Gemma Leigh

[Gemma Leigh]

Gemma Leigh

First Name: Gemma
Last Name: Leigh
Heritage: Half-blood
Age/Date of Birth: 15/July 7th
Pets: At home, Gemma’s family owns a gigantic Venus flytrap named Cassiopeia that their grandmother sent them as a housewarming gift. It lingers at the very top of their house, thriving so much so that it’s now beginning to grow through the roof. Other than that, however, Gemma owns no personal pets.
Wand: 9 1/4" Hickory with a Claricaun hair core. Smooth to the touch and performs charm-work best.


Personality

General Character Traits: Gemma is very in tune with nature. She does not enjoy being barricaded in the castle and stuffed within dingy classrooms, even though she does find solace in learning. Although her serious exterior sometimes deters friendships, Gemma does not enjoy being alone all the time and makes an effort to be sociable with the other students in her classes. Her sense of humour is sometimes oddly placed, and can be called random at times, but it still exists despite the very few times she’ll double over in laughter.

However stern Gemma appears at first glance, she is actually very susceptible to allowing her feelings control her actions. Sometimes, even the feelings of her close friends can alter her moods and decisions. If you do break through the strange and detached exterior Gemma has around her, she’s much like a mood ring, where her thought and feelings are easy to read with a pointed look. Because of this, her emotions are rapidly changing and quite severe on scale, whether she is angry, spirited or solemn.

Likes: Gemma, thanks to her grandmother’s influence, has a very keen perception of Herbology. Although she isn’t quite as interested in the technicalities of the subject as she is Charms, the fact that she excels at it feeds her sense of accomplishment, and therefore she’s grown attached.

Her coordination is poor for Quidditch, though she enjoys aimless flying in the few hours she can spare on the weekends. And although she loves looking at things that are beautiful, her creative drawing hand extends to only rune symbols. Gemma’s greatest love is reading, closely followed by music. At home, her room walls appear to be built from books and their spines and on her study desk there lays a simple radio that her brother often yells in anguish about.

Dislikes: It may be because Gemma is so prone to depending on knowledge that her greatest dislike is secrets. Not only just when she is kept from hearing one, but when she is confided in. She especially hates keeping secrets from others. Another dislike that stems from her pristine home-life is her severe hatred for staying still for a long period of time. This is prominently due to the many family portraits she’s sat through over the years of her life.

Habits/ Mannerisms: Contrary to her appearance, which can come off as sharp, Gemma’s voice is rather soft and her words are spoken gingerly. The only time her voice becomes the slightest bit intrusive is in class, where she is most confident in what she is saying. However, because she has a younger brother at home, Gemma is quite aware of how to argue and isn’t afraid to declare her opinions even if appearing meek at first.

Tied to her inability to stay still, Gemma often starts off quite statuesque, but falls into a pattern of fidgeting while in class or discussion with fellow housemates and friends. This includes tapping her feet, crossing and uncrossing her arms, and most-often of all, brushing her fringe away even when there is no need to.

Strengths: Gemma’s greatest qualities in terms of keeping friendships are her empathy and honesty. She is rarely able to lie to those that she deems important, and her irrational emotions often allow her to understand the turmoil of those around her. However, her physical strength is quite nonexistent and she depends on her quick-witted tongue to make an impression.

Weaknesses: Due to the controlling nature of her parents, Gemma’s weakness comes in a form of rebellion. She is easily distracted and tempted into questioning authority, and although she earns plenty of house points because of her intelligent and inquisitive nature, she loses almost as many due to her inability to accept unquestionable rules – even though she may agree with them. It is a psychological deficiency that taints her no-longer clean record.

Appearance:

Eyes: The wide almond shape of Gemma's eyes do not create the illusion that they are large. It is the bright flickering her brown irises express when she is particularly interested in something that makes them seem bigger than they actually are. Although they usually shine a coarse brown, with darker edges, when she stares directly into light, or the sun catches them in such a way, they tend to look like a honeyed-caramel.

Hair: Gemma tends to keep her hair straight. It’s a medium to dark brown that she likes to experiment with in length, though never keeping it shorter than her shoulders. Although her mother likes to fuss about how plain she keeps her aesthetic attributes, and makes an effort to curl them to perfection at home, at Hogwarts, there are often misplaced locks of hair framing her face and a simple fringe off to one side of her forehead.

Height: Both Gemma’s mother and father are on the higher end of five feet, but both she and her brother slipped toward the lower end. Although William is three years younger, they share the height of 5’5”, or about 165cm.

General Appearance: Gemma, despite the womanly figures of her mother and aunts, is quite the opposite. She is somewhat lank, but her average height fits her weight. She stays thin presumably due to her herbivore dietary habits, as she lacks in much physical activity. However, because her build is quite aerodynamic, Gemma has taken to flying her in years at Hogwarts and that has helped keep her somewhat lean.

Never obtaining much attention for her appearance earlier in life, Gemma is finally growing comfortable in her skin as she approaches the later end of her teenage years. She has a pale complexion that is unmarred for half the year until the summer where the sun uproots the freckles on the bridge of her nose. Because she spends more time examining a told joke than giggling at it, Gemma's facial features are void of the usual laugh lines that more free-spirited children possess.

Gemma would be a much prettier girl with her smooth cheekbones and quirky lips if she spent less time looking curious. Such a look draws attention to only how serious she is, rather than any physical first impressions.

Dressing Style: It took many years for Gemma to obtain a personal dressing style. At home, until she was 11 and ushered to Hogwarts, her mother treated her as her personal doll. Though she had come from both Muggle and Pureblood lineage, Collette Leigh preferred her daughter to wear the traditional robes of wizards when she was home.

When she was thirteen, and able to visit Hogsmeade on her own, she was finally introduced to the world that would become purely her own. Gemma has found she much prefers the Muggle styles of wear, particularly the comfort and fashion of jeans, when she’s out of class, yet greatly prefers the uniformity of robes while in lesson. Regardless of the type of clothes she wears, Gemma tends to lean toward the softness of pastel colours over either extremes of dark and vibrant. Similarly, her dress is quite neutral and conservative, heavily favouring sweaters, t-shirts and cardigans. 


Personal History

Parents: Charlie Leigh took his mother’s maiden name upon family agreement concerning economic reputation and status.  Born a pureblood, he is the major contribution to Gemma’s wizarding lineage. An attendant of Hogwarts, Charlie was a light-hearted Gryffindor that absolutely loathed the profession of his parents. Therefore, taking one-third of the family sum that belonged to him, Charlie purchased the tools necessary to create his own local newspaper. Although it made a small impression, Charlie was able to create a market for his photographs that apparently drew attention from readers.

It was through his unexpected artistic talent that Charlie Leigh met Collette Rivers. He was invited to a Ministry Ball where he was to take photos of the officers and their families to publish later on in various small magazines. Collette Rivers caught his eye, and the pair later marvelled humorously at how many of his pictures she actually appeared in. Although this initial vain attraction wore off, he married the former Hufflepuff and gave birth to two Half-blood children, William and Gemma Leigh.

Sibligs: Gemma only has one sibling, because Collette is long past the novelty of caring for children. William is in his second year, but because he was a late bloomer in terms of magic, he’s fallen quite behind academically. Like his mother, he is in the Hufflepuff house, and much more sociable and friendly than his sister. If it weren’t due to his much less mature facial features, William and Gemma would be twin images of one another, both in height and frame. William has not yet grown broad, though his height and build seem to suggest that it is soon coming.


Background Story:

As a child, it seemed to Gemma that the various photographs of her and her parents around their home were not really her. They were taken on various vacations after her brother was born, and all illustrated a life of adventure. For Gemma, they pictured very elaborate lies. Most of what she remembers being a child consists of joining her mother in the quietness of their den, or sitting against the door of her room after being sent there due to her inability to contain her anger with a book perched haphazardly in her lap.

When Gemma was finally submitted into primary school in an attempt to provide her mother relief from the strenous job of childcare, she managed to meet young girls that weren’t involved in her mother’s circle of friends and found great relief in this new and unexpected independence. From that point on, her relationship with her parents got inadvertently better, and she and her brother became the epitome of perfect children – as long as Gemma got that time away from them.

Gemma’s self awareness only got better when she received her acceptance letter to Hogwarts. Because most students were experiencing severe homesickness that first year, Gemma was one of the few who were better off because of the change and adjusted better than some. Eventually, she found her niche with a small group of friends that she now meets to study with regularly.

There was very little significance in this year for Gemma, other than her growing independence.