Post by Jack Hewer on Aug 9, 2012 7:01:07 GMT -5
| [atrb=cellSpacing,0,true][atrb=border,0,true][atrb=style, width: 460px; background-image: url(http://i44.tinypic.com/34fb0ns.jpg);-moz-border-radius: 0px 0px 0px 0px; -webkit-border-radius: 0px 0px 0px 0px; border: 4px ridge #9c5f5b, bTable][tr][cs=2] lucille adelaida ruth devereux . twenty four. daily prophet. phoebe tonkin. | |
[rs=2] | the first thing you ought to know about this young lady is that it would not be wise to attempt to talk to her looking scruffy, dirty, unkempt, or any combination of the above. miss devereux is extremely big on cleanliness and turn-out. the eldest daughter of an australian father of distant french extraction and an english mother, lucette (as she is called by her family) considers herself highborn and intensely dislikes associating with anybody she considers inferior. she is, let's put it plainly, an out-and-out bitch. always dressed in the latest and most fashionable clothes, almost ocd about her appearance, lucette is the poster child for why the upper classes get a bad press. ignorant, conniving, and hopelessly class-conscious, she'd sooner die than be seen in the company of "the working class", and lives for the high society get-togethers she attends with her father. let's take a look at her story though, shall we, before we condemn her too thoroughly? lucille adelaida ruth devereux was born on the third of may under a bright sunny sky in the family home in darwin. the house - huge, over-the-top, untastefully decorated - resounded with first her mother's screams, and then her own. her father and two older brothers were unperturbed by this, since they'd taken the opportunity to go out on their horses for the day. lucille's name was chosen by her father when he returned that evening to be presented with his new daughter - he was more concerned at the time that his second son , three-year-old xavier, had been thrown from his pony and (understandably) refused to get back on. distracted, wanting to berate the boy, milton devereux hastily instructed that the child was to be named for his late grandmother and great aunt. obligingly, billie devereux had lucille adelaida put down on the birth certificate, but in a moment of uncharacteristic daring added her own mother's name, ruth, to the mix. lucille adelaida ruth devereux at the time was little concerned with the weight of her name, but grew to resent its pompousness in later years. perhaps we ought to add a word in about lucette's parents? billie, after all, is probably not the sort of name you'd expect the wife of a "milton" to be sporting. the pair met on one of milton's regular trips to england when he was twenty-five and she twenty-three. they had both been dragged along to make up a double-date by mutual friends, and did not especially hit it off. billie was of considerably inferior breeding to milton, rather stupid, and only redeemed by her rather exceptional singing voice. milton was kind enough to her on the date, but had little interest in seeing her afterwards. unfortunately for him, the mutual friends soon got engaged, and invited both milton and billie out to vegas to celebrate. in the manner of all true clichés, milton and billie got tremendously drunk late one night in the bellagio, and woke up the next morning husband and wife. milton, horrified, had a long think in the casino during the day, and eventually made the decision that a divorce would be far more embarrassing than returning home with a bride, and returned to his suite to inform billie of this. the young woman, being the submissive sort, agreed (she had, after all, had a taste of the luxuriousness of his life), and the two went back to australia to introduce her to milton's family, an old family who could, thanks to a line of extraordinarily lineage-obsessed ancestors, trace their history all the way back to the first settlers of the australian colony, and from there through england and into france. the devereux family are incredibly proud of this distinguished heritage, and it's not advisable to ask any of them about it unless you're up for a long and very dull lecture. the family were unimpressed by billie, who had a thick northern accent and poor manners - especially when milton's younger brother warren returned home from his honeymoon not long afterwards with his bride on his arm. she was tall, slender, beautiful, fashionable, perfectly mannered, and basically everything the devereux parents were looking for in a daughter-in-law. fortunately, billie redeemed herself somewhat by producing two sons not long later in quick succession - arthur milton in 1996, and xavier hugh in 1997. three years followed before the birth of lucille, and it was clear that the marriage was not working. milton barely spent any time at home, working in sydney all week and only deigning to fly home for weekends. he had not even bothered to tell his wife about the magical world - he himself was a muggle, but his brother, father, and two of his four uncles were magical. the family was not pureblood, but they were well-acquainted with the world of magic, since about one in three family members had the gene. indeed, both lucille and her siblings (she was followed by a sister in 2004, and a second in 2007), and all of her cousins would later prove to be magical. this was a record in terms of generation, and they were all spoilt absolutely rotten by their grandparents as a result. but poor plain billie was hiding her own secret - her younger sister annie was magical, although nobody else in the family was, and so she was watching out for signs of magic in the children just as her husband was, each trying to do so without the other noticing. it was billie who caught arthur setting fire to the tablecloth in the drawing room with just his magic at age five, and milton who discovered xavier in the process of transfiguring his much-detested pony bartholomew into a frog at age seven. the boys were each bribed by their parents to keep quiet about it, and of course ran gleefully to each other with the news almost immediately. lucille spent her formulative years trailing around the large house and grounds begging to be allowed to join in her brother's games. easily bored, even more easily giving her beleaguered nanny the slip, three-year-old lucille (by this point dubbed lucette by first her brothers, and then picked up on by the rest of the household) was escaping the house and scampering after them, demanding that they let her play with them. the boys, of course, were having none of it, and thus regularly took to their ponies - and before long horses - to stop her bothering them. lucette, being a persistent sort, merely ordered a groom to teach her how to ride so she could follow them. the poor boy put the child on a rather tiresome shetland named archibald who was only really there to be a stablemate to milton's prizewinning show jumper, "paradise lost", a ferocious white beast that would bite anybody close by if he didn't have archibald nearby. archibald himself was mean, selfish, and incurably greedy. lucette, however, impressed all concerned by mastering the pony quickly - she was far too selfish herself to allow anybody else to be, equine or human - and in a short time she progressed onto a slightly larger pony that her father, delighted at her prowess, purchased for her on a whim. after another year or so lucette was able to pester her brothers much further afield, although always under the supervision of a groom. once her younger sister evelyn was born, their father milton joined his three eldest on their rides when he was home for the weekends, just to escape the noise. he was, by this point, extremely tired of babies. he had two sons to follow him, a darling daughter upon whom he doted, a baby he was hoping he'd become more fond of, and he really didn't feel like adding any more to this pack. it was clear, also, that his marriage to billie was falling apart. he spent barely any time at home, and had two long-term mistresses in sydney where he spent most of his time. in fact, unbeknownst to his family in darwin, he'd fathered a son on one of them who was a bare week older than lucette, rather handsome young chap named oliver whom milton was very fond of and often wished could be brought up to live with his other children - although, obviously, that was out of the question. milton led a double life - half of it in a sumptuous penthouse apartment in sydney with his glamorous mistress and illegitimate son, and the other half in a grand house in darwin with his four legitimate children, whom he adored just as much. he was, in spite of everything, a fairly decent father - he just never said no to anything his children asked for, which resulted in their frightful conceit and spoiledness. milton rather lost his temper when billie went on to produce a third daughter in 2007. he stayed long enough to name his new daughter camille berenice, and then jetted straight off to england in order to investigate a new business venture. arthur, by this time, was already attending the australian magical school, so milton took xavier and lucette with him instead. evelyn and camille he left behind with their mother and the phalanx of nannies the five children had been brought up by. lucette, for the first time, bonded very well with xavier, and to this day he remains her favourite sibling. she adores camille, still the baby of the family, but it is xavier who she will always run to when things get tough, whether he wants her or not. she also fell in love with england not long after their arrival - once she had got used to the cold and the rain, of course, although to this day she spends most of the winter shivering despite being indoors and bundled up in lots of clothes. milton rented an expensive london townhouse for the month-long visit - but shortly found himself seeking something bigger when he received a telephone call saying that his wife was very ill and would be best returned to her home country when she regained some of her strength. lucette and xavier had little interest in their mother - they had been brought up by nannies and she was just a vague, somewhat pathetic figure who told them that they couldn't do things and was therefore not a good person in their minds. they were, therefore, disgusted when they were relocated from the lovely townhouse close to all sorts of exciting things to an extremely dull old manor in the cotswolds, close to the village where billie's family lived. they were even less impressed when the rest of their family arrived without either of their horses - all of the family horses had been left with their aunt and uncle and three cousins in darwin apart from their father's beastly king, who only lucette could stay on the back of. shunned by the village children because of their accents and uppity attitudes, the devereux children had only each other to play with now. as a result, they grew closer, lucette and xavier even deigning to include young evelyn in their games, which showed desperation. they had no interest, either, in associating with their cousins - the two children of billie's sister annie, whom they considered far beneath them. lucette, therefore, was disgusted when xavier abandoned her to go back to school in australia. she was far more bothered by this than by her parents finally admitting that their marriage was over and her mother moving out to live with her mother, lucette's grandmother, in the village. it made little difference to their daily lives, since she'd been bedridden for some time now, and lucette was more attached to the groom who'd first taught her to ride and who'd agreed to come over to england with them than to her mother. her father, attempting to soften the blow, finally caved to his daughter's demands and bought her the pony she'd been eyeing up in a magazine who cost a fortune - and ended up being naughtier than even the now-crawling baby camille was. lucette, however, was thoroughly enchanted. renaming him darwin, she was out of the house most of the time from then onwards, either teaching young evelyn to ride in the paddock with help from their groom, ben, or out exploring the local countryside. lucette never recovered from that first shock of england in the springtime - the sheer beauty of the countryside and her amour for it precluded a love affair that would last her whole life. it was for this reason, on her tenth birthday, that she approached her father to discuss her attending hogwarts instead of her brothers' school in australia. her father was at first reluctant, but relatively quickly won over - his business venture had succeeded, he was becoming a very rich man, and he thought it was time that they put down some real roots in england. he wrote to the headmistress of hogwarts inquiring whether a place would be available for lucette the next year, and received an affirmative reply - the child being of dual nationality, she'd automatically been given a place in both schools, as had all her siblings. lucette was beside herself with joy, and boasted about it to everybody within earshot. her brothers, when they returned home for the holidays and heard the news, were condescending towards her, of course, but secretly quite impressed at her nerve. neither of them would have wanted to attend school in a country that rained about 300 days of the year and was full of all manner of uncivilised people. lucette ignored them, and instead took her father (mostly for his credit card) and her now six-year-old sister evelyn down to london to purchase an entirely new wardrobe for her first term at hogwarts. despite being thoroughly excited, however, lucette was inconsolable on september 1st that year, suddenly distraught at the fact that she was leaving her family and her home to spend time alone for the first time in her short life. she caused a complete scene, had a temper tantrum, and eventually it was only her father speaking sharply to her for probably the first time in her life that got her on the train and ready to go. she spent the rest of the trip sulking, feeling out-of-place with her australian accent (which, due to her not associating with anybody outside of her family, was as strong as ever), and generally feeling very vulnerable - something she was not used to and disliked intensely. her compartment was occupied also by several other new students, but after the tentative greeting from one of them was rudely rebuked, they ignored her and talked amongst themselves instead. lucette didn't care - none of them knew how to dress themselves, and besides they were all completely beneath her, of course. lining up on the platform in front of the great hall, lucette felt like she was going to cry. but then something her father had said to her when she was much smaller came to mind: "it doesn't matter how big the jump is, or how tight the time - what counts is your courage and your faith in yourself and your horse". lucette took a deep breath, puffed out her chest, and found her self-belief again. she was lucille adelaida ruth devereux, brought up in darwin and england, and she was the best girl on that platform. thus imbued with a vastly overinflated opinion of herself, she almost strolled up to the hat when it was her turn, and was sorted into slytherin with barely a pause. she settled in well, in slytherin, despite her unusual accent and haughty demeanour. nothing bothered her, insults or anything, and that earned the respect of her housemates and eventually she became friends with some of them. they admired her fashion sense and good manners even if they weren't so keen on her attitude to others and her spoilt demeanour - she regularly kicked up a fuss if she thought somebody else was being favoured in class, or she hadn't got the mark she deserved, or a teacher had the cheek to punish her when she hadn't had the time to do her homework in between socialising and writing to her family. lucette did passably in class despite often being behind on her homework. she was always around the top five students, but never quite made it to the top. she was bright enough, and worked hard to please her father, but she had little personal interest in academics and thus never threw herself wholeheartedly into them the way she could have. this was a common trait amongst the devereux children - both her brothers maintained a similar position at school in australia, being much more concerned with sport - and so milton was pleased enough when lucette wrote to inform him of her marks. lucette was delighted to go home every holiday, despite her love of hogwarts, because despite what she said she missed her family dreadfully. it was quite hard, for her, to go from seeing only her father and siblings and the people who worked in the house to suddenly having to live with a lot of people, many of whom she didn't get along with. for that reason, when she went home for her first christmas, she greeted her older brothers much more animatedly than usual, and for the first week back was positively sweet to everybody. she settled back in before long, however, and was back to bickering with them all. the rest of her first year at hogwarts passed unremarkably - she got good grades at the end of the year, and went home in a fantastic mood. that summer, the family returned to australia to spend the months with their cousins there. xavier and arthur spent most of their time with their oldest cousin, henry, who was a year younger than xavier and attending school with the pair of them. lucette was much shyer around the cousins, since she hadn't seen them in a good while and didn't have the advantage of going to school with any of them like xavier and arthur did. she eventually made friends with georgia, who was two years younger than her, and despite the age gap the two girls became fast friends thanks to their relatively similar personalities. it wouldn't be until several years later that lucette would really make friends with henry, but once she did they were even closer than she was with georgia. lucette was distraught at leaving her cousins to return to england, but soon forgot her misery in the excitement of returning to school and her friends. her second year passed similarly to her first - her marks in class stayed about the same, and she had a blast on the social side of things. indeed, little happened of interest between then and her fourth year, apart from her cousins both summers coming to stay in england with them, at which point lucette became manic, determined to show them absolutely everything that she loved about the country. fourth year, however, is where things started to change. lucette had always dressed herself unusually well, but suddenly boys popped up on her radar for the first time. naturally, she still acted like they were all far beneath her, but she was secretly desperate to find out what kissing and whatnot was really like. it took her until the summer term to find a boy worthy enough of her, and she utilised all the knowledge she had to get him to ask her to be his girlfriend. it worked, and before long she was finding out exactly how great this kissing lark was. she doesn't even remember the boy's name these days, just that he was handsome and came from a good family and treated her like a princess - so basically her perfect guy. that same year, evelyn went off to school. she had elected to go back to australia like her brothers, who were delighted. lucette didn't speak to her for some time, but before too long she came to the conclusion that at least this way she didn't have to deal with any competition, since she didn't think that anybody except her sister could give her that. however, the girls' relationship did suffer, and they started arguing far more than usual when they were home together. their brothers soon gave up on trying to keep the peace between the two girls and left them to it. lucette instead grew much closer to camille, whom she'd always doted upon. her youngest sister was now seven and easily the sweetest of the whole bunch. she was astonishingly unspoilt, especially compared to the rest of her siblings, and considering how much the whole family babied her. she adored all of her siblings equally, although it was her eldest brother arthur and her eldest sister lucette that she was the most fond of. during the summer after her third year, lucette had also persuaded her father to buy her a new horse. he was a young, monstrous black thing whom lucette adored and who seemed to return her affections. he was, however, absolutely ghastly to everybody else, and xavier could often be found joking to the grooms that the horse was completely besotted with his sister and would probably turn out to be some poor beleaguered prince transfigured into a horse in the end. lucette didn't find this especially funny, and demonstrated so by removing all of xavier's textbooks from his bedroom while he was out one day and hiding them in a hedge on the property so he was unable to do his holiday work. she spent the rest of the summer riding the horse - who she at length decided to name prince charming to stick two fingers up at her brother. during the following year, milton's company had gone through a period of great success, and for that reason he was busier than ever. he spent the first two weeks of the summer dashing about, but it soon proved evident that he had far too much work to do from home to have five children rushing about screaming at each other and getting underfoot and demanding his attention relentlessly. much to all of their disgust, therefore, he packed them all off to a horse camp, announcing that it would be "character building" and good for them to learn teamwork and various other things. arthur was so incensed by this - he'd recently graduated from school and thought that camp was the stupidest thing he'd ever heard of - walked out on day two and moved to london, getting an excellent job on his father's connections and setting himself up in a lovely apartment before too long at all. (without realising it, he had done exactly what his father had intended him to do - milton had sent him to camp with the ninety-nine percent certainty that his son, even more business-minded than himself, would get bored within the week and decide to do something with his excellent brains and his life rather than just bumming around the house, eventing on the weekends, and living off his father's money.) xavier also bunked off before long, and went to stay with his brother in london, where he managed to catch chlaymdia but otherwise had an absolutely marvellous time. lucette, by contrast, had an amazing time at camp. sure, the people were completely beneath her, but she took charming along with her and when he wasn't busy savaging anything in sight, they were busy showing off their skills. lucette obviously could only ride during the holidays, but she'd spent practically her entire childhood on a horse and also most of her time during the holidays when she wasn't shopping, and so she was an excellent rider. charming, too, had improved massively since he'd come to her the previous summer - lucette had been training him to event with the help of arthur and her favourite groom and old friend ben, who had continued to train him during the termtime. as a result, charming was becoming an excellent eventer. lucette outright refused to be involved in any of the other activities that the camp offered - please, like she was going to risk her hair in the river by getting into a canoe with a bunch of peasants - and as a result made absolutely no friends at all. instead, she spent most of her waking hours on her horse, the pair of them getting to know each other even better. the only person at that camp that lucette noticed that summer, aside from herself, was a slim blonde girl who kept catching her eye. she eventually realised that she knew the girl from hogwarts, although being lucette she had no clue what her name was - aside from her chronic self-absorption, she had a poor memory for names. not especially interested in speaking to her, lucette kept to herself and went home having done none of the mingling her father was hoping for, but a much better rider and a serious competition prospect for the future. she returned to hogwarts for her fifth year in a good mood, despite upcoming owls, and without realising it kept an eye out for the girl from horse camp. after a few inquiries, she discovered that her name was lavinia robards, and - more interestingly - she was the younger sister of florence robards, the girl who had, according to various rumours, either been expelled from hogwarts or left voluntarily, tried to kill herself, and had got pregnant. lucette, from that moment on, kept track of lavinia. it wasn't through pity or anything though - come on, this was lucette - but more through a twisted kind of fascination. she didn't know how many of the rumours were true, but she did know that lavinia wasn't exactly the best-behaved girl on the planet. what with her friends, exams, boys, and lavinia, the next couple of years passed in a blur for lucette. she spent the holidays with her horse and her family, often going to spend the weekend in london with her brother arthur, and even screwed up her courage to enter charming and herself in a show jumping competition. well, technically she didn't enter herself - arthur came down to the house for a week and saw lucette and charming going over some practice jumps. he was still riding when he had the time at weekends, but his job was keeping him too busy to compete properly. thus, he decided that he was going to get his sister into it if it was the last thing he did. so he put her down for a competition without asking, and told her later. with his encouragement, plus xavier's - who was thinking about going pro now he'd finished school - lucette finally decided to go for it, and proved her brother's confidence correct by taking first place. her horse was so well-trained, and she had such a good bond with him, that it almost seemed easy for her. she also grew very close to her eldest cousin henry that summer, as once again the family was visiting them in england. he became a confidante, and helped her with all her work, and when at the end of the summer he revealed that he would be moving to england to work with arthur now he'd finished school, lucette's ecstasy lasted days. the next year, despite the distractions of family, a boyfriend, her social life, fashion, shopping, lucette somehow managed to pull off decent enough results in her newts. her father was thrilled and offered her a job with arthur and henry in london, but lucette declined. she had no clue what her father and relatives did, only knew she found it indescribably dull, and thus had no intention of joining the family firm. instead she got herself a part-time job with the daily prophet, which allowed her enough time to carry on competing here and there around it, and to go and watch xavier in his competitions. he was fast becoming a big name on the eventing circuit, and was even tipped as an olympic team prospect - although nobody knew whether he'd choose to apply for the british or australian team. lucette told him to go for the british one, since she preferred their colours, but their father was pressing for him to return to australia and carry on there. xavier ended up getting so fed up with the pair of them that he packed his horses up and went to france for a while to compete there to get some peace and quiet. lucette had some other good news that summer - her youngest sister, camille, now eleven, had decided to go to hogwarts instead of australia like the rest of her siblings. it wasn't really surprising - the girl had grown up in england and didn't remember australia at all, and in fact had the most english accent of the lot (the only time you really got a hint of her roots was when she said the word "water", which her siblings still tease her about to this day.) lucette was delighted, and insisted on whisking her sister off to diagon alley to do all her school shopping - followed by all the muggle designer shops, of course, because there was no way she was allowing camille to go to school with her current clothes. in september, camille went off and was sorted into hufflepuff, where she settled right in and proved far more popular than lucette. she was the sweetest girl, always making time for everybody, and lucette was secretly proud that her baby sister was so loveable. life was going well for lucette. she had a steady job, and was having a blast competing too. she was also pleasantly surprised the following year when nobody but lavinia robards should turn up at the daily prophet, apparently as wild as ever. still fascinated by the girl, lucette decided to make friends with her. charming when she wanted to be, lucette found herself actually really liking lavinia as they got to know each other better, and before long she considered the other girl her best friend. when lavinia was fired, lucette was heartbroken but soldiered on. her job at the prophet was incredibly easy - just typing up letters and fetching coffee - and she didn't really need it, but like the rest of her family she had a low boredom threshold and welcomed the distraction. staying firm friends with lavinia as the other girl got herself a new job, lucette went from strength to strength. she got herself a steady boyfriend who she really liked, and revealed to him the astonishing truth that she was still a virgin. it was so unexpected that he fell off his chair at dinner, which made lucette laugh so much she knocked soup all over herself. she explained to him later that it was because she wanted her first time to be very special, and with somebody she trusted, and since she didn't look twice at any guy from anything other than the best backgrounds, it had taken her a very long time to find one she was willing to give her virginity too. she lost it to him a couple of months later, and was delighted to do so. their relationship continued for another year, and after that they parted amicably, both of them discovering that they wanted different things from life. around the same time, lavinia found herself pregnant. lucette was delighted - she absolutely adored babies - but despite her own excitement she realised how difficult the situation was, and did everything she could to be there for her friend. she knew how tough lavinia had everything, and she was determined to do as much as possible for her. lucette, over the last year or so, had realised exactly how enchanted her own life had been, and although she didn't feel even a little bit guilty about it, wanted to help out lavinia, who had not had it even nearly as easy. she was even more excited when she found out that lavinia was going to marry george, the baby's father, and was excited enough for eighty people as she bounced around, determined to make everything perfect. around the same time, lucette made the difficult decision to give up eventing. she still loved it, and did very well in her competitions, but she simply didn't want to devote her entire life to it like she needed to in order to continue doing well in competitions. aware that charming needed constant exercise and attention to be happy, knowing she wasn't giving it to him, lucette reluctantly gave him to her brother xavier, who was now a household name on the eventing circuit. this broke lucette's heart - she loved that horse more than almost anything else on the planet - and it wasn't until lavinia gave birth to her son several months later that lucette fully roused from her misery. she was enchanted with the baby, as lavinia seemed to be, and used any excuse to babysit or cuddle the child. shortly afterwards, she finally left the family home in the cotswolds and moved into her cousin henry's flat in london. she adored being back in london after so many years - she was much closer to her job now, plus of course all the shops and nightlife. she had a blast living with henry, too, although she despairs of his inability to return home after a night out without some girl who he proceeds to have very loud sex with, which drives lucette absolutely insane. despite this, she's still living with him to this day. she also has her job at the prophet going strong - she helps out with the fashion pages from time to time - and she gets on much better with her sister evelyn, who has finished school in australia and come back to england to join henry and arthur at their father's firm. the sisters are good friends, now, and the only time they bicker is when one of them steals something out of the other's wardrobe without asking. she's also still best friends with lavinia, who now has a second son upon whom lucette also dotes - she even likes lavinia's husband, although she thinks his family are right bastards for the way they've treated lav. |
ellie. eighteen and nine tenths. 2+years roleplaying. gmt+0. |
picture (c) MALIA! at caution 2.0
