Kassiopeia Graves

Backstory

House: Slytherin

Birthday: February 29th

Age: 11 years

Height: 4' 4"

Blood Status: Pureblood

Wand: Holly wood with Dragon core, 13", supple flexibility

Patronus: Blackbird

Pet(s): Nebula (Russian Blue cat) and Scrapfoot (Snowy owl)

Appearance: Kassiopeia is, in the most simplest of terms, a pale girl.  She is small and rail-thin with mid-length pale blonde hair and pale green eyes.  Outside of her robes, Kassiopeia is generally found wearing a white, collared dress shirt beneath any number of oversized sweaters as well as a plain black skirt, knee-length socks, and comfortable shoes.  In terms of accessories, she always wears a long key-shaped necklace, her family's crest ring, and a black headband.

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General Backstory & Summary

Kassiopeia was the eldest child of pureblood witch Marie Locke, a Magical Lawyer of highly-respectable reputation and fierce determination.  Her father was Alastair Graves, a pureblood wizard from the affluent, very old House of Graves.  His death following Kassiopeia's birth drew her mother's ire and he was never spoken of within her house's walls.  As the eldest of the Graves bloodline, Kassiopeia's life was set for her before she could walk: become a Ravenclaw once she attended Hogwarts, become Top Girl and Prefect, and join the Ministry of Magic after graduation, just as her mother and grandfather had.  The Graves favored their reputation and intellectual prowess above all else and Kassiopeia was expected to conform to extremely high standards.

From the young age of two, Kassiopeia was placed in ballet.  Her mother expected a daughter of grace and pose, well-balanced socially, intellectually, and physically.  Her diet was tightly restricted so that she could perform well in the art, she trained at least eight hours a day, and performed the best in every show she was in.  Kassiopeia took to the arts like a natural, going to far as to expand her skillset to include singing, painting, sketching, violin, and the piano.  Above all, she loved ballet with every fiber of her being, yet there were consequences to her love - her mother's near desperation for perfection.  Kassiopeia was pushed into a vegetarian diet to achieve the perfect form and, thus, found that eating meats made her sick which, further compounded with the small portion sizes, concluded in her remaining much smaller than her peers.

Not long after Kassiopeia's second birthday, her mother married an affluent pureblood wizard by the name of Thomas Hamish - a former Chudley Cannons Keeper before an injury ended his career.  Thomas was the first to teach Kassiopeia how to ride a broom, a hobby her mother did not approve of, and often made comments about Kassiopeia's natural-born ability to one day become a highly skilled Seeker.

Kassiopeia was four when her younger sister, Anne, was born.  Anne was a bold, loud-mouthed child who quite easily drowned out her older sister's quiet demeanor.  As such, Kassiopeia began to notice that she faded into the background of her family's attentions, only returning into the spotlight to be scolded for a misstep in her grades or a correction from her latest ballet recital.  As such, Kassiopeia took to reading alone or practicing ballet in her free time.  Despite this, she adored her little sister and would do whatever it took to ensure that her mother's cold parenting remained focused on her rather than Anne.  She believed Anne should live a life outside of the expectations of the Graves family.

Upon taking her place beneath the Sorting Hat, Kassiopeia expected a quick declaration of her place in Ravenclaw and found herself dreading it.  However, the Hat remained silent and Kassiopeia quickly became worried.  It asked her questions - why ask me to become a raven when it is clear that is your worst nightmare - to which she had no answer.  In the end, the Hat explained that her penchant for finding loopholes and unique solutions to problems was a manifestation of her cunning and her determination to do whatever it took to achieve her goals.

"Slytherin!"

That declaration had become both the ending of Kassiopeia's life and the beginning.  She had broken a centuries-long chain of affluent Graves within the Ravenclaw house, surprising even the professors who took notice of her last name.  Her mother's letter following her placement blatantly expressed her disappointment in her child and, for a time, Kassiopeia grew to hate herself, attempting to convince the professors that she was placed in the wrong House.  She was a disappointment to her family and was only reminded of such in every letter she received from her mother.

Weeks into her first year at Hogwarts, Kassiopeia received a package from her grandmother.  Inside, she found a simple knit sweater of a beautiful shade of emerald with a beautifully-crafted silver snake knit onto the front.  From that moment on, fueled by that small act of acceptance for who she truly was, Kassiopeia's demeanor began to change.

Whereas Kassiopeia still remained a wallflower, her newfound confidence allowed her to make a small group of friends.  Without her mother's cold, calculating gaze to pick at every mistake, she found that she was free to enjoy ballet as opposed to becoming tortured by the art she loved.  Her sketches and paintings became more emotional rather than conveying whichever scene she saw or was instructed to create.  Her piano skills became whimsical rather than structured.  Further, Kassiopeia began to show her more playful and rebellious side, playing small pranks on those who she loves and much larger pranks on the bullies she has not found the courage to stand up to.

In her newfound persona, Kassiopeia has discovered a new dream of becoming an Auror post-graduation.  As such, she has leveled her focus upon those subjects which both interest her and would earn her that career when she was older.  She would maintain the perfect grades expected of her by her family but, this time, it was to persue her own dreams rather than to please her family. 

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If you wish to roleplay, you are free to choose any of the ages listed below.  I will include a summary of who Kassiopeia has become throughout her years at Hogwarts.  This is so that things will be more open so that nobody is limited to an eleven year old First Year if they wish to roleplay at a different Year or age.

Year One

Already a shy girl, Kassiopeia's self-confidence plummeted after she was sorted into Slytherin.  The House's scarred background and her own failure to continue her family's trend of successful Ravenclaws earned her little else from her mother but disapproval and a cold-shoulder.  But Kassiopeia was still young and eager to earn back the love she once enjoyed from a mother who groomed her to be an heiress to end all heiresses.  She often stayed up late at night studying her spells, practicing her potions, and reading whatever she could get her hands on and her efforts quickly vaulted her to top of her year.  With every owl from her mother, her own hatred for herself grew until she, herself, believed she would one day end up just as evil as her mother believed.  This believed caused her to withdraw from others, creating a protective barrier around her in hopes of keeping her sane and kind as she once had been.

Year Two

Despite her status as the top witch of her year, Kassiopeia's mother was still cold and unyielding, doing everything in her power to ignore her eldest daughter during her summer vacation at home.  Kassiopeia had never been more grateful to leave her family home.  Upon her send-off, Kassiopeia's grandmother gave her a small gift to open on the train - a green knit sweater with a snake knit into the front.  This small act of acceptance for who Kassiopeia truly was removed a weight from her shoulders.  Although hardly eager to face the sort of rejection she received from her family, Kassiopeia began to allow herself to enjoy her time at Hogwarts.  She tried out for the Quidditch team and even made it as the Seeker, earning her place after the previous Seeker's graduation the prior year.  Despite this, her fear of imperfection and her mother's hatred still drove her to late nights studying to maintain her grades.  At around this time, her previously love for ballet became a coping mechanism - a release from the stress and tension she forced herself through.

Year Three

By her third year, Kassiopeia no longer returned home for the holidays, preferring the silence of an empty House common room to the coldness of her mother.  Her desire to become her mother's favorite once more evaporated entirely when her little sister was sorted into Gryffindor, much to her mother's delight, despite previous assertions that she wanted only Ravenclaw daughters.  Kassiopeia, thus, quit writing home and remained at Hogwarts where others returned home.  This hatred came out in spurts, causing wild actions at random as though her own rebellious will were straining to come out.  In one of these events, Kassiopeia convinced herself to become an Animagus and, a quarter of the way through her Third Year, she had succeeded and was able to transform into a blackbird at will.  This was how she discovered her love of flying, often taking to the Training Grounds to fly whenever she felt stressed, enjoying the feel of the wind through her hair.  She was also often prone to playing small pranks, reveling in the fact that no one suspected the star witch.  This was also the year that she made her first group of real friends.

Year Four

By Year Four, Kassiopeia had attained a budding reputation as a prankster and a rebel.  Although her grades remained immaculate, she was often prone to receiving detention for things such as setting a dungbomb off in the hall leading to the Gryffindor common room when her little sister got on her nerves.  She also cut her hair from the near-waist-length pale blonde locks into a bobbed look, enjoying the weightlessness and the way her hair seemed to flip as it pleased.  She was an enigma: a rebel in the body of an aristocrat set to inherit an old pureblood name when she grew older.

Year Five

Kassiopeia's actions and reputation at school had driven her mother to the point of hostility towards her.  Where there was once ice, there was fire.  Two-thirds of the way through the summer between her Fourth and Fifth years, Kassiopeia took her saved allowance and stayed at the Leaky Cauldron for the remainder of summer.  There, she cut her hair even shorter, sporting a chopped, spiky pixie cut and even going so far as to purchase an old leather jacket that she fixed with magic once she returned to Hogwarts.  Her duels became more passionate, her Quidditch skills excelled with her new desire to please herself as opposed to pleasing others.  She reinvented herself in her Fifth Year and, if one asked, she could not have been happier.

Year Six

By her Sixth Year, Kassiopeia had all but cut ties with her family - only stopped by her status as the only heir to the Graves bloodline.  Utilizing her ballet skills, her piano skills, and her painting skills, Kassiopeia accepted commissions and spent time teaching children ballet in order to earn money, sometimes taking on odd jobs when she needed a little more for groceries.  When she returned to Hogwarts that Sixth Year, many noticed that she was lighter, more willing to smile and more eager to practice Quidditch or explore those things once hidden, such as the Forbidden Forest.  She began to take more of an interest in secrets and mysteries and often received detention for being in places she did not belong as opposed to simply for pranking a professor or student.

Year Seven

Her final year at Hogwarts solidified the new Kassiopeia Graves.  She was set to become an Auror upon a successful graduation, having impressed the Ministry with her impeccable grades, her high skills at dueling, and her manueverability both on and off a broom.  She kept her Animagus status hidden from everyone but could sometimes be found enjoying the skies as a bird or perched to watch others, developing her skills at observation to predict someone's actions and backstory based on body language.  Her skills at information gathering earned her a plethora of requests for information on things such as someone's potentially-cheating boyfriend / girlfriend and more.