Full Name: Parvati Mira Patil.
Age/Birthdate: 17; December 20th, 1980.
Year/House: Gryffindor, 7th.
Blood Status: The Patils are pure enough to warrant family friends like the Parkinsons, but the fact that their family has its roots in India instead of Britain in addition to their political neutrality means they still aren't your typical stuffy, inbred, and suspiciously evil pure family.
Sexual Orientation: Very straight. Other people...aren't, and that's fine with her, but she'll just take the boys, thank you!
Location: Leeds, Yorkshire & the Humber.
Affiliation: Harry and the DA. In a more general sense she's with the Good Guys, but she doesn't have Order ties. Her family is more Ministry-aligned than simply Order or Death Eaters, also.
Appearance: There's no getting around the fact that Parvati is pretty, really, enough so to be declared alongside her sister as one of the best-looking girls in the school. With long, thick dark hair, a smooth, coffee-coloured complexion, and eyelashes that don't really need mascara, it could be a lot worse. Parvati still has a few bones to pick with her own appearance, though--she'd like to be taller, for one, because barely extending past 5 feet can be really inconvenient. For the rest, there's cosmetics. She's dedicated a lot of her time to figuring out damage control as well as how to"enhance." Shovelled on makeup isn't attractive, but she's definitely aware that her lips look better with a bit of colour, her hair better with the ends smoothed, and her complexion nicer with a bit of powder to keep away the shinies. She'll never be supermodel material, though, and part of the reason why people find her attractive likely has a lot to do with the fact that she's usually found smiling. Frowning gives you wrinkles and makes you look unfriendly, anyhow, and who wants that?
She dresses to impress as well as be noticed. Bright colours are fantastic, as are all manners of jewelry and other small, shiny accessories that she feels add a bit of extra oomph to the ensemble of the day. McGonagall might not be a fan, but she still loves that butterfly clip. Her attitude towards fashion is that of having fun, however; it isn't the serious, sober business to Parvati that it is to some of the other girls. The stereotypically girly colours of pink and purple are preferred--she'd name fuschia as her favourite, in fact--but she is fine with lime on occasion, too, and aqua has its moments. Needless to say, she finds the Hogwarts dress code a little lacking.
Personality: Despite being identical twins, Padma and Parvati have little trouble registering as individuals; besides their polar preferences in fashion, they're also far from identical in personality, enough so to land Parvati in Gryffindor rather than her sister's Ravenclaw. She studies solely to maintain good marks because it's expected of her, not because she derives any particular pleasure from learning. On the contrary, Parvati would much rather be out and about, doing and experience, and, of course, having fun above all else. She could be simplistically labelled as the Party Twin, and it's true that she enjoys everything from your polite society soirées to rowdy, thoroughly Gryffindor teenage parties. She's a big fan of planning them in particular; maximizing fun is the objective, and why waste a perfectly good opportunity to make things as fabulous as possible? A favourite hobby of hers is also to simply talk, talk, talk, and talk. And talk. She's seriously considered talk show host as a serious career option.
It follows that she's a bit of a social butterly. If asked to name her acquaintances, the list would go on for ages; if asked to name her friends, the list would be shorter but still quite lengthy; and if asked to name her best friends, it would be limited to just Lavender and, naturally, Padma. Padma is her anchor, and she's an anchor to Lavender--Parvati needs both of them. She's learned to keep people at an arm's length, a defense mechanism for the fact that she's quite easily hurt when someone has the full extent of her attention. As breezy and easygoing as she may seem, it's very difficult to actually get close to her, and someone who has betrayed her trust truly has their work cut out for them in earning it back, even moreso considering she withdraws rather than lashing out when slighted; if it's difficult to get close in the first place, it's near impossible to do so again. Since the murmurings of Voldemort's return began, it's become much harder not to regard the unfamiliar with a certain amount of suspicion. She's pureblood, yes, and has no desire whatsoever to be backed into a corner with an ultimatum to either join or die. One can't always tell who has the pure intentions at heart and who doesn't.
To the people she does count as her friends, though, and most of all her best friends, she's a very good person to have around. Parvati can be a bit of a mother hen when someone she cares about has been hurt--she'll try to lighten the mood and keep checking back on them until she's absolutely, totally, 100% sure they're okay, because what if they relapse or say they're feeling better but really aren't? It's very all-or-nothing with her, and not simply with the level of attention she pays to her friends; "neutral" isn't a word someone could use to describe just about any aspect of her, and for that matter, neither would Parvati use it herself. Something is either fantastic or it's horrible. "Just okay" isn't part of her vocabulary.
It should be clear by now that she's a pretty flamboyant personality, but there are some cards she still holds close to her chest. She reads more than fashion magazines, for one--she has a stash of horrible, horrible harlequin romance novels under her mattress that she completely devours, the naughty bodice-ripping bits and all. She's also more politically aware than one might assume--there's a reason she joined the DA, after all--but that one is simply something people don't ask her about. She's not the sharpest tool in the shed, but she's certainly not the dullest, either, and she likes thinking about the Big Picture. When a serious situation presents itself, she can recognise it for what it is. The assumption that she's simply a silly girl without anything more than fashion advice to offer is something that really bothers her, and she suffers some definite insecurity because of it. That's not all she wants to be, but she's been pigeon-holed against her will, and it's hard to break out of your social stereotype once you're branded. She's not entirely without fault in the matter, granted, because it's her who chose to act like that in the first place, and being as deeply superstitious and attached to Trelawney's hip as she is doesn't help matters. Of course, she's also branded "the Indian" by some of her less-than-ethnically-sensitive peers. Racism is without a doubt the quickest way to get under her skin, and being part of the only Indian family at Hogwarts can sometimes end up very lonely.
As for her political views? Team Harry, baby. Formerly Team Dumbledore as well, but in the wake of his death, there's really only Harry left to look to for guidance now. She's fine with her Muggleborn peers, and despite the fact that she's still utterly bamboozled by the Muggle world and its contraptions, the faint prejudice from pureblood propaganda growing up has long since faded. Her family always taught tolerance, but given some of the other families they've associated with, she's heard all kinds of things. Parvati does not in any way buy into the belief that being Muggleborn makes someone inherently worse at magic, or more ridiculous still, that anyone is capable of nefariously "stealing" magic. She's as fond of her Muggleborn friends as she is the non, though she isn't on the opposite end of the political spectrum from purebloods; she doesn't believe Muggleborns are inherently superior, either, and her approach is simply giving all wizards a chance.
Last but not least, Parvati is without any doubt a Gryffindor. There's no better way to put it, really. When push comes to shove, she definitely has a pair, and it's not like her to back down from a fight. Ever. She might not be an angry person, but like any good lion, she's prepared to come out with guns blazing when the need decrees--and can be dreadfully impatient to do so. As untraditional as she might be to her traditional Indian family, however, she still holds traditional values like chivalry and morality in high esteem, too. Men should not hit women, thank you, and in a more general sense, it's always important to maintain some dignity and honour no matter what the situation. Right is right and wrong is wrong. Period. There's some grey area there, of course--she's fond of some good old-fashioned mischief (it was the house of Fred & George Weasley), but once it reaches the point where someone gets hurt, it's over. Why else is she a Gryffindor? Well, she looks fabulous in red and gold.
Three Things an Acquaintance Would Know About Your Character:
1. She has a twin sister. Obviously. If you know one Patil, you know there's two of them.
2. She's friends with Lavender Brown. Despite the stark contrast in their appearances, the two of them might as well be sisters, because they're practically joined at the hip--unless she's off snogging redheads, but we don't talk about that any more. Ever.
3. She's big on Divination. She'll offer to read people's palms, do Tarot readings, or calculate their astrological compatibility with someone else if they even show the slightest interest in it, and furthermore can be seen exiting Trelawney's tower at least once a week. Let us not forget Firenze, either. How couldn't it be her favourite subject with a Professor like that?
Two Things Close Friends Would Know About Your Character:
1. In their 4th year before the Yule Ball, Parvati had a bit of a thing for Harry; it's why she didn't have a date when he finally asked, and why the insult was that much greater when he completely ignored her. Needless to say, that evening was the end of it, but those Beauxbatons boys were a more than adequate replacement.
2. Her parents very much want her to stay home, and she just as much doesn't want to. It's been a source of quite a bit of stress since Voldemort's return was made official, but she's made it clear that nothing is ever going to change her mind.
One Deep, Dark Secret: She's really jealous of Hermione. Okay, so her hair is borderline horrifying, but she has unparalleled brains at the school and despite being Muggleborn has managed to command a great deal of respect from both her peers and professors, something Parvati herself hasn't managed quite so well. She is pretty, too, in a girl-next-door, cleans-up-very-well kind of way, and Parvati sees her as having a lot going for her.
History: Whilst people often mistakenly assume that the Patil twins were born in India, they started out, in fact, as British as any of their other peers. It's true that the Patil family was originally a pureblood dynasty in India and they certainly haven't forgotten their roots, but the girls were delivered by midwife in an impressive, well-kept estate on the outskirts of Leeds, England. There were much worse worlds to be born into; the Patils were well-connected, and materially-speaking, they were also more than comfortable. The first children of their own age the girls ever met were Pansy Parkinson and the other girls that would one day be part of her "gang." She got on particularly well with Pansy, but Parvati was rather more head strong than the almost sycophantic other girls, and it wasn't exactly a match made in heaven. Nonetheless, the world she knew was as pampered as the rest of theirs.
Speaking of the girls as one unit rather than two individuals ought to end there, because one thing their parents Nikita and Bankim made a point of doing was raising them as two people rather than a joint package. Besides the occasional cutesy matching outfits when they were little, their parents were careful to pick out the differences in the girls temperaments and personalities and nurture them. The girls weren't isolated from eachother, however, so it goes without saying that they were still eachother's best friends and had a great deal in common, but whereas Padma developed a healthy appreciation of books at a young age, Parvati was content to simply play with her dolls. Learning was always a bit more of a struggle for Parvati; she was the younger twin by mere minutes, but the difference seemed much greater than that at times, particularly when the girls began receiving private tutoring. Parvati was highly impatient, and trying to instill some intellectual disicpline in her was an uphill battle.
Despite her lacksadaisical attitude regarding her studies, Parvati actually showed signs of magic fairly early on. It wasn't a grand show--she simply stopped a particularly favoured bottle of nail lacquer from shattering on the marble floor--but Squibs were a constant fear in pureblooded families, and her parents were ecstatic. As alumni of Hogwarts themselves, it was fully expected that the twins and eventually their younger brother Kevin would follow in the same footsteps. It came as no great surprise when they received their Hogwarts letters, and it also came as no great surprise that Parvati and Padma were sorted into two different houses, but that didn't make it any less heart-breaking for Parvati. Padma followed in her father's footsteps and entered Ravenclaw, but Parvati's Gryffindor couldn't be attributed to any member of the family. It was a surprise to be certain, but unlike the Blacks, it wasn't unwelcome to the Patil family.
As Parvati was also separated from the other familiar faces of her childhood, most of which were sent to Slytherin, she was very lonely and decided she hated Hogwarts at first. It didn't help that the most vocal of her roommates, Hermione Granger, drove her batty, but another young girl named Lavender Brown proved much easier to get along with. Almost eerily easy, in fact--the girls were like two peas in a giggling pod before much time passed. With a comrade in Gryffindor, it suddenly didn't seem so bad any more. It helped that she could still see her sister, of course, but it took Parvati a long time to accept that they would inevitably end up with different primary circles of friends. And so Parvati took to spending most of her time with fellow Gryffindors, and though she wasn't the brains of the bunch (far from it, really), she finally found a subject in her third year that she actually liked. She loved it, in fact, and "it" being Divination, naturally. She's certainly not total garbage at magic, but for as much as people scoff at Divination, she did have a certain aptitude for it, and where the subject was nonsense, she had a big enough imagination to pretend she did regardless. Lavender's similar passion for it was just the icing on the cake--or icing on the crystal ball, if you will.
None of the drama in early years personally affected Parvati, like the loose basilisk or Sirius Black in the boy's dorms, but that all came to an abrupt halt at the End of Term Feast during her 4th year. Being a Gryffindor, Parvati was naturally inclined to believe Dumbledore and, more importantly, Harry, but her parents had a very different view of the situation, and it was the first time she'd ever had a serious disagreement with her parents. Nikita and Bankim were on the Ministry's side, and it was the first time in her life that she was expected to side against someone she considered a friend, albeit in a pretty distant sense. She did buy into the lies after a while, but the nagging suspicion that something wasn't quite right meant the decision of whether or not to join Dumbledore's Army wasn't a hard one. She went with Padma and Lavender, but it still marked a time in her life when she formed an individual view of politics for the first time.
Things weren't exactly smooth sailing from that point, either. After Voldemort went public (much to Parvati's complete LACK of surprise), her parents grew more and more worried and simply wanted their children back at home. They were pure, but their insistence on political neutrality meant that nevertheless they could end up a Death Eater target some day. They were pulled out of school for a few weeks, but it became clear that none of them had any intention of staying there forever; the Patils weren't one to completely ignore the desires of their children, so they allowed their daughters and their son to stay through sixth year. The argument likely would have come to another head before seventh year, but with the now-corrupt Ministry saying all students had to attend, they didn't have any choice in the matter regardless. That was perfectly fine with Parvati. The idea of staying back at the Patil estate and hiding sounded revolting to her.
It came as an extremely pleasant surprise that not only was Padma named Head Girl, but Parvati was named the replacement prefect. Things could certainly be worse for the Patils; for the time being, their pureblood status is enough to afford them a comfortable ride, but there's no telling how long that will last. One's blood status doesn't mean permanent immunity--look at the Weasleys, for example--and Parvati knows that the fact that she associates with those of lesser status and even "blood traitors" will come back to bite her in the behind eventually. That doesn't mean she has any intention of abandoning them, however; if anything, it's more incentive to stand strong. She has no idea what to expect, and she's certainly a little scared, but she feels prepared to tackle whatever it may be.
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