alice fortescue.

Gryffindor, Seventh yr. Former Sacred 28-er turned ice cream makers daughter, now Head Girl with a heart (mostly) of gold. Duelling Club professional, Herbology club afficionado and Seeker on the Quidditch team with a Snitch tattooed behind her left ear.

Was born a Fawley, the last of her line, the daughter of Andromache Travers, betrothed to Antioch Fawley, the only surviving son of the once great Fawley family. Her childhood was a happy one, though one that was still filled with the indoctrination of purist society, and she grew up unaware that the views her parents were raising her with weren’t the norm.

Her mother died when she was eight - vanishing sickness took hold quickly, but Dragonpox was what took her. Her father when she was ten - he hadn’t needed to work, he’d been left a fortune by family members who died too soon, but he decided to work anyway, and was caught in a collapsing Egyptian tomb. 

She was more or less adopted that same summer by Hugo Fortescue, a family friend who had been widowed in the same explosion that took Antioch (and, yes, her father was named after that Antioch. The Peverell one.) 

Suddenly she lost almost everything she had ever known. Yes, Hugo was a pureblood, though not a member of the Sacred 28 owing to him having immigrated from France only a few years earlier to be with his wife, but he was by no means wealthy. Or, perhaps, he was a lot more frugal than Alice was used to her family being.

Gone were the parties and little excursions to her friends houses, the fancy dresses and lessons on etiquette and what to expect from the Black’s and the Lestrange’s and the Rosier’s and Yaxley’s and Shacklebolt’s, the echoing halls of her manor of a home and the cold reality that while her parents loved her, they did not always treat her as such.

Living with Hugo - and her now adoptive older brother, Florean - was a learning curve that she hadn’t ever anticipated. She was suddenly faced with the reality that everything her parents had drilled into her, all of it was a lie. None of it was true. The innate kindness they’d tried to force out of her, the natural love of humanity and awe of muggles that they’d tried to burn out of her, that was true. What wasn’t was the lesson that they were superior that they had drilled into her head, that had been why she felt so out of place here, because their blood was pure.

She didn’t want to admit it, not then, but her childhood was tainted. It’s something she struggled with for a long time, hell, even now she struggles with it - that, really, she isn’t a Fortescue, even though that’s the name she totes, the name she is more than proud of - that her family, her blood, were people who hated anyone that was different. 

For all intents and purposes, Hugo and Florean were more like family than her parents ever were. They made time for her - Florean, even then, was her overprotective big brother - the one that would take a jinx to the chest for her, the one that would torment anyone who hurt her, the one who would wake up too early to learn how to braid her hair because Hugo was always too busy to do it. 

Despite all the unlearning she did - and still is doing, believe me, she knows she isn’t perfect, but she’s angrier than ever and learning more and more each day - she still remained close with several of her childhood friends. They’d come visit her in the ice cream parlour, and she’d sneak them a scoop or two before abandoning her post to run around Diagon Alley with her.

That started to change as she grew - as she became a teenager, and suddenly she was listening to muggle music, and watching muggle tv shows, following Florean out into muggle London for the first time, but certainly not the last. She started to lose friends when they couldn’t understand why she was abandoning them, when to her, she wasn’t. They were so important to her, some still are today, even if she isn’t proud of that, proud of being friends with people on both sides. 

When she got her letter to Hogwarts, a couple of years after being allowed her own wand - under Hugo’s strict supervision (okay, so it wasn’t necessarily always strict, but he said it was to anyone who dared ask him why she could sometimes be found waving her wand in the middle of the ice cream parlour in the middle of Diagon Alley), she knew exactly where she was meant to be.

She’d already gone through a “phase” of getting into skirmishes with people who, in her eyes, didn’t know how to treat people with respect. It’s something that’s definitely mellowed, though that instinct, that protective flare still hasn’t faded, not even now. It was obvious to any of the people who knew her, who knew her as a Fortescue, that she was going to be sorted into Gryffindor - nobody was less surprised than Alice when it barely took a second before she was swept off her feet.

Her fascination with muggle music and love of art only grew at Hogwarts - her natural ability with plants made certain Alice always found a home in the Greenhouses, and her wand’s natural inclining to defensive magic made it easy to thrive in Defence Against the Dark Arts. 

Trying out for Quidditch is a no brainer - she’s not so graceful on her feet on the ground, more often than not tripping and skinning her knees, Drooble’s gum bubble popped as she goes, but on a broom? She knows how to be graceful there, in the air, not quite so high as to be above the clouds, but high enough to be above their heads. She’s not meant to be trying out for the Seeker position - she thought maybe Chaser, or Beater, but Seeker was where she found herself, and where she’s stayed ever since.

Now she’s in her last year, she’s found that so much has changed. The world is on the verge of war, and Alice knows she’ll end up fighting - she wants to be an Auror, she has done since she was fifteen and met one in the ice cream parlour, looking for a lead. She just doesn’t know how far this will go - how far she’ll let herself go, how far they’ll all let themselves go. She only knows that she won’t ever back down.

- x -

middle name: marguerite. 

languages spoken: english, french, latin (duh). 

body modifications: five ear piercings. two tattoos. a golden snitch behind her left ear, one that moves and flaps it’s wings. a lion on her ribcage.

hobbies: photography, quidditch, herbology club, eating ice cream. being the most badass head girl hogwarts has ever seen. (in her own words, of course).

orientation: bisexual (and biromantic) af. let her have kissed girls and boys.

wand: yew wood and phoenix feather core. twelve inches. rigid. excellent for duelling, and by definition, defense against the dark arts and charms. (also with a dark and very fearsome reputation, she’s learned.)

boggart is herself turning into an inferi. that’s cool. totally not somehow a metaphor for how afraid she is of losing herself and her mind.

patronus: elephant.

amortentia: cinnamon being sprinkled across freshly baked cookies. her mother’s perfume. pink blossoms falling to the ground in the midday autumn breeze. pumpkin pasties, the way the hogwarts kitchens always make. seawater crashing against the coast. bouquets of tiger lily on the dinner table. firework sparks. droobles best blowing gum, bubblegum and blueberry mixing. water hitting tea. laundry, freshly done, just out of the dryer. woody cologne. 

birthday: october 9th, 7:54pm.

zodiac: libra sun.

egyptian zodiac: horus. 

positive traits: altruistic, steadfast, compassionate, loyal, personable, passionate.

negative traits: domineering, well-meaning, self sabotaging, messy, clumsy, closed off.