Vera Llewellyn

[Vera Llewellyn]

Full Name: Verity Catherine Llewellyn (goes by Vera)
Age: 33
Position/Class Taught: Professor, History of Magic
History (2-4 paragraphs or more):

Verity Catherine Llewellyn was born on April 2nd, 1972 to Bernard and Cicely Llewellyn in London, where her Muggle father worked as a political researcher and her witch mother a housewife and sometimes-seamstress. Her father was an ambitious man who hoped to hold office himself but had never quite managed to rise above his position as an aid to others, and her mother came from a high society, pureblooded family, who were horrified by her rebellious decision to hastily marry a Muggle she had met one drunken night out in London with friends. Despite the disdain of Cicely's family and the unorthodox start to their relationship, Vera's parents were a surprisingly good match and had had a fairly happy marriage and a solid middle-class life. They had been uncertain about having children, but as they did with marriage, they decided on a whim to give it a go, and thus Vera was born. Having had a daughter turned out to bring Cecily a great deal of joy, and she decided not to mess with perfection by trying to have another child. Instead, she gave up her mishmash of a career doing whatever job she fancied at the time and decided to dedicate herself to raising Vera (and creating or altering the odd dress or robe, indulging her taste for fashion). Vera had a happy and comfortable childhood, with two loving parents. She was a shy child, mature for her age, and quite a bookworm when she was young. She attended a private school until the age of nine, when suddenly, her quiet, stable life was upended.

In 1981, Bernard was offered a job as a research aid in the British embassy in France. It seemed to be a stepping stone to the political career he hoped for, and thrilled with the idea of living in Paris, Cecily whole-heartedly supported the move. They were in France before Vera had finished the school year, and despite her maturity and academic nature, Vera found school in France a trial. She wasn't exactly a social creature, and she struggled to make friends with other kids in general, but the language barrier rendered this almost impossible. She picked up French slowly but her grades never quite recovered from the first year or two of school. When she received letters from both Hogwarts and Beauxbatons on her 11th birthdays, it was a relief to have an escape from the school where she still felt like an outsider. Not wanting to be too far from her parents, Vera decided to attend Beauxbatons. Having finally become fluent in the language of her adopted country, Vera felt confident she could make a fresh start.

Vera went off happily to Beauxbatons in the fall, where she was sorted into Ombrelune, a house known for students who prize intelligence, rationality, and above all, ambition. Feeling as if she could finally leave the disaster of her first school year in France behind, Vera leaned into her natural talent for academics and soon became one of the top students in her class. She had a particular mind for detail and nuance, and she shone in Transfiguration and, oddly enough, History of Magic, which she found far more fascinating than most students. Like her father, she was particularly interested in the development of the magical government and began to dream of a political career after school.

Despite her academic success, Vera's social life was not as cracking. Even in a house full of intellectuals, she had the reputation of being a bit of a know-it-all, and she didn't have the social status or connections to French wizarding families to give many of the privileged and ambitious group reason to accept her into their ranks. She wasn't entirely a loner - she had a handful of friends who loved classes as much as she did, and they studied together, hung out on weekends, and occasionally visited each other in the summer, but if asked who her best friend was, Vera would have had no answer. She eventually learned to accept that she was not the kind of person destined to have BFF bracelets and slumber parties every weekend and instead turned to proving herself through her personal success rather than her social status.

An interest in government wasn't all she had inherited from her father. As she got further into her teenage years, it was clear that Vera had inherited his ambition as well. Being top of her class made her incredibly proud and gave her a taste for success and power, something she hadn't been able to find elsewhere. In her sixth and seventh years, she grew decidedly more confident and it seemed to radiate off her as she walked through the halls. The scorn and eye-rolls and whispered insults from her classmates didn't seem to bother her, not as long as she was pleased with herself and her progress. And that was good, as she didn't exactly endear herself to many with her tendency to correct anyone who got even the slightest detail wrong.

After Beauxbatons, Vera landed herself an internship in the French Ministry, but she soon found it wasn't for her. She felt her superiors didn't entirely take their work seriously, which irked Vera. This was the government, which to her was a sacred institution, but her coworkers seemed more interested in how long a lunch they could take without being reprimanded and where they were going for the weekend. After a year, she applied for another internship - this one at the Ministry in London. Her parents were both thrilled and saddened when she told them she had accepted it; her father was bursting with pride, of course, but her mother had seemed a bit lost ever since Vera had gone off to school, and she didn't like the idea of Vera going off on her own, without family nearby. But Vera was ready. She wanted to achieve what her father hadn't. He had never gotten where he wanted to, having changed jobs around several times without rising very far up the ladder. In the end, he and Cecily had fallen too in love with France to move back, so he had decided to settle - but his dreams lived on in his daughter, and she felt the weight of them.

As she had when going to Beauxbatons, Vera relished the idea of being able to reinvent herself - but this time she knew how to do it. She didn't even try to let social status influence her and instead threw herself into her work - and it paid off. Slowly but steadily, she made a name for herself at the Ministry as being an incredibly hard worker with a sharp mind and a sharper tongue, which for once worked in her favor. Though she had always intended on working in the legislation side of government, Vera soon found herself drawn to the legal side, and eventually landed herself a position as an aid to a member of the Wizengamot. Here, she really found her stride. Law was incredibly complex beast, with huge decisions often hanging by the tiniest of details or nuances of interpretation. Vera loved it. She hopped step after step at the Ministry and ended up in a job she had never imagined for herself but that gave her exactly the power and authority she had always dreamed of: chief legal counsel in the Auror office. She lived her dream here, making sure everyone adhered the letter of the law, and in her satisfaction, finally became a bit more social and known not only for being a powerhouse but also a fair and occasionally witty woman.

Vera's world was shattered with the upheaval at the Ministry during the war. She fled back to her parents in France early on, seeing what was coming with a sharp eye before many did, and stayed hunkered down there during the violence that tore the wizarding community apart. She kept her head down, heartbroken to have seen the government, a thing she found so precious, overrun and turned into an unrecognizable force for evil. She took on pupils as a history tutor until it appeared things were calming down again in England. Though her parents tried to convince her to stay, she felt drawn back to her native country, and she headed back to London in the hopes of finding a way to work within a Ministry that was rehabilitating itself. But despite her expertise, there was no place for her anymore - legal counsel jobs were a luxury the Ministry couldn't afford at a time when getting bodies into law enforcement was of high priority. Vera waffled about for a bit, purposeless for the first time in her life, until an acquaintance pointed out the open position of History of Magic professor at Hogwarts. History had always been a passion of Vera's, though she had never imagined herself as a teacher. She applied, a bit reluctantly, and accepted when offered the job, mostly because she wasn't sure what else to do. She wasn't exactly excited about education, but as she always did, Vera set out to be the best of the best. She quickly gained a reputation as a strict disciplinarian, a stickler for detail, a harsh grader with high expectations - but a fair teacher who did take pride in her students' achievements. For her part, Vera found the job more pleasant that she expected, and somewhat rewarding, but there has always been a bit of a chip on her shoulder at having fallen from a high flyer in the Ministry to a humble history teacher. For the moment though, that is where she has decided to stay.

Personality (1-2 paragraphs or more):

Vera is a woman of many, many layers. She is decidedly stand-offish at first meeting; she has a sharp wit and isn't afraid to be sarcastic. She'd rather not talk if she doesn't have to, especially not to people she doesn't know. She has quite a cool affect and appears to always be calm and collected, no matter the situation, and she radiates confidence. She speaks her mind without hesitation, which can be off-putting, especially for people who don't know her. With her colleagues, she's highly professional and more open, but she veers away from more personal conversations, especially while on-duty. She's collegial enough and a kind person, but she couldn't exactly be described as warm.

She may have the appearance of a woman with her life in perfect order, but Vera hides a lot behind her facade of impeccable confidence. She has always been insecure about herself; she knows she's not exactly the most friendly person, but she never quite learned how to be, having moved abroad without speaking the language and then throwing herself into academic success rather than social life at school. She is, in fact, quite socially awkward, though she has learned to hide it well. She doesn't have anyone to truly open up to, which is also a point of insecurity for her. The people she's closest to in her life are her parents and her colleagues, and some former colleagues from the Ministry - but she doesn't have a person to turn to in crisis, something that's been a sore point of late, especially having experienced such a sense of purposelessness and disappointment in herself since returning to England. Having achieved what she dreamed of, lost it, failed to regain it, and settling for something she never truly wanted, Vera is in the process of realizing that her tunnel vision for success may have deprived her of something she didn't even realize she was missing: relationships. She is, in a word, desperate for a friend, a confidante, a partner in life - but to act on that, she'd have to admit it to herself first. And Vera Llewellyn would rather be anything but desperate.

Face Claim: Michelle Dockery