Name: Katherine McPartland - Call her Katherine or Kate, but never Katie
House: Hufflepuff
Year: 6th
Wand: Pliable, 10 inches, Alder with phoenix tail feather core
Bloodline: At least halfblooded
Birthday: March 24th
Pet/Familiar: N/A
Physical Description: When Kate looks in the mirror, she's not exactly sure what to think. As a teenager, she's always had mixed emotions about her appearance, typically bordering on dissatisfaction, if only because she's a teenager. Her favorite feature are her eyes, which are big and brown and generally exotic looking. She has always wondered if maybe she has a little Asian blood in her, as her eyes are significantly almond shaped and don't seem to have come from the Anglo-Irish side of the family. Her skintone, however, definitely came from her mother's side, as it's typically pale and impossible to brown - though Katherine's never been anyplace sunny enough to test the theory. She does break out more than she'd like, and if she gets closer to the mirror, she can count the individual pores on her face - frustrating, but true. Her nose is a clunky little thing that comes to a point at the very tip, which she sometimes thinks makes her look like a woodland creature with a twitchy little nose. She hasn't noticed a problem with her small, fairly unremarkable lips.
Her hair is dark brown in color and fairly long. She typically wears it down past her shoulders, only occasionally pulling it back off her face when she needs to get down to business. She plays with it constantly, most of the time without realizing it, and tugs on her hair when she's frustrated or deep in thought. Her scalp has yet to forgive her.
Her body itself has much less character than the rest of her. Her arms and legs are long and stick-like, attached to what is more or less a long and stick-like body. Ever since Katherine was very young she never seemed to be able to gain very much weight, and the tradition continues now, even at sixteen years old. She's nearly flat-chested, and has no substance whatsoever to her behind. She tends to walk rather stiffly, as though there's a stick shoved up her nonexistent bum. Although she gives off a very long and thin impression, she is not actually as tall as she looks, and in fact only stands about five feet and three inches tall. Her limbs are as long as they look in proportion to her body, which makes her resemble something like a pretzel when she curls up on herself.
When dress and carriage are concerned, Kate is definitely the type of girl who is effortlessly female, almost to a fault. Feminine choices come naturally to her. Her robes are the type with lace and delicate details, typically in pinks and soft pastels, though modestly cut. When given a choice between slacks and a skirt, she will always and without a doubt chose the skirt. In fact, the question of whether or not she even owns any slacks is debatable. Though her wardrobe is made up of mostly robes, she does own a few dresses. Even on bad days, she makes an effort to look tidy and clean.
Personality Description:
To Katherine, the difference between 'shy' and 'not especially inclined to speak,' is a very big, very obvious one. Though others would be quick to label her as shy, she doesn't necessarily feel that way about herself. Without a doubt, Kate is a reserved, quiet girl who doesn't always immediately speak her mind when she would like, but only partially because she was raised in a quiet environment. The biggest factor in her choice to stay quiet is her stuttering - a speech impediment that has plagued her since she started talking and, unfortunately, doesn't seem to be going anywhere. She doesn't know when she will stutter or who will mock her or feel uncomfortable about it, and as a result tends to get nervous about stuttering, which makes her stutter more. It's a vicious, never ending cycle that has more or less rendered her quiet and has affected more than one aspect of her life.
Stuttering has also caused quite a few confidence issues. Because so much magic at Katherine's current level requires incantations and the spoken word, she has always had a slightly more difficult time than others. Her nerves drive her up a wall when she's asked to show off a charm or spell for an audience - and once she agrees to do it and, inevitably, stutters, it's nearly impossible to ignore the snicker from the back of the room, or the girls who stare at one another and roll their eyes, or the nerves of the professor who she can tell just wants to cut in and take back having asked her to do it at all. Other's opinions about her stuttering get to her the most, and although it was worse when she was younger and people didn't realize that she had zero control over the phenomenon, there are definitely still people who react in ways that absolutely kill her confidence. For similar reasons, she doesn't often raise her hand in class or volunteer for anything, and will occasionally respond to teachers' questions with "I don't know," just so she doesn't have to launch into a response and risk taking up half the class trying to articulate her thoughts - even when she knows the answer.
Most of the time Kate comes off as a sweet, demure girl who knows her place and stays there - and while that does describe her to an extent, it is frustrating and upsetting that not very many people know her beyond that. Her overwhelmingly feminine, shy facade aside, Katherine is actually a fairly angry, though more or less typical, teenage girl, and is perhaps even more cynical than most. She is frustrated with herself, her situation, and her life, and when in the right company, is not afraid to show it. For someone who keeps her mouth shut as often as she does, she is opinionated beyond belief. As long as it relates to her, her friends, or her life in some way, she will openly claim things are 'stupid,' or 'unfair,' or 'just plain ridiculous.' On top of that, she loves to talk about how pathetic she is, and spends more time than she should dwelling on the subject. Katherine's never quite happy with herself, whether she's criticizing a dumb stuttering incident, an interaction with a member of the opposite sex, or her grades.
Although unexpectedly, Katherine also loves to rant. Because she doesn't always speak immediately when an idea or feeling hits her, she sometimes holds onto and bottles up what she's thinking or how she's feeling and doesn't always get to get things off her chest on a time schedule that's convenient for her. When this happens, she will hold on to what she has to say for later and allow it to ruminate in her mind. Eventually, she will have to seek someone out willing to listen to her vent. Her bottled up speeches and rants may be long and angry and egocentric, but they serve as the ultimate way to relax, decompress, and get her feelings out. She needs good friends willing to listen for this to work for her, of course, but is absolutely always ready and willing to listen to someone else work their problems out if they need her. This reason alone makes Hufflepuff an excellent fit for the girl.
When it comes to her relationships with others, Kate is a peach. There has always been a part of her that was drawn to helping and reaching out to people that those who know her get to experience regularly. When Katherine asks you how you're doing, you get a sense that she actually cares. She's beyond maternal, even at her age, crazy angst aside. Although her rants and cynical nature may seem extremely egocentric, she will drop almost anything if someone claims to need her help. She will and has taken care of ill friends, listened to worries, and given her own things away in order to help the situations of others. With close friends, she is contagiously kind, and keeps them on a pedestal. It is extremely typical badger loyalty, but it is very important to her as a person.
In order to find a way to have control of her world, environment, and situation, Katherine has taken it upon herself to beautify the world. She likes her things to be neat and clean, including her living space, her school work, and her personal appearance. She is in no way obsessive compulsive, however, and understands that sometimes a person needs to wade through a mess to make things neat again - and she is willing, patient, and often determined enough to wade through those messes. Perhaps for these reasons Herbology is her best and favorite subject, and something which she has more than a passing interest in. Herbology allows her to make things beautiful, foster growth, take control over a situation, utilize her patience, be pensive, and work hard at something she is fully capable of doing. It is something she not only feels she is suited for, but allows her to use almost all of her special strengths.
Brief History:
Katherine McPartland grew up in the flat above the apothecary in the busiest part of a particularly small village in the countryside of Bradford, where it was one of the very few nearby shops. The little village was made up of a great deal of wizards, as well as more than a sprinkling of muggle families who had magical relatives and didn't mind the proximity to the wizarding attractions. The few unaffiliated muggles are blissfully ignorant to the small community of magical folk surrounding them, as carefully placed wards have always kept them away from the apothecary for a long time. Her grandparents - affectionately Nana and Granddad - had owned the apothecary for years, where Granddad was the druggist, and Nana tried the best to keep the business side of things neat and tidy. When the McPartland's had children, Steven and Felicity, they also lived in the apartment above the shop. The shop itself was almost never without children, and whenever someone stopped in for a potion they requested, it wasn't rare to see a face peeking out from behind a shelf, or barely poking up from behind the counter. There was always a time, however, when the children grew and went off to Hogwarts to be shaped by forces outside of Nana and Granddad's control, and the children in the apothecary were always missed.
The apothecary itself wasn't a major hub, but people in the small village did occasionally stop by to chat, or request that the McPartland's order a potions ingredient for them, or generally just to browse and be friendly. Because of the nature of the business, Nana and Granddad typically ended up knowing people's business anyway, often becoming the first to know when someone was ill, or well again, or trying to gather the ingredients for a love potion. They knew the business of the village, but hardly the business and goings on at Hogwarts where their youngest child, Felicity, attended. Felicity, who would be Katherine's mother, was a young lady as vibrant as her name suggested. She had always been a bit hard to control and free-spirited, and Katherine's Nana and Granddad couldn't help but worry about her at times. The worrying was not for naught. The summer following her fifth year, Felicity made a rather bold announcement. She stood before her parents boldly, hands on her hips, and stared them down like a rogue, glint in her eye and all. She declared, most confidently, that she was pregnant, she was having it, she had taken and passed her OWLs and therefore wasn't going back to school - and didn't need any more education besides, because she was a young lady from a modest upbringing, anyway, and it just wasn't necessary. It didn't seem half as reasonable as she made it sound standing before them on that day, but they couldn't do much besides accept it.
By the time she had been pregnant for nine months it was March of the following year. By that time, everyone witch and wizard scattered amongst the homes in the village was aware of what had occurred, and though they all tried to catch wind of who exactly the baby's father was, Felicity's mouth was a fortress. She didn't want anything to do with the father, she said - and as the days ticked away, she didn't want much to do with the baby, either. By the time the baby was born, Felicity wanted even less to do with it. Nana named the baby girl Katherine, because Felicity only threatened to name it something crass or ridiculous, and laughed openly about it. She was not bitter - merely uninterested, and did not stick around for longer than she had to. The moment she could, Felicity escaped to live in, of all places, Beirut, where she planned to go on all sorts of adventures and sit in the sun and make some money doing whatever she could. This was probably for the best, however, because people were beginning to talk. Baby Katherine stayed behind, becoming the ward of her Nana and Granddad and, by rote, the newest small face in the McPartland Family Apothecary.
Kate was raised almost exclusively by her grandparents from that point on. Her mother's old bedroom was set up for her use, and her Uncle Steven's room became a sort of playroom for the girl, seeing as she had no siblings and often found it necessary to play games by herself involving an empty closest, a torch, several oversized boys shirts, and some beautiful discarded owl feathers. Her Uncle Steven, who had always been a bit more level than her mother, didn't mind that she used his bedroom for shenanigans, and even played along occasionally, as he was always young enough to pass as an older brother. Once her mother had fled, the remaining adults in her life were gentle and patient, and the whole community nurtured her. Though she was a quiet child (though she loved to talk when alone in the presence of her Grandparents), she enjoyed spending time in the main apothecary down the stairs, and often helped her granddad fix the potions, or assisted her Nana in tidying things. The new "apothecary girl" was appreciated by all of the customers who stopped by during the afternoons, and her Granddad often joked that Katherine was good for business.
She had some contact with her mother after some time had passed. Wanting to make sure her parents knew she was alive, happy, and not living on the streets, she often wrote, and made floo calls from time to time. Felicity referred to Katherine as "Katie," in her distant, unknowing way, and the nickname has always had a bitter connotation for the girl. She did not know her mother any better from the letters or the calls, and didn't particularly care to. She loved her Nana and her Granddad dearly, and they loved the sweet girl back as though she were theirs. She was a far cry from their wild daughter, and her mild manners always seemed like a blessing to the McPartland's, almost like a second chance.
Katherine started school in the neighborhood the year she turned six years old. She has many fond memories of being woken up by her Nana, getting dressed and fed up, and then walking the short distance to the local school teacher's house. She held her Nana's hand every morning as they walked, talking about things they liked and things they saw and what Kate was learning. They were quiet, happy moments, and probably at least partially responsible for Kate's lasting positive relationship with her Nana.
It wasn't until Katherine was in school that her stuttering became an issue. Her grandparents noticed it, of course, but neither was sure what to think of it. Kate was typically a fairly quiet child anyway, and when she did speak - and, inevitably, when she stuttered - they were patient and never specifically addressed it. Once she was in school, however, her tutor, as well as the few classmates she had, all noticed it. Some of the other children laughed, which Katherine hadn't experienced before. Learning to read, and especially reading out loud, became difficult and, in Katherine's memories, humiliating. Over time the environment became more accepting, but the experience was still frustrating. She grew quieter in school, but more chatty at home - and home was where she really learned to read, struggling but ultimately succeeding to sound out the words on her own time and on her own terms.
Kate showed her first major signs of magic around the time she began school. Her grandparents were fully aware that she was a witch, because she had always shown small, more obscure signs of it around the house. On the particular occasion when her magical ability became absolutely clear, there was a noisy but harmless storm passing through the village in the middle of the day that turned all of the rooms in their home to pitch. The loud thunder claps unnerved her, making her jump because she didn't know when to expect them. She was a tired, frustrated five year old and, grabbing a blanket from her bedroom, wrapped it around her shoulders like a cape and moped around, lethargic from the rain and stumbling in the dark over the ends of the blanket. After what must've been the tenth time tripping over the edge of the blanket she grew aggravated, whining something about it being too dark. A moment later, every candle in the house had come to life, providing the flat with a soft light source to guide her in her restless play.
After a few years in Beirut, Katherine's mother had become slightly more mature, insisting she wanted to come back and visit, meet her daughter, and apologize to her parents. They decided on a Christmas visit. Until that point, Christmas had been celebrated in the flat above the apothecary. It was a small but cozy affair, and usually Uncle Steven brought along his girlfriend and presents and stories about Santa Claus that were impossibly believable. The entrance of Kate's mum into what had been an eight year long tradition made Katherine nervous, and she didn't understand why. They didn't have to do very much tidying to prepare for Felicity's visit because, in a fit of nervous energy, Katherine had cleaned the entire place from top to bottom. She tried on the dress she planned to wear, modeling it for herself in her bedroom mirror with a judgmental eye. The day her mother was set to arrive she was an absolute wreck and would not stop tugging at her hair.
Considering how much she'd built it up, Christmas that year was rather anticlimactic. Everything about it was awkward and it made Katherine dizzy. Everything was "Katie this, Katie that" - but more than that, everything that went on was about Felicity. She spoke loudly about what she'd been doing in Beirut - how well she'd done for herself, and how happy she was. Her explosive personality was a little off-putting, in Kate's opinion, and she didn't say very much while her mother was around... not that her mum let her get two words in edgewise, even going as far as to take complete advantage of Katherine's stutter to cut her off mid-sentence. She did bring gifts, however. Kate got some beaded jewelry, a beautiful handmade book, and a stack of postcards from Lebanon with images on them that looked like ones she'd seen in books when she got curious about her mother's whereabouts and looked up her location. Although none of the gifts specifically had anything to do with her, she kept them all - along with every similar gift her mother has ever sent or given to her. She had her grandmother put her to bed early on that particular Christmas eve, complaining that she didn't feel well. She didn't breathe until her mother left. Felicity was never again invited for Christmas.
As history suggested, Katherine was to attend Hogwarts when she turned eleven years old. She was very excited, but very, very nervous. The few months leading up to her arrival at the school, Hogwarts was all she could talk about - she wanted to be prepared, after all. She asked her family and patrons of the apothecary what houses they'd been in when they were at school, and what classes they liked the best. She knew her mother had been a Slytherin. Nana and Uncle Steven were Hufflepuffs, and so was Steven's fiancé, Valerie. Granddad was a Ravenclaw. It was all very intriguing to the girl, who packed neatly and carefully for her trip weeks in advance.
When Kate finally arrived at Hogwarts she was sorted into Hufflepuff, like some of her very favorite people. She set up her area in her dorm neatly, trying to figure out exactly how a bed and a small area in a room were supposed to become home. The other girls were warm and kind, however, and though she was silently cynical about it all, she eventually calmed down enough to introduce herself somewhat coherently. It wasn't until nighttime that she realized how different boarding school could be. Falling asleep was difficult, and she didn't have the option to tip-toe to her Nana's bedroom and request that she rub her back until she fell asleep. All of the girls made funny little noises, and it was strange how all of the sudden sitting up and reading until she got tired suddenly felt like it might be harmful. That first night she didn't sleep at all. The second night, however, she was so exhausted that she feel asleep deeply enough to wet the bed - yes, at eleven years old. That day heralded her first trip to the library, and her first opportunity to struggle to learn a spell that would sufficiently cover the evidence (an endeavor that took her somewhere around three hours). While it was probably one of the most embarrassing things to have happened first year, it was pretty typical and only lead the way for the rest of Katherine's awkward adventures at Hogwarts.
Life as a student started difficultly and didn't necessarily get simpler. She learned that practical magic was harder for her, that people were laughing at her stutter behind her back, that making friends was difficult, and that homesickness was a real phenomenon. She also learned, however, that she had something of an unfair advantage in potions and herbology classes, that some people didn't mind her stutter, that making friends was difficult for everyone, and that with the arrival of one letter, homesickness subsides significantly. She got along, and, somehow, managed to survive until her fifth year.
Important Relationships:
Nana: Katherine and her Nana are extremely close. Because her grandmother serves as her mother figure, she has played that role wonderfully for as long as Katherine has been her ward. Her Nana took on the major responsibility of taking care of her as a child - it was her Nana, not her Granddad, who stayed upstairs with her on the days she was ill and took care of her, came up early to help her with school work, and talked with her when she needed someone to listen. She is not only Kate's Nana, but also her confidant.
Granddad: Katherine and her Granddad have always been buddies. He never said no to her if she asked if she could help him in the shop, and he often sent her on odd jobs around the store. She learned a lot of what she knew about potions from him, and he was always happy to share secrets with his granddaughter. He was also the one who ordered books for Kate, which became a sort of secret guilty pleasure.
Felicity McPartland: Kate's mother is not a person Kate is very fond of. She often refers to her as "the leading cause of stress," and does not enjoy hearing about her stupid adventures in some stupid far away country. She treasures the gifts she's sent, however, if only because there are so few connections between her and her mother that aren't tainted by their own unique brands of egocentrism, or the stupid nickname "Katie" that her mother had to go and ruin for all time. News of her mother potentially getting married has been on the rise as of late, and is causing the girl much grief.
Uncle Steven: Steven is one of Katherine's favorite relatives outside of her grandparents. He's a fun loving young man who's just recently gotten married to his Hogwarts sweetheart - Kate's Aunt Valerie. He's always been really supportive of Katherine and has done her a few favors in the past - like stealing her away from her grandparents for a few afternoons to go out and have some fun with some younger folks. He now has a young son who Kate adores, and she loves going to see her aunt and uncle.
Likes/Dislikes:
Likes: Herbology, her window box garden at home, novels in which teenage heroines somehow become famous or royal or otherwise break the mold, cleaning, ranting, looking through her old class notes, spending lazy time with friends, new dresses and reasons to wear them, her baby cousin, writing letters to international pen pals
Dislikes: Being messy, thunderstorms, stuttering, people who torment poor teenage girls, charms and transfiguration, being called Katie, her mother and circumstances that surround her, being woken up, the feeling of being useless, oral presentations
Loyalties - Personal and Family: Kate is all for tolerance. Whether others realize it or not, she gets discriminated against quite a bit. People not only make judgments about her abilities because she's female, but also about her intelligence because she stutters. For Kate, who's goal in life is to make everyone in the known universe happy, discriminating against someone because of their background is a big deal. Because Kate has no idea what her particular background is, this is even more frightening. Her family, for the most part, follows a similar set of beliefs on the matter. Although none of them are currently out actively fighting against said discrimination, they all do their part to avoid making judgments based on background.
Class sign-ups: Katherine takes the regular fifth year load, but additionally takes arithmancy
PB/Avatar to be used: Kristen Kreuk
Contact Information: In the GD
ALL other ezboard IDs you use on PI, including the names of the characters you play on EACH: Veelababe89: Pammy, Anna, and Zoe



