Who Do You Want To Be?Character Name: Elizabeth Lyla Hawkins
Age: 22
Birthday: November 21
Occupation: Investigative reporter for the Daily Prophet, hopefully a fiction author someday
Residence: 7 Elmwood Court, London (apartment suite)
Blood Status: Muggleborn
Physical Description: On a day when she isn't grimacing at the mirror, Lizzie would describe herself as unconventional. She used to say quirky, but it's bad enough that a few months after her twenty-second birthday, she's often mistaken for a sixteen year old without having to use a word that would paint a picture of someone even younger. However either word would accurately describe her. She can be beautiful in a unique sort of way, though she would not likely use the word to describe herself. She is "five-foot-two on a good day," as she puts it (meaning she is five-foot-one and some fraction of an inch), and of a thin build. Thick hair of every shade of brown frames a heart-shaped face and is usually kept long. By the end of 7th year of school, it was halfway to her waist. When she first started working for the
Prophet, she cut it a couple inches off her shoulders to look more professional, but in the end felt uncomfortable with short hair, or what she viewed as short hair, and grew it out to about her shoulder blades, where it has remained. Her eyes are almost completely circular. They are brown, but the shade reflects her emotions. They flash flaming amber when she's angry, darken to a deep mahogany when she's pensive or sad, and brighten to a light toffee brown when she's happy. Her skin is pale and her lips are full without being large, naturally a good medium between light and dark, and when it's genuine, her smile is bright and even a bit infectious. Her chin is pointed.
Having grown up and spent her summers in muggle territory, Lizzie is no stranger to ordinary muggle clothes, and always wears them when not in uniform robes, and sometimes under uniform robes, though she tries not to do so nowadays. In school, she was very much a tomboy, sticking to hoodies and faded jeans, but working for the
Prophet she has to dress up a bit more than that. She tends to wear a pair of dress slacks and a button down or nice blouse beneath a vest while at work. She
hates dressing up, especially in a dress or skirt, just feels out of place in them, but will if she needs to. She only wears light makeup when she does wear it, mascara, a subtle blush, clear or subtle lip gloss. And this is all when there is a set dress code or she wants to look professional. At home she can still be seen curled up on the couch or bent over a notebook in her favorite red hoodie and a pair of old jeans. She keeps a pretty toned down look, which may contradict her personality, but as you will see as you continue to read, she would rather be heard than seen.
What Makes You Tick?Personality Profile: Lizzie was named for the classic heroine of Pride and Prejudice, Elizabeth Bennett, and it proved to be a fitting name. Lizzie has always been very headstrong, opinionated and independent. Lizzie has never been the type to take "they says" to heart or believe something simply because someone said so. She has her own opinions conceived by her own thought, and she isn't ashamed to speak them, no matter who the present company is. She has never been afraid to shy away from the subjects no one else wants to talk about, especially if they need to be talked about. Lizzie's respect is a respect that must be earned, not that it is difficult to earn, but she won't simply respect someone because they see themselves as superior to her. Even professors in school and superiors now at the
Prophet she will not respect if they are not respectful to her, which got her into trouble during her school years and is bound to get her in trouble soon at work. But Lizzie refuses to take crap from anyone, no matter who they are or who they think they are. People don't usually scare her, and even if they do, she doesn't show it. She is a former Gryffindor after all, and it shows. She's very stubborn and strong, maybe not as strong as those close to her believe she is, or as strong as she tries to be, but she has a strength that is not to be underestimated.
Lizzie is a very capable woman, a talented writer and gifted witch and hates to be underestimated because of her size or her age or
especially her blood. The two names that will set her off like nothing else are "mudblood" and "blood traitor," when in reference to one of her pureblood friends. It isn't fair to think less of
her simply because she wasn't born into a wizarding family, and it it's an insult to her family, whom she dearly loves. And Lizzie has enough confidence in herself to know that she's as good a witch as any pureblood, sometimes better, regardless of her blood. As far as her level of confidence, she could use a bit more of it as sometimes at work she tries a bit too hard to prove that she can be taken seriously and that she is capable of doing her job well despite her age and her young appearance, but she has a good sense of who she is and doesn't let anyone else identify her.
She is independent, and proclaims that all she needs to survive in the world is food, air, her journal and a pen. She has friends and a family and loves them all dearly, but does not
need someone else to be full and content. Which is good when it comes to romance, because Lizzie doesn't have the best of luck, as will be seen in her history section. Lizzie doesn't mind not being in a relationship, though, she actually prefers it. She says that writing is her true love, anyway. And by writing, I don't mean her work as an investigative reporter for the Prophet, though she enjoys that. But Lizzie's true passion is in the world of fiction. She's never without a notebook, working on a new story, though she never lets anyone read any of her work until it's finished. She's never published anything but hopes to someday soon. Working for the
Prophet is more her practical job, something to pay the bills, but writing is her primary focus. She doesn't even introduce herself as a reporter when she meets someone, just as a writer.
She is never more herself than when she writes. When she writes, she drops the "miss independent" front and stops trying to prove herself to anyone, because there's no need. Who she is doesn't even matter to her fiction, so she might as well be herself totally exposed. And who is Lizzie, when stripped to the core? She's not that different from anyone else. A young woman who sometimes wakes up not liking the image in the mirror, a little bit naive, who wears her heart on her sleeve and has strong emotions, whether good or bad. She loves those close to her, would easily die for them, not because she's suicidal or unhealthily insecure, but because she sees so much in them and has that typical Gryffindor sense of protection. She can goof off sometimes in the right moment, sing a little off tune or act like a kid and she has dreams she's trying to reach and gets disappointed sometimes like anyone else.
Strengths/Likes: * likes
- strengths
*Writing
-Good writer
*Classics, particularly muggle classics she's grown up on
-Thinks for herself
*The color green, ironically she's addicted to it
-Resilient
*Things with sentimental value
-Quick-witted
*Rain
-Quick with her wand
*Being short, she enjoys surprising people
-Intelligent
*Defying expectations
-Determined
*Being on her own
-Loyal
*Warm weather
-Independent
*Eyes
-Trustworthy
Weaknesses/Dislikes: *Dressing Up
-A
bit socially uncomfortable
*Seeing her friends hurt
-Rash
*Blood snobbery
-A little too proud
*Misused words
-Hardheaded
*Change
-Terrible sense of foresight
*Large crowds
-A little naive
*Formalities
-Short fuse
*Not being trusted
-Insecure about writing
*Arrogance
-Fears depending on someone
*Being cold
-Communicates better on paper
Alignment: Order Member. Being a muggleborn who was kidnapped by death eaters a year before the war, it seemed an obvious choice.
Where Did You Come From?Family: John Hawkins, father
Anna Hawkins, mother
Brie Hawkins, older sister
David Hawkins, little brother
Aeryn Hawkins, little sister.
History: Elizabeth Lyla Hawkins may as well have been born sporting a Gryffindor badge so well she seemed destined for that house. She was never that attracted to stories like Sleeping Beauty or Snow White, wasn't afraid to get some dirt under her nails while playing outside and as a little girl simply laughed at the most convincing of Halloween costumes. Of course, even if she was born wearing a Gryffindor badge, no one would have recognized it. Lizzie was born on November 21, 1978, in a more affordable part of London, the muggle side. No one in her family even knew that the magic world existed until she got her acceptance letter from Hogwarts. At first, they all thought it was some sort of prank until a wizard appeared in their fireplace to inform them personally and "answer any questions they might have." Once the initial shock wore off, though, her family was surprisingly supportive, even proud of her. They knew Lizzie had never quite been like other girls, but would never have been able to guess it was anything like this.
Lizzie was given her journal, a dark brown faux suede notebook, right before her first year at Hogwarts, because her parents thought with such a new, strange experience, she might want to keep a diary. And she did, but it turned out to be more than simply recordings of the day and quickly became filled with character sketches, first chapters and such. At eleven, they were rather fantastic and roughly written, but they improved in time. She learned a charm to keep the ink invisible so no one would find her journal and start reading her ideas, was far too nervous about them. But they got her through the more awkward parts of her first years at Hogwarts, dealing with all the new surroundings, missing her family, the prejudice over blood that made her feel like punching a wall at times. Not to say she didn't love Hogwarts for the most part, she did. The new magic world excited her and she was a fast learner, becoming surprisingly gifted with her wand and leading her Charms class. As a teenager, Lizzie was the typical bookworm minus the typical meekness. Lizzie's strong opinions still didn't shy away, from professors, from blood snobs, from anyone, and her loud, clear voice was hard to miss. Which might have been another reason why she was not the most blessed by popularity. But she didn't mind, she never wanted to have a posse. She had a few good friends on whom she knew she could rely and that was all she needed.
Her abrasive surface smoothed a bit as she got older, and while she was still never everyone's golden girl, she did gain several more friends by the time she graduated. As said before, she'd never had the best luck with romance. Most of the boys she was attracted to never considered her in school. She had only two relationships during her school years, one lasting less than a month, one extending almost throughout the whole year, breaking off half a year after graduating. The first was in fifth year with a Hufflepuff boy who was sweet and could make her laugh and feel at ease, but he could never be serious for two seconds and shied away from any kind of disagreement, even ones that needed to be had. Being the confrontational person she was, she got bored and even a little frustrated and broke it off. Then in seventh year, she started seeing a boy from her own house, one much more her speed, straightforward and blunt, who knew what he believed and believed it firmly. They became very close and Lizzie even started to wonder if she loved him, which was saying something from a girl who by observation of her friend's relationships had become quite cynical about love. But then she was kidnapped.
It was on a trip to Hogsmeade. She took a walk to the Shrieking Shack to get alone so she could write and was instead found by a couple of death eaters, the parents of a fellow student who knew she was a muggleborn and therefore, in their mind, insignificant. They had orders from Voldemort himself to find such an insignificant person to practice new torture curses upon, so when they saw the girl, they apparated her back to their home and for the rest of the day she was without her wand and subject to the worst pain she had experienced in her life. On the next day, she was bound up in a guest bedroom, her own personal dungeon, when a house elf entered the room with a small meal for her. thinking quickly and trying not to think about how tired or in pain she was, she kicked off one of her shoes and used her other foot to shove off her sock. She offered it to the house elf, who had clearly been in dire longing of freedom, and he returned the favor by unbinding her and giving her back her wand, which enabled her to get back to Hogsmeade before the couple came home.
As with any traumatic event, the kidnapping did change her, give her a stronger grip on reality. It made the struggle between the death eaters and the order...and witches and wizards like her, more real. It made her feel obligated to help, because she knew it could have been anyone, one of her friends, a family member (as muggles were even less significant than muggleborns), and that not everyone was as lucky as she was. She joined the Order as soon as she graduated and was there the next year at the battle at the school, the battle in which Voldemort died. But the aftermath of the kidnapping also made her realize something about her current relationship, which was considerably less important, but maybe that was the point. She realized that while when she was kidnapped thoughts of her best friends and her family and such crossed her mind and made her more determined to get out alive, he had scarcely crossed her mind. She knew that meant she must not have loved him after all, if he was so far from her mind at a time when she needed to think of someone she loved. So since she didn't want to string him along, she broke it off with him.
After the war, she started working for the
Daily Prophet as an investigative reporter. While fiction was her lifelong love, she grew very fond of her new job, the combination of being a writer and a detective. She had considered becoming an auror, but writing was her outlet, so if she could help through that, it was what she wanted to do. She stayed a member of the Order, and continues to work on her stories when she was at home, which keeps her now a fairly busy woman. Well, not
too busy, but she likes to say that she is. It's much simpler than saying, "I'm semi-lazy and don't get out by choice, because I'm actually that boring." And it isn't that she never ever gets out, she will to spend time with a friend or something, but still remains about as social as she was in school. And using the excuse that she's busy always helps her to avoid blind dates.
What Else Is There To Say?Sample Post: *This is from another board in which I play Lizzie as a seventh year student and because of the plots is slightly different, but the same basic person.
It was Christmas morning, past dawn but still early enough that the small brunette creeping through the halls from the Gryffindor common room to the dungeons in robes that had been magically recolored to green, with a black shoulderbag slung over her shoulders, might have stood out were there anyone else to witness her trek. And there were a few that tsked and reminded her she should be in bed, but thankfully, they were all groggy pictures and she assured them that she was headed back to her dormitories. After all, she was a Slytherin, right? Well, maybe not, but these pictures wouldn't know her from anyone else and couldn't prove her wrong. She approached the door to the common room and said the password quickly, hoping the picture was groggy enough to not realize she didn't belong there. A friend of hers had told her the Slytherin password, which was a good thing because despite the previous description, surreptitiousness had never been a gift of Elizabeth Hawkins's, and she likely wouldn't be able to sneak towards the common room to find it out and then again to follow through with her plan. The simplest solution would have been to ask Cam, and she almost had, but that would ruin the point of surprising him. She held back the possibly incriminating sigh of relief as the painting swung open for her.
A slightly uncharacteristic impish grin crossed her features as she stepped through. This whole sneaky thing wasn't so hard. It gave her a little bit of a rush, actually. The common room was dark, with stone walls, looking very much like the rest of the dungeons and well, just what she would have expected. But she wasn't there to observe the common rooms. She looked for the staircase and when she found it, took the right, hoping the boy's dormitories were on the same side as they were for Gryffindor. She was quite thankful for the possibly faulty reasoning that the founders had about girls being more responsible than boys and therefore allowing girls to enter boys' dormitories though boys were not allowed in the girls' dorms. She pushed open the door as quietly as she could, hating the age of the thing that made it creak. Yes, that was the boy's dormitory. She scanned the room looking for one blond head in particular, hoping she didn't wake anyone else up. Half of the occupants in this room she had likely butted heads with on more than one occasion. Lizzie was much less judgmental of Slytherins as she had been before, but she couldn't say the same for all of them. Not many of them were great fans of the hardheaded Gryffindor girl, especially those that had objections about her blood. She found Cam's bed though and walked over towards it, her smile growing a bit. He was cute sleeping. Of course, she had spent the night with him once, when they stayed in the Room of Requirement after getting back from the hospital, but she had drifted off first.
Okay, so most of the surprise was the mere fact that she had managed to sneak in there. He would probably be shocked that she even tried, much less that she pulled it off because he knew she wasn't the sneakiest of people; but it was Christmas and that, mixed with the fact that she had an idea, put her in a light mood. She knelt down by his bed, her shoes brushing a pair of green froggy slippers to the side."Hey," she whispered, shaking his arm a bit to wake him. "Come on, rise and shine, sleeping beauty." The last comment was a bit of teasing, given the way Cam joked about being Prince Charming, but she wasn't sure if he heard it or not as he was asleep when she said it, thus the point in saying it.
What Would You Like Your Character To Accomplish? Lizzie is going to be a published author and beyond that, it all depends on how things play out
Who Are You Really?Name/Nickname: Alex
Age: 17
Contact information: impossible_dreamer119@hotmail.com
How did you find us?: Affiliation with
SAH
