Post by Reina Whitlam-Weiss on Aug 26, 2011 11:11:34 GMT -5
((Hiya everyone! Here's Reina's complete profile. Let me know what you think, or if there's still anything I need to flesh out further. Thank you for having me! *curtsies*))
Name: Reina Whitlam – Weiss.
Quote: “I’m not in the mood. Please, leave me alone.”
Age: 14
Birthdate: May 1st, 2007.
Species: Human (Witch), Halfblood.
Gender: Female.
Family:
Older Sister: Jeanne Whitlam – Weiss, 20, Slytherin Alumni, Half-Blood. Once a promising employee of the Muggle Liason Office, but currently serving a life sentence in Azkaban for binding a family of Muggles into service with the Imperius Curse, apparently in an attempt to devise a wandless version of the spell. When asked why, Jeanne declared before a shocked Wizengamot that she had grown bored with trying to ‘motivate cattle’ and wanted to convey her desires more efficiently. The fruits of her research, if any, were never found. Jeanne still sends Reina messages from prison when she can, inquiring about her progress at school and offering her own unique brand of (twisted) advice. Reina reads these letters with care: Jeanne was reknowned for being manipulative even amongst her own family, and it would be just like her to treat her little sister like a faraway puppet, pulling on long-distance strings for her own amusement.
Mother: Isabella Whitlam, 55, Hufflepuff Alumni, Halfblood. Unemployed and agoraphobic, Isabella hasn’t stepped outside of her cottage home in two years, ever since her eldest daughter was sent to Azkaban and her youngest lost the use of her legs. Her shock provoked a religious epiphany, and now she spends her days praying for the deliverance of her daughters… and buying art over the internet. She sends Reina a small piece every Christmas.
Father: Mortimer Weiss, 67, Hufflepuff Alumni, Halfblood, Academic. Mortimer devotes his life to the study and creation of new spells, particularly in the area of Transfiguration. While he has yet to accomplish anything of note, his astute observations are highly respected by his peers. Mortimer currently lives in a small appartment in London, buried (almost literally,) in his work. He tries to stay connected to his family, but sometimes certain details escape him. Reina suspects that he doesn’t even know that Jeanne was sent to Azkaban.
Recently, Mortimer vanished from his apartment, along with some of his notes. His whereabouts remain unknown.
Appearance:
Build/height: Reina shares the same slim-hipped, slender build as her sister Jeanne and if she could stand would probably share her height. As it is, Reina barely comes up to the waist of most of her peers and possesses curves that could be described as ‘gentle’ if the viewer were feeling generous. Is it so surprising that she occassionally wants to break something?
General Description:
The wheelchair is often the first thing that an onlooker notices. The design is simple and elegant: a curved silver frame well-cushioned with plush red velvet. The front of the chair sweeps down in a gentle curve, cupping the occupant’s feet in a red cushioned scoop. There are three wheels: two larger wheels at the back and a smaller, oscillating wheel nestled under the footrest to aid in turning. Two handles exist if a retainer should want to help a tired Reina move through the corridors, but they go mostly unused. Despite its size the chair’s frame is astonishingly light, able to coast smoothly along at the slightest touch… and sometimes at no touch at all. All over the silver frame tiny iron roses, complete with thorns, twist and dance in a mesmerising pattern. An imaginative occupant might be able to fool themselves into thinking that they were lounging in a silver garden… but Reina has no time for such stupidity. She’s usually too busy reading.
She reacts to every interruption in the same way, whether the speaker happens to be a student or a teacher. Call her name and Reina’s hooded eyes, which she never opens wide except in moments of shock or pain, flick upwards to settle on the speaker, fixing them with a cold, emerald stare. Blather, bluster or waste her time, and Reina will drift back into whichever book she happens to be reading. Only the coherent and the interesting prompt her to sit up straight, as regal as a princess in her throne, and scoop her hair out her eyes, revealing a heart-shaped face that, although marred by slightly sunken cheeks and a constitution far too pale to be healthy, could be almost be beautiful. Her slim-fingered hands remain folded in her lap: sometimes she clicks her nails together when she gets frustrated, which is often. But otherwise Reina barely moves. She might tilt her head slightly to one side in answer to a question, or lift a languid hand to fiddle with the ribbons in her hair. Her voice is flat, quiet and clipped, filtered between lips that have forgotten how to smile. Beautiful, yet frozen, a broken doll dipped in ice.
By contrast, her hair practically shines. Long, dark and lustrous, it cascades in gentle waves to just past Reina’s shoulders, the perfect length to hide behind. Reina does so at the slightest provocation, often just before quietly removing herself from the situation that prompted her retreat. Her roommates suspect that she spends hours brushing it, but none of them have ever caught her doing so. Reina wears at least four hair ribbons at any one time, draped through her tresses in tight, glass-green helixes that sometimes appear to change position on their own.
She has a tiny spatter of golden freckles across her nose.
Possessions:
- An ‘Amaranth’ model Wheelchair, heavily bewitched to allow it to move under its own power. The Amaranth can match the average running speed of a fourteen-year-old girl (faster on downhill slopes,) and can climb stairs, albeit with some difficulty.
- A weatherbeaten Nimbus 2001, meant to be Reina’s first broom. Reina keeps it as a reminder of her accident.
- Lisette, Reina’s sweet-tempered eagle owl. She likes to nibble on Reina’s hair between deliveries.
- A brass trumpet. This instrument is very precious to Reina, and she allows very few people to see it, let alone watch her play it.
- A ruffled black parasol for sunny afternoons. Reina burns easily.
- A black leather bag clipped to the back of her wheelchair stuffed full of useful oddities, including a folding fan, chocolate, and several packets of powdered valerian Reina uses to ward off insomnia.
Personality:
Temperment/Mental Attributes-
At first glance, Reina often comes off as aloof, even snobbish. She loves quiet, peaceful places where she can lose herself in her reading… so nothing annoys her more then to have her studies interrupted by a group of her noisy peers, even if they are just ‘having fun.’ Far from being indulgent, Reina is well-known for dampening the atmosphere of a happy gathering with a single icy glare, and might even go so far as to cast a discreet Tripping Hex if anyone dares to disrupt her concentration by thundering up and down the corridors while she’s trying to read. If anyone actually tries to speak to her, they soon find that Reina’s tongue is just as cold as her gaze, dripping with softly-spoken ridicule and more than a dash of venom. She thinks nothing of spitting bile at a well-intentioned hello, and if the cold smile on her face is any indication she enjoys the misery she causes. It’s no surprise that the Common Room tends to empty when she wheels her chair over to sit by the fire, or that there’s always a ring of empty seats around her when she seeks refuge in the library. Something makes her unapproachable, a cold, seething intensity that’s almost palpable. So no-one ever notices that she only casts her curses when there’s something soft nearby for her victims to land on, and only whispers her insults to those who are strong enough to forget them.
It’s all a farce. Behind Reina’s icy mask is a damaged, frightened girl doing her best to hold herself together.
Everywhere Reina looks, she sees reminders of what she could have become if Jeanne hadn’t tricked her into her accident. All around her students run to class, walk hand in hand with their crushes, play outside in the sun, fly… and Reina has had no choice but to bow her head and try to ignore them. She was jealous of them once. Now, she has no idea how she feels, only that it hurts far more than her envy ever did and that, perhaps because of it, people avoid her even more than they used to. If she ever bothered to pull her head out of her books for long enough to think about her feelings, she would realise that the mysterious feeling is nothing more than loneliness. She longs for someone to be close to, as close as she was with her sister and her family before her accident. But if someone were to get that close to her again, wouldn’t they also be able to push her out of the metaphorical tree? Reina hates and loves her sister for what she did, much as her jealous loneliness drives her to hate and love everyone else who shows her the least bit of kindness. Longing for friendship, terrified of being injured… If she didn’t have her studies to anchor her to reality, Reina might very well break down completely.
But when those jealousies are removed... while brushing her hair in front of a mirror or playing her trumpet in a secluded corner of the grounds, the girl she used to be slips out from behind her mask to play. A girl who hates to see her friends cry and who loves to sing and cook, even if she’s not very good at it. A girl who laughs. A Reina who wants to be healed.
Alliance- Hogwarts School, but only in the sense that she currently attends lessons there. For Reina, the school is just a place to learn, and a depressing one at that.
Alignment- Good, at heart. Reina can be truly callous, but despite her jealousy she does truly care about the few people who have earned her respect.
Strengths-/I]
“… that was pathetic.”: Reina is no Hermione Granger, but in certain areas her spellwork is nothing short of prodigious (see Magical Skills, below). With nothing else to do but read and think, Reina has had plenty of time to practice.
“Here. Drink up. You’ll feel better, I promise: I take it all the time.”: Sometimes she can be really… nice. Underneath all that bile and ice Reina still has a heart, and in the space of a few unguarded moments she can thaw into an empathetic, compassionate young woman.
“… you want The Boy Who Lived, by Janet Kristina Ronsdale. It’s amusing, if you like satire.”: To say that Reina loves reading is an understatement. She’s perfectly capable of paraphrasing any number of interesting facts and passages off the top of her head, and knows her way around the library like the wheels of her chair.
“I don’t need you to push me.”: It’s easy to assume that Reina’s doll-like frame makes her frail, but three years of pushing her own weight around in an iron wheelchair has kept her in surprisingly good shape.
“Sit still and be quiet.”:: She plays the trumpet and plays it well, preferably somewhere in a quiet corner of the grounds where no-one is likely to spy on her performance.
Weaknesses-
“... excuse me. How many staircases did you say there were?” From her hips down, Reina is completely paralysed. She can’t ride a broomstick, walk under her own power or even wiggle her little toe. Her bewitched wheelchair allows her to move around to some extent, but it has trouble on grass or any surface that isn’t flat stone. She hates stairs.
“Should I care? That grass looks slippery. I’m glad that I don’t have to run on it.” To call the emotion constantly seething through Reina ‘jealousy’ would be a gross understatement. Reina envies and loathes the ‘gifted’ humans around her: the students and adults alike who walk, run, jump and fly without a second thought, taking their precious legs for granted. Watching a Quidditch match is enough to make her physically sick.
“… it’s hot. Heat doesn’t agree with me.”: Reina doesn’t burn. She blisters.
“You’re a strange girl. Do you like talking to monsters?” A poisonous slip of silk for a tongue and those scathing green eyes make her hard to approach, let alone get along with.
Education:
House- Slytherin.
Year- 4th.
OWLs/NEWTs- She hasn’t taken her OWLs yet, but takes sadistic delight in reminding her fellow fourth-years that the exams aren’t far away.
Other:
Magical Skills- Reina is almost prodigious when it comes to Charms: she uses the Locomotor and Levicorpus Charms constantly to help her get dressed, go to the bathroom and otherwise accomplish daily activities that her peers take for granted. Her paranoia and jealousy have also bred a fierce love for Defence against the Dark Arts: she takes particular pride in her Shield Charm. The rest of her spellwork ranges from good to average, with the exception of Herbology: her reluctance to go outside, never mind into the greenhouses, has earnt her truly abysmal marks.
Patronus- A slightly misty phoenix. Reina uses her Patronus rarely: she is well aware that not many fourth-years could manifest even a shield-form Patronus, let alone a corporeal one, and she doesn’t want the extra attention.
Wand- Peachwood and phoenix feather, eleven inches long and constantly warm to the touch, as if left in the sun for a few hours. Although she’d never admit it, Reina likes to sleep with her wand cuddled against her chest: it makes an excellent hot water bottle.
Goals/Aspirations- Jealous of her peers who can so easily take to the air, Reina longs to find an enchantment that will allow her wheelchair to fly as fast as any broom. Her other interests include cooking without a wand (she’s atrocious, but that hasn’t stopped her,) singing (tunelessly,) and playing the trumpet.
Other Information-
- Reina loves hugs almost as much as she is embarrassed by them: before her accident she adored the simple, sleepy, trusting warmth of being close to another person, sometimes falling asleep in their arms. Now she publically turns up her nose at the ‘needless stupidity’ of it all while secretly wishing she could reclaim her old confidence.
- She loves to brush her hair, as it reminds her of the close friendship she had with her sister. Offering to brush someone else’s hair (or agreeing to let someone else brush her hair for her,) is a major gesture of trust on Reina’s part.
- Having a good poke around Hogwarts at night, particularly in the Restricted Section of the library, has always been one of Reina’s dreams, but her wheelchair makes sneaking about a little difficult.
History-
From the moment she could walk, everyone seemed to want something from Reina Whitlam-Weiss. Her mother dreamed of a perfect student, and filled her daughter’s cot with brightly-coloured hippos and tigers who chirped enthusiastically about the twelve uses of dragon’s blood and how to correctly Charm a tortoise. Her father saw the inheritor of his research, and dragged his daughter onto his knee every night to tell her about his latest breakthroughs. Being a polite little thing, Reina didn’t stuff her fingers in her ears: she gazed out of the window or tried to distract Daddy with entertaining gurgles (or, when she could, a spoon of mushy peas down the front of his shirt). As for the hippos, Reina buried them under her used nappies and, as soon as she could wrap her fingers around a wand, took their lessons to heart and Charmed them all down the stairs, out of the house, into the garden and down the nearest gnomehole. Jeanne laughed so hard that she almost cried: elegant, prodigious, twelve-year-old Jeanne, who had never before shown any interest in her little sister beyond that of an extra roommate, or a pet. So no-one was more surprised than Reina when Jeanne led her out into the hills behind their house (it was summer, and the days were warm with the scent of pollen and honey,) sat her down under an ancient peach tree, and asked her a question that no-one, and certainly not her parents, had ever thought of asking:
“This is my secret place. Do you like it?”
Little Reina thought for a moment. It was the first time she had been so far from the house and although the day was warm enough to bathe in, she could scarcely surpress a shiver. Through the trees the red shingle roof of their house was barely visible: if she called, would Isabella or Mortimer be able to hear her?
“Rei? What’s wrong?”
No reply.
“Are you scared of something?”
Reina chanced a look at her sister, all long limbs and grace, snuggled into the grass like she owned it. Jeanne had one leg (closest to her sister,) spread flat against the ground, the other honey-hued knee hugged against her chest for her cheek to lean on. Her twelve-year-old face sparkled, but her eyes, hooded like Reina’s, were already deep enough to be filled with anything at all. Reina buried her face in her knees, her drooping hair cutting off Jeanne as neatly as if she had drawn a curtain.
“You. You’re scary.”
Jeanne’s fingers trickled across her shoulder.
“I’m your sister. I have to be.”
Trickle – trickle. Back and forth.
“Hey, Rei?”
“Yes?”
The fingers paused.
“What would you like to be when you grow up?”
Reina was so shocked by the question that she forgot to be scared.
“… a bird? Or a butterfly…” She peeked over the top of her knees, smiling shyly. “I… I’d like to be able to fly…”
“That sounds wonderful.” Jeanne smiled, and Reina had to wonder why she had ever been afraid. “When you get your wings, can I fly with you?”
Now Reina wanted something for herself, and she wasted no time in asking for it.
“Mother, Father, would you buy me a pair of wings?”
But they were too busy with their own dreams to worry about the fancies of their youngest daughter.
“We know what’s best for you, sweetheart.”
Isabella knew that the best students started their education early, and filled Reina’s bedroom with books. Reina stripped them of their pages, using her hippo-taught charms to fold thousands of tiny paper birds. They flew about the house, teasing the cats and, just occassionally, unfolding themselves so that a certain curious witchling could read about a particularly interesting incantation, or how certain individuals could transform themselves into birds with a simple thought. Mortimer tripped over the discarded leather covers piled outside her bedroom door and swore to ground Reina if she didn’t start to listen to her mother, but Jeanne taught her little sister how to open any lock with a whisper, leaving her free to wander the hills as she wished. Sometimes she would stay out overnight, sitting under the ancient peach tree with her paper flock and watching the clouds go by.
She was ten when she tried to fly for the first time.
“Rei… Rei… wake up, Rei.”
Reina awoke feeling so warm, so very sleepy, that she buried her face in her blankets, desparate to return to the cloudscapes of her dreams. The border between sleep and wake cradled her gently, a strong, steady warmth pulsing in her ears. Almost like a heartbeat…
Reina’s eyes snapped open. Jeanne smiled down at her.
“Hello, sleepyhead.”
All Reina could do was stare. Beyond the protective circle of Jeanne’s arms the night sky blazed with millions of stars, their silvery light shimmering softly through the glowing mist of the milky way. All around, the scent of night was rising through the trees: a cold, vibrant mixture of dewy grass and evergreen, mixed with just a hint of peach. The peach tree itself stood proud in the starlight, its knotted branches groaning triumphantly under the weight of hundreds of blossoms. Overwhelmed, Reina buried her face in Jeanne’s shoulder, holding on as tightly as she could.
“Don’t you like it?”
Reina shook her head.
“No… it’s beautiful…”
“You don’t have to lie to me. I know it’s a lot to take in, little sis. But I had to bring you up here at least once before I left.” Jeanne knelt, gently depositing Reina on a patch of grass under a particularly bushy bough. “I wanted it to be your going-away present.”
Reina blinked as a blossom petal fluttered down to rest upon her nose. She had almost forgotten that her acceptance letter from Hogwarts was due to arrive soon… at least, she hoped it would arrive soon. What if her owl never came? Or if it did would she fit in in that strange castle full of ghosts and staircases? A knot of nervousness cramped in her stomach. At least she would have Jeanne there for her first year. Jeanne would show her around, tell her which teachers to avoid and how to speak to the portraits without feeling silly… She paused as she realised that Jeanne was smiling at her, staring down the length of what looked like a shard of frozen starlight: her wand. The point hovered right over Reina’s heart.
“… Jeanne?”
“Hush, silly. Do you remember the last time we were both here? You told me what you wanted to be, most of all.” Jeanne tilted her head to one side. “I thought it would be nice if I could help to grant that wish.
“Nebulosus Pennae.”
Silver light flared in a whirl of blossoms and nightmist: Reina gasped as, above her, the branches of the peach tree were stripped bare, petals cascading down to wreath her in a maelstrom of scent and colour. Reina blinked, literally spellbound as the sweet wind lifted her gently off her feet, the blossoms spreading out behind her in a shape that almost looked like a… pair of wings…
Jeanne smiled to herself as she watched her sister circle around the top of the peach tree, her delighted laughter ringing unchecked through the clear night air. So she was the first to notice as the blossoms began to fall away, leaving holes in Reina’s precious feathers. For the first time, Jeanne’s smile fractured.
“Reina! Reina, come down!”
But Reina was too intoxicated to hear her. The stars were calling, and it was so easy to shoot skywards, to let the wind whip her hair away from her wide-open eyes, to reach up and try to touch the sky spread wide open seemingly inches away from her fingertips.
It was a long way down.
All Reina remembered about her first visit to Saint Mungo’s was how cold she became. It wasn’t just because of the hour she spent unconscious on the hillside, or the eventual icy squeeze of the apparition alongside her sister’s smiling face.. It was a different kind of cold, centred in the middle of her back, just above her hips, that seeped through her legs, numbing them so completely that, when she awoke the next morning in a hospital bed with Jeanne by her bedside, she had almost forgotten what having legs had felt like. Even before the Healers told her, Reina knew: having tasted flight, she would never walk again.
Her letter from Hogwarts arrived on the same day.
Why had Jeanne given her wings, only to let her fall? Let her fly, only to watch with a smile on her face as Reina sat for the first time in the wheelchair that would become her prison?
To this day, Reina doesn’t know.
Name: Reina Whitlam – Weiss.
Quote: “I’m not in the mood. Please, leave me alone.”
Age: 14
Birthdate: May 1st, 2007.
Species: Human (Witch), Halfblood.
Gender: Female.
Family:
Older Sister: Jeanne Whitlam – Weiss, 20, Slytherin Alumni, Half-Blood. Once a promising employee of the Muggle Liason Office, but currently serving a life sentence in Azkaban for binding a family of Muggles into service with the Imperius Curse, apparently in an attempt to devise a wandless version of the spell. When asked why, Jeanne declared before a shocked Wizengamot that she had grown bored with trying to ‘motivate cattle’ and wanted to convey her desires more efficiently. The fruits of her research, if any, were never found. Jeanne still sends Reina messages from prison when she can, inquiring about her progress at school and offering her own unique brand of (twisted) advice. Reina reads these letters with care: Jeanne was reknowned for being manipulative even amongst her own family, and it would be just like her to treat her little sister like a faraway puppet, pulling on long-distance strings for her own amusement.
Mother: Isabella Whitlam, 55, Hufflepuff Alumni, Halfblood. Unemployed and agoraphobic, Isabella hasn’t stepped outside of her cottage home in two years, ever since her eldest daughter was sent to Azkaban and her youngest lost the use of her legs. Her shock provoked a religious epiphany, and now she spends her days praying for the deliverance of her daughters… and buying art over the internet. She sends Reina a small piece every Christmas.
Father: Mortimer Weiss, 67, Hufflepuff Alumni, Halfblood, Academic. Mortimer devotes his life to the study and creation of new spells, particularly in the area of Transfiguration. While he has yet to accomplish anything of note, his astute observations are highly respected by his peers. Mortimer currently lives in a small appartment in London, buried (almost literally,) in his work. He tries to stay connected to his family, but sometimes certain details escape him. Reina suspects that he doesn’t even know that Jeanne was sent to Azkaban.
Recently, Mortimer vanished from his apartment, along with some of his notes. His whereabouts remain unknown.
Appearance:
Build/height: Reina shares the same slim-hipped, slender build as her sister Jeanne and if she could stand would probably share her height. As it is, Reina barely comes up to the waist of most of her peers and possesses curves that could be described as ‘gentle’ if the viewer were feeling generous. Is it so surprising that she occassionally wants to break something?
General Description:
The wheelchair is often the first thing that an onlooker notices. The design is simple and elegant: a curved silver frame well-cushioned with plush red velvet. The front of the chair sweeps down in a gentle curve, cupping the occupant’s feet in a red cushioned scoop. There are three wheels: two larger wheels at the back and a smaller, oscillating wheel nestled under the footrest to aid in turning. Two handles exist if a retainer should want to help a tired Reina move through the corridors, but they go mostly unused. Despite its size the chair’s frame is astonishingly light, able to coast smoothly along at the slightest touch… and sometimes at no touch at all. All over the silver frame tiny iron roses, complete with thorns, twist and dance in a mesmerising pattern. An imaginative occupant might be able to fool themselves into thinking that they were lounging in a silver garden… but Reina has no time for such stupidity. She’s usually too busy reading.
She reacts to every interruption in the same way, whether the speaker happens to be a student or a teacher. Call her name and Reina’s hooded eyes, which she never opens wide except in moments of shock or pain, flick upwards to settle on the speaker, fixing them with a cold, emerald stare. Blather, bluster or waste her time, and Reina will drift back into whichever book she happens to be reading. Only the coherent and the interesting prompt her to sit up straight, as regal as a princess in her throne, and scoop her hair out her eyes, revealing a heart-shaped face that, although marred by slightly sunken cheeks and a constitution far too pale to be healthy, could be almost be beautiful. Her slim-fingered hands remain folded in her lap: sometimes she clicks her nails together when she gets frustrated, which is often. But otherwise Reina barely moves. She might tilt her head slightly to one side in answer to a question, or lift a languid hand to fiddle with the ribbons in her hair. Her voice is flat, quiet and clipped, filtered between lips that have forgotten how to smile. Beautiful, yet frozen, a broken doll dipped in ice.
By contrast, her hair practically shines. Long, dark and lustrous, it cascades in gentle waves to just past Reina’s shoulders, the perfect length to hide behind. Reina does so at the slightest provocation, often just before quietly removing herself from the situation that prompted her retreat. Her roommates suspect that she spends hours brushing it, but none of them have ever caught her doing so. Reina wears at least four hair ribbons at any one time, draped through her tresses in tight, glass-green helixes that sometimes appear to change position on their own.
She has a tiny spatter of golden freckles across her nose.
Possessions:
- An ‘Amaranth’ model Wheelchair, heavily bewitched to allow it to move under its own power. The Amaranth can match the average running speed of a fourteen-year-old girl (faster on downhill slopes,) and can climb stairs, albeit with some difficulty.
- A weatherbeaten Nimbus 2001, meant to be Reina’s first broom. Reina keeps it as a reminder of her accident.
- Lisette, Reina’s sweet-tempered eagle owl. She likes to nibble on Reina’s hair between deliveries.
- A brass trumpet. This instrument is very precious to Reina, and she allows very few people to see it, let alone watch her play it.
- A ruffled black parasol for sunny afternoons. Reina burns easily.
- A black leather bag clipped to the back of her wheelchair stuffed full of useful oddities, including a folding fan, chocolate, and several packets of powdered valerian Reina uses to ward off insomnia.
Personality:
Temperment/Mental Attributes-
At first glance, Reina often comes off as aloof, even snobbish. She loves quiet, peaceful places where she can lose herself in her reading… so nothing annoys her more then to have her studies interrupted by a group of her noisy peers, even if they are just ‘having fun.’ Far from being indulgent, Reina is well-known for dampening the atmosphere of a happy gathering with a single icy glare, and might even go so far as to cast a discreet Tripping Hex if anyone dares to disrupt her concentration by thundering up and down the corridors while she’s trying to read. If anyone actually tries to speak to her, they soon find that Reina’s tongue is just as cold as her gaze, dripping with softly-spoken ridicule and more than a dash of venom. She thinks nothing of spitting bile at a well-intentioned hello, and if the cold smile on her face is any indication she enjoys the misery she causes. It’s no surprise that the Common Room tends to empty when she wheels her chair over to sit by the fire, or that there’s always a ring of empty seats around her when she seeks refuge in the library. Something makes her unapproachable, a cold, seething intensity that’s almost palpable. So no-one ever notices that she only casts her curses when there’s something soft nearby for her victims to land on, and only whispers her insults to those who are strong enough to forget them.
It’s all a farce. Behind Reina’s icy mask is a damaged, frightened girl doing her best to hold herself together.
Everywhere Reina looks, she sees reminders of what she could have become if Jeanne hadn’t tricked her into her accident. All around her students run to class, walk hand in hand with their crushes, play outside in the sun, fly… and Reina has had no choice but to bow her head and try to ignore them. She was jealous of them once. Now, she has no idea how she feels, only that it hurts far more than her envy ever did and that, perhaps because of it, people avoid her even more than they used to. If she ever bothered to pull her head out of her books for long enough to think about her feelings, she would realise that the mysterious feeling is nothing more than loneliness. She longs for someone to be close to, as close as she was with her sister and her family before her accident. But if someone were to get that close to her again, wouldn’t they also be able to push her out of the metaphorical tree? Reina hates and loves her sister for what she did, much as her jealous loneliness drives her to hate and love everyone else who shows her the least bit of kindness. Longing for friendship, terrified of being injured… If she didn’t have her studies to anchor her to reality, Reina might very well break down completely.
But when those jealousies are removed... while brushing her hair in front of a mirror or playing her trumpet in a secluded corner of the grounds, the girl she used to be slips out from behind her mask to play. A girl who hates to see her friends cry and who loves to sing and cook, even if she’s not very good at it. A girl who laughs. A Reina who wants to be healed.
Alliance- Hogwarts School, but only in the sense that she currently attends lessons there. For Reina, the school is just a place to learn, and a depressing one at that.
Alignment- Good, at heart. Reina can be truly callous, but despite her jealousy she does truly care about the few people who have earned her respect.
Strengths-/I]
“… that was pathetic.”: Reina is no Hermione Granger, but in certain areas her spellwork is nothing short of prodigious (see Magical Skills, below). With nothing else to do but read and think, Reina has had plenty of time to practice.
“Here. Drink up. You’ll feel better, I promise: I take it all the time.”: Sometimes she can be really… nice. Underneath all that bile and ice Reina still has a heart, and in the space of a few unguarded moments she can thaw into an empathetic, compassionate young woman.
“… you want The Boy Who Lived, by Janet Kristina Ronsdale. It’s amusing, if you like satire.”: To say that Reina loves reading is an understatement. She’s perfectly capable of paraphrasing any number of interesting facts and passages off the top of her head, and knows her way around the library like the wheels of her chair.
“I don’t need you to push me.”: It’s easy to assume that Reina’s doll-like frame makes her frail, but three years of pushing her own weight around in an iron wheelchair has kept her in surprisingly good shape.
“Sit still and be quiet.”:: She plays the trumpet and plays it well, preferably somewhere in a quiet corner of the grounds where no-one is likely to spy on her performance.
Weaknesses-
“... excuse me. How many staircases did you say there were?” From her hips down, Reina is completely paralysed. She can’t ride a broomstick, walk under her own power or even wiggle her little toe. Her bewitched wheelchair allows her to move around to some extent, but it has trouble on grass or any surface that isn’t flat stone. She hates stairs.
“Should I care? That grass looks slippery. I’m glad that I don’t have to run on it.” To call the emotion constantly seething through Reina ‘jealousy’ would be a gross understatement. Reina envies and loathes the ‘gifted’ humans around her: the students and adults alike who walk, run, jump and fly without a second thought, taking their precious legs for granted. Watching a Quidditch match is enough to make her physically sick.
“… it’s hot. Heat doesn’t agree with me.”: Reina doesn’t burn. She blisters.
“You’re a strange girl. Do you like talking to monsters?” A poisonous slip of silk for a tongue and those scathing green eyes make her hard to approach, let alone get along with.
Education:
House- Slytherin.
Year- 4th.
OWLs/NEWTs- She hasn’t taken her OWLs yet, but takes sadistic delight in reminding her fellow fourth-years that the exams aren’t far away.
Other:
Magical Skills- Reina is almost prodigious when it comes to Charms: she uses the Locomotor and Levicorpus Charms constantly to help her get dressed, go to the bathroom and otherwise accomplish daily activities that her peers take for granted. Her paranoia and jealousy have also bred a fierce love for Defence against the Dark Arts: she takes particular pride in her Shield Charm. The rest of her spellwork ranges from good to average, with the exception of Herbology: her reluctance to go outside, never mind into the greenhouses, has earnt her truly abysmal marks.
Patronus- A slightly misty phoenix. Reina uses her Patronus rarely: she is well aware that not many fourth-years could manifest even a shield-form Patronus, let alone a corporeal one, and she doesn’t want the extra attention.
Wand- Peachwood and phoenix feather, eleven inches long and constantly warm to the touch, as if left in the sun for a few hours. Although she’d never admit it, Reina likes to sleep with her wand cuddled against her chest: it makes an excellent hot water bottle.
Goals/Aspirations- Jealous of her peers who can so easily take to the air, Reina longs to find an enchantment that will allow her wheelchair to fly as fast as any broom. Her other interests include cooking without a wand (she’s atrocious, but that hasn’t stopped her,) singing (tunelessly,) and playing the trumpet.
Other Information-
- Reina loves hugs almost as much as she is embarrassed by them: before her accident she adored the simple, sleepy, trusting warmth of being close to another person, sometimes falling asleep in their arms. Now she publically turns up her nose at the ‘needless stupidity’ of it all while secretly wishing she could reclaim her old confidence.
- She loves to brush her hair, as it reminds her of the close friendship she had with her sister. Offering to brush someone else’s hair (or agreeing to let someone else brush her hair for her,) is a major gesture of trust on Reina’s part.
- Having a good poke around Hogwarts at night, particularly in the Restricted Section of the library, has always been one of Reina’s dreams, but her wheelchair makes sneaking about a little difficult.
History-
From the moment she could walk, everyone seemed to want something from Reina Whitlam-Weiss. Her mother dreamed of a perfect student, and filled her daughter’s cot with brightly-coloured hippos and tigers who chirped enthusiastically about the twelve uses of dragon’s blood and how to correctly Charm a tortoise. Her father saw the inheritor of his research, and dragged his daughter onto his knee every night to tell her about his latest breakthroughs. Being a polite little thing, Reina didn’t stuff her fingers in her ears: she gazed out of the window or tried to distract Daddy with entertaining gurgles (or, when she could, a spoon of mushy peas down the front of his shirt). As for the hippos, Reina buried them under her used nappies and, as soon as she could wrap her fingers around a wand, took their lessons to heart and Charmed them all down the stairs, out of the house, into the garden and down the nearest gnomehole. Jeanne laughed so hard that she almost cried: elegant, prodigious, twelve-year-old Jeanne, who had never before shown any interest in her little sister beyond that of an extra roommate, or a pet. So no-one was more surprised than Reina when Jeanne led her out into the hills behind their house (it was summer, and the days were warm with the scent of pollen and honey,) sat her down under an ancient peach tree, and asked her a question that no-one, and certainly not her parents, had ever thought of asking:
“This is my secret place. Do you like it?”
Little Reina thought for a moment. It was the first time she had been so far from the house and although the day was warm enough to bathe in, she could scarcely surpress a shiver. Through the trees the red shingle roof of their house was barely visible: if she called, would Isabella or Mortimer be able to hear her?
“Rei? What’s wrong?”
No reply.
“Are you scared of something?”
Reina chanced a look at her sister, all long limbs and grace, snuggled into the grass like she owned it. Jeanne had one leg (closest to her sister,) spread flat against the ground, the other honey-hued knee hugged against her chest for her cheek to lean on. Her twelve-year-old face sparkled, but her eyes, hooded like Reina’s, were already deep enough to be filled with anything at all. Reina buried her face in her knees, her drooping hair cutting off Jeanne as neatly as if she had drawn a curtain.
“You. You’re scary.”
Jeanne’s fingers trickled across her shoulder.
“I’m your sister. I have to be.”
Trickle – trickle. Back and forth.
“Hey, Rei?”
“Yes?”
The fingers paused.
“What would you like to be when you grow up?”
Reina was so shocked by the question that she forgot to be scared.
“… a bird? Or a butterfly…” She peeked over the top of her knees, smiling shyly. “I… I’d like to be able to fly…”
“That sounds wonderful.” Jeanne smiled, and Reina had to wonder why she had ever been afraid. “When you get your wings, can I fly with you?”
Now Reina wanted something for herself, and she wasted no time in asking for it.
“Mother, Father, would you buy me a pair of wings?”
But they were too busy with their own dreams to worry about the fancies of their youngest daughter.
“We know what’s best for you, sweetheart.”
Isabella knew that the best students started their education early, and filled Reina’s bedroom with books. Reina stripped them of their pages, using her hippo-taught charms to fold thousands of tiny paper birds. They flew about the house, teasing the cats and, just occassionally, unfolding themselves so that a certain curious witchling could read about a particularly interesting incantation, or how certain individuals could transform themselves into birds with a simple thought. Mortimer tripped over the discarded leather covers piled outside her bedroom door and swore to ground Reina if she didn’t start to listen to her mother, but Jeanne taught her little sister how to open any lock with a whisper, leaving her free to wander the hills as she wished. Sometimes she would stay out overnight, sitting under the ancient peach tree with her paper flock and watching the clouds go by.
She was ten when she tried to fly for the first time.
“Rei… Rei… wake up, Rei.”
Reina awoke feeling so warm, so very sleepy, that she buried her face in her blankets, desparate to return to the cloudscapes of her dreams. The border between sleep and wake cradled her gently, a strong, steady warmth pulsing in her ears. Almost like a heartbeat…
Reina’s eyes snapped open. Jeanne smiled down at her.
“Hello, sleepyhead.”
All Reina could do was stare. Beyond the protective circle of Jeanne’s arms the night sky blazed with millions of stars, their silvery light shimmering softly through the glowing mist of the milky way. All around, the scent of night was rising through the trees: a cold, vibrant mixture of dewy grass and evergreen, mixed with just a hint of peach. The peach tree itself stood proud in the starlight, its knotted branches groaning triumphantly under the weight of hundreds of blossoms. Overwhelmed, Reina buried her face in Jeanne’s shoulder, holding on as tightly as she could.
“Don’t you like it?”
Reina shook her head.
“No… it’s beautiful…”
“You don’t have to lie to me. I know it’s a lot to take in, little sis. But I had to bring you up here at least once before I left.” Jeanne knelt, gently depositing Reina on a patch of grass under a particularly bushy bough. “I wanted it to be your going-away present.”
Reina blinked as a blossom petal fluttered down to rest upon her nose. She had almost forgotten that her acceptance letter from Hogwarts was due to arrive soon… at least, she hoped it would arrive soon. What if her owl never came? Or if it did would she fit in in that strange castle full of ghosts and staircases? A knot of nervousness cramped in her stomach. At least she would have Jeanne there for her first year. Jeanne would show her around, tell her which teachers to avoid and how to speak to the portraits without feeling silly… She paused as she realised that Jeanne was smiling at her, staring down the length of what looked like a shard of frozen starlight: her wand. The point hovered right over Reina’s heart.
“… Jeanne?”
“Hush, silly. Do you remember the last time we were both here? You told me what you wanted to be, most of all.” Jeanne tilted her head to one side. “I thought it would be nice if I could help to grant that wish.
“Nebulosus Pennae.”
Silver light flared in a whirl of blossoms and nightmist: Reina gasped as, above her, the branches of the peach tree were stripped bare, petals cascading down to wreath her in a maelstrom of scent and colour. Reina blinked, literally spellbound as the sweet wind lifted her gently off her feet, the blossoms spreading out behind her in a shape that almost looked like a… pair of wings…
Jeanne smiled to herself as she watched her sister circle around the top of the peach tree, her delighted laughter ringing unchecked through the clear night air. So she was the first to notice as the blossoms began to fall away, leaving holes in Reina’s precious feathers. For the first time, Jeanne’s smile fractured.
“Reina! Reina, come down!”
But Reina was too intoxicated to hear her. The stars were calling, and it was so easy to shoot skywards, to let the wind whip her hair away from her wide-open eyes, to reach up and try to touch the sky spread wide open seemingly inches away from her fingertips.
It was a long way down.
All Reina remembered about her first visit to Saint Mungo’s was how cold she became. It wasn’t just because of the hour she spent unconscious on the hillside, or the eventual icy squeeze of the apparition alongside her sister’s smiling face.. It was a different kind of cold, centred in the middle of her back, just above her hips, that seeped through her legs, numbing them so completely that, when she awoke the next morning in a hospital bed with Jeanne by her bedside, she had almost forgotten what having legs had felt like. Even before the Healers told her, Reina knew: having tasted flight, she would never walk again.
Her letter from Hogwarts arrived on the same day.
Why had Jeanne given her wings, only to let her fall? Let her fly, only to watch with a smile on her face as Reina sat for the first time in the wheelchair that would become her prison?
To this day, Reina doesn’t know.
