InsaneJournal

✵

NAME.	Yseult Quintella Valois Sewell
NICKNAMES.	Ella, Quin, Quinny
AGE.	32
DATE OF BIRTH.	December 21, 1976
MARITAL STATUS.	Promised to Lancelot Cadwallader
DATING HISTORY.	Ambrose Sewell (1999 – August 2007)
ORIENTATION.	Heterosexual, as far as she knows
FAMILY.	Henri Valois, father Name, mother Henri, brother (1968, 40) Charles, brother (1970, 38) Louis, brother (1972, 36) René, brother (1974, 34) Quinten, twin brother (1976, 32) Timothé, brother (1984, 24) Ambrose Sewell, husband (deceased) Aurélie (aka Auri), daughter (2004, 5) Félix Ambrose, son (2008, 1) Zahara Jane Flume, cousin (26)
FRIENDS.	Hannah Abbott Genevieve de Blacas d'Aulps ZJ Flume Alexandrie Moreau Olivier Moreau Timothé Valois
OCCUPATION.	Mother | Clerk | Assistant
HOMETOWN.	Hometown
RESIDENCE.	London
HEIGHT.	5'0"
HAIR.	Golden blonde
EYES.	Ocean green-grey-blue
SCARS.	Nothing readily apparent
TATTOOS/MARKS.	TBD

NAME.	Jasmine
EMAIL.	intothewhisperingwoods@gmail.com
AIM.	gelseydutchwood
CDJ.	quiet_watcher
TIMEZONE.	EST
PB.	Amanda Seyfried

First Meeting: Sweet and smiling

General: The word “no” does not come easily to Quin at all. She’s very amenable soul, very agreeable, hates to make anything like trouble or waves. She doesn’t really know how to say no to people, though she’s been working on it. She’s very sweet and kind and doesn’t have a harsh word to say about just about anyone. Hardworking to the point of taking on far too much and too nice to turn people away, she often feels a certain amount of stress about all the things people expect out of her. She absolutely hates to disappoint anyone. She would have made an excellent Hufflepuff, if she’d had enough magic to go off to school.

She’s pretty trusting and perhaps even a bit gullible. She doesn’t usually suspect people of having any kind of ulterior motive unless they’ve managed to betray her multiple times – and even then she’d probably explain it away. She’s gotten better about her feelings being too tender, but they still get hurt easily compared to some people. She also cries far too easily, something she hates about herself. Despite everything, she has retained a little bit of worldly naivete, generally thinking the best of people even when they’ve wronged her.

She has very low self-esteem, which isn’t always readily apparent since she’s pretty and dresses with care. But she struggles with feelings of worthlessness and shame for being what she is in the world she lives in. She’s a bit of a people pleaser, something deep in her thinking that if she just does enough, her family will love her again. It’s the lost dream of a little girl, of course, but she can’t help but think it. If she’s pretty enough, helpful enough, smart enough, maybe someday she will be enough.

She tends to be cheerful and smiling, lightening the atmosphere for others. She is also generally optimistic, especially on behalf of those around her. She’s more of a follower than a leader and probably always will be, though she’s been trying to develop more of a backbone for years. It’s very difficult for her.

Strengths: smart, organized, kind, helpful, hardworking, easy to talk to, cheerful, good with kids, good at mediating situations, faking it in public, understanding of the foundations of things and politics

Weaknesses: trusting, gullible, low self-esteem, susceptible to some flattery (though she has trouble believing it), needs to please, easily humiliated, very self conscious in some situations, self effacing, easy to make cry

Hobbies: Reading, writing, many of the arts – violin, piano, photography; crochet and knitting, sewing

Likes: Books, music, people not knowing what she is, her children, working with yarn, dressing up, dragons

Dislikes: Being a squib, bigotry of any sort, peanut butter, blood, violence

✵

Very pretty and rather feminine. Quin carries a somewhat delicate appearance with a very pretty, fey sort of face – something about her eyes, perhaps, and the way they dominate her face, large and lovely, and the way they seem to shift color sometimes with her moods. There’s generally an air of vulnerability about her as well, though it’s not entirely accurate or inaccurate.

She’s almost always dressed in dresses or, occasionally, robes, generally very feminine and girly. Sometimes she wears Muggle clothes, still generally dresses, though she’s equally comfortable in robes or Muggle garb. Sometimes she’ll wear denims or something else nice. Her form is slim and diminutive and feminine, but she has broader hips than she is comfortable with because two babies has left her a bit soft with a few stretch marks.

✵

Wand: n/a - she’s a squib, though she has just enough magic to see through anti-muggle enchantments and see and interact with magical creatures and make weak potions

Hogwarts House // Year of graduation N/A, though she’d probably have landed in Hufflepuff (class of ’95)

Magical Specialties: Arithmancy and Runes, a solid foundation and excellent grasp of spell theory, a base for potions work, and a very good understanding of how the Ministry functions and the law works, both on a local and international level.

✵

Childhood:

Extended family – plenty of nieces, nephews, and various sorts of cousins, though the latter is almost completely on her mother’s side. The Valois family does have ties through the female lines to many of the pureblood families in the UK. The family had a tendency, before this generation, of having only one son and one daughter – the son who inherited, and the daughter who was married off, usually. It’s not a hard and fast thing but it’s surprisingly common in the magical branch of the Valois line.

The Valois family has a very long and distinguished history. As they will proudly tell you, they are descended from kings. One of the sons of Charles of Valois, third son of the king of France, was the first known wizard born to the French royal family. Because of this, and being several steps down from true inheritance, it started a companion line generally called Valois-Ys. This was, of course, before the Statute of Secrecy came into effect in 1692. The line took over the area of Ys, France, which after the statute was consigned to supposed legend. However, in reality it was walled off from the Muggle world, becoming an entirely magical city that Muggles believe is a hard to document or explore bit of ocean called the Bay of Douarnenez.

Even the magical nobles of France (the Valois line was not, of course, the only line of nobility that had magic, and most of them tended towards Ys) were affected by the Revolution, though, and many were prudent and fled the country. After all, it wasn’t only Muggles who rebelled against nobility – there were plenty of magicals too. And so did part of the Valois magical line, the other part dying when they remained.

The family has retained their title, through the male line, though it is of course rather outdated to many these days.

The family has a huge estate in the South of England, on the coast, right near the ocean, as close to representing the city they lost as they could when they first fled so long ago. It was here that Ysuelt Quintella Valois was born, the literal fifth child of Henri and ____. Henri and ___ had a highly successful arranged marriage, as their goals were similar and they had, by the time Quin was born, had a certain amount of warmth though perhaps not love, per se, between the two of them.

Technically Quintella (Yseult proved too hard to pronounce for small children, and her mother had a point to make aside from that) was the fifth child, but her twin brother was born fifteen minutes after she was. There was an uncommon disagreement between the parents. Her father had been saving the name Quinten, the name of his deceased best friend, for his fifth child (since unusually this union was a highly fertile one); her mother, however, disagreed that technically he was not the fifth, her daughter was. So ultimately, the disagreement was never solved, and her mother put Quintella as her middle name, and then proceeded to call her by it ever after.

Growing up, she was mostly called Ella, so as not to be confused with her twin. She still answers to it easily, but her husband called her Quin or Quinny, so she learned to answer to that just as easily. She’s not terribly picky about which you call her, and will never correct you one way or another. She’s never actually had to answer to the name Yseult, except from her father.

She was a very quiet, easy baby on the whole. She cried easily, but was soothed easily as well. She was her mother’s little doll, always being dressed up, and her daddy’s little girl, and her brothers also seemed to dote on her as the only girl in a large family. But she was an odd child, as well, worrisome in a way the boys had never been. Unlike all the boys, who had early and frequent signs of magic, she never showed any real overt signs. Oh, she interacted with the magical creatures sent her way, but aside from a few times when she was with her twin and something happened, she never showed any overt magical signs. This grew more and more worrisome to her very traditional parents the older she got. By the time she turned 8 and had trouble operating a broom (she did get it to work, she defends herself, but it didn’t work well), they couldn’t stand it anymore. They bribed the Keeper of the Book at Hogwarts to see if their daughter’s name had been written on a list.

It wasn’t. Quinten was on there, but not Quintella. She was a Squib.

Overnight, her entire young life was upended. She was no longer the darling of her father’s eye – he was disgusted and wanted nothing to do with her. Her mother wanted absolutely nothing to do with her. She was worthless.

Her family, instead of having house elves, had long standing tradition of Squib retainers and servants that dated back to it being fashionable in court to have human servants, centuries ago. Ella was essentially regulated to that status. She no longer went on family outings or the schooling she received, while excellent, was completely geared toward her being in service of her family. She was given chores, the main of which was taking care of her youngest brother, Tim. This at least was a task she enjoyed, as she already was involved in his care. The confused young girl didn’t understand everything that happened to her, and her already tender feelings were devastated by the sudden disdain of her family, parents and brothers all. The only two hold outs seemed to be her twin, Quinten (who she called Quincy), and little Tim, who didn’t know any better, being a baby.

Quincy was obviously torn. They weren’t as close as many twins were, but they were still twins. In the end, the pressure of the entire family caused a rift between him and her, but part of her knows – or at least hopes – that he isn’t completely disgusted by her. It was Tim who never had a bad thing to say and who defended her, though he was so much younger than everyone else it didn’t make much impact to her family. She always tried to shush him, because of course she must somehow deserve the treatment and she really didn’t want to make waves.

Her eleventh birthday passed for her in a storm of tears when, as promised, her Hogwarts owl never arrived. Some part of her had always hoped that her parents were wrong and she wasn’t some sort of magic-less freak. But this proved them right, and aside from Tim and a couple of the other servants, she spoke to virtually no one unless she had to for a full year. Quincy went off to school without her, and the break seemed complete then, and she knew he would tell no one there that he had a sister at home who was a Squib.

She spent the majority of her time with the other servants and her youngest brother or on her own. Of course, with the servants she was neither one of them nor one of the family, so in addition to being bullied by family members she was also bullied by the staff. Already a relatively quiet child, she grew even more so most of the time. Though she had a tutor for the basics of things – reading, writing, maths, languages, a classical education – she had no great education aside from what she pursued during her free hours. She spent most of her free time in the family library, tutoring herself in the things that interested her or that she felt would be useful in Tim’s education. This was how she got a really strong foundation in magical theory, potions theory, Arithmancy calculations, and Magical Law. (The family had a strong history of serving in the Ministry and the Wizengamot, thus a lot of books being left around for all that sort of thing.)

The majority of her energy and time went into her youngest brother. She doted on him, taught him, loved him. She read him stories at night, and made up more for him when she ran out of those. He was the brightest spot of her young life. She was proud of his accomplishments, lied to get him out of trouble. If he’d been any less of a genuinely good person, he would have become a spoiled brat, since she always had trouble telling him a serious no. She was like a little mother to him, with the six year age difference helping with that. His accomplishments she took great pleasure in, much more so than anything she managed to do.

Even after attaining her majority, she stayed with the family – where else would she go, after all? She was nothing, she knew nothing. At least here she had a place and a position.

Adulthood:

In many ways, Ella became her family’s most trusted retainer. Of course, they never really laid claim to her in the public eye, but the fact that she was blood meant she was trusted with some very important errands and tasks that a typical servant might not have been trusted with. This led to more resentment below stairs, of course, which meant that on the whole she led a very lonely life. Aside from Tim, who was off at school for ¾ of the year, she had no real friends except for the many books that surrounded her, the piano and violin in the conservatory, and her little journal that contained the thoughts she shared with no one else.

Once Henri the younger married and had his first child, she was often relegated to being nanny to his children, or any of the other children of her brothers. She was good with them all, and she never complained about anything to anyone, even Timmy. She hid his secrets while he went on for further education to become a [insert inappropriate profession of choice here].

It was Tim who subtly bucked the system, often taking her as his plus one to formal events. She never asked him to, but she really did enjoy getting to dress up – of course he had to pay for her nice things – and rub elbows with people like she was normal.

Surprisingly, it wasn’t at an event with Timmy that she met him; it was at a party at home where she was curled up in the library, not attending at all, that she met Ambrose Sewell. He’d ducked into the library as a reprieve from the party outside, startling the squib from her reading – which happened to be magical law that day, as her brothers had mentioned something earlier that she’d wanted to look up. He was an older wizard, with a good thirty years or more on her, and a member of the Wizengamot with a background as a high ranking barrister with the DMLE, and a pureblood from a Light family.

They only talked for a little while, about books, before he rejoined the party. She thought nothing of it. At 23, she had little experience with the opposite sex, especially that was positive – a couple of the male squibs at home had shown her some attention that ended up making her feel worse rather than better, as well as a nice wizard she’d met at a party a couple of years ago who had essentially broken her heart with cruel words.

But a week later, her father came to her, an oddity in and of itself, and told her that he’d arranged her marriage to that man, who had mentioned her to her father and asked if she was available. It all seemed so casual and cruel to her, despite knowing that her parents’ marriage had been arranged. Her desires were not taken into account at all in the arrangements. Her parents told her that she was to act as if she were a good witch from a good family, since this wizard knew no better, and that absolutely she was to bring no shame to them whatsoever or they’d cast her out of the family and into the Muggle world, which she had only the most basic knowledge of.

Thus terrified into submission, which came naturally anyway, she didn’t even owl Tim for help, especially since he was at school and she didn’t want to interfere with that. She was married to Ambrose Sewell in a small, private ceremony a couple of weeks later. She couldn’t say that the man was a bad one or anything. He genuinely thought she was a nice, young, pretty pureblooded witch who would be amenable to a match with another wizard, and he wanted a pretty companion on his arm and in his life, since his first wife was dead and his children grown – at least her age. She’d never once expected to be married; she’d completely expected to be her family’s servant her entire life.

He wasn’t unkind to her; even the consummation, though awkward, went all right, she supposed. He was genuinely puzzled as to why she cried often when she thought she was alone or after she thought he’d gone to sleep, though she tried very hard to be exactly everything he might want. She was constantly terrified of her secret coming out and what might happen to her as a direct result, and even she couldn’t hide the stress that came along with that.

But she kept the secret for a year. A very stressful, rocky year that left the marriage tenuous and at loose ends, more than a bit, though she planned and hosted his small parties – luckily he didn’t like big affairs – instead of something that could have become close. But as such large secrets do, he eventually found out – discovered that she was a useless squib.

He was furious. And when Quin – he always called her Quin or Quinny, instead of Ella like most of her family when they bothered to call her a name at all – cringed away from him, obviously expecting him to hurt her, he became even more so. But it wasn’t actually at her, it was at her family – at them for making her lie, for forcing her into things when he’d thought she was another pureblooded witch who had been raised for such things. And, because he’d come to care for her even though she seemed like an emotional mess most of the time. He wasn’t a bad man, just a traditional one who had wanted a pretty trophy wife to spend his time with, one who liked some of the same things as him – like law, which she’d been reading when he’d met her.

To this day, Quin has no idea what he said to her parents, but they ceased communicating with her for over a year afterward. This would have bothered her more except that Ambrose arranged an appointment for himself with the International Confederation of Wizards and moved them to France. It took about a year for him to wrangle the appointment and the move, but once they were there, things started to improve more. No one here knew she was a Squib, except perhaps for a few witches and wizards from old families from the UK. He treated her no differently than he would a witch, still expecting her to organize his get togethers and to attend all sorts of functions with him like a proper wife.

She, for lack of a better term, bloomed a bit under the freedoms he offered her. She wasn’t a servant, simply a wife. Her responsibilities were relatively easy. He wanted company more than he wanted anything, for he was lonely – like she was. And now that she wasn’t carrying the burden of her secret, she felt free to talk to him. It wasn’t romantic love, though it was by choice she finally returned to his bed – something he’d told her was completely her choice once he’d found out her parents had threatened her to make everything work. He bought them a house on the beach, because he found out she loved the sound of the ocean and the sand between her toes.

There were evenings when she sat and read with him, or that they discussed law or theory or whatever they wanted, and though their debates could become vehement, she was allowed to have and state her own opinion, which was a novelty. She was allowed to have Tim over whenever she wanted. She didn’t have to watch her other brothers’ children or cater to the demands of her family – he sheltered her from that. He bought her pretty bobbles and pretty clothes and she was happy to be what he wanted – a pretty companion on his arm who kept him company. He became her dearest friend, aside from her darling brother. If he hated her lack of magic, he never actually said so.

Sometime shortly after the move and the comfort they attained, Quin found out that she was pregnant. Ambrose hadn’t thought it possible on his end – a wound during the war – but he wasn’t unhappy at all. Quite the opposite. His children, however, were. They’d disliked and resented her from the very start, given her age and her prettiness, thinking her nothing more than a golddigger. And it was one of them who had outted her to Ambrose as a Squib. They were furious that there would be another heir to split their eventual inheritance with.

It was not a fun experience, and Ambrose was forced to add additional wards to the house. More people in France found out what she was – the stupid little sneaks trying to sabotage her – but by then she’d made at least a few friends who, while surprised, didn’t all turn their backs on her. When she was almost 28, she gave birth to the most precious little baby girl, whom she named Aurélie. Ambrose hired her a nanny so that she didn’t have to do everything, and especially when Timmy came around, Quin was possibly the happiest she’d ever been in her life.

It lasted about a year or so. Then Ambrose started to feel ill frequently. Started having major health problems. When he finally went to a healer at her urging, he was told he had an incurable magical malady, not communicable luckily, but the prognosis was nothing good. He would sicken, weaken, and eventually die.

Knowing the chaos that would occur if this were widely known, he and Quin kept this mostly a secret, telling only a few key people. As he grew sicker, Quin started doing much of his work for the ICW, with his advice – drafting his motions, the laws, everything. She took care of him and kept his secrets and kept up appearances as if nothing were the matter in the public eye, especially where his other children might notice. Quietly, he made arrangements for her after his death.

It might not have been romantic love, but when he died, Quin was devastated. He’d become an incredibly dear friend and companion. And the aftermath of his death was even worse than she’d expected it to be, with his family descending upon her in every form they could – especially legally. And though most of his arrangements held up, they did manage somehow through a loophole to get control of the little house in France, and Quin suddenly found herself having to return to England, something she’d secretly never wanted to do again.

Given the fact she was inheriting something, her parents cordially invited her back to their house, something she refused more in fear than in sense. She knew if she returned to their home, it wouldn’t do anything good for her. Ambrose had left her two properties in addition to the house in France that had been taken from her: a small house in London, near enough the ministry (where they had lived before he’d moved them), and a small beach house that was a complete surprise to her – his final surprise for her, honestly, since he’d bought it in secret as a surprise for her.

She barely managed to keep her head above water under the onslaught of his family and some others, especially from England, appalled to hear she was getting anything. Her! A Squib! She was five months along before it occurred to her that she was pregnant. (It was, embarrassingly enough, her brother who pointed out that he rather thought she was pregnant and perhaps she should check.) This, of course, opened a whole other can of wyrms – because that child, especially if it were male, would also inherit some of the estate.

And it was a son, whom she named Félix Ambrose. He turned a year old at the end of March 2009. She has a beau now, Lancelot Cadwallader. It’s serious, they’ve discussed marriage, and they’re going to move in together soon. She still doesn’t feel completely safe, because her husband’s family are threatening to take the children away from her. She’s pretty sure from something one of her other brothers said that her parents are also considering trying to take her children – how can a Squib look after magical children, after all? If they even were. (She hasn’t told anyone, but Auri already has shown signs of magic.) Her parents made a ham-handed attempt to take her back into the fold just after the new year, and she’s been afraid ever since. But not so afraid that she doesn’t go out. Doesn’t live.

No, she works at the Clinic part time, and occasionally she picks up some clerking work at the house. She’s published her first huge article in the Arithmancy periodical and it’s holding up as valid – guessing the form an animagus will take. She’s happy, even if the world still scares her to death sometimes.

Romantic:

She’s largely clueless about how a real relationship should go. Her feelings were taken advantage of a couple times in her youth, and then she was married to Ambrose, a man much older than herself. One might say she’s developed some daddy issues. But she’s fallen for Lancelot Cadwallader, who has been incredibly patient with her.

✵