Julia Laurence
| Julia Sybil Barlowe | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Gender | Female |
| Nicknames | Jules |
| Born | 12 July 1886 |
| Died | |
| Family | The Laurence Family |
| Bloodtype | Pureblood |
| Social Class | Nobility |
| Hogwarts House | Ombrelune (Beauxbatons) |
| Graduation Year | 1904 |
| Occupation | Ravenclaw HoH, Dark Arts Professor, Librarian |
| Residence | Arundel Castle, West Sussex, England |
| Wand | Ash Wood, White River Monster Spine Core, 12 3/4 Inches, Rigid |
| Patronus | Crow |
| Parents | William Laurence IV and Vera St. Allswell |
| Siblings | Edward Laurence, James Laurence |
| Significant Other | Maddox Barlowe |
| Children | Benji Laurence, Kathryn Barlowe, Jude Barlowe, Morgan Barlowe, Evander Barlowe |
| Friends | |
| Status | Alive |
Overview
The first thing to understand about Julia, is her innate sense of duty and obligation to the people she’s loyal to. She will consistently put the people she loves ahead of herself, every time, without question. One would think this would make her selfless. She is anything but. In many ways, Julia is incredibly selfish, but this selfishness is always rooted in the betterment of her family, status and power. She is not afraid to take what she believes to be rightfully hers, and anyone who gets in her way will be met with her colder side.
Inwardly, Julia is an elitist, though it’s very rare to see her portray this outside of the confines of her family’s home. She is a pureblooded noblewoman, and she’s very aware of the status that provides her.
Outwardly, to everyone who meets her, Julia is soft-spoken, unassuming, a well-brought up noblewoman with impeccable manners and propriety. But behind closed doors, she is absolutely, undeniably cutthroat when it comes to her or her family’s ambitions. She is the type to smile in someone’s face, soothe them, comfort them, all while lighting the match to their pyre. Her loyalty is hard to obtain and harder to keep, but when the woman loves, she loves with an intensity that is unshakeable. Her love of course, being reserved for her family and a few close friends.
On a smaller scale, Julia can be kind, surprisingly caring and has a soft spot for children.
Julia has a natural charisma and wit about her that draws people in quickly and easily. She has mastered the subtle art of charming would-be allies and enemies alike with soft words and a sweet, playful demeanor. This ability has been an invaluable tool for her father and brothers in their political and social ambitions. She is incredibly intelligent and combined with her charisma, she is often able to stay two steps ahead of her opponents (whether they realize they are opponents or not).
Her unyielding and often blind devotion to her family is a weakness she has not yet been able to overcome. Raised in an incredibly patriarchal family, she has been groomed to understand her place as a woman in comparison to that of her brothers. She allows them and her father to dictate her almost every move, and she is essentially at their beck-and-call, despite the appearance that she is an independent woman with a career. She will do almost anything they ask of her, to her own detriment. She is also known to take unnecessary risks on their behalf, and she will drop everything she is doing if they summon her.
Physical Description
Julia is on the shorter side, around 5’4, often placing her below the height of her older students. You’ll often find her in heels or boots to make up for this. She is slim, with a nice figure. Although she has the money to dress in higher-end fashions, she is rather down-to-earth and prefers casual jeans and sweaters or blouses than anything else. Her medium-length brown hair is often worn down, or pinned back out of her face. Julia’s light brown eyes are the highlight of her features and are often the first thing anyone notices about her. She is usually seen wearing a small smile that reaches her eyes, but if it’s a genuinely happy smile, her dimples will reveal themselves.
History
Blood is everything. It is the lifeforce within all living, breathing things. Carrying nutrients, platelets and oxygen throughout our bodies, blood is what serves us, feeds us, defines us. It is what separates sentient from non, and what defines worth over none.
Lady Julia Sybil Laurence was born in a bath of the blood that would define her very existence for the rest of her life. As her mother was swept away into Death’s gentle arms, Julia took her first breaths into the world that would become her oyster.
As the third-born child and only daughter of William Laurence, one of the most powerful dukes in England, it could be assumed that Julia’s life would be laid out in front of her from the moment of conception. However, Lord Laurence was not a shallow or short-sighted man. She would not be sent to some aristo finishing school, or married off to another noble family at the first chance. His daughter, his Julia, was no lady-in-waiting. She would be raised the same as her brothers; educated, calculated, ambitious. Another portrait of pride and significance in the history of the British aristocracy.
As one of the few Pureblood noble families in Britain, the Laurences took their lineage and status extremely seriously. Since the time of the Norman invasion in 1066, every chess move, every intrigue, every whisper in every hallway was calculated carefully, methodically, patiently. Aligning themselves with muggle nobles and royalty had often felt beneath them, but instinctively, they knew:
Everyone had something to offer. Who were they to not capitalize upon it?
It hadn’t always worked out of course. Many of their lineage were lost to tyrants, petty civil war, and jealous rivals over the centuries. But the core of them remained, steadfast in their quest for power and domination in the land.
It was this innate sense of duty and ambition that fueled the blood within Julia Laurence from the time she was a girl. The castle where she grew up seemed tiny to her, compared to the enormous world that awaited her outside. Within the hundreds of books her tutors provided her over the years, Julia found her calling; a desperate need to absorb knowledge. Knowledge about different cultures, the origin of magic, different wizarding families throughout the world, magical history, and the dark arts.
As tradition required, following her private tutoring, Julia was sent to Beauxbatons instead of Hogwarts for her magical education. There, she was well-liked but also well-known to have a certain distaste for those whose ambitions, behavior or lineage left much to be desired. A tone that could be perceived as disrespectful or uncouth would be met with a flash of brown eyes and a sharp reminder of who they were talking to. She flourished in school, receiving nearly perfect marks in her subjects and could often be found re-arranging books in the library during her spare time. She made good friends with the elderly librarian there, who taught her how to properly research, cite and dictate her findings. She wrote several editorials for the school newsletter and volunteered on the rare occasion in the hospital wing. She found, of course, that healing just wasn’t her forte.
After completing Beauxbatons, she followed her elder brothers to the University of Edinburgh, studying Magical History and Archaeology in addition to a few extra classes in Botany and Chemistry on the side. Learning enthralled the girl. The more she absorbed, the more powerful she felt, and the more she relished every book she could get her hands on. Her brothers found her rather amusing, as neither of them seemed to have the same vigor for education and focused more on the social aspects of their university lives. Valuable, Julia concurred, but nowhere near as exciting.
Nothing was more exciting to the woman than something that wasn’t expected of her. And at first glance, or second, no one would take her for a lover of the darker arts. While her father, brothers and extended family cared little about the difference between use of light or dark magic (as it was all the same to them), Julia found herself drawn to the abyss, drinking in page after page of spells, incantations, potions and hexes. She had never used them of course, that anyone knew of. But they were nice to have in her pocket.
Marriage and men had never been on her radar, much less a priority. Marriage was for status, cementing alliances and providing heirs. Julia already had the first two, and her brothers would provide the last.
An unmarried, educated, pureblooded aristo woman was quite the prize in noble Britain, but the only game Julia would humor, was where Queen takes King.
