Nicknames: Dina
Birthdate: April 30, 1865
Current Age: 25
Occupation: Apothecary Potioneer
Reputation: 9-10? She’s masquerading as a widow and claimed as the child of well-respected couple now in the Americas.
Residence: The Harper House, Hogsmeade
Hogwarts House: Ilvermorny, Wampus
Wand: 11” Pine wand with a wampus hair core, slightly bendy
Blood Status: Half-Blood
Social Class: Middle Class
Family:
Tobias Massasoit Hill, Son [1885-]
Weetamo “Beth,” Mother [1845-1882]
Nenemhki “Simon” Father [1843-1872]
“Adopted” Family
Martin Harper
Elizabeth Harper
Appearance:
A pixie of a woman, Odina is barely 5’4” but her height isn’t what draws the eyes. The birth of her son gave her hips and chest some definition, but she’s always been on the smaller side. Her skin is a soft tan that turns a deep gold in the sun. She has a burn scar on her left arm from a cauldron explosion. Her hair is a deep brown that lightens toward the tips from years in the sun. When down, her thick hair reaches her waist and has a bit of a wave to it. Full lips, a sharp nose, and sultry dark eyes give Dina an expressive, memorable face. When using a wand, Dina is right-handed.
History:
1869 – Playing near her mother while she gathered plants, Odina shows her first burst of magic by freezing a small puddle. She will continue to show bursts of weather-based magic as she grows.
1872 – On an errand into Salem, Simon comes to the aid of a couple being robbed. He is gravely injured in the resulting duel but manages to run off the robbers. The Harpers, grateful for their lives, take the man into their homes and call for a healer. His wife and young daughter are called for. Over the course of an excruciating week, Simon’s condition worsens, and he dies, leaving his wife and daughter with few options.
Hoping to repay the family of the man that saved them, the Harpers offer Beth and Odina a room in their home and take Beth as a second maid. Having no children of their own, the couple dote on young Odina. Dina misses her father and the freedom of the woods; no amount of dresses, dolls, or ridiculous European stories can fix that.
1876 – Odina never forgives her mother for leaving the village and blames the Harpers for the death of her father. When her time comes to attend Ilvermorny, Odina can’t leave fast enough. In the fabled Sorting, three creatures claimed her. With little difficulty, Odina chooses the roaring Wampus.
Odina is quick study but lacks patience for following established procedures. She excels at potions and herbology and weaves what she learned from her mother into her work, often surprising her professors. While she has bonded with her wand, she has an affinity for wandless magic and prefers to work wandless.
1877 - Odina loathes going home for the summer. Her mother had completely forsaken her tribal identity, happy to earn and live as a servant to the Harpers. Odina begins running away from home. She is devastated to find she has no place in her village, not as the daughter of the woman who abandoned her tribe and the man that died saving colonizers.
1880 – By her fifth year, Odina wins two potions competitions and an alchemy competition. She’s good, but she’s still angry. What she doesn’t burn off through quodpot and hours over a cauldron, she burns up in forbidden dalliances with an attractive Cherokee boy a year above her. Their language is different, but shares similarities. He doesn’t fault her for her parents’ mistakes or for her longings. He gives her hope, when she’s not busy burning with anger.
1882- With graduation looming and little plans for the future, Dina is distraught to learn that her mother is ill, but Beth writes and urges her daughter to remain for her last few weeks of classes. What makes her listen is only the effort it would take to escape back to Salem.
Odina arrives back to the Harper’s home to find a household in morning. Her mother had been more than ill. The woman had been hours from death and Odina hadn’t known, hadn’t been told. It had been her mother’s wish, The Harpers say, that she wanted Odina to finish her schooling and live a happy, full life. Fuck happy. In a blind rage, she nearly burns down the house, her magic completely out of control. The houseboy has to knock her out to stop the flames.
Odina lingers for the funeral, sees her mother laid to rest next to her father, furious to see their birthnames absent from the gravestones, but remembering nothing about the funeral rituals of either of her parent tribes. She lingers and then she runs.
1883 – She’d learned many things as she ran wild. She honed her potions work, learned a fair few hexes, and learned to lock pain behind a smile to get what she needed and to avoid what she feared. It was a dark, but enlightening year. As summer gave way to autumn, she came across a traveling magical circus. While there was no need for a new-minted professional liar, there was room for a healer. While far from trained, Odina knew her potions and basic healing. She could do that; she could be useful.
She didn’t fit well with most of the odd gathering, found it difficult to buy into any of their oddities or strange comradery. There is one, though, that seems to understand. She calls him the Bear Man, when she makes a point to forget his name. He’s been with the circus for years, he says, and he cares for the creatures with a tenderness that surprises her. He is many things, wild and strange, but for some strange reason, she trusts him. Perhaps it’s his care for the creatures, but, if she’s honest, it’s that anger just below the surface. She keeps an eye on him, and she watches.
1884 – The Circus is disbanding. The news is harder on everyone else, even though she does feel some sadness at the thought of losing a few of the freaks she’s grown used to. She’s learned so much from the old woman that was their healer and potioneer before she went blind and needed Odina’s young eyes and Bear, well she rather liked him. His name was Beau, but she preferred Bear. She would miss him, when this all fell apart.
The last week together is a bit of a blur. There is drinking. Lots of drinking. Things are poured out in memory of things and places that mean nothing to her, but the drinking helps make her amiable. Hell, she’s friendly when she’s drinking. She enjoys the revelry, but it’s the private celebration with her Bear that is worth remembering. Over the course of a very long night secrets are shared and, for better or worse, a bed. Multiple times. It’s the sweetest goodbye she could imagine, but it is truly a goodbye.
She has no idea where she means to go, but her wandering becomes…complicated quickly. What is slight exhaustion becomes illness and illness becomes a horrible discovery. Apparently, her fond farewell came with a souvenir.
She finds herself back in Salem facing people she never wanted to see again. What else was there to do, now that she found herself unmarried and pregnant? Of course, that’s not what she tells the Harpers, no, she spins a sweet tale of heartbreak and an elopement that ends in tragedy. She ran off with a love from school and married, they were happy, and he died, oh woe. Now she’s pregnant and lost, tears and begging, boohoo. The Harpers were nothing if not fools for a lost cause.
1885 – They helped her, bless the fools. Claiming their perennial affection for her, the love they bore both her parents, and their commitment to seeing her and her child cared for, they help her leave. As much as she loathed them, she was grateful for their gold and for their escape to Europe. And, as much as she does loathe them, she is grateful for Elizabeth Harper’s presence at her side when she feels the first pains. There is nothing in the world worth this pain.
There is one thing worth the pain and as soon as she held him in her arms, nothing else mattered. He nearly kills her over two days of labor, but she would give her life over and over again to see those bright eyes blink up at her. He was perfect, absolutely perfect. She names him Tobias, after his father, but that’s her secret. She also names him Massasoit, a name of her people, their people. She knew the name from what legends she been taught. Ironically, she named him from the first of her people that trusted the White Man; she desperately hoped he would have a better end.
1887 – As much as they love their “grandson,” the Harpers are ready to return to the Americas and Odina has zero plans on joining them. She has nothing left there and, after what she saw in her journeys, neither does anyone of any tribe. She will make a new life in the Old World, for her and her son.
1890 – After time learning more of the healer’s and potioneer’s craft on the Continent, Odina takes up the Harper residence in Hogsmeade, with their blessing. They hope that, with their money and her natural “charm,” she will remarry and enjoy the life of a proper woman. The Harpers are putting enough into her upkeep and into an estate in Toby’s name that she should at least pretend to listen now. She takes their home in Hogsmeade, accepts all the invitations they make in her name, smiles and nods and plays La Belle Sauvage, but her heart is in nothing but raising her son and increasing her skills as a potioneer.
Here she is, a stranger in a foreign land, pretending she belongs. She will look for a husband; she wants the comfort and stability for her son, but she has no real hope of happiness. Happiness is for other people, but she knows how to survive.
Personality: Sarcastic – Fiery – Angry – Calculating – Intelligent – Impulsive – Charismatic – Adaptable – Loner – Skeptical
Age: 31
Contact: The Old Ways
Other Characters: Hermia, Angelica, Titania, Anne, Sebastian, Mikail
