Maeva McDemiguise

[Professor Maeva McDemiguise]

~+Player Stats+~

Player Name: Maddie
Activity Level: I will spend as much time on the site as you need me to.
Other Characters: I want to make Maeva and a student.

~+Basic Statistics+~

Full Name: Maeva McDemiguise
Nicknames: None
Position: Slytherin Head of House, Charms Professor
Length of Employment: Just over three years.
Age: 31
Birthday: 30th of August, 1987
Ethnicity: Caucasian, with some Romanian blood
Bloodline: Pureblood
Current Residence: While she originally hailed from Plymouth, Maeva lives in Hogsmeade in between terms.

~+Physical Statistics+~

Height: 5’10
Weight: 135 lbs
Hair Color and Style: Straight, black hair that hangs past her shoulders. She only ties it up in a ponytail when she plays Quidditch.
Eyes: Blue
Face: Maeva has a heart shaped face with a strong jaw and chin. Her eyes are deep set and she has a rather wide forehead. Her nose is straight and her lips are full.
Figure: Maeva is slightly curvy, with long legs and rounded hips. While she isn’t skinny, she is quite fit and strong because of the time she has spent playing Quidditch.
Tattoos, Scars, and Distinguishing Features: Maeva has a slight gap in between her two front teeth.
Jewelry: One hole in each ear, prefers to wear only silver jewelry.

Clothing Style: Being pureblooded, Maeva knew very well that it was expected of her to wear heavy, solid coloured robes. She disliked them immensely, however, and one of her guilty little secrets was that she looked at the wild patterns on the muggle clothing with longing eyes, literally counting the days until she would graduate from Hogwarts and decide for herself what would be inside her wardrobe and what not. No grays, beiges or blacks would touch her skin after she was done, that much was for certain. Inside her closet would be a myriad of colours, ranging from cobalt blue to the most obnoxious of yellows.

Life does not always allow us to make the decisions we want to. When Maeva started working as an Obliviator, she realized very quickly that wearing bright, gaudy colours was out of the question since it would attract too much attention to her. Once again she settled into wearing robes in grey and black and this has continued since she has taken up a position at Hogwarts. Do not be surprised to find her in colourful robes after classes, though.


~+Personality Statistics+~

Interaction: Maeva McDemiguise was not someone who only thought only of herself. Even though her first priority was to herself, there was a lot of room for other people in her life. She was a big dreamer but she had the emotional maturity to realize that she would need other people on the way to realizing her dreams. As a result, she was a very attentive and engaging woman, one who could strike up a conversation with just about anybody. She also had a knack for remembering oddities about people and paid close attention to details like in which position people kept their hands while talking and whether someone sprinkled salt over their food without tasting it first. She also believed that a person’s hobbies said more than words and that, while some people take longer to find it, everybody had at least one extraordinary talent. To ignore the possibility that the person sitting across from you was amazing in at least one way would be to underestimate someone and that was very, very unwise.

Maeva is the Charms professor and as such, believes her subject to be one of the most important presented at Hogwarts. She is a firm believer that practice makes perfect and that it is essential to lay the foundation for study during the simpler subjects before moving onto the more difficult task. While she is a very strict teacher, Maeve has an open door policy when it comes to her students. Any student from any house and year can approach her at any for help with their coursework. Being a Slytherin, Maeve also wouldn’t mind using rather unorthodox means to push her students to excel, especially if she spots talent in a particular student. Charms is a precise subject and in order to become a master in casting charms, some sacrifices are needed.

Inner Being: In her personal life, Maeva often found herself focusing on the things she liked. She didn’t really devote her attention to a broad spectrum of things but rather concentrated on becoming exceptionally skilled in one or two things, like cooking and Charms. While she had the ability to excel in something once she set her mind to it, her life lacked balance in many ways. If she was excellent in one or two things, she could be mediocre at quite a few others. Maeva could whip up a delicious stew without even thinking about it, but she would probably be humiliated if she ever tried to compete in a game of wizarding chess because her mind would be wandering in other directions. That went for many other things. If she was not interested in something, she wouldn’t even attempt it.

Maeva had a habit of talking to herself while she was concentrating, especially when she knew that she was busy with something serious. It was not an uncommon sight to see her mumbling to herself while brewing a potion or working on a complicated charm. If one were to listen closely, it would be interesting to hear the woman giving instructions to herself, suggesting ways in getting the task done without making a complete fool of her.

The people closest to her were the people who were constantly challenging her. There was only one or two of those in her life, however. Her most competitive friend, Moira Kellogg, had an enormous influence on her life but her brother Nikolay’s input should not be ignored either. In a large family such as the McDemiguise one, it is quite natural for two siblings to bond more with each other than with the rest and this was exactly the case with Ronan and Maeva. Nikolay was her big brother, yes, but he was also a dear friend, one who had no trouble rubbing Maeva’s nose in it if he excelled in his career and challenged each and every personal decision that she made. As a result, Maeva was almost always on her toes when it came to her peers, especially the ones she saw as a threat. If she decided complain about something, she always made sure that she had a reason good enough to satisfy even Nikolay and if there was a moral decision to be made, she went through more motions than simply flipping a coin. Maeva did not prefer the friendship of one sex over the other, but she would not make enemies either. While she had strong opinions, she would rather hold her tongue than burn bridges. She would, however, back a friend up in an argument because by not doing so, she might lose a friendship and she valued that more than a stranger’s opinion of her.

Intelligence: Maeva is of slightly above average intelligence. She had to study hard to do well at school, but she knew how to apply herself and did well as a result. She had a knack for remembering various incantations for charms, though, and could also improvise to brew a correct potion. He training as Obliviator was very intense but not only did Maeva pass the rigorous training, she did well enough to receive an immediate offer of employment.

Fears: The thing that frightened Maeva the most was not being in control. All the other dislikes in her life stemmed from that one particular terror. To be controlled without having a will of your own or the power to enforce that will, had to be terrible, or so the woman thought. Since there are quite a few things that Maeva could not control, her list of dislikes was quite long. Some of her particular dislikes are listed in the appropriate section below.

Goals: Even though Maeva moved to Hogwarts, her goals have stayed. She wanted to rise at the top of her department at the Ministry and she would like to do exactly that at Hogwarts. She would like nothing better than to be Vice Headmistress in a few year’s time and after that, Headmistress of Hogwarts.

Good Characteristics: I will keep this short since I covered that in previous sections. Maeva is very attentive, with excellent listening skills. She is very ambitious, which is why she was sorted in Slytherin during her years at Hogwarts. She is driven, enjoys excelling and she works incredibly hard.

Bad Characteristics: Maeva is very insecure. She is slightly paranoid in the sense that she thinks that people will harm her if she gives them half the chance. She concentrates her efforts on projects that she enjoys doing and wouldn’t hesitate to neglect the rest.

Secrets: During her time as an Obliviator, somebody close to Maeva had to have a part of his memory erased. Due to the circumstances, he blamed Maeva for his inability to remember certain things and as a result, they went their separate ways. Maeva was inconsolable and one of her colleagues offered to erase the man’s memory more thoroughly, so that he couldn’t remember Maeva at all and did not despise her, like he did at the moment. Maeva accepted. Two months later, the Obliviator in question was killed in the line of duty and Maeva now carries the secret on her own.

Likes:

Maeva loved colours. Nothing could excite her more than an explosion of pinks, blues, yellows, reds and any other colour that you could possibly think of. As soon as she learned how to paint properly, she painted a “mural” on one of her walls, which was, in reality, just a simple image of a butterfly resting on a multi-coloured mushroom but Maeva had so much fun doing it that she ended up painting a different image in each of the three McDemiguise bedrooms and the nursery. Creative to the very core of her, the woman could literally lose herself in various forms of art, from sketching to painting and she even discovered mosaic work while living on her own. Maeva absolutely loved shaping the little tiles to fit into her design and became very adept at arranging the tiny squares in the most gorgeous of patterns.

A few of Maeva favourites included pineapple as a fruit, rainy as the type of weather, purple as a colour, orchid as a flower, three bean salad as type of food, nettle tea as a drink and her silvery flip flops as shoes.


Dislikes:

Wild animals
Natural disasters
Clowns, because you never know when one might grab you without your consent
Swarms of insects
Pepper and mustard, because there is no telling how hot it is
Allergies

Some of her random dislikes include mango as a fruit, windy as type of weather, gray as a colour, copper penny salad as type of food, coffee as a drink and anything made from dragon hide as shoes. Dragons are not meant to be worn, after all…


~+Abilities and Possessions+~

Special Abilities: None
Magical Strengths: Charms, Potions, Divination
Magical Weaknesses: Transfiguration, History of Magic (while she could remember the details, she had a hard time remembering the dates) and Arithmancy
Other Abilities: With an eye for detail and the rest of her senses just as keen to pick up the small things in life, it was no wonder that cooking became another joy. She could spend hours in her small kitchen, devising her own recipes and thinking of ways to improve on her mother’s conventional dishes. Because she developed a love for mixing and measuring, she also enjoyed the subject of Potions and did very well in it.

Wand Properties: 15 and a half inch made from rosewood with an oak handle. Since both of the wood types are extremely durable and hard, the wand is not flexible at all but there is little chance of it breaking. The core is made from ashwinder ash. A spiral shaped carving twists around the wand from the very tip until the end of the shaft.

The wand was a gift from Sandra Kellogg, the mother of Maeva’s childhood friend. Since Maeva often spent time with Moira, Mrs. Kellogg’s daughter, it became apparent to the older woman that Maeva had a knack for Charms and she thought that this wand would be the ideal gift before Maeva started to attend Hogwarts. Not wanting to spend too much money on something as simple as a box, Mrs. Kellogg had a little satchel made for the wand. The fabric is velvety and purple and M.M, Maeva’s initials, is embroidered on one of the corners in white thread.

Possessions: Maeva owns a Nimbus 3000 racing broom. She bought it from her first paycheck at Hogwarts and is extremely proud of this possession.

~+History and Family Information+~

Family:

Father: Patrick Andrew McDemiguise (Aged 67)
Mother: Estella Mae McDemiguise (nee Fourie – aged 68)
Older sister: Ingrid Sattler (Aged 38) – Married to Frederick Sattler, has two children (Aurore aged 6 and Klaus aged 4)
Older brother: Nikolay McDemiguise (Aged 35) – A member of the Wizengamot. Works at the Department of Magical Law Enforcement.
Older brother: Ronan McDemiguise (Aged 33) – Independent artist
Younger sister: Adele McDemiguise (Aged 29) – Works as a healer at St. Mungo’s
Younger brother: Samuel McDemiguise (Aged 22)- Works as a journalist for the Daily Prophet.


When Maeva was still a child, the lifestyle of the McDemiguises was reflected in the quaint cottage that stood on one end of a generous lawn: The cottage was modest, but with all the necessary creature comforts to sustain a household. There were three bedrooms (Maeva shared with Adele) and a nursery, an eat-in kitchen, two bathrooms and a study. It would be obvious to any visitor that none of the McDemiguises spent too much time cooped up in the cramped little cottage; one would be safe in assuming that their lives led them elsewhere.

Patrick McDemiguise was a mediocre potions inventor, having only stumbled across a single potion in his career: A sleeping draught that would enlarge your nose up to twice its normal size if you drank it straight before going to bed. He hardly ever worked at home, being a firm believer that one needed the perfect ambience to create, so he set up a small workshop, for the lack of a better word, near the harbour. Estella McDemiguise was originally a flying instructor, but discovered the Apparating industry to be more profitable.


Pets: Maeva received her very first owl, Barthòse, in the form of a birthday gift when she turned thirty. Barthòse is a very temperamental long eared owl which has the tendency to simply disappear for weeks on end. This does not really bother the girl, mainly because the owl always returns in the end but also because she only ever writes to her good friend Miss. Moira Kellogg whose eagle owl seems to be an impeccable delivery bird.

History: Humans are complicated beings. At the core of each and every single joy, there is an event or comment that sparked the little flame that grew into a satisfying glow. Similarly, our nightmares and phobias are fueled by things that had happened to us, not only recently but also so long ago that the actual facts had retreated into our subconscious, leaving only small traces that serve as vague memories. It was no different for Maeva. While she thought that Nikolay and Moira were the ones who shaped her the most, there were others things at play in her personality that she was not even aware of.

The McDemiguise family could be classed as a happy, regular middle-classed wizarding family. While the family did not have an excess of money, they had enough to live comfortably and because all the children did not have to attend Hogwarts at once, Estella and Patrick McDemiguise were able to put all of their children through school and provide them with the best education possible. That was not always the case, though. I don’t think that Estella ever realized what a struggle it would be to be married to a man such as Patrick. While he was undoubtedly bright and very devoted, he simply did not have the vision to realize that he was leading his family into financial ruin. It seemed that the man would never invent a single potion of use and shortly after Maeva had been born, it became very clear to Estella that her once happy family was heading straight for bankruptcy.

Those were desperate times. Both Ingrid and Nikolay were attending Hogwarts and even though Estella’s mother, Faye Fourie, tried her best to help her daughter and family in the time of need, she had very little herself and could not provide as much as she would have liked. The family began to cut down on the luxuries in their life. Bathing in the same water, using one teabag at least five times and mixing a little bit of water with milk to make it last longer, became common practices in the McDemiguise household. Things that seemed necessary before were suddenly regarded as luxuries. Estella managed to put some money away. Spending one afternoon after the other giving extra flying lessons, she scraped together some savings, only to watch Patrick spend it on ingredients for his latest concoctions. Frustrated, she began to pick fights with him and before long, it became a habit to quarrel before going to bed. It was only as Ronan began having terrible nightmares of one of his parents dying that they came to their senses, trying to find a more sensible solution for their problem.

Help came in the form of Sandra Kellogg, a former colleague of Estella’s. Mrs. Kellogg had been involved in a flying accident shortly before her retirement and since her husband earned enough playing professional Quidditch, she decided to spend her time at home to raise her daughter, Moira. Moira was a year younger than Maeva and, being an only child, was quite lonely. It was on a rather dreary day that Mrs. Kellogg bumped into an overwrought Estella and upon expressing her sympathies the younger woman told her everything about the family’s monetary worries. Sandra Kellogg had a very simple solution to the problem: To lighten the financial burden of the McDemiguise family, she invited Maeva to come and live with them until the family was back on their feet and in exchange, she could keep Moira company. That would have enabled the McDemiguise couple to get a lodger for Maeva’s room to earn a little bit of extra money. Both of the girls were still toddlers and after discussing the matter with Patrick, the couple agreed to accept Sandra’s offer.

The stay turned out to be a short one. Within six months of accepting Sandra’s offer, Estella managed to secure a position as an Apparition instructor. With all the freelance work, the extra hours that she managed to squeeze in and by accepting the occasional bribe that desperate students offered her to help them pass, Estella earned nearly three times as much as she used to. The day that she went to fetch Maeva from the Kellogg family was the day that she vowed she would never tell her daughter what had happened during that time in her life. Maeva was barely three years old, after all, and Estella was sure that her stay at the Kelloggs would be forgotten by the time that she was four or five years old.

By keeping the truth from her daughter, Estella made an enormous mistake.

If she had just told Maeva, the cryptic memories would not have confused the girl so. She remained very close friends with Moira and while she understood that it was inevitable that she would remember one or two sleepovers, she wasn’t bargaining on remembering that many. At first she thought that she was remembering things that never happened. The time she slipped and fell on a garden rake was one of those scraps of memory that came rushing back, but surely it should have been her own mother running towards her to help her, not Mrs. Kellogg? As soon as she set her mind to it, Maeva began remembering more and more things. She could clearly recall lying in her bed at night, listening to the parrot talking to itself. But the McDemiguises never owned a parrot or any other muggle animal, for that matter. The parrot was a gift to Moira that her father brought back after a trip to Brazil. By the time she was seven years old, Maeva was more than ready to talk to someone about her confusion but instead of going to her parents, she went straight to Moira. Being only a child herself, Maeva’s friend tried to help her make sense of it all but in the end, the many conversations did more harm than good.

Maeva firmly believed that her parents were trying to pass her off on another family. She was the black sheep. The one who was in the way. How could she think otherwise? She did not remember the times of terrible poverty that her parents had to struggle through… And if her parents were that willing to get rid of her on a whim, who else was there to look after her? Yes, Sandra Kellogg was like a second mother to her but she also had an extraordinarily tight bond with her own daughter and young as she was, Maeva realized that she would never fit into the perfect Kellogg picture. It was at that time that Maeva began to take care of herself emotionally. Anything that could possibly hurt or harm her was pushed aside, including conflict and ill will from others. She never confronted anyone, never fought with anyone. She never confided in anyone either and even though she became very close to her brother Nikolay in later years, there was still a small part of her that was jealous of him. He was the one who stayed behind, after all. Their parents never wanted to get rid of him like they did of her.

Estella, of course, was blissfully unaware of Maeva’s inner struggle. She assumed that her daughter had long forgotten her stay with Sandra and Moira and even though Maeva did become slightly rebellious later in her teenage years, she shrugged it off as typical teenage behaviour. Little did she know that her daughter believed that she was alone in the world, that her parents would turn their backs on her as soon as she finished Hogwarts and that she desperately wanted to become an alchemist in order to acquire enough wealth to live on her own.

As a result of Maeva’s fears and insecurities, she hardly opened up to anybody. Yes, she wanted to know all that there was to know about everyone she met, simply so that she could have an idea of who she was dealing with, but she never opened that proverbial door to let anyone in. She went out of her way to avoid conflict and would even lie to get out of a fight, also to her professors. It embarrassed Maeva to no end that there was already one person on earth who knew of her suspicions towards her parents and deep down, the girl actually believed that even Moira was sniggering behind her back, relieved that such a rotten lot had not befallen her.

During her last years at Hogwarts, Maeva realized for the first time that her dream of becoming an Alchemist would come to nought. She was simply not talented in Transfiguration, so it wouldn’t have made sense to pursue such a dream. Being the practical girl that she was, Maeva immediately began researching other possibilities. She had always excelled in Charms, so when a ministry official came to Hogwarts in her final year to tell the entire group of seventh years about his career as an Obliviator, it felt like the man was talking to Maeva and only her. As soon as she graduated, she enrolled for a ministry approved training program and within three years, she was working as an Obliviator.

Maeva often wondered why she chose that particular career track. Yes, she excelled at Charms, but there were quite a few other careers she could have investigated. In the end she realized it was an attempt to erase the facts that she knew about her own life that hurt her so. Her choice of career led to another tragedy. In the year she turned 27, the man she was engaged to had to have his memory erased because he witnessed scandal that the ministry needed to cover up. While he did not remember anything about that day, he knew that he had forgotten something and he connected that to Maeva. Since he knew about her chosen profession, he refused to believe that she had no idea what he was referring to and he broke the engagement off. Shortly after this incident, Maeva applied for a teaching position at Hogwarts and became Slytherin Head of House.


~+Other+~

Classroom Description: The Charms classroom is situated on the second floor, which means that although it is not in a tower, it is fairly high up. This suits her quite nicely, as it means that there is a lovely view from the several windows, which she usually keeps uncovered to let in plenty of sunlight. This makes the room very bright and airy, which fits in fairly well with the décor. Though Maeva feels restricted in her choices of clothing, she lets her love of color come through with her classroom. Though they are rarely drawn, the windows are flanked by thick curtains change color depending on her whim, but are usually something quite bright. Her desk is very neat—you could go as far as to say pristine—fitting in a certain air of professionalism and briskness, though on the walls there are some of her paintings, adding bright splashes of color.

Office Description: Maeva’s office is down in the dungeons close to the Potions classroom. Her office is a much smaller room, quite more cozy and enclosed than the classroom. There is only one window, though it is a very large one good for gazing out of when tired of grading and there is a cage right by it that is usually empty due to her owl’s tendency to wander. She has a second desk, just as carefully maintained and organized as the one in the classroom, and in front of it sits a small wooden chair with a plush cushion that usually changes to match the curtains. Behind the desk is a large mural she painted shortly after her fiancé left and it takes up the entire wall. The other walls are mostly bare other than a cabinet and some small pictures of the Kelloggs and Maeva’s older brothers.



~+Roleplaying Sampler+~

The summer sunlight streamed in through the open window, past the colourful curtains and into the spacious living room. The light played on the walls: Dancing around the fencing to cast oddly shaped spots on the walls, none of them the same size, none of them the same shape, almost like the different forms of clouds drifting in the blue sky. There was one especially large spot; a stray ray of sun bounced off the only mirror in the room, that in the hands of the girl who sat on an overly large couch, her bare feet resting on the floral patterns on the seat. She was staring at herself, turning her face this way and that, running her hand over her chin and lifting her hair out of the way. Her usually bone-straight hair was wavy that day, hanging to her shoulders in loops and curls and more importantly, covering both of her cheeks. Once or twice the girl lifted the curls out of her way to examine her right cheek before she let the wavy tresses fall back to disguise her features again. A sour frown rested between her eyebrows, crinkling down to her nose and one would be forgiven to assume that the girl was in pain of sorts, seeing that she was grimacing and grumbling under her breath.

“I swear it has gotten bigger…” Cecilia Webb mumbled, staring at the pinkish bulge on her chin. The hair had taken care of the twin buds that had erupted on her right cheek, but the unsightly spot on the very tip of her chin was as visible as ever, even more so now that Cecilia had fidgeted with the blemish. After another exasperated sigh, Ceci cocked her head back before turning around on the couch and staring in the direction of the kitchen.

“Aunt Pené, this primple is getting bigger!” she screeched, turning her attention back to the mirror before she started sulking once more. She knew that her aunt would not answer straight away: Aunt Penélope was brewing some type of a concoction to nurse Ceci’s chin with and she always displayed an eerie intensity of concentration while she was brewing potions of any sort. Quite the academic, Aunt Penélope knew all types of recipes and cures, even for simple muggle ailments like flu and rashes. Ceci only hoped that her aunt’s brew would be effective. It wasn’t that long before she would have to return to Hogwarts and the fourteen year old girl stiffened at the thought of her enemies, and even some of her friends, seeing her like this. It would be the purest of horrors, especially since the blonde felt light-headed and quite nauseous as well. Aunt Penélope had said earlier that it was simply because Ceci was a bit of a softy in addition to being quite spoilt, but Cecilia was convinced that her squeamishness was due to the condition that had erupted in spots on her chin and cheek. It was a spot of luck that Cecilia had remembered a spell that one of the Champions used to curl her hair for the previous ball, otherwise her usually tight, practical braid would have aided her skin in revealing the girl’s glowing dilemma.

“They are pimples, Cecilia, not primples. And you would not get them if you drank water instead of butterbeer.” The voice was a very motherly one, warm and tender, but Cecilia was at the age in which she simply had to roll her eyes at the sound advice, even if she knew very well that her aunt knew quite a few things about remedies and ailments. “Here we go…” the older woman said as she entered the living room from the kitchen, carrying a mortar, pestle and single cup of water. “I would have used Bubotuber puss on those blemishes, but if you take after your father you will have a rash covering your entire face next and Merlin knows that I will not be able to handle the moaning that is sure to follow after that type of upsurge…” A mischievous smile crinkled around the corners of Penélope Webb’s mouth as she looked at her eldest niece, the girl glowering at her for an instant before reaching for the green powder and examining it with raised eyebrows. “You should make a paste with that, adding the water and then dabbing it onto clean skin. Yes, I know…” she said, raising her one hand as Cecilia seemed to prepare herself to protest, “…it is going to look ghastly for the entire afternoon but you will be healed tomorrow or until you drink the next butterbeer. Whichever comes first…” she added dryly, crossing her arms as she watched Ceci mix the paste. After watching the younger girl for another moment, Penélope whipped around and started towards the bedroom at the top of the stairs. “Please get the door if someone rings, Cecilia. I am expecting a new maid and I gave her explicit instructions to use the front door instead of simply apparating into my home. Goodness knows, we would have had a stranger show up in the middle of our living room if I hadn’t requested that, I am sure of it. People have no manners these days…” And with that, Aunt Penélope started up the stairs, leaving Cecilia to nurse her wounds and her ego.

The paste was indeed quite peculiar, with a strong smell and the oddest greenish tinge. Ceci shivered delicately as she blobbed a small amount onto her chin, trying her very best not to touch the coarse powder or lumpy paste with her bare hands. After applying another dollop, she picked the mirror up once again and stared at her reflection before scowling. It looked horrible. Maybe if she ground the powder even finer…


Using the pestle, Cecilia carefully crushed the contents of the mortar until it was as fine as flour. After mixing it with some of the water she continued to nurse herself, glancing in the mirror after each and every application, even lifting her locks out of the way to take care of her cheek. After she was finished, there was still quite a bit of the mixture left and after hesitating for a moment, Ceci dipped her bare hands into the mortar and spread the remainder of the medicine over he entire chin.

“Best take care of them while I am here…” she murmured, spreading another generous handful over her chin before taking up the mirror again. She was expecting no visitors, after all, and it would be mortifying if one of these critters popped up as soon as she returned to Hogwarts. She also made a mental note to cut down on the butterbeer and pumpkin pastries, even though she knew that it would be easier said than done. Aunt Penélope’s cook, an elderly squib, prepared the most delicious treats and meals and she always made a point to spoil Cecilia when she came to visit over the holidays. Ceci suspected that she was her favourite visitor and it was no wonder: Vesta and Louisa, her two sisters always stared down from their upturned noses at squibs, muggles and the like. They were in Durmstrang, so it was to be expected, but Ceci could not help but gloat at the royal treatment she received whenever she visited the Godalming manor.

Sighing contently, Ceci bounced up from the couch to wash her hands. One thing was for certain: Pimples or no pimples, her holiday had been a blissful one so far and Ceci had the distinct feeling that it would get better and better. As soon as these pimples were cleared up, she would make a kite or two again and if she was bored with that, she would dive into Aunt Pené’s extensive library before inviting a friend or two over to stay. As she washed her hands under the cool tap water, a flurry of anticipation rose from Ceci’s belly, making her wish that her holiday would never end.