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it was a strange opening line to a conversation, and emi turned to properly take a look at the familiar face behind her. not too familiar - there was hardness in his face brought about by age, and icy disgust in his eyes that hadn’t been there when they had been friends. but that was a long time ago, and as nostalgic as it was to be back at hogwarts, their childhood was well and truly gone, and they were just strangers now. strangers who had lived so much more of their lives since they last interacted. raising her eyebrows, emi’s eyes flickered between his face and the cup he was holding, attempting to assess his sobriety. “i wasn’t about to ask you anything anyway.”

parties weren’t necessarily his scene, well, not parties hosted by the school as a welcome back to hell. he’d already heard a pack of first year’s babbling about the true wonders of hogwarts and ‘ the wizarding world ’, fucking mudbloods. barty knew why he had to be here: complete schooling, a month of training, certified auror, potentially infiltrate the order. his father was staying out of things as much as he could, staying neutral, it was almost laughable that he thought his son was doing the same. he took a large gulp of his drink, vodka wasn’t his drink of choice but it did mix well enough with the juice being served at this event. “ before you ask: no. ”

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Emi wasn’t sure what she had expected by going to the start of term party. She had known it wasn’t going to be the same as before, they were all different now, older, hardened, vigilant. Or maybe that was just her. She wrinkled her nose at the sight of students already smashed and falling over themselves, deciding that perhaps she would wait until the next morning to become reacquainted with her old friends after all. Before she could leave though, she head a familiar voice on her left and realised someone was talking to her. Sirius. She smiled wryly at him and shook her head. “While I’m sure you’re extremely proficient at it, you’re going to have to find another partner Sirius, I don’t drink.” Which made her appearance at this party even more foolish in retrospect. “You glad to be back?”

This party didn’t hold up anywhere near the memories of them all a few years ago, exited to be back and feeling like bad ass rebels when they managed to sneak in some booze. Maybe it was the lack of mischief, mostly everyone here was of age, getting drinks into the castle wasn’t nearly as difficult as it once was. But Sirius had a feeling it mostly was due to his own apprehension about being at Hogwarts in the first place, or the time he spent bar tending creeping in the back of his head. Still, if Sirius Black had one talent it was an ability to turn anything into a good time. He downed the drink in his hand quickly and turned to the person next to him with a wide grin. “Come on. Beer Pong. The muggles at the bar I worked at last year go mad for it, you can be my partner.”

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my goodness, is EMMELINE VANCE back? it’s been a few years since the half-blood has been around the castle, but i’d recognize her anywhere. rumor has it the seventh year spent the past few years aligned with the ORDER. they’re still DETERMINED & RESILIENT and JUDGMENTAL & DISTRUSTFUL, though. and the gryffindor still reminds me of bruised knuckles, a cool breeze, sweets melting in your mouth. well, then, i guess some things never change. 

tw: abuse, tw: alocholism, tw: sexual assault (I was kinda vague about it but it's there)

NAME: Emmeline Kaira Vance

NICKNAME: Emi

AGE: 20/21

DATE OF BIRTH: 28th November 1959

SEXUALITY: Demisexual

PARENTS: Elizabeth Vance [muggle, deceased]  & Rohit Khan [pureblood, absent]

SIBLINGS: 5 half siblings, all older. Oldest half-brother Sai Khan.

HOUSE: Gryffindor

RELATIONSHIP STATUS: Single

HOMETOWN: London

ALIGNMENT: Chaotic Good

PERSONALITY: ENTJ

PATRONUS: Unicorn

Overall, Unicorns are kind of giving by nature and have the capacity to venture far beyond their peers to reach places that others would find impossible.  This is the greatest strength of the Unicorn.  Their adventurous nature refuses to see limitations.  They are always moving toward the next great idea and they almost always take the road less traveled to get there.  Their seemingly endless energy can be infectious, and when they take on a challenge, they are as passionate as ever… for a while.  While they truly care about the challenges they take up (and they do so often), Unicorns are quick to give up on something if they don’t see the end result fast enough for their liking.  That’s not to say that they don’t care, they just lose focus on one project and would prefer to spend their exceptional capabilities on something else for the moment. The life of a Unicorn is about the experience, not the big plan. At best they use their energy to change the world.  At worst, they become self-obsessed and spin their wheels in all the wrong directions.  They never lack ideas, and are always on the move.  If the Unicorn can get focused on a single destination, there is practically nothing that can stop them from getting there.

BOGGART: her friends being dead / held under the cruciatus

WAND: Ebony with dragon heartstring core, 10 inches, inflexible.

Ebony - This jet-black wand wood has an impressive appearance and reputation, being highly suited to all manner of combative magic, and to Transfiguration. Ebony is happiest in the hand of those with the courage to be themselves. Frequently non-conformist, highly individual or comfortable with the status of outsider, ebony wand owners have been found both among the ranks of light and dark revolutionaries alike. The ebony wand’s perfect match is one who will hold fast to his or her beliefs, no matter what the external pressure, and will not be swayed lightly from their purpose.

Dragon Heartstring - As a rule, dragon heartstrings produce wands with the most power, and which are capable of the most flamboyant spells. Dragon wands tend to learn more quickly than other types. While they can change allegiance if won from their original master, they always bond strongly with the current owner.The dragon wand tends to be easiest to turn to the Dark Arts, though it will not incline that way of its own accord. It is also the most prone of the three cores to accidents, being somewhat temperamental.

BIO aka the multi-chaptered international life story that literally no one asked for (TLDR AT THE END):

Prejudice is something that Emi is familiar with, something that has followed her from the day she was born. She was an accidental pregnancy, the result of a one-night stand between muggle tourist Elizabeth Vance and pureblood heir, Rohit Khan. Her paternal grandparents were furious when news of her conception got out, and banned Rohit from having any connection with his illegitimate child other than providing the woman with monthly payments to keep her silence. The family was big in both muggle and magical circles, and it would not do to have such a shameful secret exposed - especially since Rohit already had a family, and his eldest son Sai was already fifteen years old. Sai's mother was in favour of having the infant killed, but her husband forbid it, of the opinion that his son should learn to manage his own mistakes. And murder of an infant would make for even more unseemly gossip, if word was somehow to get out.

Emi spent the first six years of her life in England with her mother. She was bold and determined, getting into fights with bullies who tried to tell her to "go back where she came from" and running circles around her peers academically. For all her intelligence, she failed to understand how to make friends her own age, and would often be found trailing along after the older kids who found her amusing.  Her life wasn't easy, but Emi hadn't known anything else. This was just how life was, or so she thought.

The first step to change was her first act of accidental magic. It was Christmas, and all the occupants of the building had thrown a big party on the rooftop. Everyone was drunk - this included one of her neighbours, who wanted to touch in her ways she didn't like or understand. He went flying across the rooftop, out from the secluded corner he had lured her to and slammed his head on a metal pole. Nobody realised what had happened or who was responsible, and the incident was written off  as a drunk man's careless shenanigans. Emi didn't say anything, but she didn't forget either. It took her years to trust someone to touch her and sometimes, when she recoils from the idea of intimacy, she wonders if this incident is the reason for it all. 

The minute her magic manifested, Emi's name was automatically added to the Khan's family tree tapestry. Her grandfather insisted that Rohit retrieve the girl and bring her back to India, and her grandmother was furious. But her grandfather's word was law in the family, and so after a tearful goodbye, Emi left behind her old life and moved to Bombay. There was nothing she really felt tied her to England, and she was more than happy to get as far away from her neighbour as possible.

From the very first moment in the large, ancestral home the extended family lived in, Emi was an outcast. She was an illegitimate child, and a half-blood to boot. The culture seemed to her barbaric and backwards, and she fought back at every opportunity. She wouldn't wear the itchy dresses, she wouldn't address her younger cousins and second cousins with honorifics, she wouldn't stay silent when members of the household pulled mean trick after trick. She missed England terribly - she missed the organised traffic, the cool rain, her mother singing her lullabies before bed. The requests she made to go home seemed to fall on deaf ears, and four years passed.

In those four years, Emi discovered an unexpected ally - her eldest half-brother, Sai. In his early twenties, and expected to carry on the Khan legacy, Sai wanted nothing more than to escape from his family's overbearing influence. He didn't believe in his family's ideologies, and definitely didn't believe in the bullying of a child - and he told his mother as much, after discovering Emi in the kitchens one day, scrubbing pots with a bruise on her left cheek. He started to look out for her - bringing her sweets, helping her with the homework the tutors gave her, buying her the comfortable cotton clothing she sorely missed. In return, Emi slowly opened up, telling him stories of her time with her mother and all the things that she was still so homesick for. Hearing these stories gave Sai an idea, and he slowly hatched a plan.

At his twenty-fifth birthday party, the day he was supposed to accept his title as heir and step up to the responsibilities of his family, Sai instead made an announcement about the new job he had managed to land - the Indian Ambassador at the British Ministry of Magic. He would be moving to London, and taking Emi with him.

The backlash was loud, intense, and furious. It was practically a riot. It wasn't that the job was bad - it was reputable, even to the standards Rohit might hold his other sons up to. But not the heir. And to take his half-sister under his wing , to knowingly associate with a half-blood was an even bigger taboo. But Sai would not be swayed - he had come too far to back down - and a few days later he and Emi found themselves in Diagon Alley.

Tracking down her mother was relatively easy, but the reunion was bittersweet. In the time that Emi had been in Bombay, her mother had picked up an abusive boyfriend and an alcohol problem. With Sai's help, Emi managed to get rid of the former, but it seemed that the latter was there to say.

 When her Hogwarts letter came, she was wary and reluctant. She didn't want to leave her mother again, as much as it tore at her to see the formally affectionate woman constantly slurring her words and reeking of wine. So far, the magical world hadn't been any nicer to her than the muggle one, and Emi would much rather face the enemies she did know rather than the ones she did not.

The visit from Professor McGonagall won her over, and in the fall of 1971, she set off to Hogwarts and was sorted into Gryffindor. She was still wary, and initially cold to her peers, but she opened up, little by little. She spent the years enjoying her childhood, laughing with her friends, gossiping with them, sneaking late night snacks, cramming essays. She loved having the power, the magic that came out of her wand, and she was a devoted student. She especially focused on combative magic - never again would she let anyone try to take advantage of her - and excelled at DADA. The clouds slowly gathering over her teenage years came in the form of blood prejudice (really, she was quite used to this by now - it was more annoying than hurtful), her lack of understanding at her peers' romantic/sexual inclinations and her mother's deteriorating health. Elizabeth Vance's addiction to alcohol was only getting more severe by the year, and in Emi's sixth year, she passed away after falling over while drunk and bleeding out. Emi couldn't forgive herself for the incident - if only she had been at home, not at Hogwarts, she could have stopped this. She could have helped her mother beat her alcoholism, and she could have saved her life. At the same time, the annoying pureblood ideology was starting to become more dangerous, and Sai was growing worried.

On September 1st, 1976, Emi hugged her brother goodbye, and stepped onto the Hogwarts Express. It was becoming risky to stay in Magical Britain, and Sai had decided to move back to Bombay. He wanted Emi to come join him after finishing her final year - she wasn't fully sold on the idea, but that was okay. She had time to decide, after all.

Until she didn't.

The betrothal letter came two days before the end of the Christmas holidays. It made no sense - she was a half-blood, she was supposed to be unwanted - but after hearing Sai sing her praises, her father and grandmother had apparently decided that she was worthy of being married off.  The wedding was to a wealthy Indian muggleborn, who had risen in society by making a fortune but still lacked the reputable family connections. The letter caught fire in her hand, and Emi spent the rest of the day sulking.  Was there ever going to be something she didn't have to fight?

The attack left Emi stranded. She had no home, no family in the country - nowhere to go other than back to Bombay. Where she refused to be, because she wasn't a piece of meat who would willingly be sold off like her older sisters and cousins. She would not.

With no magical qualifications, and little other choice, Emi stayed with a friend in London, and picked up a couple of part-time muggle jobs. It was enough to survive, and if she could have turned her back on the wizarding world she might have even considered college and restarting her life. But the wizarding world was were all her friends were, and there was no way she could walk away while the people she loved suffered. She joined the order and did what she always did best - she fought.

When the time came for her to reply to the betrothal and return to Bombay Emi did the only thing she could - she lied, putting into motion the plan she had first come up with when she was seven year olds watching her cousin sit on the wedding podium wearing ten pounds of gold and red-rimmed eyes. She recruited a friend to pose as a fake boyfriend, using him as the reason she would stay in London and not get married. She was almost disappointed with the lack of drama that followed - Rohit simply switched the betrothal to another distant cousin whose father had displeased him, and Sai merely warned her to stay safe in the war. An escape plan cultivated over years for, what, exactly?

The re-opening of Hogwarts filled Emi with hope and fear. Hope, because it felt like the world might be on the road to recovery and a qualification would allow her to get a job. Hopefully one that didn't involve dealing with grumpy customers. Fear, because it was not just her and her friends returning to Hogwarts - it was also the purebloods that sneered at her and secretly wished she would die. Perhaps some that were actively working towards that goal. It might be school, but it was also a battlefield and Emi knows she needs to stay alert at all times. But the nostalgia and memories of happier times have only made her realise how tired she is of all the constant fighting. Was there ever going to be a time where she didn't need to fight?

TLDR; half-blood, has spent her entire life fighting one thing or another, no remaining family in England, doesn't trust anybody but the friends she grew up with, talented duellist

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Spit out the blood in your mouth and keep going

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