#c:tabby

Nia gave Tabby a weak grin at that. “Yeah, I know. Maybe we should plan a vacation for the next one.” It was exhausting, not snapping or crying, trying to rise above her feelings. Dreamer was the last thing she wanted to be in this moment. Nia was far from perfect, and she was so ready to just give up. But she couldn’t give up. And despite it all, seeing Tabby here helped her find that strength to keep going.

“Tabby, if this is about your speaker, I swear...” Lorna looked up with a glare that was almost certainly undermined by the swollen redness around her eyes and the gravel in her voice. It was almost impossible to pass it off as just sleeplessness; it was all too clear that she’d been having a rough time of it. Tabby said almost exactly what Scott had said, but Lorna felt a little more defensive when someone else said it. It wasn’t Tabby’s fault. Lorna just wasn’t in the mood for... really any of the usual ribbing she’d engage in.

Nia frowned. “Hang on, I didn’t say that. I just said don’t blow the lock off the door. It’s too obvious! Anyone who looks at it will know someone was here, and they could even figure out who it was.” She reached up to her hair, pulling a couple pins from her hair with a smile. “I didn’t say we had to wait for someone to find us.” She leant closer to the lock, bending the the pins into the shape she needed and beginning to fiddle with the lock. Although she’d been taught how to pick locks by human methods, she couldn’t deny that alien senses did make it a touch easier. She could hear the tumblers moving if she concentrated. Almost there...

Click!

“A-ha!” She stood, grinning triumphantly at Tabby. The door handle now turned in her hand and she opened the door with a dramatic flourish. “After you.”

tabitha bainbridge | 16 | slytherin | pureblood

In the weeks leading up to her impulsive, jealousy-induced theft, Tabitha Bainbridge finds herself wishing Jo had never been named captain of the Slytherin Quidditch Team.

She doesn’t care about the bad-mouthing among their housemates, or even that Graham’s been a total twat to her lately. The problem with this whole captain situation is that Tabitha can’t remember the last time she and Jo just hung out. It’s always “the team” this and “the team” that! Even when they’re alone it’s blah blah “the plays I’ve been working on” and blah blah “Graham’s turning them against me” and Tabitha’s had enough! In the heat of the moment, hurt and upset, she thinks fuck quidditch andfuck you, Josephine for being a self-absorbed bint, which means she says it aloud and storms out. Of course, only after she sneakily stuffs the offending playbook into her bag.

They make up a few days later, and Jo comments that can’t figure out where she put the damn thing. Tabitha knows exactly where the book is; pre-reconciliation, she gave it to rival captain Cho Chang (whom she doesn’t even like) because if Jo sucked as a captain they might replace her and *poof!* she’d have her best friend back. But obviously she can’t say that without losing said friend forever, and lies through her teeth.

“I dunno, did you look under your bed?” Tabitha asks, looking concerned. “Or maybe a house-elf found it and moved it while cleaning, the little shit.”

SAVING GRACE:

RESOURCEFUL: A strong-willed and “I march to the beat of my own drum, motherfuckers!” sort-of person, when Tabitha puts her mind to something, she does it without a manual. If anybody were going to survive a zombie apocalypse, it’s her, because she’s excellent at winging it. Sometimes it comes back to bite her in the ass, but she’s got an uncanny ability at figuring out how to use situations to her advantage. She’s definitely an opportunist who is willing to go where no one else has gone and do what no one else will do if she thinks it’ll suit the situation.   

EXTROVERTED: Tabitha can talk to just about anybody. Those normal filters and anxieties that other people have about starting conversations and meeting new people? Nope, she hasn’t got any of them. Whether or not she can genuinely read the social cues people send off saying “please leave me alone” is uncertain, however, because it’s debatable whether or not she cares.. If Tabitha has something to say, she’ll say it, and unfortunately, she’s also got a habit of talking before she thinks.But at least she’s not shy! And hey, her friends say she can be pretty funny, so who’s complaining?

INTELLECTUAL: While it’s not exactly what she’s known for, Tabitha is well smart. She has no problems in school (at least, other than with her professors and classmates) and is actually quite nerdy. She’s intellectual but not an intellectual, though; nerdy but not a nerd. Tabitha just likes to learn over certain things and thinks magic (and maths) are really fucking cool, okay? She’s just, you know, easily excited by that kind of stuff and when she’s focused (read: obsessed), her energy could break down a wall.

FATAL FLAW:

HABITUAL LIAR: If there’s one thing this girl knows how to use, it’s her words. A master bullshitter, Tabitha Bainbridge can lie her way through anything. Even though there are certainly parts of her personality that are brash and come out no matter who she’s with, she’s adept at making anything coming out of her mouth sound like the truth and it’s a skill which has helped her navigate her family and housemates over the years. But she’s also a habitual liar — not because she’s got to practice, but because it comes so naturally the lies just pop out of her mouth like the truth, for no reason other than shits and giggles.

ANGER ISSUES: Her default emotion is best described as “pissed off.” It’s not that Tabitha has an issue with physically aggressiveness, or that she’s angry all the time. It’s just that she’s not so great with regulating her emotions, especially those surrounding compliance and jealousy. She’s easily upset and turns it into anger, which has a tendency to get the better of her. You know that phrase about seeing red? It’s completely legit and when it happens, she gets a bit irrational, losing control over the things she says and does. She also keeps a grudge like nobody’s business.   

ATTENTION SEEKING: Okay, this doesn’t have to be a bad thing but the problem is that Tabitha takes it to a bit of an extreme. Within her family, she’s tended to get the short end of the stick and has to vie for attention, which doesn’t seem to work well. It’s probably because her older brothers are smarter and more likeable than her while her younger brothers are much cuter and adorable than she is. That rule basically follows everywhere else in her life and so she has to go the extra mile. Her sense of humour  is one way she does it, but it’s also the root of why she gets jealous and vengeful when she feels her friends are paying more attention to someone else. Not to mention it makes her fairly self-conscious, which in turn creates some self-loathing because the last thing she wants to come off as is self-conscious, but she needs other peoples’ attention to feel validated…and it’s a vicious cycle. 

CHARACTER DETAILS:

Nationality:

 Born and raised in Birmingham, Tabitha is British, and the same goes for her parents. She’s also ethnically Punjabi, though her dad’s granddad was White British, hence why their name is Bainbridge instead of something like Singh or Bhamra.

Family: 

Tabitha has a love-hate (mostly hate) relationship with her family. She is a middle child who used to be the baby, for quite some time, and is now squashed between four brothers. The two older ones are close to her in age, 20 and 18 respectively, while she is seven years older than the obnoxious pair of twin boys which caught the whole family by surprise. Her parents (and extended family) are only nominally interested in their blood status and more or less, she’s only that way because it just happened, not necessarily on purpose. It  wouldn’t be anything to care about, except Tabitha’s adopted a bigotry-as-it-suits-her attitude from being in Slytherin house…which is complicated, because her cousin, Trevor, is a bloody muggle born (and there’s plenty of muggle things she actually likes). First, what kind of name is Trevor? It’s like “Kevin.” Who goes and looks at their little alien baby and says “ooh how beautiful! I think I’ll name it KEVIN. Or better yet, TREVOR!” And second, what would posses her maternal aunt to make friends with muggleborns and then adopt their baby after they died? They’ve got no clue how embarrassing  it is for for her, which is why she does her best to annoy the living hell out her cousin…it’s a pity, though, because as kids they used to get on quite well.  

Patronus:

Tabitha doesn’t know how to cast the Patronus Charm, and it’s debatable as to whether she’d be able to conjure the right kind of happy memory to make one happen (oh, does giving her baby brothers half-mohawks while sleeping not count? Balls!), but if she could, it would take the form of a tarantula.

Boggart:

A werewolf. They absolutely terrify her. She routinely has nightmares about one chasing her through the woods and eating her face off. Not cool, bro.

Wand: 

Red Oak, dragon heartstring, 10 inches, springy.

You will often hear the ignorant say that red oak is an infallible sign of its owner’s hot temper. In fact, the true match for a red oak wand is possessed of unusually fast reactions, making it a perfect duelling wand. Less common than English oak, I have found that its ideal master is light of touch, quick-witted and adaptable, often the creator of distinctive, trademark spells, and a good man or woman to have beside one in a fight. Red oak wands are, in my opinion, among the most handsome.

Sexual History:

Tabitha is not drinking any of the traditional, romanticised views about sexuality, especially the whole “saving it” for “someone special and/or my future husband,” kool-aid her mother’s been trying to feed her. That virginity business? She wants to get rid of it. Being in love, in her opinion, is overrated — doing it with something who she at least marginally likes is plenty good enough. So far that hasn’t happened, but damnit, she will lose it before she graduates Hogwarts if it’s the last thing she ever does!

Unfortunately for Tabitha, she’s not the kind of girl most boys are into. The neighbourhood boy whom she “married” at age nine, who also happened to be her first kiss (though not much of a kiss, really) was the closest she’s gotten to an actual relationship. She’s a foul-mouthed, opinionated, sarcastic nerd-tomboy person and go figure, they aren’t really into that. Bugger. Her attitude towards the whole business is rather casual, but even though she’d never admit it to anyone, she’s a bit bothered by the fact that she’s never actually dated anyone. But then she tells the needy, pathetic part of her to quiet down and get real. And that it’s probably for the best considering the record of boys she’s fancied…which doesn’t even begin to include the list of ones she’d just like to get freaky with (anyone with a penis who is not wolf ugly, really).

THEODORE NOTT shares his porn stash with her and answers her incessant questions about all things sex-related, and Tabitha’s always thought he had that “I’m a weird stoner” look to him, which can be attractive enough if she squints. It’s not so much that she fancies him, but kind of thinks Theo wouldn’t be a bad Mr. Miyagi of her hypothetical sex-life. Who better than the bloke who is completely unphased by anything you bring at him and whom you already know is a perv to start off with?

Last year, she fancied MICHAEL CORNER, though she’s got no bloody clue why. Or at least she says so, but probably’s got something to do with the fact that she imagined them having long conversations about the Fibonacci sequence, followed by hot nerd sex. and maybe even eventually having little genius babies. Clearly that didn’t happen, and ever since he dated Ginny Weasley (Tabitha’s arch-nemesis), she’s taken every opportunity to bad-mouth Michael. Of all the people, he had to choose Tabitha’s arch-nemesis — which has got nothing to do with her actually being a blood traitor (it’s mostly just another excuse not to like her) but because she’s an annoying, athletic, ginger…who stole Michael, to boot.

This year, there’s COLIN CREEVEY, but she honestly has no idea how that started. It’s embarrassing and there’s a reason they meet under the quidditch stands: nobody needs to know his tongue has ever been in her mouth. Creevey’s a mudblood for fuck’s sake; Tabitha can only imagine what everyone in her house would say about her if they knew. So yeah, he’s also out of the running for devirginising her for this very reason. In public, she acts like she doesn’t even know he exists, though that doesn’t work well and it usually ends up her making fun of him and being her ever-pleasant and kind-hearted self. Clearly Colin doesn’t mind; at least, not enough to stop feeling her up every Thursday.

Tabitha supposes that if worst comes to worst, she has until the end of the year to take CORMAC MCLAGGEN up on his ridiculous “missed connection” bullshit. A friend of Jo’s or not, the kid’s an absolute horndog with cheekbones that give her nightmares because they’re that unnaturally defined (if only his stupid dome were invisible and he just existed from the neck down!) but clearly not too picky, which is all she asks if it becomes necessary.