(no subject)
character name: Saraswati Mireille Nott. Most people tend to call her “Sara” for short, though she rarely actually signs her name this way.
age and birthday: December 25th, 2004, 17.
bloodline: Pure.
home residence: the Nott Estate in St. Agnes, Cornwall
house and year: Slytherin seventh year.
current classes: History of Magic, Charms, Astronomy, and Potions.
sexuality: Heterosexual in theory, though her track record would tend to describe someone who’s asexual. It’s not so much that she considers sex disgusting or sinful as that she thinks it’s funny. The topic is always good for a joke, especially considering who she’s friends with, but actually doing it isn’t an idea that curls her toes.
appearance: For Saraswati, receiving her genes from a woman once described as “the prettiest girl in her year” and a man known for being “weedy and rabbity-looking” was something like playing Russian roulette with a loaded pistol. Luckily for her, at first glance, she appears to resemble her mother far more than her father. With a heart-shaped face, straight nose, and full lips, she could be described as pretty, though she doesn’t go very far out of her way to emphasise her physical attractiveness. Most of the time, her long black hair is pulled back into a messy ponytail, her face is clean and without makeup, and her lips seem to be in a perpetual state of chapped.
Upon closer examination, it becomes clear that her close-set eyes, knobby knees, and long, awkward limbs came from her weedy father. Her skinny arms and legs seem too long for her body and a contradiction to her curvier, relatively busty torso. Because she’s tall and her legs are long, she rarely wears skirts when she doesn’t have to, feeling that they show off too much of her legs. She’s modest about her body and always is sure that all the appropriate parts are completely covered. Her style of dress is conservative and never flashy, probably best described as boring, yet careless. She rarely wears jeans or t-shirts, instead usually being found in trousers and sweaters.
played by: Ayesha Takia (ayeshazone.com/download/Ayesha-Takia-Photos/Ayesha-Takia-Photos-035.jpg)
descriptive personality: At first glance, Saraswati would seem to be the spitting image of her father - at least where personality is concerned. Both of them are shrewd, sarcastic, and at times unfeeling. They have a similar biting sense of humour and a similar sensibility about life. But beyond that, Saraswati isn’t really all that much like her father. For one, she’s a much more outgoing person that he ever was, thanks in part to her mother’s careful training to make sure that her children wouldn’t be loners like her husband was.
Having been raised in a time of peace and not turmoil, Saraswati’s not a terribly serious person and really is out to enjoy herself ninety-percent of the time. Unlike her friend Nawal Hakim, she’s not rebellious, but she’s not afraid to let loose and party (just as long as her parents don’t find out), or to have a good laugh. Saraswati’s very much a joker. Her humour may be dry, sarcastic, and biting, but she’s a joker, and she likes to have a laugh. She also is an avid Quidditch fan, though most people wouldn’t expect it of her. She likes flying by itself but doesn’t particularly enjoy playing the game, rather, her interest in the sport is very intellectual. She would prefer watching and figuring out strategy than zipping around the field. Her favourite team is the Falmouth Falcons, and yes, she’s aware that they’re violent cheaters. That’s why she likes them.
Saraswati was raised to always be polite and considerate. These lessons ever really took to heart, and on most occasions, she tends to be border-line rude. The only people she sees worthy of good behavior are her superiors - professors, politicians, and the elderly, but even her own parents are excluded from this distinction. Perhaps the lessons never took because she was never punished harshly as a child. Most of her reprimands come down to threats and short “time outs,” which after the age of five, Saraswati stopped taking seriously. That’s not to say that she’s a wild child or a rule breaker - she’s not. Saraswati just likes to forge her own path and do things on her own. She’s a very independent soul, not so much in that she’s a loner like her father was, but in that she needs to figure life out for herself rather than learn from other people. This is in part why she’s such a terrible student - she’d much rather be self-taught than learn from a professor. She finds comfort in the practice of solving problems herself.
She’s not lazy so much as unmotivated most of the time. When she cares about something, she’s willing to work hard for it, but school isn’t one of those things which she cares about. For a Slytherin, she’s not terribly ambitious, being mostly lackadaisical and having a “come what may” attitude towards life. She would openly admit that she doesn’t aspire to great things. She just wants to have a good time and be happy, which she is, for the most part. What put her in Slytherin was partially a process of elimination - for one, she doesn’t have the bravery or nobility of a Gryffindor, the industry or fairness of a Hufflepuff, or the innate curiosity of a Ravenclaw. What she does have is a innate sense of self-preservation and independence that seems to suit Slytherin best.
family:
father: Theodore Nott, 42, Ministry consultant and memoirist, former Slytherin.
mother: Padma Patil-Nott, 42, stay at home mother, former Ravenclaw.
sister: Amitra “Ami” Nott, 11, unsorted.
sister : Pranita Nott, 5, unsorted.
sibling : bun in the oven, hopefully a boy, due in October.
Saraswati’s father, Theodore Nott, 42, was probably the most influential figure in her life as a young girl. Sure, he might’ve not really known what to do with a girl at first, but he and Sara share a similar sensibility and caustic sense of humour. It’s from him that she gets her dry wit and devil-may-care attitude towards the world. Coming from a wealthy pureblooded family, during his younger years after the war, he spent most of his time reading and nursing old wounds. With fatherhood and his thirties, he began working as a consultant to the Ministry of Magic with regards to blood relations. When Sara was ten, her father published a memoir of his experiences as the son of a Death Eater during the second war, which eventually became a bestseller and put enough money into the Nott coffers for the family to live comfortably. Sara doesn’t think much of this and has yet to actually read the book, but does think it’s rather cool that she has a book dedicated to her.
Theodore met Saraswati’s mother, Padma Patil, 42, while the two of them were at Hogwarts. They were in the same year, though different houses, and actually got to know each other over games of chess starting in their sixth year. The casual friendship and mutual affinity for bishops and castles slowly turned into fancying one another, and somehow, they ended up getting married and having four children. Though she’s a formidable witch in her own right, Padma chose to forego a career in favour of looking after her children. Now that Sara and her sisters are older, she spends much of her time volunteering for various organizations in the wizarding world, though less so now that she’s pregnant (again). Sara likes her mother, but definitely favours her father. One of her favourite hobbies is antagonizing her mum by responding to everything she says with flippant, sarcastic remarks. Her lack of drive for academic achievement also disappoints and frustrates Padma - after all, both of her parents were fairly good students!
The oldest of three (going on four), Saraswati has two younger sisters, Amitra (aged eleven) and Pranita (aged five). Saraswati cares more for Pranita, who’s something of a tomboy, than Amitra, who acts annoyingly like her mother. Though she likes Pranita, at five years old, Saraswati considers her to be too young to be of any real interest, and Amitra she sees as nothing more than an unfortunate annoyance. As for the newest Nott child, who’s due to be born in the middle of this October, well… Suffice to say that Saraswati’s thoroughly embarrassed to have a mother who’s pregnant at the age of seventeen. She’s hoping, praying, and wishing that this one will be a boy so that her mum will be satisfied and stuff having babies.
detailed history: Padma Patil and Theodore Nott always seemed like a mismatched, unlikely couple. No one could believe they were together at Hogwarts, and to this day, classmates who haven’t seen them in years react with surprise when they learn that the two of them are still together. After all, Padma was a driven, socially conscious Ravenclaw with an involvement in Dumbledore’s Army, and Theodore was a reticent, unfeeling Slytherin whose father was a Death Eater. The only thing that they had in common - at least at first - was the game of wizard’s chess.
Yes, Saraswati’s parents’ first meeting (real meeting, not merely a shared class or bumping into each other in the hallways) was over a game of wizard’s chess. They were both sixth years, both confused and upset by what was going on outside of Hogwarts, and both interested in who the better chess player was. Throughout the sixth year, they played together frequently - Padma was always white, Theodore black. The symbolism was a little too obvious to ignore. As time passed, chess games turned into conversation, at which point they found that they enjoyed each other’s company. Their relationship was slow-moving. It took Padma months to realize she was beginning to fancy him, and Theodore even longer. Only in their seventh year did they first kiss, and that moment was followed by months of uncertainty.
They were both reluctant to start a relationship. They may have liked each other, but with the Carrows and Snape running Hogwarts and the war at the forefront of everyone’s minds, overcoming their differences seemed an impossible feat. As the situation at Hogwarts worsened, Padma became more embroiled in the politics of Dumbledore’s Army, while Theodore remained apolitical. The fact of the matter was that, although he was by a blood-purist and one of Voldemort’s oldest supporters, his only real concern was saving his own neck. He tried to stay uninvolved in both sides of the equation. Padma asked him to join Dumbledore’s Army - he wouldn’t because he knew what the retribution would be like and there was no way he was going to risk himself for people he didn’t even like. But he never went out of his way to express support for Voldemort or the Carrows, either, in part because of a vague, unspoken disdain for their racist ideology, and in part because he had a strong feeling that the Dark Lord was going lose, and he knew that any Dark Lord supporters who survived the war were unlikely to be welcomed back into the fold with open arms.
Both Padma and Theodore survived the war, and when the Dark Lord fell and the Ministry was purged and reestablished, they built the tentative beginnings of a real relationship. Despite everything they had gone through together, rushing into things seemed foolish. They were by no means a perfect couple. They often misunderstood each other, Theodore being unfeeling and Padma being temperamental. But they did love each other in a strange, unconventional way, which is why they married in the fall of 2003. Most of their friends and family reacted with shock - they knew, of course, that Padma and Theodore had been together, but somehow, no one thought it would last. They were so different, and he was so… and she was so…
But last it did. Somewhat by accident, their first child was conceived six months after they were married - sooner than either of them would’ve liked. Padma had, of course, wanted children from the beginning, but she’d been hoping to ease Theodore, who hated babies, bunnies, and rainbows alike, into the idea of the first few years of their marriage. He didn’t like the idea of being a father, and he certainly didn’t feel ready, but with Padma already pregnant, what more choice did he have to accept it and deal with it as best he could? Saraswati Mireille Nott was born, their first child, on Christmas Day, 2004. Though her birthday fell on the significant day of December 25, with a Hindi mother and an atheist father, celebrations were never as overlooked as they might’ve been in a Christian household.
Padma took to motherhood immediately, while Theodore was somewhat more reluctant. She stayed at home and cared for the infant Saraswati while he worked as a consultant for the Ministry, as he was becoming an “expert” of sorts on pureblooded culture, and the remnants of the old blood purists were still lurking in wizard society. It wasn’t until Saraswati was a toddler who could express herself that he began to really take to his daughter. The two of them were similar in temperament, and it’s safe to say that Theodore had a strong influence on Saraswati’s development from the time she was a small child. She’s very much a “Daddy’s Girl,” though she’d never admit it.
By the time that Saraswati was five, Padma was ready for another baby. She loved her daughter, but she wanted a son, and now that he was used to parenthood, Theodore didn’t totally object to the idea. After all, they needed a boy to carry on the Nott family name. They were only a little disappointed when Saraswati’s sister, Amitra Elizabeth Nott, was born on September 3, 2010. Saraswati mostly ignored her sibling favouring reading books and flying her broomstick to playing with a toddler. For the most part, her childhood was happy, but somewhat reserved. She was never allowed to run about the house while covered in dirt, and she was taught very good manners by her mother. As a young girl, Saraswati had two passions: books and Quidditch. She read voraciously, which was unsurprising, seeing as her parents were both avid readers. As for Quidditch - it wasn’t really a proper thing for a girl to like, but she could be found riding her broomstick whenever she was allowed. She never showed much interest in “girl” games like house or dolls, though it wouldn’t be completely correct to call her a tomboy, either.
As both her parents were wizards, her Hogwarts letter came as no surprise when she turned eleven years old. Eager to be away from the proper, prying eyes of her parents, she kissed her family good-bye and hopped on the Hogwarts Express. Upon arriving at the castle, she was Sorted into Slytherin, much to her father’s delight (and mother’s slight dismay) and went about making friends. She wasn’t a terribly good student, being rather lazy and apathetic towards her studies, but eleven year old Saraswati enjoyed the social dynamic of the school and went home for the Christmas holidays excited to tell her parents all about it. Unfortunately for Saraswati, her parents had an even larger announcement for her - her mother was pregnant again.
Then-twelve year old Saraswati couldn’t believe that HER parents would have ANOTHER baby when she was SO OLD. But have another baby they did, Pranita Nott was born on June 13, 2016. Thankfully for Saraswati, she could get away from the howling baby that coming September, and as a consequence, she doesn’t know her youngest sister all that well. In that same year, her father published a memoir which sold very well in the United Kingdom. The book, which Saraswati only just read this summer, detailed his experiences growing up under the tutelage of a Death Eater, and how this affects his perspective on life in a post-Second War World. While not a complete denunciation of and the “pureblooded” way of life, it did cast much of the society once inhabited by families like the Blacks and the Malfoys in a negative light. Saraswati’s relationship to her paternal family’s history is a confused one - on one hand, she’s always been told outright by her mother and implied by her father that blood discrimination is wrong, and yet, she’s a pureblood who’s been raised in many of the same ways as her parents were, and sees the purity of blood issue as something for a “tradition” than a matter of superiority.
Her time at Hogwarts has been enjoyable, if somewhat disappointing for her parents. They both thought that she would earn better marks, as an astounding 7 As in her OWLs was painful for a former Head Girl and Theodore, who, though academically rather lazy, was always motivated enough to pull of decent marks. Saraswati isn’t motivated academically at all, finding her classes to be an absolute bore. What she does like is her friends, especially the students in her house and year, and the freedom she has from her parents to do whatever she wants. Fond of them as she might be, Saraswati likes her independence.
A significant childhood memory: Cliché as it might be, one of the most significant memories from Saraswati’s childhood is the events leading up to the birth of her younger sister, Amitra. Before Padma became pregnant again, Saraswati had always been the sole focus of her parents’ attention, and, like many six year olds, she liked it that way. Unable to understand why her mother’s body was swelling to epic proportions, or why her parents would want another child when they had the wonderful her she spent most of the later months of her mother’s pregnancy and Amitra’s life in confusion.
When Amitra was born, her parents were at St. Mungo’s and she was sent to stay with her aunt Parvati and uncle Dean and her five (five!) cousins. Confused as to why she was stuck with all of these annoying, rambunctious kids who claimed to be her relatives, Parvati took her the day after Amitra’s birth to see Padma in the hospital. Her mother sat on a hospital bed, holding a little bundle in her arms. Saraswati clearly remembers Padma beckoning for her to come over and saying, “Come meet your new baby sister, Sara.” Saraswati obeyed, walking to her mother’s side and getting up in the bed with her. She peered into the blankets Amitra was bundled in, saw her sister’s face, and screamed in shock and horror. Two Healers came running to see what was the matter, and six-year-old Saraswati replied, “My sister is the ugliest thing I’ve ever seen.”
This incident didn’t get Amitra and Saraswati off to a very good start, as Saraswati was in trouble for weeks to come for constantly calling her baby sister ugly. It’s safe to say that this was the rocky foundation on which the relationship between her and her sister was built.