Xenia Shafiq

[Xenia Shafiq]

SHAFIQ, XENIA ROSE

“YES, THE PAST CAN HURT. BUT, YOU CAN EITHER RUN FROM IT OR LEARN FROM IT.”
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The truth is a beautiful and terrible thing, and should therefore be treated with caution.
- Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone
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FULL NAME. Xenia Rose Shafiq
NICKNAMES. None
BIRTHDATE. December 3rd
AGE/YEAR Fifteen - Fifth
BLOOD Pure
HOUSE PREFERENCE Slytherin
CANON OR ORIGINAL? Original

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It is our choices that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities.
- Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
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HAIR&EYES Xenia has large, dark eyes which always seem to have something going beneath the surface. They are hazel in the right light, but otherwise appear a warm brown color which darkens with deep or powerful emotion. Her hair is a nearly black shade of brown, wavy and always worn long. 
HEIGHT&WEIGHT 5'1 - 100 lbs
FACE CLAIM Vanessa Hudgens

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I don’t go looking for trouble. Trouble usually finds me.
- Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban

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WAND Ash - Dragon Hearstring - 10 3/4 inches - Reasonably Supple
LIKES Time alone, snow, arithmacy, potions, riddles, heights, stars/astronomy, the color mahogany, the smell of hickory smoke, classical music, gladiolus

DISLIKES Ancient runes, muggle studies, hot weather, whiny voices, unnecessary conflict, small talk, large crowds, feeling disoriented

BOGGART Her father, red faced and shouting in Russian, brandishing his wand as though he is about to hex her.

MIRROR OF ERISED Xenia sees herself with a husband, and several children, surrounded by the kind of warm and loving family she desires most. 
PATRONUS Xenia's patronus, were she able to cast one, would be a monarch butterfly. Monarchs, much like Anya herself, appear deceptively attractive and delicate at first sight, but are quick poison when attacked or threatened. Like the monarch, Anastasia rarely finds blending into her surroundings difficult, and has little trouble portraying herself in whatever manner she finds most beneficial.


PERSONALITY By nature, Xenia is an observer. She considers any and all information she can gain about a person beneficial, and therefore is also an exceptionally good listener. However, most traits she may appear to possess to an outsider are just that: appearances. Due to her history, Xenia has terrible difficulty allowing anyone access to her innermost thoughts and feelings, especially anyone of the male variety. So, while she generally works to appear well adjusted and even somewhat social, at her core, Xenia considers herself best when left to her thoughts.



She prefers a very small number of close friends, generally female since she has less trouble opening up to them. However, she does enjoy talking to guys on a purely superficial level, and occasionally might make a sort of game out of getting to know one. This is not to say she views men as objects, since that is certainly not true. Rather, her distrust stems from an inability to comprehend the male mindset; a result, mostly, of her mother's guidance and mentality. She purposefully sets herself up to be a sort of go to person for both genders and all ages, a side effect of her habit of gathering useful information. While this is true, it is equally true that she has very little patience for self-pity, and is likely to tell anyone who whines about their situation exactly what she thinks, harshly.



Her views of blood status are somewhat complex. While she was raised to think of purebloods as being superior, and most certainly holds to that mindset, she is also somewhat conflicted on the notion of absolute pureblood supremacy, since she blames her blood for what happened to both she and her mother.

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Remember, if the time should come when you have to make a choice between what is right, and what is easy, remember what happened to a boy who was good, and kind, and brave, because he strayed across the path of Lord Voldemort.
- Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
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BIRTHPLACE Anastasia was born in a rather spacious kvatiri (similar to an apartment) in Dmitrov, Russia. A town known for being the administrative center of the Dmitrovsky District. Her home was located near the center of town, about sixty-five kilometers from Moscow.

CHILDREN None
PARENTS Alexander Vasily Shafiq, arithmancer, Durmstrang Alumni; Mother: Alyona Vera Shaifiq (nee Dragomirov)
(Deceased)
SIBLINGS None
OTHER Draco Malfoy - Guardian
Scorpious Malfoy - Best Friend (Note: This has been discussed with Shava, and I will be happy to request it from Kat if she starts playing Draco again)
HISTORY 
The marriage of Xenia's parents was arranged years even before their own births. Her grandfathers, old friends from the time of their stay at Durmstrang Academy, argued heatedly and often, but there was one thing on which they vehemently agreed, it was imperative to have a male heir to continue the line. It was no secret that pureblood lines were weakening every day, being polluted by muggle blood or multiple squib births. So it was no great surprise when, in latter years, when one had a daughter and the other a son, the two hatched upon a supposedly grand idea: marry them off.



What better way, after all, to cement both lines and a friendship in one? So it was that from the time they hit puberty, Alexander Shafiq and Alyona Dragomirov were told they would wed the moment they were both of legal age, and that was that. Fortunately at the time, the two got on rather well, both interested in arithmacy and potions brewing, both decidedly quiet and studious by nature. They became fast friends, and while their marriage was not a love match, they cared for and respected each other very much. When Alyona informed Alexander that she was pregnant, the two were overjoyed. Maybe now they would have peace at last from the constant prying of both sets of parents.



Only slightly disappointed by the fact that Xenia wasn't the heir they'd hoped for, the couple treated their daughter with all the care and cautiousness befitting a first child. They were, after all, still very young, they would try again until their beautiful baby girl had a brother as well. Unfortunately it was not to be, and hence the trouble started. At first, when Xenia's mother was unable to conceive, the doctors promised it was only because her body had not fully recovered from birth, then a more strenuous and dangerous process than in later years. However, as weeks became months and months stretched to over three years, the pressure began to mount on both parents.



Alexander, for his part, faced the disappointment of both fathers, and the kind of pressure that comes only from a failure of that magnitude. Alexandra dealt not only with the constituents of successfully teaching their daughter proper behavior and running her household, but also with her husband's growing sense of betrayal, as though being unable to conceive was something she had somehow planned. In spite of this fact, the first five years of Xenia's life were filled with happy memories. Her parents cared for each other and loved her very much. They traveled, spent time together doing every day things, and Xenia was content in a way that only small children can be, unaware of the turmoil brewing beneath the facade.



It wasn't until she was six, that the situation finally reached its climax. Her father had been spending an increasing amount of time at work, seeming to have given up entirely on continuing a family with her mother. She remembers very clearly the first night he came home drunk, muttering about damned patriarchal societies and his manipulative wife who had betrayed him. In his drunken state, he insisted that Alyona was doing contraceptive spells, intentionally trying to destroy his line. The logic made no sense, but it was enough in Alexander's addled brain to snap his hold on his already fragile self control. When her mother tried to calm her enraged husband, Alexander did something Xenia would never forget as long as she lived: He slapped her mother across the face.



While Alyona had heard stories of abuse in other families, it was the first time in her life she'd been treated that way. Her first reaction was to be indignant, how dare he treat her that way! Her second, was fear. For over a year, the tension in the Shafiq home was palpable, and both Xenia and her mother were overly conscious of avoiding her father's increasingly irrational moods. However, as months passed a new development occurred. It became apparent that not only did Alexander blame his wife for their current state. He blamed his daughter as well. It wasn't until the night the owl came with news of his brother's death that Alexander lost his fragile hold on himself entirely.



The stress of being the last hope for the Shafiq line was too much among the already heavy measure of daily stress, both real and perceived, heaped onto his shoulders. The owl came on a blustery evening in November, snow was already falling in drifts across the world outside, and the owl shivered as it released the note into Alexander's waiting hand. At first, he appeared saddened by his brother's death, but the sadness brought the liquor, and the liquor brought the rage. Without a son, his line would die, he would be the disgrace through all of history who killed the Shafiq


Conscious of her husband's volatile state, Xenia's mother had been doing the dishes by hand in another room. When Alexander saw this, he became inexplicably enraged. How dare his pureblood wife lower herself do doing anything the muggle way? Xenia, who came down stairs a few minutes later looking for a glass of water, was stunned to see her mother cowering in the corner, bruised and shivering. Her father appeared decidedly unmoved by his wife's state of duress, and continued shouting at her from his place above her form. Xenia felt an anger she had never known before course through her veins, and suddenly, her father was thrown into the opposite wall.



Her first display of accidental magic left them both stunned, but the situation did not allow either of them to be proud. Anastasia was too frightened and her father too drunk. Startled and disoriented, it took Alexander a moment to realize what had happened, when he did, he did something that frightened Xenia far more than his temper, he raised his wand. Thinking he meant to hex her mother, Xenia covered Alyona's frail frame with her own. Unfortunately, his daughter had unwittingly made her father's intentions all the easier. If he killed both wife and daughter after all, he could start over, find a wife who could bare him a son, and the line would be saved.



However, in his drunken state, Alexander's sloppy wand work missed its mark, barely. It wasn't until the next morning, when Alexander left for work, that her mother had gathered herself enough to formulate a plan. They would spend the day packing everything they could possibly carry with them, and then they would run. Having been fairly wealthy in her own right, Alyona was able to shrink their belongings into an over-sized purse, with an undetectable extension charm of course.



So it was that they moved from place to place for the next two years. Sporadically at first, never staying in one place for more than three or four months. It wasn't until her mother found a steady job as a desk clerk at Gringotts in London's Diagon Alley that the two found more permanent residence in a decent-sized cottage on the outskirts of wizarding London. It wasn't until the age of eleven, when Xenia received a letter of admission to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, that Alyona decided it was safe for she and her daughter to settle. While she still loved her daughter, Alyona threw herself into her work at Gringotts with gusto, leaving little time to spend with her daughter. It is for this reason, among others, that Xenia spent the majority of her breaks, excluding summer holidays at Hogwarts.



Even before arrival at the school, Xenia learned a very important lesson: to listen well is far better than to speak well, but to do both at the right times and with the right people made her friends. Xenia had not had anyone she considered a friend since moving from Russia four years prior, and she rather enjoyed the feeling, though there were far more who called her friend than she considered such herself. She was a bit disconcerted at first by the fact that Hogwarts allowed muggleborns, and even more so by the fact that people consorted openly without mind to blood status.



While she has her own notions regarding the place of muggleborns in wizarding society, she generally keeps them to herself, content to listen to the opinions and positions of others, and gather information for purposes unknown at a later date.





Note: Xenia is Anastasia Belenko remade almost exactly. There are some extra aspects to her plot which I will send directly to the staff for consideration and explanation. 

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Happiness can be found, even in the darkest of times, if one only remembers to turn on the light.
- Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
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NAME/ALIAS Rose
OTHER CHARACTERS REQUIRED, Rosalie Summerby, Keela Silver-Moon, Brier Summerby, Natalia Valerio, Nadya Valerio, Giana Jimenez, Sarah Downing
RP EXPERIENCE? And miles to go before I sleep, and miles to go before I sleep. 
RP SAMPLE. They are everywhere! Everywhere I tell you!
HOW DID YOU FIND OUR SITE? Oh guys, I don't even remember anymore.
CODE WORD? I've read them I promise, I'm twelve characters in, I beg you, please don't make me read them again
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