toffs
B A S I C S
character name: Coriander Bulstrode, Corrie for short.
age and birthday: May 1st, 2005 (17)
bloodline: This is somewhat up in the air, as neither Corrie nor her mother are sure of her father's true blood status. However, Millicent is half-blooded, so Corrie thinks of herself as the same.
home residence: Derby, Derbyshire
house and year: Hufflepuff Seventh
current classes: Care of Magical Creatures, Herbology, Muggle Studies, History of Magic.
sexuality: Heterosexual in theory, asexual in practice, with slight homosexual leanings. Coriander's sexuality is something of a confusing topic, and one that not even she has figured out. Not that she ever thinks about such things.
appearance: Corrie has never been described as “attractive” at any point during her life. She has rather a flat, round face, with small black eyes and a nose that is rather large in comparison. Her hair is black and curly, and straggles if it grows long enough to reach her shoulders. She never does anything with it - doing nothing more than washing it when needed, and as a result it's rather unruly and not entirely pleasant. Corrie has been called “fat” in the past when someone has wanted to upset her, while her mother would describe her as “big-boned”. She's not huge, but she's on the stocky side and carries quite the bit of weight. She doesn't really have curves, but even if she did you wouldn't be able to tell underneath the clothes she chooses to wear, all of which are baggy and none of which are particularly nice, although she has developed a liking of rather girly colours that really do not suit her at all. With her size coupled with the fact that she rarely smiles, if ever, she gives off a brooding and slightly menacing presence.
P E R S O N A L I T Y
Corrie's placement in Hufflepuff was a source of confusion for her mother, who had been a Slytherin. If not a Slytherin, surely Corrie should be a Gryffindor like her father? But while Corrie joked that she obviously wasn't ambitious enough for Slytherin, brave enough for Gryffindor or clever enough for Ravenclaw, her major personality traits are, in fact, Hufflepuff ones. The hat saw how loyal Corrie is, painfully so, in fact. Millicent had taught Corrie never to abandon anyone, and therefore she has absolutely no sense of self-preservation and would take a bullet (or rather in this case, a nasty hex) for someone she considers a friend. However, Corrie has not much of a social conscience, and is staunchly neutral in conflicts, no matter if someone is clearly in the right. Had she been around in the war, she would have been one of those to participate in the regime for a quiet life.
Corrie's lack of social conscience comes out particularly in the fact that she's quite happy to punch anyone. She's no mindless bully though - she only punches people who wrong her or her housemates that she worships so. She fits into the negative Hufflepuff stereotype in the fact that she is a bit of a walkover and will usually do whatever she's asked. In a way, she's like a female Crabbe or Goyle... just with Hufflepuff values rather than Slytherin ones. The fact that she'll happily thump someone has got her into trouble many times, as has the fact that she never seems to do her homework. The truth is, Corrie is very disorganised and very forgetful, and will forget something straight after she is told. She's not very clever, and as someone who was unused to relating to her peers from a young age, she's still not very good at speaking up. As such, she is not very good at getting on with new people or even making good first impressions. Corrie knows what other people think of her, and as such she holds grudges easily.
Due to Corrie's mother having been abandoned while pregnant, Corrie has had it hammered home to her that she should never trust guys, yet at the same time she needs to find herself a husband who will stick by her. As a result, Corrie never really knows what to think or how to behave when she's around guys. It's safe to say she's never been able to call a boy a friend, and when she's forced to interact with members of the opposite sex, she's unsure whether to hold them at arms length or suck up to them. So she usually goes for a bizarre mix of the two, giving her rather a strange reputation amongst the male population of Hogwarts. However, when she sits down to think about it, Corrie doesn't find any of the guys she knows attractive in the slightest. In fact, she's never had any feelings for a guy even bordering on romantic. She's pretty much asexual when it comes to matters of the heart, with slight homosexual leanings - not in the fact that she has feelings for girls, but rather she's always curious to catch glances of her roommate's bodies.
Really, her one true love is her cats; she's got about a dozen of them at home and while she's only technically allowed to bring one to Hogwarts she's always finding ways of sneaking more in. Despite her aversion to guys, when it comes to girls Corrie can sometimes come off as a bit too eager to please. She doesn't have any ulterior motives - for a quiet person she does like to be around people, and she just wants to be liked. It's her dream to be popular, even though she's never really had any close friends. Corrie isn't a girly-girl, but she's developed a liking for overly girly outfits that do not suit her in the slightest. She also likes getting makeovers from the other Hufflepuff girls, whenever they're willing to give them.
Corrie is a Beater on the Hufflepuff Quidditch team, not because she's a particularly strategic or tactical player, but because she can really whack a bludger. While it's hopeless for the team to expect her to follow any pre-arranged plays, she can be relied upon to stop an opposing Chaser who's threatening to score, or an opposing Seeker who's only feet away from the snitch. She's very fond of Quidditch, and proud of herself for taking part, and she has a habit of stealing a bludger at the end of every match she plays. She uses permanent sticking charms to stick the bludgers to the walls of her dorm to act as a sort of souvenir, but due to the fact that she's not exactly amazing at magic, these don't always work and it's not unknown for the bludgers to escape and wreak the furniture in the bedroom.
Corrie's favourite class is Care of Magical Creatures, as it's the only real thing she's good at. She loves all kinds of animals, and when some sort of magical creature goes missing from the classroom, it can usually be tracked back to her. She often keeps animals under her bed in an effort to breed them, usually rather tame animals like salamanders and pygmy puffs, but occasionally more dangerous ones. As a result, her dorm mates usually avoid her end of the dorm, both for fear of being bitten and also because there's rather a strange smell. Animals are Corrie's one real on-going hobby, although making jewellery from plants and trying to sell them to other students comes a close second. When it comes to other hobbies, Corrie is very much a jack of all trades, master of none. She's always trying her hand at something, only to drop it a week later and pick up something else. It's knitting one week, drawing the next, and gobstones the week after that. As a result, she's been practically banned from joining any school clubs and societies - she's developed quite the reputation for joining then leaving, then joining and leaving over again. Her only real exception to her 'no-talking' habit is when she gives whoever's around a long and rather boring speech about everything she knows about her current hobby. The room usually empties pretty quickly
when she starts droning on in this manner.
Overall, Corrie may not be the most social of individuals, and may have rather mixed views and habits, but she tries to be nice, really she does. And once you've made an acquaintance of her, you'll have a faithful follower for life.
F A M I L Y
The subject of Corrie's family is a complicated one, and a touchy one for her. She is the daughter of Cormac McLaggen and Millicent Bulstrode, although they were never married and Millicent brought her daughter up alone. Cormac was something of a blood-purist, although his own blood status has always been debatable, and after the war found that it was difficult to be open about that attitude, as “So, are you pureblooded?” was rather frowned upon as a first date question. As a result, he latched onto the first Slytherin that came his way and was susceptible to his charms. Millicent had never been emotionally intelligent, and believed that he actually loved her. The relationship was a high-speed one, and it was only a few months before Millicent found she was pregnant. It was mere weeks after she informed Cormac of this new development that the subject of blood status came up, and as soon as Millicent said the words “I'm actually half-blood”, Cormac was off and didn't look back, leaving his ex-girlfriend to give birth and raise the baby alone.
Corrie has no other relatives, as Millicent was an only child and both her parents were victims of the war. As a result, Corrie has a rather intense relationship with her mother. Millicent never married or even entered into another serious relationship, so Corrie grew up with no father figure. It was just the two of them, and they're extremely close. Millicent did her best for her daughter, and Corrie appreciates it, but sometimes she wishes her mother would relax a little. Things can get a little intense when they're together, as Millicent is intent on drumming certain things into Corrie so the same thing that happened to Millicent doesn't happen to her. Corrie does miss her mum when she's away at school, and worries about her being on her own, but they write regularly and inform each other of all the goings on in their lives.
H I S T O R Y
Coriander Bulstrode was born on May Day, typically a day of festivities, music, and dancing. Her mother Millicent took this as a sign that her daughter was destined to be beautiful, strong and feminine. Such a girl was in need of a suitably pretty name, and Millicent named her Coriander. It very soon became clear that Millicent's predictions for Coriander had not been entirely true - even as a baby she wasn't particularly cute, and was rather sullen. Millicent gave up trying to get her to smile and laugh, but she didn't give up dressing her up in various girly outfits, usually pink ones with frills. As a single mother, Millicent went back to work pretty soon after Coriander was born. She was working as a bar maid in the Hogs Head, and Corrie spent much of her childhood in the pub while her mother worked. The pair lived in Derby, in the small two-bedroomed terraced house that Millicent inherited upon the deaths of her parents.
Millicent never sent Coriander to school before Hogwarts, preferring to teach her everything herself. As a result, Corrie's early education was spotty at best. She can read and write fine, and her maths isn't that bad, but her general knowledge is pretty useless and she had next-to-no knowledge of muggles before arriving at school. Millicent taught what she called “life lessons”, moulding her daughter into the girl Millicent thought she should be. As her mother was rather bitter to men after being abandoned by Corrie's father (who they never talked about), she told Corrie to never believe what men or boys say, or trust them at all. At the same time, she drilled into Corrie that she must find a husband and not have children beforehand, so the same thing wouldn't happen to her. Corrie therefore grew up as a mish-mash of her mother's beliefs and badly taught lessons, not quite knowing what to believe or what to think.
Her first incident of magic was when she was four, and turned her mother's lipstick green. Millicent didn't notice, and spent an entire shift working at the bar before glancing in the mirror. Most children were congratulated when they first performed magic, no matter what that magic was, but Corrie was sent to her bedroom for a week. As she grew older, Corrie began to grow curious about her father (or rather, lack of) and first asked her mother about him when she was nine. Millicent avoided the subject as much as possible, finally telling Corrie the truth about her father the summer before Corrie started Hogwarts. It was another year before Corrie finally met her father, and it didn't go well in the slightest. Corrie decided then, to her mother's quiet relief, that she was better off without a father in her life.
Upon starting at Hogwarts for her first year, Corrie was sorted into Hufflepuff. This surprised Millicent, who had been very much a Slytherin. However, Corrie didn't mind where she was put, as she had been quite looking forward to starting at Hogwarts. It was only a couple of days in that she started missing home, though. She didn't make friends easily, as she had never really had friends or even much contact with other children her age before, and didn't really know how to react to others. She quickly got the reputation amongst her classmates as the quiet and rather sullen one, who never really offered any information yet would surprisingly do whatever she was asked. Corrie always seemed to be in trouble with the teachers too, for scrapes that she seemed to always get herself into for various reasons - forgetting her homework and punching people being the most usual circumstances.
But somewhere along the line, Corrie found her niche at Hogwarts. One of her main achievements was making the Quidditch team - it had never really occurred to her before to go for it, but when her dorm mate Wini was made Captain in their fourth year, Corrie was encouraged to try out for Beater due to her sheer brute strength. And a Beater she became. She still frequently gets into trouble for not doing her homework and hitting people that get on the wrong side of her or the dorm mates she worships so, but this is now rather expected of her, so it's no longer shocking. As her favourite class is Care of Magical Creatures, (and Professor Renfield is something of a hero to her), she aims to go into that field, doing some kind of work with magical animals. But whether it's taming dragons or starting a cat sanctuary, she's not quite sure yet.
a significant childhood memory: Corrie has met her father only once, and it didn't go well. After repeated owls to him from Millicent he agreed to meet up with his daughter but under certain conditions: not at their house or his house, and Millicent wasn't allowed to come. It was the summer after Corrie's first year at Hogwarts when she walked into the Leaky Cauldron to meet him. She doesn't remember much about his appearance, just that he was rather large, and generally not like she pictured him at all. The conversation was slow at best and totally awkward at worst, and Corrie found herself wishing she was anywhere but there. Things took a turn for the worse when Corrie interrupted Cormac mid-sentence (he was only talking about the politics of his office at the Ministry - boring!) to ask why exactly he had left her mother. He, of course, refused to answer, and she went on to tell him that he was a rubbish role model, inconsiderate and generally not a nice person. Cormac responded to this by telling her she was badly brought up, going on to insult Millicent and several aspects of her personality and appearance. This did it for Corrie - she told him she was better off without him and her mother was ten times the person he would ever be, and stormed out. She probably would have hexed him, if she'd known any good ones and didn't have to worry about using underage magic. Needless to say, there has been no contact between them since.
player: Zee, GMT, shoot the poet! PB is Ally Sheedy.
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