genie is an amazingly distracted person, and sometimes when learning how to sew she will prick herself with a needle when thinking about acting.
In general, Genie is quite a lovable person who has a constant thirst for learning and will stick up for you to no end if you are her true friend. She also believes there is kindness in everyone and is quick to forgive if you apologise, and apologises quickly too if she knows she is in the wrong.
Diary Entry: Dear Diary,
Today Father gave me a book of strange tales! It tells of people from faraway places like India and China, where the children are dark-skinned or speak foreign languages. I would like to meet them one day and say how-do-you-do in English... I wonder how they would reply then. In their own languages? Would it sound like gibberish to me? I learnt that in some places, they believe in a different God and wear little clothes and no shoes. Imagine that! No shoes, no terrible long dresses, no petticoats to obstruct my movement! I could run about even more, but then how would I hide my cuts? Mother would probably think me clumsier than ever. But those children, are the little girls forced to sew and cook and do all these mundane things? Can they actually run around and fall down and laugh in glee? It all sounds so queer but fascinating. After I become an actress and I grow old and wrinkled, I shall spend my last days travelling to those far-off places and making friends. It would be so fun!
Maybe then I could take you there and we shall both see how wonderful it is. Alright, it is time for me to have dinner now! Goodbye!
Yours,
Genie
The Appearance
First Impression: On first sight, Genie appears to be an unruly child, a disgrace to the family and her parents. This is because her neatly arranged hair always starts to unravel magnificently after a while, and her constant ability to trip over her skirts makes her dress hem appear quite rough. She looks messy although still clean, but after she goes to play the cleanliness is gone. Due to her impulsivity, she seems not to know her place or have respect for the adults.
On Second thought..: Despite this impression, Genie actually does respect adults for being older and knowing more, but she believes children SHOULD be heard more often. She is actually not exactly unruly, just clumsy and quite scatterbrained. Though others might view her as disgraceful, she is actually just an active child who loves to play and discover new things outdoors and indoors.
Overall Appearance: Genie is taller than the average child her age at 5'2". She has wavy hair which is between the shades of blonde and brown and impish features that give her an intelligent look. Her dark eyes seem to be full of life and soul, and as people say that eyes are windows to your heart, Genie's eyes show her as a kind, playful, intelligent girl. She is of healthy weight because she loves to eat, but her mother often tells her not to eat too much in case she gets too plump. Her fair skin has a healthy glow to it, and although Genie cares little about her appearance, she is seen as a good-looking child.
Basic Skills:
Can your character:
Read: Yes, thanks to her father. She's proud of it as well because she can tell her sister all the amazing things in her father's old books and watch her get wide-eyed.
Write: Yes, which is a very, very unusual thing for a girl. This is also because of her father, and she practices it all the time in her diary because after her father's death, she has no-one else to write to as her sister and mother cannot read and her brother is often too busy with the candles to even think about writing to her to help her practice.
Handle Money: She can count well enough and can handle money, in fact. Though not well because of her muddle-headedness, she is still able to keep count as long as she writes it down or is determined enough.
The Family History
Parentage: Genie's father, Gareth Lockhart, would be thirty-seven years old had he not perished in 1792 and her mother, Mildred Lockhart(nee Chandler) is thirty-three. Gareth is a liberal person who agrees with Genie that girls and boys should not be discriminated. He is rather dashing at his age, and was quite the ladies' man in his time. His parentage is unknown to Genie because both he and her mother refuse to talk about it. As for Mildred, she is a more conservative woman who stands firm to the belief of children submitting to elders without reason and women being stay-at-home wives who would cook and do chores and sew. However, the two, despite their obvious differences in belief, love each other dearly and wish the best for each one of their children.
Siblings: Genie has an elder brother, Avery Lockhart, who is 15. Her sister, Guinevere Lockhart, is 13. Her brother, though not intelligent, is an industrious worker and has made the candle-shop gain a name in the village for its quality products. He sees Genie's strange interests as mainly a childish phase and laughs it off, sometimes entertaining her a little by letting her teach him how to read better. He was never a studious child, and now a young man, he has stopped learning to read and write and can only so do very basically as he sees no need for a candle maker to learn such things.
Guinevere, also known as Gwen, is a quiet and graceful young lady who is the most sensible and mature out of the three. Sometimes Genie sees her as quite subdued and submissive because she does her lessons quietly and allows her mother to introduce her to all the 'handsome young lads' in the village, but she knows her sister only does so because she feels it is her duty to be a lady in order to make up for her sister's 'unruliness'. She highly disapproves of Genie learning things meant for men and chides her brother for encouraging her childish play, but she actually really dotes on her little sister. The three children are quite close to each other and played with each other a lot in the past, but Genie still cannot fully open herself up to them as she knows they will scold her or say it is merely childish thinking.
Other important figures: Mistress Bates, who lives a short distance away from the Lockharts in the village, is an important person to Genie. Once, when Genie was out playing and accidentally dirtied her dress when she fell into the shallow waters of a lake along with grazing her knee quite badly, Mistress Bates happened to be passing by and offered her a hand, taking her back into her house to wash her dress and nurse her wounds. She was given a new dress which fit her perfectly, and Genie loved Mistress Bates for that kind act ever since then. She is seen by the rest of the village as a queer woman because she is a widow and apparently lost her only daughter and husband to an unknown illness a few years back and has been strange in the head ever since. Nevertheless, Genie thinks she is a wonderful woman and doesn't see her as mad. Though her mother does think Mistress Bates is strange, she still is grateful to her for helping her daughter and thus they sometimes visit the old woman in her little home.
Reputation: The Lockharts are known for their excellent candles and reasonable prices, and for their tendency to lower prices for the less fortunate. They are well-loved by the village as Gareth Lockhart used to be a very social person, but now that he is gone the family keeps to themselves more. However, Genie is still much of a wandering child and her mother and siblings do talk to their friends who drop by every now and then in the candle-shop.
Secrets: Only Gareth and Mildred know of Gareth's parentage. The children are kept in the dark about this secret, though the only one bold enough to inquire about it, albeit with no results, was Genie. Gareth was the eldest son of wealthy parents, and his father owned a successful money lending business(though illegal). From his childhood days, Gareth was a traveller and loved to explore new places, having little regard for his family's illegal business. At the age of twenty-one, Gareth met Mildred Chandler when he was travelling and they fell in love, though his family disapproved greatly of him marrying the daughter of a simple candle-maker. In the end, Gareth swore he would marry her as he loved her and he was disgraced and disowned by his father. Mildred's parents, seeing that the young man loved their only child a lot, agreed to marry her to him if he would promise to provide for her. As he had an aptitude for handicrafts, he was given the candle-shop by Mildred's father. Then the couple started their new life in the shophouse above the shop, while Mildred's parents lived nearby in their little cottage.
As an adult, Gareth regretted not having been more filial to his parents(whom he had lost contact with) but loved Mildred as much as ever and did not regret his decision. However, having been ashamed of his past, he kept it a secret from the children and his friends.
General: There is nothing much more to say about the Lockhart family.
The Wizard Information:
Wand: birch wood, 9 3/4", dragon heartstring, flexible and excellent for Transfigurations.
Pet: Gwen and Avery pooled their money together to buy Genie a kitten as a parting gift, which she named Molly. Molly is a white, patient thing who purrs when she strokes it but demands attention when she doesn't play with it sometimes. When Genie has troubles she dares not disclose to the outside world, she will pour them out to Molly and she seems to listen with her soulful emerald eyes. Other than the doll Mistress Bates gave her(which used to belong to her daughter), Anne, Molly is Genie's non-human best friend.
Specific Questions for Muggleborns:
How did your parents react when you received a letter from Hogwarts? Genie's mother was appalled of the idea of paying a huge sum of money to let her daughter learn the whimsical ways of magic, for what could possibly be the use? However, upon seeing her daughter's delight in receiving that strange letter and seeing her siblings encouraging her, she softened a little and knew that that was the reason why her daughter had always seemed rather different, despite being a lovely child- she was destined to pursue greater things in a different place. Though she was strict on the outside, Mildred still wanted her daughter to be happy and perhaps this Wizarding World had happiness to give to her daughter. So in the end, she sent her daughter to Hogwarts with blessings and appreciates the financial aid the school gives them as the family is not very well-to-do.
What explanation is given to your family for your long absences while you are at Hogwarts? As Mildred has no siblings and Gareth's family is unknown of, only Genie's grandparents and her siblings know of her being a witch. As for the other village people, they are told that Genie has received a Scholarship for Higher Education, a little white lie which comes across as quite a surprise because she is, in fact, a girl and only eleven.
What future did your character abandon in favour of coming to Hogwarts? None in particular, except marrying a well-to-do lad as her destiny and becoming an actress, which she is still fixed on doing(as well as introducing acting as a good profession in this strange World).
How did your character find out they were magical, how long have they known and how did they react when they got their Hogwarts letter? When Genie was only a small child of about five, she had lost the pencil her father gave her for drawing and cried in her despair at not being able to find it, and all of a sudden it appeared on the table she had turned her glance from just a moment before. As she got older, Genie began to think about this but never really suspected more- when she got her Hogwarts letter, however, this incident came into mind.
Student Skills:
School Ethic: Genie has never been to school before, but she is immensely excited about it. She loves the idea of going to a place where you could learn many useful things and girls were the same as boys(finally!) and everyone was there to learn, and you were not thought queer because you liked to learn. Genie thinks she will enjoy school, which she is very likely to, mostly.
Teacher Relation: As mentioned, Genie does respect adults but will not submit to a person who makes her do things she doesn't believe in. She is quite friendly towards adults and talks to them as equals with a degree of respect, but sometimes she will not watch her words well and land in trouble or get scolded, and then her impulsiveness will harm her.
Work Ethic and Diligence: Genie loves books to no end, so she will definitely treasure her schoolbooks though she is likely to get things on them such as food since she will read them with wonder even at mealtimes. She is forgetful and rather lazy sometimes, so she might forget her homework sometimes, though more for the subjects she doesn't really like. As for writing, Genie's mind works much faster than her fingers so her writing is rather unique and no two letters are exactly the same. Her father used to tell her to write more legibly, though she is an excellent writer with regards to content.
Subjects: Genie would love Care of Magical Creatures because she loves animals, Astronomy because she has always been fascinated by the sky(especially at night) and Transfiguration simply because she thinks it's the most magical part of 'magic': turning something into something else completely different! She is also likely to love Charms and Ancient Runes as fascinating and useful subjects, though not as much as the first few. She will likely hate Arithmancy because numbers confuse her and be terrible at Potions because of her lack of motor-skills. However, she will surely find something to like about each subject.
Where don't you want to be: Genie would least want to be in Slytherin. Although she doesn't judge people based on houses, she would hate being in a house where the vast majority of people only cared about blood type and their own success.
Edited by Iphigeneia Lockhart, 02 July 2010 - 10:23 AM.
That really made me laugh!!
