Name:
Aella Persephone Strand
Gender:
Female
Age:
16
Year:
6th
Blood:
Muggleborn
House:
Good
Pet:
The young female fancy rat, Copper, has just recently become a companion to Aella after her previous rats died of old age. Copper is extremely friendly and enjoys licking people's fingers, especially after they eat. She likes to climb onto shoulders, but she will only climb onto a stranger's shoulder from Aella's shoulder. When Aella is around, Copper tends to brux - a sound rats make by grinding their teeth together: it's a healthy way for a rat to show their affection. Copper likes to cuddle with Aella during the day, often sleeping in a pocket or cuddling against Aella's collarbone.
Silver, Copper's littermate and closest rat-pal, is more shy and reserved than her fellow rat. She prefers to only be on Aella and usually refuses to go on a stranger's shoulder. She doesn't brux as much as her sister, but instead happens to lick more often. Silver likes to perch on Aella's shoulder and underneath her hair. When Silver sleeps, she unusually enjoys cuddling with a tiny, stuffed teddy bear. When sleeping, she tends to chew a little on the teddy bear.
Electives:
-Alchemy
-Ancient Runes
-Care of Magical Creatures
Clubs:
-Magical Creatures Club
-Astronomy Club
Boggart:
A Drunk Man
Ever since her mother's relapse, Aella finds herself terrified of the idea of drunk people and is often uncomfortable around them. But even more so, she is terrified of drunk men due to having watched many true crime shows with men being the perpetrators.
Best Class:
Astronomy, Herbology, Care of Magical Creatures, Potions
Worst Class:
Defense Against the Dark Arts, Transfiguration, Charms, Arithmancy, Flying
Patronus:
Amortentia:
Crisp, fresh air|the smell of the forest after rain|the warm burn of a far away campfire|flowers|
Wand:
Springy, Hemlock wood, Unicorn hair, 13 ½ inches
Aella's wand is not too flexible and not too rigid, instead a medium springiness that leads it to be mildly challenging to lean and cast and have a mild power. The Hemlock wood is, just like the flexibility, nothing extraordinary. Instead, the Hemlock wood makes the wand quick to take action and react and does quite well at stirring potions, but ends at there. The Unicorn hair, quite ironically, is good at making supple wands compatible with Charms and Transfiguration - both things happening to fall under Aella's worst classes. The length, while on the longer side, is nothing to talk about either. It is not incredibly short or incredibly long. Just simple and ordinary.
Personality:
For Aella's whole life, she had been on the outside, looking into the window at others. Yes, she was friendly and warm, sympathetic and empathetic, but her awkwardness and inability to communicate well without coming off as weird or annoying usually turned people away. Her strict adherring to the rules and general fear of everything led to others thinking her a bore. So, instead, she dove into her studies, not having surfaced from her education since the second grade of primary school. She became the rock for her friends, a reliable rock that was always there in the corner, but never approached unless needed. She was the paper weight whose only purpose was to hold the papers down. Nevertheless, Aella is loyal, always the shoulder to cry on, and always willing to give advice, though half the time she has no idea what she is talking about; a gentle hand to guide to the light, but remains in the dark. And so, she filled her time with hardwork and perfecting every homework assignment, to the last letter.
When alone, Aella was even more of a mess. Every time she looked into a mirror, insecurity stabbed her in the gut; every time she made a decision, she regretted it. She became cynical and pessimistic, believing that humans didn't have the capabilities to care for others, only themselves. As if to prove her point, people walked over her as if she were a welcome mat, but, to their credit, she never stood up for herself. She was submissive, did everything everyone expected her to do, she was easily discouraged by others and completely dependent on her peers to determine her self-worth. She was always tense and timid, expecting the worse to happen. Aella was neurotic and anxious to the max, always going over in her head the worst case scenario - it got so bad sometimes, that she would become sick from her anxiety and throw up. And despite her hidden desire of being idolized by others, she became a conformist and a coward. Even though she was brimming with opinions, she kept her mouth shut and went along with whatever people told her to do. She ran from confrontation and everything else. Aella put effort into blending in with everyone else, becoming a forgetful face. However, there were moments when her clumsy nature would expose her to her peers, set her apart if only momentarily. It is easy to guess that Aella is depressed, often crying when no one is looking and cursing her bad luck. When she discovered she was a witch, Aella turned to superstitions, hoping she could change her luck, but so far the six years have been fruitless.
Likes:
-Southern Sweet Tea
-Baked Alaska
-Ice cream (favorite flavors: Neapolitan, Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough, Green Tea, Pistachio, Butter Pecan)
-Root Beer
-Root Beer Float
-Animals
-Stars
-Lapidary
-Reading (Favorite Authors: Edgar Allan Poe and Dr. Suess)
-Origami
-Puzzles/Sudoku
Dislikes:
-Alcohol
-Tobacco
-Breaking Rules
-Strong Perfume/Cologne
-Risks
-Juice
-Breakfast Food
-Breakfast for lunch/dinner
-Food touching other food
-Wearing socks without shoes
-Her toes touching each other (She has to wear toe socks)
-Flat Soda
-Spiders
Fears:
-Being embarrassed
-Failing
-Being a disappointment
-Being alone
-Clowns
-Dolls
-Ghosts
-Needles
-Rejection
-Roller coasters
-Spiders
-Buried alive
Hobbies:
-Lapidary
-Star Gazing
-Reading
-Origami
-Puzzles/Sudoku
Biography:
Aella was born and raised in Palatka, Florida. It was a nobody town that nobody has ever heard of, but Aella liked the smallness of it all. She was the third child to muggle parents
John and
Karen and she had two older sisters,
Clio and
Thalia who were six and seven years older than her. While her family was always close, and she was closer to them than anybody else in her life, Aella always felt like she was too different than the family - too young, too immature at the moment. While Clio and Thalia were best friends, Aella sought friendship with rats. She started raising rats from a young age, and by the age of eight, she had six female rats.
Around the age of nine, Aella's mother began drinking heavily. Aella didn't really understand much of what was going on since her family neglected to tell her, but it felt as if the family was breaking apart. Aella dove into anime, reading, and rats to escape the whole ordeal. The eldest sister, Thalia, began fighting with her mother - this wasn't so much of a surprise, since the two were too alike to
not fight, but it was starting to escalate. Until one day, Karen kicked Thalia out of the house during the summer. For a month, Thalia was forced to find refuge with her friends, only sixteen years old. During the night, sometimes Thalia would break into the house and chill with her friends in the basement. Clio knew about it, but had steadily grown more distant towards her sister, often times staying at a friend's house when she knew Thalia was coming over. This left Aella alone, knowing that her sister was drinking and smoking down in the basement while her parents slept.
Meanwhile, her mother's drinking hadn't been getting any better. Aella had been in her room, reading a Dr. Seuss book, when her mother came in, slurring and stumbling. Aella tried to ignore her, and her father had to drag her mother out of her room and into the hallway; Aella shut the door and locked it. It was only minutes later when she heard shouting and Aella peeked her head out of the door - her mother was rummaging through the pantry which was just down the hall and her father was trying to pull her away. Aella quickly closed the door and huddled on her bed, trying to close the sounds out, when Clio came into the room with a popcorn bowl. But instead of popcorn, there were pill bottles. Clio urged Aella to hide it and, on hands and knees, Aella stuck it underneath her bed and sat up just before her mother came bursting into the door. Aella couldn't make out what her mother was saying anymore, her words were so slurred, but all she could hear was her father on the phone telling someone that his wife had swallowed pills and he needed help. The ambulance came and went, Aella's father and mother with it. Aella tossed and turned until one in the morning until she went downstairs into her sister's room and climbed into bed with her.
After that night, Aella's mother went to rehab for a couple of months and came back better. Thalia was allowed back into the house, and harmony was restored. But Aella came out of the ordeal tenser and more reclusive than before. Soon enough, she got her letter to Salem Witches' Institute - baffling her mother and father - and started to attend. There, she didn't have much luck with friends, and after her first year there, Aella had fallen into a depression. When she arrived home for the summer, she was sent to therapy where they realized that she might have clinical anxiety and depression. She was put on pills and then whisked back to school. During her second year, Thalia changed drastically. She had gotten pregnant with her ex-fiance, partied too hard, and had a tobacco addiction. She lacked responsibility, something that Clio possessed, and Aella realized that she had two options: become like Thalia or like Clio. She chose Clio, setting her on the path of a cautious girl who took no risks in life. By the time Aella came back home after her second year, Thalia had been diagnosed with bipolar disorder. It was in the beginning months of her third year at Salem when Thalia had her son, Cal, and given full custody over to her parents. Despite being now in her twenties, Thalia was going in no direction, was living at home with her parents, and could not provide emotionally or financially for her child. The stress put on Aella's mother who desperately tried to get Thalia on track led Karen to a familiar comfort that would solve her problems. Alcohol. And, going into her sixth year, not much has changed - Karen Strand was still an alcoholic, Thalia was still a deadbeat mother, Clio had distanced herself from the family, and John Strand was barely staying in the marriage.
Theme Song:
