Name: Ingerith Nothing
Age: 39 (However, she looks like she is about 30)
Appearance:
Ingerith is a metamorphmags and can change her appearance. Ingerith is usually seen around Hogwarts as a slender woman with long rust colored hair that falls down past her waist. She has fair pale skin, freckles the same color as her hair, stormy blue eyes framed by pale lashes. She will often wear a long gown. Whenever she leaves Hogwarts she will take a disguise, usually as a muggle mercenary man.
Neither of these are her true face. Her skin bears scars she would rather not show. She also has no feeling in her left arm.
House: Teacher, was never attended Hogwarts, no house affiliation
Wand: Alder, core of salamander.
Personality: Ingerith has a rather serious disposition most of the time. She seldom smiles, and when she does so it is usually to display irony. She is not emotionless, she in fact feels very strong emotions, but her personality is well tempered by her life experiences.
She is meticulous. She wants to take everything apart. She wants to know details, history, there is never enough information. She is considered a very demanding teacher, they are expected to do a lot of background work before casting particular spells. She is never unfair and never cruel. It is a matter of fact for her. “When you use a spell, it will not be an assignment, you will need it. If you need it and it fails, it could mean your life.” Transfiguration is particularly dangerous. This is perfectly demonstrated by the old transfiguration teacher, whom, in his quest to become an Animagus turned himself into a cat and could not turn himself back. She brings him to class every day as an example.
She has a soft-spot for muggle born students. And has a special relationship with the ones whom she brought into Hogwarts. Before Hogwarts she seldom kept ties or tabs on those that she rescued. Extending her mentor-ship in this way was an unexpectedly pleasant experience for her. She does not coddle them, but, will always take their side in a conflict. She does this even when they are in the wrong, in her mind, no one else will be on their side. The headmaster will make sure they know that they did wrong, it is more important that she makes sure they know they are not alone.
Bio:
Tillie grew up a serf. Tillie was not like the other children. She had no father and no family name. The children used to tease her that she was ‘Tillie Nothing’ they sang the song and danced in circles to exclude her. It was like they sensed something in her, the sensed that she was inherently wrong, so they made fun of her, played games without her, teased her, made sure that she knew she was not one of them.
Her mother was accused of witchcraft, and burned, when she was 8.
Tillie herself was accused when she was 16.
She was imprisoned and ‘tested’ for nearly a year. The ‘tests’ for witchcraft equate to torture.
She was young, and not in control of her magic, she transformed before the inquisitors under the stress.
Rather than find her guilty and put her to death, they wanted to know the extent of her powers, they wanted to know who else was practicing magic, they wanted to know who her father was and where he was. So they continued to test, torture, and question her. She had no answers. Sometimes she could control her magic, sometimes she could not. She did not name any other witches for she didn’t know any, and she did not name her father for she did not know who he was either.
The final ‘test’ was to throw her into a deep lake with a stone tied around her throat to see if she could breath underwater or not.
Tillie could not breath underwater.
Tillie did not survive.
The people moved on with their lives feeling much safer now that the witch was dead, and the inquisitors congratulated one another over glasses of holy wine.
The mayor was seen prowling the night with a wand and cursing the crops.
The cobbler was seen drawing strange runes into the boots of the mayor.
The seamstress was seen making incantations unto her ladies frock.
None of them were witches, but all of them were accused, tortured, and put to death. They were not the last.
One by one. The town tore itself apart. It was a vicious cycle of accusations, suspicions, violence, and death.
They accused one another the way they had accuse Tillie. They questioned one another the way they had Tillie. They tortured one another the way they had Tillie. Then, they killed one another the way they thought they had killed Tillie. One by one. In their relentless effort to extinguish magic from the world, only the magician was left without so much as a drop of blood on her hands.
Nothing was left.
All the other muggles would say that the town had been taken by a strange plague. Bad corn that soured the mind.
She let them think that.
Her name was now Ingerith.
She followed muggle ghost stories until she found another witch. An old hedge-witch hidden deep in the peat bogs. She wanted to learn magic. Her first mentor was an herbalist and seer. She taught Ingerith what she could while Ingerith aided the aging wise woman. When she learned all she could until the old woman passed on and saw no more. Or perhaps she still saw, but her lips refused to move…
She reached out to the other wizards and witches. Some were willing to talk with her, teach her, she was shocked to find that many… Those concerned with blood and politics… Would not give her the time of year.
Sometimes she found a teacher, sometimes she found a friend, sometimes she had to beg, sometimes borrow or barter, some times she had to steal to learn.
She always had a talent for transfiguration. She was lucky to come upon a wizard named Gautena. He was skilled in transfiguration and alchemy. His manse was hidden in the middle of a muggle city! He lived in their bell-tower and kept the hours for them. They thought of him as a wise and humble monk. This is where Ingerith, at age 25, also learned to read.
She lived her life with a purpose. Muggle-born witches, like herself, were largely abandoned. She made it her business to find and rescue the ‘lost ones’ before it was too late. The first part of her mission was easier than the second, which was figuring out what to do with them! She would look for more open minded wizards and witches to ‘foster’ or ‘mentor’ the ‘lost magical souls’. Arranged for their care, if they were old enough sometimes it was simply establishing them somewhere obscure where they could take care of themselves. Sometimes that was the best she could do. Some wizards were only willing to take in the very talented muggle-born, or would only take them in as servants.
At some point Ingerith found Hogwarts.
She knew about the schools, of course. She tried to get muggle-born who were young enough enrolled, however, funding for orphan talent was scarce. Ingerith tried to earn money, beg, borrow, stole, and did favors when she could.
Then they offered her a teaching position. She was hesitant. But she was growing tired of life on the road. Hogwarts had books, resources, means for her to learn more and to establish herself. She would still have the summers and other time-off to find ‘lost ones’ and have better resources to place them. She was also developing a crick in her back, resting in one place did not seem so bad… So, she took the job.
Her office is full of books, half dissected animals and objects, drawings, and blueprints. She is a professor of transfiguration. Replacing a man who had FINALLY turned himself into a cat… and could not turn himself back. The cat still resides with her in her office.
She has been a teacher for 4 years.
Plotting: Presumably she is a half-blood. Her mother was a muggle and she does not know who her father is. She tried to find out about her wizarding family, but has never been able to do so. She has given up that quest.
She still goes out looking for muggle-born wizards when she is not obligated at Hogwarts.
Family:
Nothing: She made up her own last name. She is Nothing, no father, no family, beholden to no one. She reclaimed her childhood nickname and made it empowering. Especially after experiencing rejection from wizarding family, she is sometimes glad she doesn’t have to carry on her real family name. She suspects she was purposefully abandoned like so many others she has come across.
Meryl: A fellow wizard she lived with for some time. They still keep in touch. She has other connections but Meryl was something like family to her for a time. He still lives in his bell tower.
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