Full Name: Verity Travers.
Nicknames: Vera to her family. Travers to her employers.
Birthdate: 21st December, 1862.
Current Age: 26.
Occupation: Lady’s maid to Evelyn Abercrombie.
Reputation: Eight. She is not well-liked below stairs and occasionally behaves oddly. She is also quite young for a lady’s maid which brings her competence into question.
Residence: Southampton. London during the season.
Hogwarts House: Unknown.
Wand: Rosewood. 11 ½ inches. Sturdy. Inherited from her father so when she stands in for Evelyn she is no worse off for having somebody else’s wand.
Blood Status: Pureblood.
Social Class: Working.
Family:
Peter Travers | Father | 1838-1884
Margaret Travers | Mother | 1841-1867
Jane Travers | Sister | 1859-
Philip Travers | Brother | 1860-
John Travers | Brother | 1863-1884
Audrey Travers | Sister | 1865-
Rosemary Travers | Sister | 1867-
Appearance: Standing at 5’3 Verity is more buxom than is fashionable, but fortunately whenever she has the opportunity to wear gowns that are more a la mode she isn’t wearing her own body. With grey eyes and tumbling ebony curls she is otherwise quite pretty and might easily find a husband if she didn’t find the idea quite disagreeable. She writes with her right hand and uses the same for wandwork. She isn’t especially skilled at either.
History:
1861: On the shortest day of the year Verity is born to pureblood shopkeepers in Norfolk, the second daughter and third child overall. Inevitably she becomes a bit of an afterthought in her family.
1863: John is born. He is immediately a nuisance and Verity hates him.
1865-67: Verity gains two more sisters in quick succession and soon after loses her mother. Even if she hadn’t she still probably wouldn’t like her sisters especially.
1868: A decidedly average bloomer Verity displays magic for the first time by rattling pots and pans when she felt she was being ignored. It is about as impactful as it sounds.
1870: Jane receives her Hogwarts letter but the Travers parents do not opt to send her, seeing little use in educating the girls when they might save up and send their sons instead. The following year Philip receives his letter and attends school. Jane, largely because she shares Verity’s outrage and deep loathing for their parents and brother as a result of this act, becomes Verity’s favourite sibling and is the only one she bothers to keep in touch with as they make their way in the world.
1874: Verity’s letter arrives but it isn’t worth the parchment it was written on. Instead she helps her mother with her younger siblings when Jane finds herself in the family way too and leaves the Travers home to get married. Suffice to say, it is a depressing wedding. The following year John receives his letter and is sent to school.
1876: To avoid her going down the same route as her sister Verity’s father finds her a position at a milliners, which she hates, but she quickly moves from there to a proper dress shop where she begins to hone the skills that will eventually be her way out of her father’s house.
1877: Like a lot of the wizarding community the Travers’ move to Hogsmeade when magic is revealed and quickly settle in the more respectable end of the Slums. Eventually they will be residents of Pennyworth. Verity finds work as a junior maid in Wellingtonshire.
1883: Discontent with life as a lowly maid Verity manages to manoeuvre herself into the employ of the newly married Evelyn Abercrombie, using her comparable age and skill with a needle to make herself more desirable than older, more experienced maids.
1884: Mrs Abercrombie gives birth to her first child. Naturally Verity is present and rather proud of her mistress. Her father and John perish in the plague, deaths Verity is, at best, passably interested in.
1885: Mrs Abercrombie has another child, this one a daughter. Somewhere in Hogsmeade one of her sisters is delivered of a boy but Verity remains nonplussed.
1887: Evelyn miscarries and then becomes the head of her mother's school: Verity worries incessantly for her nerves.
1888: Another girl!
Personality: Dedicated to Evelyn, mostly indifferent to others. Soft purist. Witty.
Other:
❧ On occasion, when it all become a bit much for Evelyn, Verity takes polyjuice potion to take her place in society. Nobody else is aware of the arrangement.
❧ Though she tries her hardest she doesn’t have a skill with languages which means she is often caught out whenever French, Italian, German or the dozen other languages her mistress seems to know come up in company.
❧ Verity is becoming passable at the piano. She can convince others she knows what she’s doing and then distract people by other means before they learn she doesn’t.
❧ Excellent mimic.
Age: 29.
MJ made magic out of my ramblings