✧*:･ﾟ✧ ( ZOE, SHE/HER, 20, CST ) merlin! is that MERRITT PATTERSON? no, it’s just VICTORIA BROUX the SIXTH YEAR GRYFFINDOR ( MUGGLEBORN, PROBABLY ). we’ve heard rumors that SHE ( CISFEMALE ) is UNFLINCHING, NO-NONSENSE & AUTONOMOUS but can also be very ACRIMONIOUS, DEVOID & IMPULSIVE. if i had to pick one song to describe HER it would GLORY AND GORE BY LORDE. Good luck with the rest of your time at Hogwarts.
her pinterest board is here and her tag on my writing blog is here, and her spotify playlist is here, and her stats page is here, and ... that’s it!! that’s finally the end of the links!!
WARNINGS: car accident mention, parental abandonment mention, possible emotional manipulation. none of these are super explicit, and the first two are very much in the past for victoria, but I figured they were worth mentioning
victoria was a born a notably beautiful baby girl without a family. on the day of her birth, a man dressed strangely in fantastic, extravagant silk stood by the window of the nursery, seen only by a nurse working the maternity ward at the time who caught him looking at the odd placidity of the baby in the second bassinet --- the nurse who made a point to comment on how she seemed already to have his eyes. that was the last anyone saw of the man, and of the girl who’d given birth to victoria, and anyone else who seemed to have anything to do with her.
at that point in time, carrie broux was a known beauty, too. she had married perhaps a bit too young, but no one doubted such a shining, promising pair; her youth had seen her winning everyone over at cotillions and galas and balls, and she’d married a boy two years older than her and just as achingly young and charmed. their romance was a whirlwind their families fully supported, and everyone turned a blind eye to the champagne toasts made by a bride and groom who not legally of a drinking age. their friends hadn’t heard them even thinking of children. and yet when william died, icy massachusetts roads sliding him towards tragedy, no one thought anything of carrie adopting a child.
it truly wasn’t done out of anything but impulse. carrie and william had been close to another young couple ( young meant still a handful of years older than them ) from their social circle, and a month after william’s passing, these friends dropped a tragic anecdote about a baby left by her parents at the maternity ward. this was just a passing comment, woven into a tale of their brand new nephew, but carrie couldn’t hear one tragedy and separate it from her own.
so she did what she’d always done, which was really whatever thing first entered her mind.
maybe three weeks after this discussion and two months after her husband’s death, the lovely former debutante ( and recent widow ) took the girl in and saved her from a life as an orphan. and it took maybe two weeks after that for carrie to hightail the both of them out of the states before anyone knew what was happening. she’d always been impulsive; she was barely twenty-one, and didn’t know what to do now that her life was suddenly so different from what she’d planned. she’d been in love with william since he’d escorted her at her debutante ball, and hadn’t seen what was left for her in their world without him and with a new daughter.
she dropped his last name and decided she’d return to the france her father grew up in, the rolling hillsides as good a place as any to raise a child. her victoria spent her first three years learning french alongside english before carrie whisked them back to america for ages four through seven, and then they were off to ireland for a handful of years, with another few summers split between the states and france. all of a sudden, it seemed, that impulse-buy of a daughter was eleven, and a witch, and wasn’t that a surprise?
that sort of haphazard narrative was how victoria had lived her whole life under her mother’s thumb. she was her darling girl, her beautiful surprise, blah blah blah. it grated on victoria in a way that she kept tightly under wraps. after all, she was a child of world of her mother’s own design, every bit as gorgeous as carrie and wasn’t that a surprise. secretly, victoria always wondered if her mother would have allowed her to follow her various global escapades if victoria hadn’t turned out to have won a genetic lottery that left carrie grateful her split-second decision paid off.
lord knew her temperament was all wrong for her mother’s lifestyle.
victoria had passed her first day as a living thing with barely any crying, silent as a lamb with big, watching eyes. she knew things, was ever curious, and had a look of intellect even as a baby that followed her well throughout her years. she often felt too smart for her mother; the frivolous woman who always seemed so young, so eager to tote victoria around and show her off, like a trophy or a show pony or an exceptionally expensive handbag. victoria allowed her cheeks to be pinched, her hair curled and toyed with, her outfits meticulously decided for her --- on the condition that her mother allow her the hobbies victoria chose.
running, tennis, ballet; physical exertion suited the quiet child quite well. she adored winning, but more than that, she adored the way her mind fell silent when her body was being forced past its limits. because the thing was, the thing that not a soul in her life knew, was that she’d been born with her hands formed into fists. she was always ready to swing first. at her insistence, a punching bag followed the mother and daughter on their travels, in a trunk as neatly matched as all their other piled luggage.
that was victoria; something a little unsavory hidden in a neatly perfect package. for all her outward grooming, all the things she did for her mother’s benefit when in her mother’s line of sight, victoria was never happier than when she had bruises on her fists and legs and blood singing in her ears. she was angry. at what, she didn’t know. she was listless. for what reason, she didn’t know.
really, finding out she was a witch was nothing new to victoria. she’d found hints of her extra abilities years before letters started pouring in; it wasn’t like her mother had needed to know she had an affinity for starting fires and forcing her skin to knit back together when she’d scraped it open. but then beauxbatons sent a letter, then ilvermorny, then hogwarts, and it was time for victoria to grit her teeth and show carrie a practical demonstration. just a little fire, really, a fresh bouquet arranged unnecessarily in the foyer too singed to be decorative anymore. oops.
for most of victoria’s life they’d split their time between the three countries in a scattered fashion; she didn’t really have much of a preference, because time spent in each place was at carrie’s whim. america, france, ireland --- they all suited victoria fine, really. but in the end victoria chose hogwarts because carrie really wanted her to pick either of the other options. this became a point of contention in the little two-unit house of broux, because up until that point in her life, carrie had never seen her daughter openly tell her no. more often than not, when victoria wanted to get her way, she’d play the long game to make carrie believe victoria’s desired outcome was her own choice all along. victoria so rarely cared enough to even expend that energy, but the truth was that she knew it was within her power, that carrie’s will was overbearing but no match for victoria’s. the problem was she cared about this too much to wait; she was eleven, and ready to leave her mother’s whim’s behind.
a thing that carrie had never known about her child until that moment was that the one thing she’d inherited from her mother was the uncontrollable tendency towards impulsiveness.
victoria was a hatstall. for some reason, the gross looking thing they’d placed on the head of curls her mother had carefully set before victoria’s departure couldn’t seem to get her. what else was new, right? gryffindor or slytherin, green or red. she was a little overly self concerned but lacking in any real ambition, bored with bullies, angry and prone to acting on that anger, quick to stick with the sides she chose, eleven and already tired of existence. she picked gryffindor just to speed up the whole affair, on the reasoning that gold would look better with her complexion than silver. that was that.
feeling things is a struggle for victoria --- anything that’s not anger, or frustration. softer emotions confuse her when they come, and she’d rather will them away than deal with them. she hates feeling soft. her distant relationship with her mother ( physically close and emotionally distant, technically loving, but in a way that never rang true for victoria ) could be partly to blame. they have three homes, where they spend scattered time in each between other travels, and as a result victoria never really had friends, growing up. but sometimes victoria thinks this coldness, this uselessness, is just innate. and then she gets angry at her introspection and goes to find something to hit, or somewhere to run, or something to do. anything to do.
gryffindor was a bit of a shock for her. how close-knit the houses were ( she saw throughout the years that all the houses seemed to be that tightly bonded ) was as big a culture shock as wands and robes, if not bigger. after her initial wariness at it, she tried to make herself ease into the ebb and flow of the gryffindor house dynamic; honestly, she’s still trying.
giving into any of the houses would have been hard for her, and she caught onto that right away --- she tried her best not to blame gryffindor or its students for her discomfort. well, tried not to blame them in any long term way. at times she feels like a stray cat that a family full of dog people took in on a whim, but there are just as many times she finds herself purring amidst all the chaos anyway.
this is getting really, really massive, but the a major point of victoria is that she has a lot of anger issues, but it doesn’t have much of a direction, and most days she feels like she was born that way. on a day to day, she can be a bit prickly but not that bad. mostly not that bad.
when she’s away from her mother, she drops all pretenses of playing nice and sweet. has the mouth of a sailor, eats with her elbows on the table, slouches everywhere; the slouching is just as performative as anything she does for carrie’s benefit, though; the girl is a total athlete and perfectionist and has naturally good posture. she eats as if she’s always preparing to go into battle the next day and despises sharing food. she genuinely enjoys luxury items, but would never admit that to her mother.
if hogwarts students got, like, trading cards giving their stats in terms of their house’s typical traits, victoria would have -100 for chivarly and +100 for daring. if anyone even hypothetically poses a dare, she’ll do it, but she digs her feet in at the thought of assigning any of her actions innate morals, and needs more convincing if someone tries to get her to do something just because it’s ‘ the right choice. ‘
she feels ( and definitely resents it ) very grateful for having picked gryffindor during her sorting. victoria has an awful gut feeling that she would have fared very poorly in slytherin, just because of her instinct to punch first and apologize never; being a muggleborn surrounded by some of the worst members of that house wouldn’t have been good for her prolonged survival.
she despises most nicknames associated with the name victoria. vicky, tori, vika ... all make her skin crawl. she’d consider being called one of these a mortal offense, because she’s a little garbage-y and entirely lacking in chill. keyed someone’s car over this the summer after fifth year, and would 10/10 do it again.
OTHER STUFF:
victoria is an old, old muse that i have just recently re-purposed for the marauders era so bear with me on how messy she might be at first but??? i love her a lot and i’m really pumped to bring her back and to bring her here.
going off of something jane and i talked about oNCE but if it still holds up and marlene and alecto really started that fight club, victoria is Into That Shit. like when i played her back in the day, finding a fight club and dedicating most of her energy into it was a huge plot point in her background. probably not very good for her but also better than her stewing in her rage? so there’s that. if your want your character to ever just get decked sign her up, she’s got a lot of fury that she has nothing to do with.
for all intents and purposes in-universe, she’s a muggleborn, but she could be secretly related to anyone given the nature of her past.
