In-Character
Full Name: Teresa Valencia Ruiz Delgado Nicknames: She almost exclusively is called “Valencia” or “Val” by those familiar enough to use her first name. Otherwise, she intends to introduce herself as “Mrs. Valencia Delgado”.
Birthdate: July 28, 1868
Current Age: 26 (almost in 1 week)
Gender: Female
Occupation: “Widow”
Reputation: 10, no known scandals yet
Residence: London
Hogwarts House: Attended Beauxbatons
Wand: Aspen wood with a phoenix feather core, 12 ¾ and unbending flexibility
Blood Status: Pureblood
Social Class: Middle Class
Family:
Mother, alive
One older brother, three younger sisters
Appearance:
With dark brown curls reaching to the small of her back and even darker eyes, Valencia cuts an imposing figure amidst the field of fairer featured debutantes. Her gaze is always observant, her expression only sometimes betrays her innermost thoughts. She holds herself with the utmost confidence and can sometimes come off as though she believes herself to be superior.History:
She’s the shortest of her sisters, standing only at 5’ 1”, with proportional curves. Her recently acquired English dresses are more brightly colored than perhaps traditional, but she refused to relinquish her heritage altogether. There’s always at least a hint of, though is often more than a hint, of red somewhere throughout her dress. Valencia is naturally ambidextrous but was heavily schooled into exclusively using her right hand.
Personality:burning all the bridges that I crossThe heatwave bearing down upon their small village near Granada in 1868 has no break in it, no relief from the air so hot it all but crackles with electricity. It’s on the hottest day of that heatwave that Valencia finally makes her appearance, screaming and wailing from that moment on. No one, not even her exhausted and often desperate mother, can keep Valencia calm for long.
This same turbulent energy follows Valencia for the entirety of her childhood. She is quick to argue and rarely cares what the original topic was so long as she “wins”. It takes years for her governess to settle long enough to see the joy in books and learning, but once that battle is won Valencia’s passions quickly transfer to absorbing whatever information she can get her hands on.
By the time she leaves for school in 1879, Valencia has read through the majority of her father’s small library. However, her passion for learning doesn’t transfer as smoothly as one might’ve wished, for while she enjoys certain subjects she only enjoys doing the work for them on her own time. Valencia detests the required structure of school and almost fails several classes due to her refusal to complete assignments in a timely manner.
She graduates in 1886, a day that felt as though it would never arrive, and immediately is put into the role of a debutante. It doesn’t take her long to fall in love with a man entirely too young to marry. He promises her the world if she’ll only wait a year - two - no three at the very latest, and Valencia, rather foolishly, believes him. She wastes her best years waiting for him to follow through on his promises. She wastes too many nights dreaming of what their future will be.
Years slip by like this, and by the end of her third season Valencia is tired and infuriated by the wait. She sneaks out one night to confront him, her temper flaring and blood hot, only to discover he never had any intentions of being a true husband to her at all. No. He was only planning to use her to hide his other interests. In a fit of fury, she hexes them both, causing slugs to appear from every orfice, and returns home. It’s then that she vows never to be made the fool again, never will she wait for the love that she feels she deserves.
temptation sweet and dangerousThe secret admirer’s letters begin in June of 1889, and after three years of promises to wed and two months of licking her wounds, Valencia succumbs to the flattery and flirtatious words easily. She’s not entirely enthused by the thought of a man lacking in courage, but the poems he quotes are so pretty that she manages to distract herself from the would be skepticism to write back. They correspond for weeks before they finally arrange to meet at a ball hosted by a supposed mutual friend, Valencia was to know it was him when he asked if she enjoyed dancing. She thinks the question is odd and too generic, but he insists it’ll be obvious that it’s him and she’s too eager to meet him to continue arguing the subject. She tells him that it’s this ball or never, she refuses to waste more of her life waiting on a man.
Only, she doesn’t have to wait long at all, for Don Juan Byron Dempsey makes himself known within a matter of days. She’s noticed him at various events throughout the season but hadn’t ever paid the foreigner much mind. Their introduction is briefly awkward, seeing as neither speaks the other’s language, but she just as soon dedicates herself to learning English. He’s charming and handsome, even if his poems aren’t as elegant as the ones she had neatly folded in the bottom of her trunks. She convinces herself that differences between him and the character of her letters are born of the language barrier and their separate cultures. And, by the time she ought to have questioned the differences more seriously, she’s blinded by her love for him.
They’re wed by the end of November and move into a small cottage immediately after. It bothers Valencia that none of his family had come for the wedding, that she’s never met them or even had an exchange of letters with his mother. They argue about it once, she nearly holds true to her threats as well, but he smiles so prettily and all is forgotten as soon as he embraces her.
Their marriage exists like this for a few months, happy and peaceful, if not violently passionate at times, and she’s readying to suggest they consider looking for a larger home to grow their family into, when the knock arrives at the door on Valentine’s Day. Valencia opens the door like a fool as the most beautiful woman she’s ever seen waltzes in and lays waste to everything.
Valencia is too distraught to hear the excuses of how he thought her dead, or whatever else he said. Her husband — not truly her husband, not in the eyes of the Catholic Church — has a wife and daughter; her husband has an entire life he'd never thought to share with her. She curses and screams and throws all of his belongings out of her cottage before slamming the door on him as well. Byron was nothing but a lying, cheating bigamist and Valencia will never forgive him for it.
someone's always left in the coldShe spends the next six weeks drunk and alone in the cottage that was theirs but was now hers. Her emotions shift violently on nothing more than a whim. One minute, she misses him and would do anything to have him back, the next she knows that if he was to appear on her doorstep she’d carve him with a paring knife. One minute, she detests his wife with such ferocity that she feels like she could claw the bitch’s eyes out, the next she’s so eternally grateful for the reveal and to be free of the lying piece of trash.
By the end of the six weeks, she emerges from the cottage, her head bowed low in shame but mind startlingly sober, and returns to her parents home. From there, they begin to spin the lie of Byron’s death. A terrible fever, gone before they could even summon a doctor. Her extended family grieves with her and slowly, ever so slowly, Valencia reintergrates herself back into the life she lived before Byron.
Years pass, and eventually her parents arrive to the conclusion that she ought to pick up the respectable work of a governess. Her affinity for languages is widely known throughout their community and, frankly, she needs a purpose once more. She’s hired by an old family friend despite her protests of not wishing to work, and just as soon discovers that she hates having a career almost as much as she hates Byron. But, her parents refuse to have her back if she quits and without any savings or anywhere else to go she’s trapped.
That is, at least, until the day her brother unexpectedly arrives in her room with an English newspaper clutched tightly in hand.
Ozymandias Dempsey is to be the new Minister of Magic. Typically, such news wouldn’t even be mentioned to Valencia with how little she cared for politics. Except, Dempsey. Byron. She hadn’t ever met his family, but the resemblance is uncanny, the bizarre names too similar in origin. Byron’s family had always been wealthy, of course, but this - this! Valencia can scarcely believe her luck.
It takes them time to save enough to finance the trip to London, months longer than she and her brother initially planned. But, now that they’ve arrived, Valencia is determined to have her due and take down any who stand in her way.
Hot headed. Dramatic. Loyal. Can be impulsive when her heart’s involved. Opportunistic. Jealous. Vengeful.Other:
- Fluent in: Spanish (first language), English, French, Greek, Italian, Portuguese
- Can Read/Write but not speak: (some) Ancient Greek, Latin
- Currently Learning: Arabic
Out-of-Character
Name: Emma
![[Image: HqS2LdO.png]](https://i.imgur.com/HqS2LdO.png)