Statistics[]
Full name: Romilda Diann Vane
Age: 22
Date of birth: June 21st, 1982
Blood: Half-blood
Wand: Walnut, 9", dragon heartstring. Stiff.
Alumni: Gryffindor
Affiliation: Journalist for the Daily Prophet. Romilda has a penchant for the gossip columns, so she tries to get those sort of assignments. She has established contacts within the Ministry and in the Wizarding Underground, and is looking to expand upon that. She is also an occasional consultant for the Ministry's Muggle Relations Office.
Home Life[]
Mother: Emilia James [Muggle]
Father: Cyrus Vane [Pureblood; Ravenclaw]
Siblings: twin half-brothers Marcus and William
Other family: Fiancé: Lee Yong-Shin; mother's partner':' Brian Middleton
Relationships with each:
Emilia James and Brian Middleton - Romilda never knew what her mother saw in Brian - he did, after all, had what she liked to call 'strangler's hands' - and why anyone would want to bear his children was beyond her. This, plus the fact that she wasn't able to see Emilia often meant that the two had started drifting apart, but Romilda still felt deep admiration for her mother, so while there tended to by misunderstandings and prejudices, they got on relatively well.
Brian once tried to get Romilda to call him 'dad'. She pretty much resented him from then on.
Cyrus Vane - Romilda might've looked nothing like her father, but she was Daddy's Little Girl from the moment she was born. Cyrus never re-married after his divorce, so he was usually able to focus solely on his daughter, helped by the fact that she lived with him most months out of the year. Romilda truly enjoys her Dad's company.
Marcus and William Middleton - this pair of 10 year old boys annoy Romilda, they truly do. She never really considered them as siblings, and whenever she visits, she barely tolerates them.
Lee Yong-Shin - the love of her life. Well. Theoretically, anyway. Romilda feels great affection towards Yong-Shin - he's charming, rich, powerful for someone his age, and looks fabulous on her arm - enough to be marrying him, but she's sure that this isn't love. The two of them have quite a dynamic relationship, and compliment each other well.
Home: A cushy apartment in Cambridge; a townhouse in Seoul which she shares with her fiance.
Finances: Relatively well off. Her job doesn't pay as much as she'd like, but most of her expenses are covered by Yong-Shin and Cyrus.
Personal Life[]
Personality: One characteristic of Romilda's appearance is an accurate reflection on her personality: her fringe. It's blunt, much like her. This is perhaps why she doesn't come across as a particularly nice person - besides the fact that she's just, y'know, not. She doesn't feel the need to pad anything out gently, and 'tact' is a word she often skips over in the dictionary. One of the many assumptions people make about blunt individuals is that they don't lie. That's not true, because Romilda lies all the time. Small white lies, big black ones, whatever it takes to get her what she wants.
Someone once remarked that Romilda's moral compass doesn't point North, it points wherever the hell treasure is, and that's true, because once she had her heart set on something, she will do all that she can to get it. She loves the spotlight, part of the reason why she wanted a career change, because no one go famous just by dealing with Muggles.
Romilda is quick to anger and difficult to placate. She is the tantrum-throwing and grudge-holding type. Her grudges have lasted years, over very small things.
It's not in her nature to keep secrets, because Romilda loves to gossip. But if it's useful to her in any way (or if she's under a secrecy curse, which is more likely) she could be persuaded to keep her mouth shut. While not necessarily manipulative, Romilda can be incredible underhanded.
Romilda sees magic as a boon, not a right. It's a good sort of mind frame to be dealing with Muggles.
Marital status: Engaged
Sexual Orientation: Heterosexual
Strengths: bold, daring, shows initiative, thick-skinned, practical, confident
Weaknesses: rash, judgmental, temperamental, attention-seeker, tendency to 'forget' to return favours, nosy, materialistic
Boggart: Fire. She's not afraid of fires, per se, but there is a fear that everything/everyone she knows and owns will be lost in a fire.
Patronus: Squirrel
Mirror of Erised: Spotlight is completely on her.
Amortentia Potion: Body musk, freshly squeezed orange juice, eucalyptus, metals
Miscellaneous: Romilda is very gifted at hexes and breaking wards - she briefly considered working as a curse-breaker but couldn't find the perks in the job.
Aesthetics[]
Appearance: Romilda had always been short and a bit plump, though she lost some of that baby fat in her 20s. She wears her long hair loose, never doing anything particularly fancy to it, but always cut so that it has a fringe. She has large eyes and a small mouth, giving her chin the illusion of being too big. Her face wouldn't be considered beautiful, but Cyrus always said - to make his daughter feel better - that it had character.
Height: 5'4"
Weight: 135lbs
Hair: Dark brown
Eyes: Brown
Style of dress: Fashionably casual. Like her mother, Romilda has an eye for style, and while she doesn't consider her appearance to be the most important thing, she does pay attention to make sure that she's presentable. She prefers Muggle clothing, and when she is required to wear robes she'll have some sort of Muggle attire underneath.
History[]
Cyrus Vane came from a long line of wizards, so it surprised everyone when he announced that he was going to marry a Muggle woman and live out the rest of his life a an ordinary Brit. No Magic. He and his bride Emilia made a living as clothes retailers in Liverpool. With her eye for trends and his superb management skills, business was booming, life was on the up-and-up when Romilda (named for Emilia's Italian mother) was born.
A magic-less existence - especially for someone who practically breathed it growing up - was more difficult than it sounded. With the demands of the shops (they had just opened a third outlet) and a newborn baby, Cyrus found the only way he could juggle things was to 'use a little bit of magic'. As time went on, encouraged by the convenience, 'a little bit' turned into a lot, and Cyrus was now relying on magic to take care of almost everything. He suggested that maybe it was time to reintegrate his family into the wizarding world, but Emilia was having none of it: she was hurt by the breaking of trust, and she wasn't prepared to uproot her life so that they could go to a place where her skills meant nothing.
They started to disagree over everything, never raising their voices, but exchanging snide remarks. Romilda grew up with this, so she was of the opinion that sarcasm was an indispensable part of life. It went on for several years before Cyrus and Emilia decided that perhaps it was best for all of them if they separated. The matter was taken to Muggle court, and Emilia won custody of Romilda, determined to raise her daughter in a 'normal' environment.
Romilda and her mother stayed in Liverpool while Cyrus returned to the Vane family home, serving as a financial consultant to wizards who had no idea how to handle their money. Romilda grew up around Muggles, went to a Muggle primary school, and while she enjoyed visiting Cyrus every month, she haboured a love for all things non-magical.
Initially, when she received the letter from Hogwarts Romilda didn't want to go: she was happy where she was. Emilia knew that she couldn't deny her daughter's magical heritage, so she convinced Romilda to go, and live with her father during the holidays (it was closer).
As soon as she set foot in school, Romilda's world changed. Sure, she'd seen magic before, but she was never immersed in it like she was now. Romilda loved magic. She thrived at Hogwarts, doing well enough in all her classes so she could actively go and enjoy the experience. She became more boisterous, determined to make the most of it, and never said 'no' to anything (she was a Gryffindor, after all).
Family-wise, it wasn't going too well. Emilia, lonely, had moved in with Brian, and was pregnant with his child. Romilda disapproved of Brian instinctively, because he was rough and coarse and a bit of a chav, a complete mismatch for Emilia. Thing were mad worse when the twins were born - Emilia couldn't pay as much attention to Romilda as she used to, and Romilda blamed Brian. She visited less frequently, finding excuses to spend time with Cyrus' family instead.
In second year, Romilda was a staunch supporter of Cedric Diggory, and repeatedly approached the champion - a bunch of giggling friends in tow - for reasons she couldn't even fathom. In third year, she heard rumours of a Dumbledore's club, or something along those lines, but because the Vanes were Ministry-neutral, she didn't feel at all compelled to join.
During those holidays, she read about Harry Potter's bravery at the Ministry (she had first become aware of him in first year, when he won the Quidditch cup for Gryffindor). The return of Voldemort didn't scare her so much, since it had been before her time. Prone to hero worship - or maybe it was just trying to find a spot in the limelight - Romilda pursued Harry with great gusto, but was ultimately unsuccessful, and she came to resent Ginny for getting what she couldn't.
The rest of the year was a mess; Dumbledore's death had everyone on edge. Emilia even threatened to take Romilda out of Hogwarts until Cyrus placated her with a promise that their daughter would be safe.
Romilda received six O.W.Ls in fifth year, though grades seemed irrelevant by this point, with the tension in the wizarding world escalating. The students actually had it easy - being in school meant that there was a certain degree of separation from the real world, so even though they were kept up to date on developments, it felt like everything was happening to someone else. By the time the war was officially declared, the majority of the student body (those who were still at Hogwarts, at least) would have known at least one person who died. Romilda was lucky here - the Vanes were careful not to pledge allegiance to any party, so were not obvious targets. There were wards and powerful magic protecting their property, and any Muggle family they may have.
Graduating without the sense of accomplishment she hoped for, Romilda ignored all Auror recruitment efforts. Instead, she applied to the Minitry's Muggle Relations Office. With an Outstanding on her Muggle Studies N.E.W.T, and experience in dealing with the non-magical, she was employed quickly, just in time for the Death Eaters' crusade against Muggles.
Romilda liaised with Muggle authorities, and other wizarding institutions to ensure Muggle safety. This was a much better way to contribute to the war effort, she thought - one more body on the front line probably wouldn't have made a difference, but what she was doing did. It was in the Ministry that she met Lee Yong-Shin, son of the South Korean Minister for magic, and a delegation to the English Ministry. They became friends, but didn't begin seeing each other until Romilda left the Ministry's employ.
The war was all but over when Romilda quit her job and took up a post at the Daily Prophet. When her work lost the urgency that it originally had, it became more of a chore, and the politics started to reach a level she was uncomfortable with. She worked as a cadet for a year, then became a full-fledged writer for the paper. Some time after that, Romilda realised that she rather fancied the 'social' section of the paper.
Apparently being a journalist paid a pittance, unless you were a star reporter. That wouldn't be happening for years still, so when she was contacted by the Ministry to see if she would serve as a freelancing consultant for its Muggle Relations department, she accepted.
By this time Romilda had been dating Yong-Shin for five months. They took some time off for a brief holiday (and a meet and greet of the Lee family) in South Korea, where Yong-Shin proposed.
Current Activities[]
Jenni should be a love and write stuff for Romilda here
Meta[]
Player: Jenni