• Mr. Ilkin, b. 1851
• Mrs. Ilkin, b. 1856
• Miss Ilkin, b. 1875
• Mr. Ilkin, b. 1876
• Mr. Ilkin, b. 1878

• Ethnicity: Caucasian
• Height: 4’10”
• Hair: Long, dark, and gently curly.
• Eyes: Storm Blue
• Wand Hand: Right
• Build and Bearing: In the last few years Ellen Ilkin has seen quite the growth spurt. She has always been slight, but has now shot up nearly to her mother’s height, and she still seems to be growing. She is all elbows and knees, graceful in that slightly awkward way a giraffe might be considered graceful. This comparison has not escaped Ellen– among children such insults never do– and she does not take at all kindly to it. Ellen stands so straight as to appear rigid, contained, in the manner of a youngster often scolded for slouching.
• Attire: The Ilkins live respectably, but they are not a family of great means. Her wardrobe is limited and aggressively practical– one simple dress in neutral tones for her everyday goings on, one finer dress in a dusky blue only ever worn to church to keep it nice. Her winter coat is made of heavy wool, a patched-up hand-me-down from her elder sister and thus several decades out of fashion. Her mittens and scarf she knitted herself, under her mother’s tutelage. Given how her family worked to provide her uniform for her first year, she will likely wear it even when not required to do so.
• Play-By: Jodelle Ferland

• 1883 - After a tumultuous year, the youngest Ilkin is born into a world much changed. Ellen Myrtle Ilkin will be the only Ilkin never to know a world without magical neighbors.
• 1885 - An unattended toddler, Miss Ellen Ilkin somehow finds her way out of her crib. On its own that would not be so odd, only she is found in the garden outside, having somehow escaped with the doors and windows all quite tightly shut. The Ilkin family decides the wind must have blown the door shut behind her.
• 1886 - In the middle of a tantrum, an errant wind blows all the dishes off their shelves and scatters them across the kitchen floor. The family does not discuss it, but the argument ends there.
• 1887 - Ellen has learned to tie her shoes! No one is precisely sure where or when she mastered the skill. She’s never been able to tie them herself before, but they assume she must have been watching more carefully than they realized.
• 1890 - Little Miss Ellen Ilkin insists she has befriended the dormice, and it certainly seems to be the case. They follow her when she calls… the Ilkin family invests in a cat.
• 1891 - After she makes her chalk disappear one day at school– although Ellen insists she hasn’t a clue where it’s gone, it simply vanished out of her hand– her family can no longer ignore her little oddities. She is scolded harshly at home, given detentions at school– a bitter red mark on her flawless record– and those little oddities seem to ease. It’s almost like magic. Of course, strange things keep happening. Ellen has just learned how to hide them.
• 1894 - July brings a representative from Hogwarts, and a much-dreaded letter. Though her entire family– even the siblings no longer living in the house with her– pull together to fund this new branch in her education, Ellen cannot help but feel that something is deeply and irreparably altered.

• Dutiful
• Hard-working
• Clever
• Patient
• Loyal
• Principled
• Withdrawn
• Sharp-tongued
• Judgmental
• Impatient
• Competitive
• Nervous

Of course, a certain visitor who arrived in July of 1894 has made that… difficult. The family could ignore the occasional odd happenings around Ellen, attribute them to a passing wind or too much drink at the pub that night, they were never anything… too absurd to write off. Even if her cup sometimes jumped into her hand– a trick of the light. And thank the Lord’s grace the lacing on her shift hadn’t come so easily undone until she was safely home an undressing herself.

They all knew, of course, in that quiet way one knows what they should not. Trying not to know did no one any good. Ellen’s happenings worsened in her tenth and eleventh years. No one could honestly claim to be surprised when a representative arrived from Hogwarts– but disappointed they could manage very well.

The weeks since that visit have been a whirlwind of quiet anxiety and even quieter excitement. There is guilt as well, as her family scrapes together whatever they can manage for their youngest daughter’s less-than-expected expenses. Her father has been cold to her since this revelation, and her mother wary. All in all, the once star-pupil of the Irvingly schoolhouse is set to arrive at Hogwarts something of a nervous wreck.

Other:

• Amortentia: Nutmeg, snowfall, and fresh linens.
• Patronus: TBD
• Boggart: TBD
• Favorite Food: Amber Pudding
• Quirks:
• She is taken easily off her guard by instances of magic in her area. Though she marvels at benign, environmental magics– floating candles, for instance– she objects to many other sorts of magic. She is distinctly uncomfortable with conversing with portraits, and balks over the approach of any ghost.
• Ellen finds it decidedly alarming when a mail-owl flies too close to her, or over her head.
• Skills:
• Ellen’s mother is a housekeeper, and she has passed the relevant skills in management and finances to the daughter she expects to follow in her footsteps.
• She has been practicing knitting and stitching since she was barely more than a toddler.

While Kaatjie is legally not a bastard, she is also a Dutch child of unclear origin who arrived in Britain a few years ago — which means that many people likely assume she is one.

Uncle Klaas broke with the Dutch naming tradition for his children, having become very British-ized, although they do still have Dutch names.

General | A willowy child, Kaatjie stands at 4'7" — her build promises that she will be tall. She has brown eyes, light brown skin, and black, curly hair which is often kept up with scarves or braided behind her back. She is supposed to wear eyeglasses, but will frequently leave them on top of her head or tucked into a jacket pocket instead of on her face.

Expressions | Dramatic. It's easy to tell how Kaatjie is feeling — and she does not particularly bother hiding it.

Deportment | A recent growth-spurt has her currently rather clumsy.

Fashion | Kaatjie dresses neatly, although sometimes hikes her skirts up a few extra inches in a fist so she can walk faster.

Face Claim | Malia Baker

1883 Birth	Several months after the collapse of her parents' marriage, (although they are still legally married), Kaatjie is born. She is named in the Dutch tradition after her maternal grandmother, (and Maria, which her mother just liked), and lives with her mother in a cottage in Oostzaan (that her grandfather, a businessman in Amsterdam, quietly pays for.)
1889	Kaat shows her first sign of magic, after being struck by a bicycle and left entirely unharmed. In the summer, Kaatjie and her mother travel southern Europe, something they continue to do until Ana's death. At the end of the year, grandfather dies, and leaves Ana a sum of money so she can continue to provide for herself and Kaatjie.
1890	In February, Kaatjie accompanies her mother on something that Ana describes as a 'revenge tour' — her mother vanishes into a bungalow, Kaat hears screaming for a while, and eventually Ana walks back out and they leave. Once they've taken the portkey back to Oostzaan, Kaatjie asks her mother who was in the house — your father and some whore, Ana replies. This is the first time Kaat has realized that she must have a father. This is baffling, and she spends many months drawing pictures she intends to send to him to find out what he thinks, but decides that none of them are good enough. At the end of the year, Ana falls ill, and the healers are not sure what to do with her.
1892	After two years of deterioration from the wasting disease, Adriana writes a letter to her brother Klaas in October. Klaas, who has periodically been frustrated with his only sibling, (especially by her marriage,) has recently softened from the death of one of his sons in 1890. He goes on a leave of absence from his work and joins Ana and Kaatjie in Oostvert, where he lobbies the healers to take better care of his sister, and takes an active parenting role of Kaatjie. His care doesn't prevent the inevitable — Ana dies in December.
1893 Scotland	After Klaas gets his sister's affairs in order in January, he takes Kaatjie back to Scotland — and sends a letter to her father informing him of Ana's death. Kaatjie struggles to adapt to life in Scotland, especially as she is trying to seriously learn English — while her grandfather insisted it was part of her lessons, (having perhaps suspected that Ana would at some point need to lodge with her brother in Scotland), there is a difference between taking lessons in English from a governess for an hour a day and being surrounded by her cousins, who talk fast and use slang and do not speak Dutch. She is also desperately missing her mother. She is a quick learner with languages, but desperately lonely, and tries very hard to befriend her cousin Arie, who eventually, begrudgingly, does become her friend. Her uncle informs her that her other uncle is now the Minister of Magic, which baffles and fascinates Kaatjie. She returns to writing letters to her father, although she trashes them swiftly.
1894	Having gained near-fluency in English, Kaatjie is very excited to receive her Hogwarts letter in July, and cannot wait to go to Hogwarts. Hopefully, she and Arie will be in the same house.

An enthusiastic girl who is prone to the fantastical, Kaat is frequently stubborn, having inherited the trait from her mother. She can be easily-distracted, and often seeks attention and approval from adults — although whether attention-seeking is a personality trait that will stick, or one that she has developed in the aftermath of her mother's death, remains to be seen. Also caused by her mother's death: abandonment issues.

• Kaatjie speaks with a Dutch accent. She is fluent in Dutch, mostly fluent in English, and can stumble along in French and Spanish.
  

Dido now considers her residence to be Hogwarts. Since beginning at the school, she has spent each summer holiday with a different sibling.

Parents, still living
Three brothers, four sisters, all still living
Assorted nieces and nephews

Apricot, an orange Maine coon cat, acquired as a kitten in 1889.

Ethnicity: Black
Height: Just over four feet, nine inches
Hair: Dark; curly
Eyes: Brown
Build: Stout, but generally proportionate to her small stature. 
Attire: Favours muggle clothes, even while teaching. Outfits are generally intended not to stand out.
Wand Arm: Right
Of Note:

• Dido has always been the sort to smile often and broadly.
  
• Usually has at least a couple strands of cat hair about her person.

 

Her PB is Quinta Brunson.

Boring Miss Bloom

Eight children is a lot by any measure, but Dr. and Mrs. Bloom achieved just that, with young Dido falling fifth in line in 1862. Nothing surrounding her arrival would have heralded anything remotely unusual to come, and indeed, her first six years of life passed altogether normally—one might even say boring, if one were not enamoured of typical middle-class children.

The First Declaration

She will never see the world, but she will be loved.

These were the words Dido said of her youngest sister, still in the womb, in 1868. Really, the only part of the statement that might not have been expected was Dido’s certainty in gaining a sister—their family had, indeed, never left Surrey, and were relatively fond of one another.

When Patience was born the following year, though, the babe was discovered beforelong to be blind. This was the first of what would come to be called Dido’s Declarations, but not the last—each a sign that something was not quite right with the young girl.

The Peculiar Dido Bloom

In the years to follow, Dido became more peculiar. She would often stare into space or make her Declarations about others, prompting her parents to keep her more and more away from those outside their household. This was frustrating for the child, who had always been a sociable sort.

An answer, or something like it, came in the early summer of 1873 with the arrival of one Professor Hamish Darrow to the door. He was, he said, the head of something called a Hufflepuff at a place called Hogwarts, both bizarre words that meant nothing to the doctor, his wife, or young Dido. But then came the Big One: Dido was a witch, and was invited to attend a school of magic in Scotland.

Her father, always a man of science, was disbelieving until Professor Darrow, with a sigh, turned a cushion into a hedgehog. Her mother, long convinced there was something wrong with Dido, had been quiet for much of the conversation, but declared that Dido would attend. Then she went to her room and was not seen by any of the children for the next three days whilst she ‘recovered’.

For herself, Dido was… apprehensive. The notion of leaving her family was a daunting one, even though her daydreamer’s mind had already begun fantasizing about this peculiar new world. Acquiring a wand, then spellbooks and all the other trappings of a young witch, helped to make it all more real for her, though she did still tear up at the train platform. (She promptly wiped away her tears, not wishing the other children to see her.) At Hogwarts, she herself became a Hufflepuff, appreciating the familiar presence of the same professor who had come to her house.

Within the first months at the school, though, it becomes clear that Dido is still abnormal. Blurting out facts about strangers does not get one very far in making friends, after all, and her habit of staring off into space during a conversation is, at best, ‘peculiar’ to those around her. When she returns home for Christmas, to make matters worse, she learns that her parents had told the neighbours she had been sent away to a place more able to handle her oddities. It was not the best Christmas ever.

Still, as the months, then years, go on, Dido is able to carve out a piece of the world for herself. She makes a small group of friends, proves to be a very adept student, and flourishes at Hogwarts. In 1875, she adds arithmancy, care of magical creatures, and divination to her timetable. This last, in particular, proves to be a great boon: through palmistry and tea leaves, Dido finally has a layer of plausibility about her when she Knows things.

And so Dido concludes her time at Hogwarts in 1880, still peculiar, but more Herself than she could ever have been otherwise.

The Final Declarations of Hortensia C. Molehurst

Straddling two worlds never seemed as daunting to Dido as it did when the time came to consider Society. She could live in the muggle world—the peculiar girl sent away to a school for peculiar children, who never grew out of her abnormalities—or in the magical one, away from her family and without their social support. Neither option seemed feasible to young Dido, but the solution came in the form of one of her professors. Thus, when Dido left Hogwarts, it was to the home of 173 year old Mrs. Hortensia Molehurst, seer and an aunt of that same professor, as a lady’s companion.

One might think their age difference would be inconvenient, but indeed, the two got on swimmingly until one evening in 1886 when Mrs. Molehurst declared she would not awake in the morning, said her goodbyes, and did indeed die by breakfast.

She had left for Dido three things: a small sum of money, a glowing letter of reference, and a second letter addressed To the Board of Governors when the time came that Dido wished to seek out the position of Divination Professor. (Dido doubted she ever would).

Education, Round One

Following the death of Mrs. Molehurst, Dido returned to her parents’ home in Surrey feeling rather adrift. It was several weeks before she found her next calling in the form of a young boy.

He, like her sister Patience, was blind. Unlike her sister Patience, Dido knew immediately that this youngster shared her own magical abilities, though could not have said how she knew. She certainly could not have revealed this to his parents, who were incredibly mundane and absolutely delighted by the prospect of a governess for their boy who had some experience with those of his condition and such a glowing letter of recommendation.

Through working with [Tennyson] in the following years, Dido would realize what Mrs. Molehurst had already known: she loved to teach.

Professor Darrow is coming tomorrow, and you mustn’t be too shocked by what he has to say.

It would be her last Declaration before {Tennyson] departed for Hogwarts, his status as a young wizard shocking to his parents, but rather less shocking than the fact that Dido had been magical herself all along. With her charge departed, though, Dido was once more adrift.

Education, Round Two

The right place at the right time turned out to be a tea shop in Irvingly. There, she saw the leaves of an older gentleman, read them with ease. Dido had not known when she set off that morning, a particular envelope on her person, that she would encounter the newest member of Hogwarts’ Board of Governors, but between her reading and the lengthy missive from the late Mrs. Molehurst, Dido returned to Hogwarts in the autumn of 1892, now a professor (even though the majority of the students were taller than she).

As the professor of Divination, a certain degree of oddity was expected and excused; between this and her growth in the years since graduation, Dido fit in a great deal better than she had the first time ‘round, rediscovering her love of the school and continuing to foster her love of educating children.

Dido has always been an incredibly compassionate person. She cares deeply for others, even strangers, and goes out of her way to be helpful. She is a hardworking sort who likes to be kept busy—for when she is busy, the deja vu is not nearly as bad as it might be otherwise. She is also quite book smart. With a sharp memory, she often remembers what she sees, hears, and reads with ease, which produced excellent results in school.

Dido can, however, be something of a daydreamer. Coupled with her other peculiarities, her more practical knowledge of the world as it is can sometimes be lacking.

She is often seen as trustworthy at first meeting, but can present as odd or even irritating on subsequent interactions. Regardless, she is stalwart and earnest in the majority of her actions.

SKILLS:

• Languages: English and perfunctory French.
  
• Can play the pianoforte reasonably well.
  
• An excellent memory for seemingly mundane details.
  

TRIVIA:

• Boggart: TBD
  
• Amortentia: TBD
  

DIDO & THE SIGHT

Though never ‘diagnosed’ as such, Dido is a seer. Oh, it’s nothing so grand as it sounds—she doesn’t make grand prophecies! Instead, it presents itself in more subtle ways.

• Knowing & Declarations: Her Declarations from her youth have… mellowed out somewhat as Dido has grown and realized that they freak people out. She settles instead for Knowing, facts about the world around her that simply spring to mind. She mostly keeps these to herself.
  
• Right Place, Right Time: Dido has always had a knack for this—being in the precise right place at the precise right time. It has served her very well, particularly in adulthood.
  
• Deja Vu All Over Again: It isn’t all good. Dido is prone to experiencing incredibly vivid deja vu that has been known to make her dizzy and nauseated at times.
  
• Starts & Stops: She also often will 'lose' her place in a conversation or task, staring into space as she processes sights, sounds, or other stimuli that she seldom is able to piece into anything coherent. This can be particularly tedious to those who have to interact with her.