Full Name: Valerie Phoebe Fabré
Blood Status: Half-blood
Species: Human
Age: 13 years old
Date of Birth: November 27th, 2005
Place of Birth: Beaune, Burgundy, France
Wand: Cherry Wood, Phoenix Feather, 9⅓ inches, stiff
[Patronus: TBD]

Appearance:
Valerie's appearance largely comes from her parental grandfather, Michel Fabré (born Mirza Shafiq), whose family originated from Northern Africa. Her skin has a deep copper tone and her mouth is wider than what is common. She has the straight, black hair of her mother however and as a result is sometimes mistaken for being of Indian descent. Her height and weight are average for her age while her eyes are a piercing, light grey color that according to her grandpa was also usual among his family.

History:
Valerie grew up in Beaune, France, a town in the region of Burgundy known for it's exclusive wine production. Her grandparents, Cécile and César Renaud, own a number of vineyards and manufacture and sell their own Pinot Noir. Her mother was raised on the estate from eleven onwards and is now solely handling the sales of their priced wines, both in Beaune and the rest of France. Therefore Valerie was outside a lot from a young age, playing and making friends with the children of the other winegrowers.

Her father works for the French Ministry of Magic in Muggle Relations and held varying positions in the French muggle government over the years. Sometimes he wasn't home during the week for months in a row, but then would get leave to spend a few weeks with his family. So while he wasn't always there, Valerie still spent time with him whenever possible. He would also take his kids - Valerie and her seven years younger brother Vincent - on trips to visit his hometown of Veules-les-Roses, a small French commune at The Channel.

Her father had grown up there with his twin sister Aurore, and his parents still live there. Cécile is a muggle that is the main person responsible for tourism in town, while Valerie's grandfather Michel is the local baker. Valerie has many good memories of the little town by the sea, as they would be allowed to play at the beach, eat all the pastries they wanted and the adults took them so see various landmarks in the region.

She knew that magic exists from a very young age. Her magic manifested early, mostly when she was angry or throwing a tantrum. Still, there wasn't much actual magic in her life. Her mother is from a British pure-blood family but had been born a Squib and taken in by Valerie's "grandma", a witch who had married a muggle and doesn't practice much magic as it doesn't have any use in the growing of wine. The same applies to her father's father Michel, who stems from a British wizarding family but gave up magic almost completely and chose to live as a muggle with his wife. The only person who performed magic regularly around Valerie is her aunt Aurore. She works as a restorer for medieval muggle artifacts however, and is an expert on magical castles in Europe - which means that she is never long in one place, always busy with her next project.

Valerie went to the same muggle school as all the other children in town, and if it hadn't been for her strong magical outbursts she would have continued her education in Beauxbatons. While she doesn't mind going to Hogwarts she misses her brother Vincent, who is only five and hasn't shown any signs of magic yet. Valerie isn't sure if that is a good or a bad sign.

Hogwarts so far:
WIP

Family

Antoine Fabré | father | half-blood

Reducio

Antoine was born 1982 the same day as his twins sister Aurore. Until he was ten he thought that he was a muggle, as their father had all but given up magic once he had settled down with their mother. He grew up thinking he was the normal son of a baker and a tourism expert, the only notable thing about them being the darker skin color him and Aurore had inherited from their parents. His magical heritage however came to light when he and his sister played at the beach and a sudden rockslide rolled down the cliff they were standing under. Antoine grabbed Aurore and suddenly they were standing twenty meters down the beach, far away from the rocks. In her panic however, his sister had turned both their hair bright scarlet. Their father had a lot of explaining to do that day.
He went to Beauxbatons although he could have gone to Hogwarts, as his father didn't want anything to do with the British wizards anymore. Antoine loved school, but in his heart he remained more a muggle than a wizard, and after he had graduated went to become a Muggle Relations person for the French Ministry for Magic. He met his wife Philipa on an assignment to Beaune, where a witch had tinkered with a cellar full of wine and blown up a whole building in the historic part of town in the process.
At first he thought she was a normal muggle, but the looks she gave him when she thought he wasn't looking told another story. He didn't ask, not until he'd come by a dozen times and she'd invited him to stay. Then only thing he felt when she told him her story was anger however, anger at those pure-bloods that had treated her so poorly - not at her, never at her, and he did everything to assure her that he wouldn't leave her about a thing as trivial as magic.
They married in 2004, and nine months after their honeymoon their daughter Valerie was born.

Valerie adores her father. She isn't as close to him as to her mother since he had to be away from the family for weeks or months at the time, but they still have a strong bond. Antoine always makes time for his daughter when she needs it and will listen to her ramble about anything that interests her. She also got her tendency to ask tons of questions from him.

Philipa Parkinson-Fabré | mother | Squib

Reducio

Philipa was born in 1982 as the second of three children into a side-branch of the Parkinson family. When she should have received her Hogwarts letter in 1993 but didn't it became clear that she was a Squib. Casting out family members for being non-magical at that time was viewed critical by many however, so Philipa was rushed outside the country hush-hush and delivered to Phoebe Renaud, the sister of her grandfather who had been banished from the Parkinsons for marrying a French muggle. From that day on she lived with them, and later took on the name Parkinson-Renaud, keeping her pure-blood name to spite her former family, as they had no legal basis to take it from her.
Muggle life was hard for her for a long time, as she had grown up without ever meeting a muggle till the day she was brought to the Renauds. She cried a lot and to this day holds a grudge against her parents and older sister, who abandoned her when she needed them most. The only thing that gave her strength was that Philipa had done it too, become a muggle essentially, and showed endless patience with her. It was César however who wore her attitude down over the years, because no matter how many times she sneered at him for being a muggle, he would still have her back.
She barely finished school, as pure-blood education had ill-prepared her for being a muggle. Without knowing what else to do she started to help in the family business, and over the years discovered that she had a knack for negotiating prices and seeing when an offer was worth it's weight - it was at an auction when the ground shock, and an old house in town blew up that she first met Antoine Fabré.
Philipa knew magic when she saw it, and she knew as well as Phoebe that he man the "insurance" had sent was a wizard. Still, he had an impish smile and humored her when she gave him the tour of the vineyards. He came back by chance a month later, and didn't complain when she gave him the tour again, and again, and again... Antoine Fabré made her happy, and when she asked him to stay he gladly accepted.
When they married she took his name, the name of his muggle mother, and put it behind the pure-blood name of her former family. They would never know of course, but that couldn't diminish her satisfaction whenever she signed her name. Their honeymoon was in the French Caribbeans, an eleven hour flight away from home to an island without any magic. Valerie was born nine months later.

Where Valerie adores her father, she idolizes her mother. She wants to be like Philipa when she's grown up: clever, unflappable and with lots of cheek. Of course she knows that her mother's life wasn't easy, but that's why she respects her so much. Philipa won't tolerate her tantrums and if she tells her no Valerie knows better than to disobey.

Vincent Aurelian Fabré | brother | unknown

Reducio

Vincent was born on August 11th, 2012 and is almost seven years younger than Valerie. Like her he has much of his looks form his paternal grandfather, but unlike her he has not shown any signs of magic yet. Since he is only five however, there is no telling whether he is a Squib or not.

Vincent is Valerie's baby brother. He is shy where she is outspoken and a lot more quiet in general than his sister. She has developed a protective streak when Vincent is concerned and will make sure that he is well and save, no matter what.

Aurore Fabré | aunt | half-blood

Reducio

Aurore is the fraternal twin sister of Antoine. They grew up together as muggles, discovered their magic together when they were 10 and went to Beauxbatons together. Even in school however Aurore was known as the more serious of the twins while her brother was the funny one. Her two passions were history and architecture and in the end she made both her job: she is an expert on the history of magical castles in Europe and helps studying and renovating castles, while also working as a restorer for medieval muggle artifacts. Her work prevents her from settling down in one place for long, but it also allows her to take her family to extravagant trips around the continent from time to time.

As the only person regularly practicing magic in the family, Aurore became Valerie's role model on how she thinks a witch should be. That her aunt took her on trips to show her old magic at work only made it worse. Valerie is always excited when Aurore is due for a visit and pesters her with questions about magic.

Phoebe Renaud (née Parkinson) | "grandmother" | pure-blood

Reducio

Phoebe Parkinson was born in 1938 and raised as a proper pure-blood witch. She received her Hogwarts letter when she was eleven, was sorted into Ravenclaw - which was a bit surprising but not completely out of the ordinary for her family - and spent the first eighteen years of her life as a model for how a young pure-blood lady should behave. Her grades were always excellent and she obeyed her parents' every wish. Maybe she'd been a little bored by life, a little disappointed at how easy school was, a little annoyed by how even when he was an adult her parents and grandparents treated her like a child. Still, Phoebe had had a proper education and a clear idea of what was expected of her in life.
She'd wanted more, however. Had wanted to see the world, to learn knew things, to grow into her own person. Her parents hadn't been happy, but her older brother had rallied behind her and so Phoebe went to see if not the world than at least the rest of Europe. She spent a few years in Italy, a bit of time in Austria and then went on to France. Money was not a problem in her family and she spent it freely, usually on art and fine dining.
It was the wine, the famous Pinot Noir, that brought her into Burgundy, to visit Beaune. Being on her own in the world had taught her much, one of the first things being that a while a muggle was a muggle and a witch a witch, that didn't necessarily mean that one was inferior to the other. She'd taken care to omit that detail in her letters or spare visits home, but the knowledge was still there.
In Beuane however, on the annual wine market she met a muggle who called her stupid for she could not be bothered to haggle.
Wealth meant nothing to her as she had it abundance, but everything to him as his mother had died and he had to feed a father who was suffering from dementia. Phoebe didn't do pity, but was surprised that the muggle, César Renaud, did not want it anyway. He laughed as she flaunted her money, laughed when he pointed her to where to best spend it, and laughed when she dragged him back to her rented house and into her bed.
He was just a muggle, a muggle struggling with money even, struggling to earn his living, to keep his family home and stay in business, but there was something about him. Being with César made her feel alive, appreciate every day in a way she hadn't known before. With him was the first time she worked with her hands, cut vines and scratched her arms bloody because she was so clumsy. She counted his numbers, worked his books over and told him what to invest in. She sung old wizarding songs to his sick father and watched him make food for them in the kitchen. Being with César Renaud, the wine growing muggle, made Phoebe happy.
She knew what to do then. Her father screamed, her mother cried, her brother's rage that she had "deceived" him knew no bounds, and Phoebe Parkinson watched, heartbroken, as her family cast her out, took her name from her and branded her an outcast for loving a man they thought her inferior. She packed her things then and went, back to her muggle, to his vineyards and old Bernard who smiled when he saw her but couldn't remember her name anymore. She exchanged wealth and pure blood for hard work as a muggle and never looked back.
They married but never had children. Phoebe couldn't bear the thought of bearing a magical child, and César loved her too much argue over it. Bernard died in his sleep, was buried and then it was summer again. The years went by and nothing would have changed in Phoebe's life, if her brother hadn't shown up at her doorstep one night, almost 30 years to the day she had last seen him.
He tugged a child along with him, a crying girl who didn't dare look at them. She was Philipa and now she was hers, her brother made clear, or else he would take the ill-fated little brat and leave her in some muggle village. She owed it to the family. Phoebe slapped him for that. Then she pulled the child away from him and shut the door in his face.
From that day on they had a daughter. A British, pure-blood raised, ill-tempered Squib girl who knew nothing about muggles and looked down on them over her pointy nose. She cursed them under her breath, she refused to go to school, had a hard time learning proper French and treated César like he was beneath her. Still, he always helped her study and Phoebe never screamed at her for being a prat. It took years for her to understand that they were her family now. Silly girl.
When she finally got it however, Phoebe's daughter became a magnificent woman, headstrong and clever to boot. She didn't accept a no, not even from the young wizard that come to Beaune after a house had mysteriously collapsed into itself. Antoine was a caring, respectful, lovely gentleman and so Phoebe overlooked that he was wizard, that his work kept him away for periods of time. They were happy together, and when they eventually had Valerie, Phoebe and César became the most doting of grandparents.

Phoebe dotes on Valerie and Valerie dotes on Phoebe. They will do everything to help each other, and Valerie loves nothing more than taking walks around the vineyards with her grandma. She doesn't really care that Phoebe isn't really her mother's mother, as she has been there for her from the day she was born. With her Valerie is way less stubborn than with the rest of the family.

César Renaud | "grandfather" | muggle

Reducio

César was born in 1929 as the son of two muggle wine growers. His youth was troubled, as there was war in the country and his father was drafted shortly before this eleventh birthday. Then the Germans came and laid siege to the country. When the war eventually was over and his father came back he wasn't the same person anymore, but neither were César or his mother. Life was hard afterwards, the days full of labor and not much enjoyment.
Still they carried on, determined to make a large business of their vineyards again. It was slow but steady process and when César finally thought that they'd done it his mother had a heart attack and died in the hospital. Bernard Renaud was heartbroken over the death of his wife and didn't get out of bed anymore for months. He seemed slow and forgot things easily even a year later, and when César finally found him a doctor he was told that his father suffered from dementia.
The business fell on hard times again and with only César managing affairs the outlook for the future was bleak. It was then, in his hardest times, when he met a woman at the annual wine market that turned his world upside down. He knew from one look that she was old money and snobbish to boot, but still something fascinated him about her. It was that something that made him fall into bed with her, made him take her home and show her around the vineyards. Phoebe was amazing. She was clever, smart, she new her numbers way better than he ever would, and before he knew what had happened she had started to handle his finances. Then she was helping him and the guys with the grapes, was telling stories to his father and watching him do laundry.
Phoebe was different. César saw it every day and wondered. It was the small things, but it was there... but every day he cared less until one day he bought a ring and asked her to become his wife. Then she took his hand, sat him down and talked. He was a muggle, a normal person, and she was a witch, and her family were old wizards with sticks up their asses - she laughed at that one. When he told her that he didn't care she said yes. Afterwards she left, went home to her family, but when she came back she wouldn't talk about them anymore.
They lived a normal life from then on, one where there was only the occasional cleaning or mending charm, things that never stopped César from being fascinated by. Magic wasn't a part of their live however, at least for the next thirty years. He was well past 60 when there was a strange man at their door at night who looked exactly like Phoebe with a tiny figure of a girl beside him. The girl was Philipa, and when Phoebe slammed the door in her brother's face she became theirs.
He had always wanted children, tiny, needy persons that he could love with all his heart. Philipa was difficult, taught that he was a good-for-nothing muggle that couldn't do anything right, but he knew that she would get over it. She was strong like Phoebe, she would manage. No matter how many times she scoffed when he made her cake or bought her a dress, he knew that she needed it. This was his daughter, and he was so proud of her when she graduated school and went with him to the markets and sellers.
Then she found that wizard, the boy with the cheeky grin and soft heart, and he approved. Philipa needed love, and Antoine Fabré gave it to her unconditionally. César knew better than to judge the young man for what he had been born as. He opened the doors of his house to him and his sister as well, to come and visit them. They brought joy into their life, last but not least with Valerie, his little whirlwind who wanted to know how the world worked in painstaking detail.
He is old, older still for a man that has lived through as much as he has, but he is happy.

Valerie loves her grandpa's stories the most. He's really old, has problems walking and doesn't hear anything without his hearing aids, but he has a story for everything. When she was younger Valerie used to bring him her books to read her goodnight stories. Now she helps him get to the patio and they sit together and watch the vineyards.

Cécile Fabré | grandmother | muggle

Reducio

Cécile was a muggle who had grown up in the French city of Rouen. Her grandparent's from her mother's side had been from a tiny seaside village called Veules-les-Roses though, and after graduating school that's where she moved back to. Without any siblings and no family of her father's left there was nothing that held her in the city, however beautiful it was. The beaches and gardens of the small village was what appealed to hear, and so she took a position at the newly created tourism department of the town hall. Cécile was the only employee as then tourism wasn't a big factor in Veules-les-Roses, but she nonetheless worked hard to bring both other Frenchmen and foreigners into her tiny heaven.
It was years later when she walked into a local bakery and found a handsome stranger trying to pay for some pastries with a coin that looked to be silver. Intrigued she paid the baker and lead the unknown man outside to sit with her by the beach. As it turned out he was a foreigner, an Englishman, his French passable but accented. He was clearly lost however, and no amount of probing would make him tell her where exactly he came from or why he had crossed the Channel. So, because he was polite and his sad smile made her heart break, Cécile offered him the guest bedroom. There he stayed for a day, and two, and three.
People began to call the man, Mirza, her lover, but he wasn't, then. He was just a lost traveler she had collected and didn't know what do with. It was obvious that he didn't understand money, not really, had not learnt any job and still his clothes were too good for a common runaway. He fascinated Cécile, and she him, and so they stayed together. She didn't make enough money to feed them both, not even when she owned the house because it had been her grandma's, but he was overwhelmed by any normal job. The bakery was where he finally found a place, learning from the old couple who'd run the tiny shop for decades.
They had become lovers then, Cécile and Mirza, who the local called Michel now because the boy needed a name one could pronounce, and only visitors still wondered about the handsome man with the darker skin working at the bakery. More than three years after she had found him, Cécile woke up one early morning and he was gone. She finally found him sitting on the beach, his hair wet from the morning fog. He told her then, about what magic was, the family he had been born into, and the fact that they had died in a war that she knew nothing about.

Cécile was the one who taught Valerie how to swim, make wreaths of flowers and jump rope. She took her granddaughter with her on her tours around the village and showed her everything there is about her little muggle village. Even now Valerie thinks that there's nothing her grandma doesn't know.

Mirza "Michel" Fabré (née Shafiq) | grandfather | pure-blood

Reducio

Her grandfather's family, the Shafiqs, though not as cruel or malicious as many of their kind, had made themselves an art of the old magic, dark magic as most call it now. Mirza had grown up surrounded by it, exposed from when he was but a toddler, but had never felt comfortable around the Dark Arts. His family had expected much of him though… as the eldest of four they had demanded he learn and become adept in the old ways to represent the family properly, to bring glory to their name as centuries before him had. The more they prodded him however, the more he had recoiled. At seventeen, grown and finally a man of his own, he'd fled under the cover of the night to never come back. When they'd died a mere few years later in the first Voldemort War he'd vowed that their proficiency with the Dark Arts would remain dead with them, and taken his wife's name upon marriage. After all that was what their motto had been: "Mortui numquam resurgunt". The dead never rise.
After fleeing from the family's residence in Scotland he couldn't get far enough away and finally decided to the leave the British Isles altogether, crossing the Channel into France. There, at the coast of the Normandy, he found the peace which had been missing from his life for years. The sandy beaches and sea breeze were nothing like the mountain peaks and wide planes he'd called home for the first seventeen years of his life. He could breathe deeply in France, freely, and become the person he'd always wanted to be. He traveled from one small town to another in the month after his arrival, letting the tide push him here and there
Raised by an old pure-blood family, Mirza had no idea about muggle life and customs however. He had never learnt any trade, much less a muggle one, and was hopelessly lost when he had to interact with the locals to find food and shelter. It was then, at the counter of a tiny bakery where Mirza was marveling at all those tiny pastries the muggles had made, that Cécile Fabré came into his life. She showed him the muggle world, showed him how to be a muggle, and in doing so made him fall in love with her.
They married four years after he had first set foot into France, on a summers day in 1978. His family was dead my then, and Mirza thought it better that their legacy die with them. He became "Michel" Fabré", a muggle baker, had two beautiful children and for almost 15 years there was no magic whatsoever in his life. Then the twins came home crying and with scarlet red hair, and he had to tell them where he'd really come from, that there was world he'd left behind that they were now a part of.
He sent them to Beauxbatons. Britain was still an open wound, even if none of his family had been to Hogwarts. He endured for them, showed them spells, taught them magical theory he'd learnt as a child, but he was glad when they graduated, glad that Aurore had found her passion in magical castles and Antoine became a Muggle Relations person. There wasn't in them what had been in his family, he told himself, and as the years passed he started to believe it.
Antoine brought a young woman back one day, muggle but with pure-blood features, a reminder that he'd never be able to run from his family's legacy. Philipa Parkinson-Renaud was different however, a Squib raised by a muggle and a banished witch, and he came to love her for the person she was and how happy she made his son. Still the fear remained. It came to hunt him when Valerie was three and shattered windows and glassware in a tantrum. She was what he had prayed his children wouldn't be, a reminder of who he'd been born as. So much raw magical talent, so much potential, so much ambition... "Send her to Hogwarts!" he told Antoine, remembering when his sister had first cast a curse and how it had broken his heart.

When was younger "grandpa Michel" was her favorite family member. He was never strict but always smiling, he let her have all the pastries she wanted and didn't raise his voice at her once. Only now that she's a little bit older does Valerie realize how uncomfortable magic makes him and how he dislikes her going away to Hogwarts.

School

Amber Dragonlight | Second Year | Ravenclaw | Dorm Mate
Amber is a fellow Ravenclaw who Valerie met at the Ravenclaw Table. They are also dorm mates.

Miles Candar | Second Year | Ravenclaw
Miles is a fellow Ravenclaw who Valerie met in the Ravenclaw Common Room.

Gemini Violet | Second Year | Ravenclaw | Dorm mate
Gemini is a fellow Ravenclaw who Valerie met in the Ravenclaw Common Room. She later found out that they also share the same dorm.

Clarisse Mosse | Second Year | Ravenclaw | Dorm mate
Clarisse is a fellow Ravenclaw who shares a dorm with Valerie.

Emma Hill | Second Year | Ravenclaw
Emma is a fellow Ravenclaw who Valerie met when she was exploring the castle.

Carmen Holloway | Second Year | Ravenclaw
Carmen is a fellow Ravenclaw who Valerie met during the Library Lock-In. After a game of wizarding chess they are now fast friends.

Evelyn Moore | Second Year | Hufflepuff
Emma is a Hufflepuff student who Valerie met when she was exploring the castle.

Kalani Anderson | Second Year | Gryffindor
Kalani is a deaf girl Valerie stumbled upon in the girls bathroom where she had lost her bracelets.

The Sorting Ceremony
Where Valerie gets the Sorting Hat put on her head.

New To This...
Where Valerie walks into the Ravenclaw Coomon Room for the first time and meets some fellow First Years Students.

The Ravenclaw Table
Where Valerie takes a seat at the house table in the morning and takes in Hogwarts life.

Library Lock-In
Where Valerie is locked into the library for the night with 25 other Ravenclaw students.

A Hidden Hallway?
Where Valerie explores Hogwarts and meets two other students who found a hidden corridor.

Lost
Where Valerie comes upon a distraught student in the Girl's Lavatory.