ooc. Name: Dee Age: 29 contact info: cupiscent @ gmail or titaniafae @ AIM experience: see here how did you hear about us?: RPG ad comm on IJ
character. Name: Druella Ekaterina Rosier Age/Birthday: October 12th 1924 House/Year: Slytherin / 7th Bloodline: PURE! Personality: Druella has always been a golden child. Bright, pretty, vivacious and enchanting, she didn't need a wand to put people under her spell. Her parents were firmly in her thrall from infancy, and though her cousin possibly knows her better than anyone in the world, she considers him hers to command. Full of confidence and very sure of herself, Dru has the ability to draw people to her, for her surety, fun and easy intimacy. She has an engaging smile, a wicked smirk, a shameless laugh and an intoxicating, devil-may-care attitude about just about everything. She's quick to laugh and even quicker to slap someone in the face, possessed of lightning-quick mood swings that she's never bothered to even try and tame. She might claim to have never been spoiled, but she was after a fashion, and now always expects her way. The difference is that if she isn't given it, her response won't be to sulk: she absolutely will take it, and make you wish you'd just given it in the first place.
She remembers every slight and grudge, but doesn't let it stand in the way of expediency or fun. Sure, she doesn't always come out on top. There's a certain charming whimsy about the way she'll smile, shrug and bat her eyelashes when the shit hits the fan. When push comes to shove she is, actually, prepared to take the consequences for everything she does (if she has to), and expects everyone else to be likewise; if you cross her, you don't get to whinge when she brings you down. You played, you lost. Better luck next time.
Dru's first priority is herself, and then her family. She might bitch a lot about and to her cousin Evan, but he's very important to her, never mind that he's pretty much the only person who can make her lose her temper. She has friends, some closer than other, but she rather expects them to be able to take care of themselves, if they're worthy of her respect. She has few qualms about the use, abuse, injury or outright destruction of anyone or -thing else.
Family Druella's father is Tristan Rosier, younger son of the Rosier family, scions of English wizardry since the Norman invasion. Upon his Tour of the Continent, in Venice, he met young Lindita Strakosha, of an Albanian family of unimpeachable blood. He tarried, and after a whirlwind courtship, the pair married and repaired to a pleasant estate in Kent. Lindita fell pregnant soon after, but following Druella's birth were many years of trying and failed pregnancies before she finally produced an heir. Shortly afterwards, she delivered another daughter.
Dru appears to be engaged in a constant and epic battle against her mother's notions of proper behaviour, and Druella's mission in life - finding a good husband. In actual fact, Dru adores and treasures her mother, and while she'll bait her and tease her in private, she will also protect her ferociously from the disappointments of Dru's general activities. Dru can get away with anything as far as her father's concerned, in a combination of his distraction (she believes he hasn't sincerely paid attention to her since young Alexander came along) and his lingering sense that she's his little princess.
Alexander and Evangeline she has no time for. They're seven and nine years younger than her, respectively, and spend most of their time at games that she's not interested in.
Instead, her cousin from Tristan's brother fits more the role of sibling. She grew up with him a great deal. Now and then, the family goes back to visit Lindita's family in Albania. Dru says - loudly - that she understands why her mother was so eager to marry a foreigner.
History: A firecracker from birth, Druella grew up giving a succession of nursemaids headaches and cause for resignation (or dismissal). It would not be accurate to say Dru was a spoilt child. She wasn't given everything she wanted; she had to work for it by lying, scheming and artful manipulation. She always got it, though. Even when she got older and wasn't allowed to play with the neighbourhood boys - or her cousin and his friends - she'd sneak out and do so anyway. At age ten she got caught at this and got in more trouble than she'd ever been in to date - she was mud to the knees making the boys eat frogs when she should have been up in the house having a playdate carefully arranged by Mrs Rosier (who was determined that Dru was going to be her little princess) with the girls. Dru thought the girls were BORING, and when she was forced to partake in the dolls and tea parties she amused herself by running roughshod over the others, winding them round her finger or making them burst into tears. By the time she went off to Hogwarts, Druella had added most of those girls to either her coterie or enemy list. Or both.
Hogwarts was an adventure Druella was eager to launch upon, and it was rather a case of second verse, same as the first. Coming to school just meant the net Druella was casting was wider, and a lot of the girls in her house (Slytherin, of course) she already knew. No matter what circle she was in, the only thing that mattered was her standing, comfort and amusement. School was interesting, sure, but far more worth her time were people, events, and manipulating all of the above. By fourth year, Dru was well and truly established as a force to be reckoned with, and someone not to cross. She was an angel to be friends with, though, and everyone knew she and her chosen ones had the wickedest fun. She arranged some viciously funny pranks, destroyed the reputation of her rivals, had girls nights in her dorm where all manner of things went on, like gossip and nail-painting and the playing of outrageous little games. Druella was a vivacious, wild girl. In between this, she managed to scrape up (though lack of application, not lack of intelligence, but who had time for studying?) semi-decent OWLs in Charms, Runes, Transfiguration, Divination, Astronomy and History of Magic.
A suggestion that she leave school after achieving her OWLs was combatted with the argument that Hogwarts was the best place to meet a suitable husband, so she came back to do five NEWTS (omitting Transfiguration). The boys had started being interested when she was in fifth year, and by sixth year she was milking it for all it was worth. Mummy's little princess discovered boys, booze and cigarettes in quick succession, and took to all three with alacrity. Though still a virgin, there have been more than a few guys who had stories to tell about Druella Rosier. And she doesn't mind, so long as they don't tell them too loud; Dru doesn't mind who says what about her, but if her mother hears even a whisper of any of it, she will make sure everyone involved suffers. No boy was ever allowed to come to some mistaken belief he meant too much to her either; it wasn't uncommon for her to have more than one chap on the go, and four dates was about the maximum any one could hope for in a six-month period.
And then, over the summer hols just gone, she met Cygnus Black. Or rather, re-met: he'd been two years ahead of her at school, and perhaps there'd been a touch of flirtation in her fifth year, but she hadn't really been paying attention. Cygnus cut a fine figure of a young man these days, working at the Ministry because old Pollux Black thought it appropriate that his boys "get a feel for life and make themselves useful". Druella is definitely paying attention now. In the giddy succession of pureblood summer socialising, their vigorous romance has all the old ducks clucking happily into their teacups. Druella intends to be engaged before she goes back to Hogwarts (which she will - Cygnus has assured her mother he likes an educated woman) even if she has to propose herself.
What she does not intend is for this to make her seventh year in any way dull. It's her last hurrah! It's going to be a blast.
Likes: Men, gin, dancing, gossip, smoking, mischief, chocolate, silk stockings, clever hands, Charms, splendid parties, card games, staying up late and sleeping in, watching quidditch, red roses, scandalising people. Dislikes: Prissy girls, sherry, being bored, classes where she has to get dirty, her extended Albanian relations, tea with milk (use lemon you heathens), Scottish winters, morning classes, daisies. PB: Keira Knightley Anything else you feel is important: I've presumed quite a bit on the Rosier-cousins relationship here, but I'm entirely happy to renegotiate all of that with a future apper.
writing sample. I don't know about you kittens, but I'm having a marvellous summer. The brats haven't bothered me once, I have a dozen gorgeous new dresses and plenty of places to wear them, and I even fell in the river the other day while out punting and it was still a delicious day. Not to mention that this being of-age thing means none of the old ducks are flapping their wings at me any more for pinching their gin - I should have turned seventeen years ago.
In any case, I do hope I'll see all of you who are worth seeing at our garden party this weekend. Mother's been saying something about fireworks to cap off the evening, which sounds like a scream to me. I was thinking of watching them from the roof, so don't wear anything you don't mind getting dirty. Then again, isn't that what I always say?
There were a lot of things Dru loved about summers in Kent - the smell of cut grass, lanky Muggle boys in strange white costumes, long lazy afternoons reading beside the fountain, and an endless succession of high teas, soirees, balls, punt trips and garden parties. This evening was particularly splendid, the light just starting to fade from golden into the deep blue of dusk as Druella sashayed across the Rosier family terrace. The air was still warm on the skin bared by the indolent drape of her gown, but it promised to grow cooler later, while they were watching the fireworks perhaps, so she'd have to borrow a coat from some fine young specimen.
She had one in mind. And while this had not at all been the usual pattern of her life to date, Dru found - as she caught the eye of Cygnus Black where he was standing on the other side of the terrace, near the bar - that she didn't really mind the change in her plans. Her easy smile kinked a little as she strode over to him, sliding in beside him against the terrace rail. "My appalling Albanian aunt is here; you have to save me," she declared, breezily and with no apparent urgency. More important: she reached for the glass he'd been nursing. "What's this? Do I want one?"
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