#takens

CLARA MACMILLAN ♦︎ SLYTHERIN ALUMNA ♦︎ ORDER MEMBER ♦︎ FC: BENEDETTA GARGARI ♦︎ TAKEN

B I O G R A P H Y :

Clara was born on warm June day to two very busy parents. Ealair MacMillan was a high ranking Ministry official and spent his week living in London to be close to the office, only coming home to Scotland on the weekends. Adelaide was a philanthropist and outspoken activist, often hosting fundraisers or traveling to London with her husband. So Clara was left to be raised by the house elves, and her two older siblings. This is not to say that Ealair and Adelaide were completely absent from the lives of their children, both made a point of being home on the weekends, and Sundays have always been strict family days for the MacMillans. Still, Beatriu and August were more mother and father to Clara than Adelaide and Ealair. Later when Diana and then Enric were born, Clara continued the tradition of older siblings raising the younger. The result of this is five siblings who, despite being various different ages, are incredibly close. Clara and Diana, in particular, have always been incredibly close, and Clara has always considered Diana her best friend. Growing up, essentially, without parents, especially when one has younger siblings to raise, is a recipe for a lost childhood, and Clara was no exception. She matured rapidly, quickly learning how to care for and entertain herself and, later, her younger siblings as well. As a result, Clara arrived at Hogwarts as quite a precocious 11 year old.

Clara left for Hogwarts sure what her house would be, and not terribly happy about it. MacMillans were Hufflepuffs. It was, if not a universal truth on par with Blacks being Slytherin, at the very least a strong trend. There was occasionally an outlier, Ealair had an uncle who’d ended up in Gryffindor, but only ever one in a generation. Clara had, secretly, hoped to be that outlier, but then Beatriu was sorted into Ravenclaw and, the way Clara saw it, her own fate was set for Hufflepuff and there was nothing she could do about it. Imagine her surprise, then, when the sorting hat was set on her head and said, “no, no, not Hufflepuff. True, you could fit in there, but to become all you can be, you’ll need a different house altogether.” Without further discussion the hat pronounced her a Slytherin and Clara obeyed, shocked, but also elated. She very much liked the idea of becoming all she could be, and it turned out that Slytherin house fit her like a glove. Among her housemates Clara found friends who were just as used to the finer things in life as her and, more importantly, friends who wanted to do more and be more just as much as she did. As a Slytherin, Clara learned to balance her love for and pride in her family with her love for and pride in herself. She also learned the fine art of trimming and tailoring her responses to meet other people’s expectations and how to get what she wanted without even having to ask for it.

Clara grew up with an example of a very successful arranged marriage. Ealair and Adelaide may have been brought together by their parents, but they were nonetheless two souls that matched nicely. Over the course of their marriage, they developed a strong partnership built on mutual respect, trust, and, if not love, a deep appreciation of each other. So, unlike her older sister who completely bucked the system and declared that she never wanted to marry at all, Clara was never opposed to an arranged marriage and was, in fact, excited when her parents began looking for a suitable match for her. Rabastan had seemed perfect on paper, from a good family and a little bit older, and for a while he had been. Clara loved his wit and how he seemed so worldly. She was never so naive as to expect love in an arranged marriage, but she knew herself well enough to admit, at least to herself, that she was a little starry eyed. The truth was more extensive than that. Through the minimal interactions Clara had with Rabastan in the years before she left Hogwarts, chaperoned dates on Hogsmeade weekends, letters sent back and forth, sitting next to each other and pureblood functions, Clara built an idea of who Rabastan was that was very much real to her, if not realistic.

Trouble didn’t come until after Clara graduated and began spending more time with her future in-laws as the wedding planning started up in earnest. It started with the newly minted Mrs. Rodolphus Lestrange. Despite being more closely related than most pureblood families, Clara’s parents had always kept the MacMillans well away from the Blacks and their ideas of blood purity that Ealair found distasteful and Adelaide outright opposed. Bellatrix made Clara nervous, but she didn’t take her marriage to Rodolphus as the sign of the Lestranges’ true leanings that she should have. Instead, she did what she thought any good future wife would do and tried to steer Rabastan away from Rodolphus and his wife, encouraging Rabastan to spend more time with Beatriu and even August with the excuse that he should get to know her family as well as she his. When that seemed to be going well, she began attempts to drive a wedge between the two twins, building Rabastan up and, occasionally, carefully, subtly criticizing Rodolphus, always making it more about how Rabastan deserved better. It might have worked, too, but not as quickly as Clara wanted it to.

Worse still, the more time Clara spent with Rabastan, the more she began to get to know him as a person. And the more she got to know him as a person, the more she began to realize he wasn’t who she thought he was. At first she tried to ignore it, and then she tried to downplay it. When she finally had to admit that the version of him she’d imagined while at school didn’t match the real thing, she tried to change it, to shape him into what she was sure was the best version of himself. She was unwilling to just give up on what she’d spent years building, but she had to admit defeat when she learned just how deep Rabastan’s blood purist leanings ran. To those on the outside, it may seem like the eldest MacMillan daughter, bold and rebellious Beatriu, is Adelaide’s truest heir, but the family knows that it’s Clara who holds her mother’s beliefs closest to heart. It’s not something she talks about openly, after all it was a somewhat dangerous opinion to have in Slytherin and certainly an unpopular one in pureblood circles, but Clara believes in equality of blood just as much as her outspoken mother. When Clara realized that Rabastan was a blood purist, there was only one path for her to take. She gave back the ring and ended the engagement as quietly as she could.

When Clara joined the Order, her only condition was that her family couldn’t know. It’s not that she’s afraid her family wouldn’t support her decision; she’s sure they would, though she’s also sure August would worry. It’s just that she knows in times like these, ignorance can be not only bliss, but safety. She received the standard order training and excelled at it, but it quickly became clear that she wasn’t cut out for being part of the cavalry. Clara’s not one for following directions when she thinks she has a better idea, and has no problem arguing with authority figures when she feels it’s necessary. While these traits can be valuable in the right time and place, in the middle of a battle is neither. It was quickly decided that her greatest chance for contribution would be as a spy, utilizing her status as a pure blood princess in her own right. It’s lonely, sometimes, surrounding herself with people whose beliefs are so decidedly opposite to her own and always playing a part and wearing a mask, but she made a commitment to the order, and more importantly to herself, so she’s not about to back down.

D E T A I L S :

☛ CANON INFORMATION : [ member of the Macmillan family ]

☛ AFFILIATION : Order of the Phoenix

☛ BLOOD STATUS : pureblood

☛ AGE : 22

☛ FORMER HOUSE : Slytherin

☛ TRAITS :

     Positives : dedicated / detail-oriented / diplomatic

      Negatives : picky / materialistic / close-minded

☛ OCCUPATION : freelance arithmancer / socialite

C O N N E C T I O N S :

SIRIUS BLACK, GIDEON PREWETT, FABIAN PREWETT, MOLLY WEASLEY : distant cousins, friendly

FRANK LONGBOTTOM, ALICE BARNETT : co-mentors, idolizes

JAMES POTTER, LILY EVANS, STURGIS PODMORE : train together, friends

TIMORA STUMP, MERWYN FINWICK, CORNELIUS FUDGE : dismissive towards, thinks they’re idiots

DAVEY GUDGEON, GWENOG JONES, GLADYS GUDGEON : intrigued by