I posted this under Albus' account by mistake, then felt half-glad coz that would mean that the gifs would work. I've already created the account for the charrie though, so I hope this isn't a problem.
VANORA ICTHWAIL ZABINI______________________________________________________________________________________
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INTRODUCTION------------------------------------------------------------
FULL NAME: Vanora Icthwail Zabini
NICKNAMES: None. Nicknames are a sign of affection.
AGE: 22
ALLEGIANCE: Neutral
HOGWARTS HOUSE: Ravenclaw Graduate
CLASSES: -
WAND: Elder, Thestral tail-hair, eight inches, brittle
Elder- "The rarest wand wood of all, and reputed to be deeply unlucky, the elder wand is trickier to master than any other. It contains powerful magic, but scorns to remain with any owner who is not the superior of his or her company; it takes a remarkable wizard to keep the elder wand for any length of time. The old superstition, ‘wand of elder, never prosper,’ has its basis in this fear of the wand, but in fact, the superstition is baseless, and those foolish wandmakers who refuse to work with elder do so more because they doubt they will be able to sell their products than from fear of working with this wood. The truth is that only a highly unusual person will find their perfect match in elder, and on the rare occasion when such a pairing occurs, I take it as certain that the witch or wizard in question is marked out for a special destiny. An additional fact that I have unearthed during my long years of study is that the owners of elder wands almost always feel a powerful affinity with those chosen by rowan."
Thestral tail-hair - "Thestral hair wands cannot simply be "mastered" by winning them; Thestral tail hair is a powerful and tricky substance that can only be mastered by a witch or wizard capable of facing death. It is thought by some that Thestral hair makes for a unique personality; completely dispassionate about its allegiance and showing no emotion towards the wizard, tying in with the many changes of hands that the Elder Wand (one of the few known Thestral hair wands in existence) has been through. It is also a wand that has been the instrument of death many times over, which some also believe is connected to its Thestral hair core (possibly inspiring murder in the heart of its beholder(s), since Thestrals have a strong connection to death, as does the origin of the wand itself). However, the many changes of allegiance that the Elder wand has had as well as its history of winning through murder may be simply a reflection on the nature of power itself, and the means people are willing to sink to in order to attain it."
Eight inches- "Many wandmakers simply match the wand length to the size of the witch or wizard who will use it, but this is a crude measure, and fails to take into account many other, important considerations. In my experience, longer wands might suit taller wizards, but they tend to be drawn to bigger personalities, and those of a more spacious and dramatic style of magic. Neater wands favour more elegant and refined spell-casting. However, no single aspect of wand composition should be considered in isolation of all the others, and the type of wood, the core and the flexibility may either counterbalance or enhance the attributes of the wand’s length.
Most wands will be in the range of between nine and fourteen inches. While I have sold extremely short wands (eight inches and under) and very long wands (over fifteen inches), these are exceptionally rare. In the latter case, a physical peculiarity demanded the excessive wand length. However, abnormally short wands usually select those in whose character something is lacking, rather than because they are physically undersized."
Brittle- "Wand flexibility or rigidity denotes the degree of adaptability and willingness to change possessed by the wand-and-owner pair."
PLAY BY: Liv Tyler
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APPEARANCE
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HAIR COLOUR: Jet black, with a few strands of silver running down the sides. The tendency to grey faster, and at a young age, is a trait passed down from her mother's side of the family.
EYE COLOUR: Nordic blue
COMPARATIVE HEIGHT: Tall
BODY BUILD: Willowy, though almost frail. Long, slender wrists, thinner ankles. A waist that can be encircled by an arm.
GENERAL APPEARANCE: Like a faerie transported out of a Keatsian poem. Like a Renaissance painting. Like an illustration made on an old book, which you run your fingers over again and again, hypnotised.
Smooth, black, shadowy texture.....that's all that can be said of her hair, falling to touch the back of her knees, like rainclouds descended from the heavens to adorn her shoulders. White skin- pale, ephemeral, a transparent layer under which the veins gleam. Her parents were almost horrifically spellbound when they had first set sight on that whitened bundle, those small legs and hands, blue veins twisting and curling and standing out starkly against them. The intensity has reduced, but blue still streaks over the inside of her adult limbs, playing peekaboo, showing her life blood. The face is etched, the chin pointed and carved, but the cheeks rounded and smoothened over by skin and flesh. The brows are pale black, curving over skin-drawn bone like archer's bows, the nose long and flute like. The mouth is downturned, small and reduced in width, but parts to reveal teeth whiter than skin when it curls over words.
The neck is long, almost swan-like, with prominent clavicles and a small jewel almost always nestling between them. The shoulders are rounded, the back arching in, limbs long.....its almost like there is no flesh to cover these parts, just bone, muscle and skin. Hips are barely distinguishable from the waist, feet graceful and almost always bare, nails always trimmed to a blunt.
It was almost a curse. That face could not look pretty. That face could not look cute, or teasing, or vivacious, or arrogant. The only thing it could look like was unworldly.....and when she stands at the tallest window in her home, looking over the grounds, or rides into the forest, or walks through the moors, ephemeral silk trailing on the ground behind her.....almost fey.
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FAMILY & POSSESSIONS
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FATHER: Blaise Zabini; current location unknown
MOTHER: Name and origin unknown; deserted at birth
SIBLING/S: None as far knowledge extends
OTHER:
Elvira Zabini, paternal grandmother; most probably deceased
The families that reside in her home.
BLOOD STATUS: Unknown
SPECIES: Unknown as of now. No non-human characteristics displayed so far.
SOCIAL STATUS: Fairly wealthy
PET/S: Lots. An aviary, with all the winged inhabitants one could hope for- no owls though. Stables- with two horses and three Thestrals. Her most prized one is called Ellura.
OTHER POSSESSIONS: A trunk of them, Zabini heirlooms, shoved in the storeroom a long time ago. An Invisibility Cloak, mended with Demiguise hair every month. A few of Aramis' belongings which remained unburnt, buried in a trunk below the Zabini one.
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CHARACTER HISTORY
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Early Years:
He was born Aramis Icthwail Zabini, on the 26th of December, Friday, the Winter Solstice of 2004.
His mother was equally probable to be one of the high-class trophy wives that chittered over champagne flutes in Pureblood parties, or a whore off the grubbiest corner of Knockturn. Muggle or Witch or part-hag......Zabinis didn't discriminate among their prey. They were almost notoriously shallow- because one thing that his mother was guaranteed to be was a physical masterpiece. But then again, if one pondered really hard.....it was very, very unlikely that the hallowed halls of the Zabini home sheltered the bastard spawn of a prostitute. Immorality wasn't the problem, a distinct lack of wealth- and more importantly that metaphorical thing they call 'class-and-status'.....the thing that hangs over titled. blue-blooded royals like a shroud no matter how boorish; that had always attracted the scions of his paternal family. They were almost Niffler-like in their tendency of sniffing out what Elvira Zabini, infamous black widow called : 'people of consequence'. So yes....probably it was a betrothed duchess, or a Muggle starlet, or a Seraphim, or even a demure, habit-wearing Sister if his father had been in a particularly amused mood. Anyway, didn't matter. He still hadn't seen her face in his entire lifetime.
His father, Blaise Zabini- famously neutral in the Battle of Hogwarts but an ex-Slytherin nonetheless, had to be a changed man. Or rather, prove to the wizarding world that he was a changed man, if the fortunes and properties all over the world were to remain untouched. So the bastard child was kept, and given his father's name, regardless of the fact that said father had a wife. The first and second name were given by his grandmother. Sometimes, he almost suspected that she loved him more than the children Daphne could give her (he didn't know if she had any children, he didn't know anything of that side of the family except Daphne's name) but he stopped himself before he could get too far. Suspicions and hopes were easily confused.
But the wife had to be given importance to, and the children she most probably had. So a deserted Saxon castle, taken briefly by the Normans for a century, almost at England's doorstep- so far flung was it- was bought, and Aramis placed into it like a figurine in a dollhouse, or perhaps more suitably, Rapunzel in the tower. His father visited him once every six months, his grandmother every three. Of the two, only she noticed when he freed all the house-elves at the age of seven. Noticed, but didn't say a word.
Newspapers were like storybooks to him- the people waving, beaming, or scowling from its pages the fantastical characters. For the longest time, he thought that the world outside the castle was black and grey......black and grey like the Prophets the brown barn owl brought every Sunday- a subscription that had been forgotten to be cancelled. He was thankful for it. There were ten pages in the Prophet, and he slowly read one each day- leaving two pages each for the weekend, and two on Friday. He liked Fridays. That was the day he was born, and he liked it, because that was a part of his identity he didn't have to decide himself.
She was so beautiful. Not attractive, or pretty, or hot (Aramis didn't know what that last one meant, yet, but he was pretty sure his grandmother wasn't it. ) but beautiful. After riding, and walking with bare feet on the dew-drenched grass, and rubbing his horse Tracy's velvety nose- he liked watching his grandmother best. So, so beautiful.
So he told her. "You're beeautiful, Grandmere."
Elvira tilted her head back, grey curling around her temple becomingly, the throaty sounds of her laugh hitting the stone floor like pattering rain. Then she tutted. "Not Grandmere. Call me Elvira, darling."
"Albeera."
"Lovely." She pronounced, clapping her hands together once. He wished he had hands like her. "Now say your own name."
A pleased smile lit his lips. This, he could do well. "Aramis."
"No, no, dear." She shook her head, grey-black tendrils unwinding from the bun coiled atop her head, caressing the unwrinkled skin of her cheek. "You know how you say 'apple'? You have to say the first 'a' of your name that way. A-raa-mees."
He repeated it obediently. Elvira tickled him under the chin with a hooked finger- this was what he loved about her, how none of her movements were ever repeated, but always appeared so effortlessly graceful. He gloried in the thought, then flushed under the attention. How many times had he flown through the hallway, a black-white blur, then flattened himself to his father's knees the moment he stepped through the door. Blaise, to his credit, hadn't stepped away; but had patted his son's head in a half-minded, bemused fashion. He seemed unable to understand how small boys isolated from the world, no matter what their surname might be, craved human contact.
Elvira's finger however, had retreated a long time ago, while he was still lost in his daydreams. She turned to her mirror, and was apt to do, forgot every one else. Aramis watched, eyes wide and blue, as her dexterous fingers deftly withdrew the stick that kept her bun standing, then shook her head side to side, as if brushing off water, a black and silver curtain serving to obscure her features. He watched, and felt a strange ache ghost past the side of his throat, and settle firmly in his chest.
Hogwarts Years:
No one ignored him on the station, or on the train. The first girl sitting on the boat even flushed delicately when he took the seat next to her. A ghost was still the first person he ever spoke to at Hogwarts. The Grey Lady was gazing unmindfully out of a window, and Aramis told her that she looked like a 'real person', grey and black, just like the Prophet. The spectre smiled at him.
The second person to talk to him was an old lady, hobbled and talking to herself and smelling strongly of sherry. She peered at him through her thick glasses, told him he was a lovely boy, and as old ladies are apt to do, asked him who in his family he took after. His father was swarthy, with polished, almost exotic features. Elvira was an angel. None of them, then. Probably his mother, or someone on her side of the family, whose faces he hadn't seen. Something stopped him from saying it though, and the books told him it was male pride, and he felt it so rarely that he clung to the little flare with all his might, precociously answering that he might resemble anyone in this world, not just his family. The woman gave a gurgle, which might have been a laugh, and inquired who he resembled then. He opened his mouth wide....and was stopped short in his shoes. Truth was, he couldn't think of anyone who remotely looked like him.
Generally, when one finds the entire world to be strange and abnormal; the abnormality is rooted in the person himself.
He was Sorted into Ravenclaw not because of any particular academic skills or intelligence, but his affinity for the Muses. Arts, talents.....musical instruments, song, art, poems, even cooking.....he was drawn to creation like a moth to the flame, fleeting many a while on the lone lyre that the music room of Hogwarts provided, or the dungeons stirring many a healing serum, or the kitchens, watching the house-elves cook over their shoulders.
So the years of childhood passed away, and he grew into a man. A man with no flesh, who stayed awake at night, while his classmates grunted under their breaths in pleasure not metres away, in self-pleasure or betrayed by a giggle or a feminine earring on the floor the next morning. Sitting in the corner while they discussed the miracles of the female anatomy and compared conquests by the fireplace. He explained his problem to his room-mate once, and the boy good-naturedly elaborated in return that man-man relations weren't all that strange, and quite accepted nowadays, really. Aramis informed him in turn that his father Blaise was bisexual, so he didn't quite understand the problem. The room-mate threw his hands up into the air and walked away.
They didn't get it. None of them truly got it. It wasn't about sexuality.....never about sexuality. Why would he care about such things while he hadn't felt a stir in his groin in his entire lifetime? It was.....it was about the way the boy and the man held back from dorm-room fights, watching boys punch one another and scuffle on the floor and never understanding. It was about how he had attended every death-day party there ever was in school, and not any of the boys' birthdays, replete with alcohol and brazen behaviour. It was about how he stood in the shower hours at a time, and tried vainly, desperately to scrub his skin off, feeling that it never quite belonged to him, feeling like the empty ache in his chest, present day in and night out, would finally suffocate him.
The day of his graduation, he got the answer to the question the old lady had asked him on his first day of school. It was when he had packed up his trunk, and was walking out of the Ravenclaw dorms for the last time- when he realised that the listless, hollow expression on the Grey Lady's face rather resembled the one he saw in the mirror every time he looked in to shave.
Adulthood:
The vial gleamed in his fingers, the liquid sloshing inside looking for all the world like tea. Was this how the scientists had felt when they had seen the first, almost tiny, grape-fruit sized atom bomb? Wondered at the appearance of the thing that was going to change their lives, and if it should have looked a little more impressive.
The man opposite to him, babbled on. "I didn't know......I was thinking of something else.....but I created the base by mistake...."
Aramis sunk into the chair, the one his father used to occupy, further; and felt his limbs fold into themselves, withdrawing into a strangely small whole. He had always been short, utterly unnoticeable for his age. A girl with his height would be considered tall.
"-it.....it was easy to steal it. My cousin is a Metamorphmagus, all I had to do was snatch one of the blood-soaked bandages after the family Quidditch match...."
Blood. Taken without the will of the giver. That would be construed as Dark Magic. This, tea-coloured liquid, rolling around his fingers. Dark Magic.
"It only gives you the ability to change once, and feeds from your magic the entire day. Difference from Polyjuice potion is that it allows you to take any appearance, not that of a real appearance. Only one appearance though. That's the limitation."
"Why don't you sell it? Patent it?" He still couldn't take his eyes off the vial.
The reply was quiet, but clear. "It wouldn't stay that way. People would misuse it, it would flourish among criminals. Being able to sport two faces.....its not a power to be taken lightly."
Small sounds, like soles falling against stone slabs, felt like footsteps walking away. Aramis was well accustomed to the sound.
"Albus."
The man turned, green eyes unreadable. "Yes?"
"Stay."
Three days and three nights, of pure agony. Of feeling like your skin was being flayed off your bones. Of feeling every muscle melt through skin, then renew itself. The last night, there was no sleep. The newly formed, stretched, pink skin was still too tender. When he got to his feet and immediately swayed back to the ground, his centre of balance had been changed irrevocably. It would take ages to learn to walk again.....like a child. His magic would never remain the same.
The fourth day, Albus bent forward, and pressed a kiss to tender, chafed, yet unkissed lips. The last gift he would ever give. Whispered words drifted into his ear, there was a flash of fire in the grate, and the tangible human presence vanished. "Stay safe." still echoed in the room.
She watched the fire only for ten seconds, before walking away.
Vanora retreated to the castle of her childhood, and found peace in repairing broken windows, setting right cracked slabs, reopening rooms. She first reconstructed the conservatory, then the aviary. Orders flew away from the Castle with increased frequency, the shipments being delivered on the doorstep by Portkey, as requested. No one ever set foot on that property, replete with sloping green grounds, a fir forest, a winding river and even a small waterfall at the very periphery- except equestrian animals and one light, fleet-footed maiden. Wrapped in white, she would sometimes come down to the Muggle village lying just on the outskirts, smiling at women, purchasing fresh fruits and cheeses, ruffling the children's hair and dropping pennies and other goodies into their open palms. She would then dart back into the place from where she came, and the wards would fall- silent, blanketing, closing everything.
Sometimes there would be sounds of hooves thundering over the grounds, a grey-cloaked figure atop it, striving to outrace the moon. Sometimes it would be a winged beast, almost skeletal-like, winging towards the moon in the night-time, while the figure stretched out her hands and whispered into the Thestral's ears. Sometimes song would float out from one of the upper windows, the tone rich and clear and wandering- as if accustomed to a base and pitch other than its own. And rarely, that figure can be spotted miles away from here, lingering around the Trevi Fountain in Rome, or a forsaken beach in Corsica, breathing in the air. But locals hardly dared approach the towering structure of stone, it was a rather well-known fact that the Castle was haunted. Ghosts lived there, actual ghosts....and every time a new one took birth in a cemetery within thirty miles, it flocked to the building.
Vanora loved them. All of them. She would greet Catherine early in the morning, and help her on her daily game of chess against Chester; listen to Mrs Porter's daily rant on knitting and darning and mending and how her children absolutely refused to keep the clothes in anything but tatters, said children darting and playing 'round the house gaily; even woebegone Ernest as he composed yet another ode to his forsaken love. It was almost easy to forget that they all couldn't pick up things, or do actual work, or were all grey and pearlescent. Obviously they were- all the real people were.
Satisfied with that thought, Vanora climbs into bed each night, and falls into sleep. Every time darkness and those shadowed lids fall, the subconscious mind takes over, magic can no longer feed on itself; and a pale, long-limbered man continues slumbering under the sheets, breathing fitfully. By morning, the conscious state will reclaim itself and the woman will return- and if it is a Friday, then she will have to take her weekly dose of tea-coloured potion. But for now, the man sleeps on.
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PERSONALITY
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ADDITIONAL PLAYBY: Alexander Vlahos
TRAITS:
People identify themselves by what they observe in themselves, or what they would like to observe, or what other people tell them. Vanora has not fashioned an identity for herself. She has never thought to. Others have never cared to. But......if one would insist....
- Dormant
- Distant
- Hollow
- Clairvoyant
- Detached
- Takes comfort in stasis
- Stuck in stasis
- Instead of seeking out things she seeks, she actively avoids them
- Sensory
- Compassionate
- Understanding
- Asexual
- Cultured
- Free
- Disconnected
- Pure
LIKES & DISLIKES:
+ Stone
+ Painting
+ Singing
+ Playing musical instruments
+ Riding
+ History
+ Senses- seeing, hearing, feeling things
+ Weather changes
+ Nature
+ Healing magic
+ Broomsticks
+ People of the world
- Crowds
- Confrontations
- Anxiety
- Anything remotely sexual
- Overpowering people
- Being involved
- Smoke
- Unpredictability (apparently)
GOALS: None
HABITS & QUIRKS:
Sometimes forgets to close her legs while sitting.
Half-mindedly waves at people from Hogwarts
Collects every newspaper she can get her hands on
BOGGART: 
That they'd take it away. That they'd take it all away.
PATRONUS:
Once, when h-she had raced someone on a broomstick. She doesn't remember who it was- just the speed and the wind and the corkscrew dives- the sheer control that no Thestral can give you. She's trying her best to forget those parts too.
DEMENTOR: -
VERITASERUM: There is a portrait, present in the alcove huddled at the dead end of the fifth floor corridor, of her home. The background is a sweeping, muddled mixture of light and shade, of which marble pillars and the night sky, with the constellation Orion in the corner, can be distinguished. A woman occupies centre stage- the lady of the manor. She has white skin, off-set by a shoulder less white gown, with no adornments- just blue eyes and her long, long hair cascading down one shoulder and curling below her white thigh as black ringlets. She raises her fingers to her lips, and you realise there's a black olive clasped between the first two. White teeth sink into the fruit, and juice bubbles out over swollen skin, and seeps down her chin. If you listen to your gut, you will brush your fingers over her chin to wipe away the liquid. The features straighten. Soft skin morphs to hard jaw, long locks to a curly mop above the head, thin skin-drawn limbs intact, but leaner and straighter. The eyelashes dwindle in length, the colour as vibrant and striking as always, as you stare, ensnared. The man winks back at you, and bends to take a second bite.
MIRROR OF ERISED: I......nothing.
PERSONALITY:
She wished she knew. She really wished she knew.
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BEHIND THE CHARACTER
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ALSO KNOWN AS: Kiera
RP EXPERIENCE: Officially one year on PA now, and lots of time previous to that on other RP sites, obviously 
HOW YOU FOUND US: 'tis hard to remember
MAIN CHARACTER: Albus S Potter
PURPOSE OF CHARACTER: For the first time in a long time, a character has taken complete possession of me like this. I had to get this out of my system, and onto a screen. Love it please guys.....I think I'd sob if you didn't.
RP SAMPLE: - Spoiler:
At least one paragraph. You can skip if you have another character
by Albus S Potter Thu Feb 06, 2014 4:15 pm
