NAME: Eugenie Louise Gamp.
AGE: 17. DOB 18 May 1979.
HOUSE/YEAR: Ravenclaw. Year 13.

SOCIAL STATUS: Eugenie's name literally means 'well-born', and it's not just wishful thinking on her parents' part -- the Gamp family may not have the flash and pomp of other upper-crust families, but they are undeniable members of high society. Talk about being so far socially advanced that the average person's never heard of you. The Gamps have been sending their children to Hogwarts for generations in order to mingle with other high-powered families with great success. At one point, they even had the incomparable distinction of establishing family ties with the most noble, ancient and now-extinct House of Black. The Gamp family flies under the radar so much that very little has been done to mar their reputation over the decades. The only points at which the Gamps have managed to distinguish themselves from the rest of the pureblooded ranks is the emergence of a celebrated intellectual every few generations from the family line, which they do with great regularity, particularly in the sciences. Eugenie's grandfather was notable for important contributions to physics and thermodynamics during World War II, for instance, but once the Gamp line spits forth an intellectual, it goes silent and unremarkable again for years and years. Indeed, the greatest damage that the Gamp family name has incurred is its association with the famous Dickensian drunkard and parapluie enthusiast Sairey Gamp from 'Martin Chuzzlewit'. Hearing their great family name used as a low-class synonym for the word 'umbrella' makes their collective eyes cross. Thank God Chuzzlewit never caught on as much as 'Great Expectations' did.

APPEARANCE: Most people agree that Eugenie Gamp would be far more attractive if she didn't look so serious all the time. She has distinctive features that would combine to make a very pretty girl indeed if she ever lightened up, but in her current capacity, just conspire to make her seem rather hoity-toity -- a straight, regular nose made to seem particularly long thanks to a lifetime of being encouraged to look down on a fair few things, full, shapely lips that are pursed in concentration or consternation for a great majority of the time and long, blonde hair usually styled in rigid, straight layers. Her figure is petite and with a solid layer of muscle slightly uncharacteristic of a frail society flower, but otherwise unremarkable. The same goes for her typical mode of dress. Eugenie is never shabbily dressed, but she eschews bright colors and daring cuts, for the most part.

PB: Christina Cole.

PERSONALITY: Eugenie shares her first name with a Princess of the United Kingdom and her middle name with another yet to come in 1996, so thanks in great part to a very high-class upbringing, she generally tends to act accordingly, and expect the same from others. She can be a stickler for proper behaviour both for herself and for other people in her general wealth-and-social-status bracket, and her attention to manners has given her a cooler, more serious reputation than her other seemingly more outgoing housemates. Eugenie is typically more than happy to chat to most people on a variety of subjects, and would never dream of being anything less than friendly in any way, shape, or form, but her serious nature and her attention to being rigidly polite has a tendency to put most people off, or generally make them feel awkward about engaging her in conversation more often. It's thanks to this public perception and reputation of seriousness that she is usually perceived as holding other people at arm's length -- of course, her mother's admonition that 'one should never be overly familiar' contributes to this attitude as well, so her reserve is not entirely the invention of other people's perception of her. Most of the time, people need to encourage her to lighten or loosen up before she can feel comfortable or relaxed in any situation.

Eugenie's seriousness extends to her attitude toward academics -- she might have been a prime candidate for Slytherin, given the background of her family, but she lacks that all-consuming cunning that seems essential in every member of the house, and a particular sort of intellectualism was responsible for her Sorting into Ravenclaw instead. Eugenie is a great traditionalist and an embodiment of Old Britain in her manners, but the one area in which she breaks the mold from the normal society girl or stereotypical airheaded debutante is an intellectual curiosity that cannot be suppressed. As befits a person who is so interested in tradition and manners, Eugenie has a huge, insatiable interest in history. Her favourite areas are royal history, British history and French history, which probably comes as absolutely no surprise, and she can usually be found with her little nose tucked in between the pages of one hefty historical tome or another. Although she never expects to have much of a career once she leaves school, she does idolise other aristocratic, brainy women who have gone on to do other things besides decorating the arms of dukes and earls, and hopes she can go on to do many of the same things that they have done. The Fraser women, for example, wrote terribly interesting biographies of various royals throughout history, as has Princess Michael of Kent, and Eugenie believes she has the skills to write similar works in the future. Writing historical books at leisure at one far-off day in the future is the great, brainy ambition of her life.

As a member of the upper crust in a House and year chock full of more 'common' sorts, Eugenie is politically at odds with most of her fellow Ravenclaws, but tends to keep her opinions to herself. Not only is she sensible enough to realise that she's outnumbered in an argument and therefore bound to lose (or just be pummeled to a rather unpleasant degree), but it's also her opinion that to discuss politics and personal opinions to that end is an outrageously crass and low-brow thing to do. Talking about art and culture and history is ideal, because people have universal appreciation for those things, according to Eugenie, but condescending to talk about gritty things like money and politics is just something she cannot abide to do. As such, she always keeps her head down when the topic comes out, which Eugenie also supposes contributes to her inability to connect with more of the people in her House. She does make a concerted effort to swallow her pride and get along with the other Ravenclaws in her year despite the differences in their upbringing, though, with mixed results, as much for her desire to avoid conflict as it is her obsession with being polite to everyone she meets. Thus far she has managed to avoid most trouble and has befriended the other girls, but not quite so thoroughly as she would like for maximum comfort, and therefore typically feels a bit like the odd person in the dorm. Blood will out indeed.

DEFINING CHARACTERISTICS: Eugenie is something of a wild card -- she is one of the few upper-class members of Ravenclaw. Most students with long family histories at Hogwarts are placed into Slytherin, so she has experienced quite a different, far more privileged upbringing than most of her Housemates. The wealthy, high-powered upbringing that she received sets her in a class of her own among her year, and it has served as something of a stumbling block in her ability to relate to them easily, as she's known very little of hardship or otherwise being unable to access resources or fulfill one's wishes to the greatest extent possible. Eugenie is also something of a rare serious mind among the ladies of high society, although she feels guilty for thinking about matters this way -- she knows she shouldn't be so negative towards people who have the same rank, but Eugenie simply can't help her feelings. Her lack of caps-lock and unbridled enthusiasm also serves as a stumbling block in her relationships with them, since as a more serious sort she has some real trouble relating to what she perceives as unladylike exuberance, but once again, Eugenie does the very best that she can do get along.

LIKES: Jane Austen novels, British royal history, boating and rowing, costume drama, dishy older men, fancy teas, formal dancing, Antonia Fraser, Flora Fraser, French royal history, gentlemanly behaviour, good manners, harmony, Audrey Hepburn, historical biographies, Grace Kelly, ladylike behaviour, Jackie O, P.G. Wodehouse's Jeeves series, pastels, peace and quiet, period piece movies, reading, Jil Sander clothing, the Scarlet Pimpernel series, simple pearl jewellery, vintage Givenchy.

DISLIKES: All things relating to Charles Dickens, all things relating to modern technology, all things relating to modern history, any sort of conflict, bad historical fiction, behaving impolitely, being embarrassed, being forced to resort to transportation by Tube, boorish boys, discussing politics in detail, egregious historical inaccuracies, feeling awkward, looking sloppy, looking chavvy, looking gaudy, low standards, mathematics, reading the newspaper, science, unladylike behaviour, using BCE and CE instead of BC and AD.

INSIDE SCOOP: Eugenie is absolutely impossible when it comes to figuring out the latest technological gizmos, and as such, absolutely hates keeping up with new gadgetry. She's fairly sure that she holds the world record for the most times that someone has caused the Blue Screen of Death.

Typically Eugenie has very little interest in the attractiveness of boys around her, but she does have a rather epic tendency to develop crushes on the handsome (if slightly older) British actors that become prominent as time progresses -- she's had Hugh Grant and Rupert Everett moments, and at the moment, she's quite keen on Colin Firth. Hugh Laurie has also been quite a favorite of hers. She doesn't want to ravage him quite the same way that she does other actors, as he's married with children and that's just not on in her book, but she has a special place in her heart for him. Eugenie was raised to be quite a fan of boating and rowing -- how could she not love such a brilliant former Cambridge rower?

If Eugenie wasn't convinced that doing so would be totally, irretrivably, unforgivably and incredibly embarrassingly butch of her, she would be very interested in coxing one of the Hogwarts rowing teams. She's got a lot of pent-up rage, and it seems to her that screeching at people to row would be a good way of dealing with it, but as things currently stand, Eugenie sticks to more delicate, feminine and sensitive-seeming water sports like swimming and water aerobics, and just watches the rowing team practise religiously instead.

Eugenie's father has been known to be a little too fond of his brandy from time to time. He's very happy and loving while he's sauced, even rather musical, and it's not like he engages in the habit all the time, so Eugenie supposes the situation could be much worse, but she still doesn't tell anyone about it for fear of being horribly embarrassed by his behaviour.

HISTORY: Eugenie Louise Gamp is the second child and only daughter of James Henley Calum Eugene "Hen" Gamp (Grandfather Gamp liked the Regatta just a smidge bit too much) and Louise Christine Gibbon-Gamp. The ways in and means through which Eugenie's parents met were all rather unremarkable -- as members of the British social elite, they had known one another from an early age, had begun dating in their later years at Hogwarts, had become engaged while they were at Cambridge with one another (Mr Gamp read rowing with an occasional side of Economics and participated in Cambridge's winning 1972 Boat Race; Miss Gibbon read the appropriately useless subject of History of Art) and officially tied the knot several years later. Eugenie's mother maintained a fellowship position at the British Museum until her wedding, at which point she nobly withdrew from professional society, and let her husband provide for the family -- which is to say that he let brokers attend to the care of the Gamp family's considerable financial assets and merely spent the day looking impressive in a wood-panelled office with a bottle of nicely-aged scotch and the sport pages of the newspaper tucked into a more scholarly-looking book. Although it clearly was not the most passionate of relationships, the Gamp-Gibbon union was both mutually beneficial and familiar, and since neither party was particularly adventurous, that was fine enough for them indeed. Their son James Elgin Calum Eugene "Ellie" was born in 1975, similarly without incident, and their daughter followed three years later.

The newest generation of the Gamps were raised in a sprawling home located in an exclusive area in the north of London. The city was a ripe environment for unusual things to occur, especially when people powerful and colourful enough as the Saudi royal family maintained residences on her street, but all the same, their upbringing was generally unremarkable. Eugenie naturally tended to feel competitive with her brother from time to time in the hopes of securing more of her parents' attention, but as the first child and the boy, Ellie tended to get a larger share. It also didn't help that her older brother was shaping up to become something of a model child -- polite, well-spoken and intelligent, so there was a great deal of pressure on Eugenie to act similarly. Ever eager to please and avoid criticism, even when she was little, Eugenie rose to the challenge of matching and emulating her brother in a large way. She took to all of her etiquette lessons like a fish takes to water, much to her parents' delight, and the only area in which she ever caused her mother and father concern was an attraction to sitting down and reading. Mr Gamp and Mrs Gibbon-Gamp were pleased to some extent that their daughter enjoyed her books, since as nominally well-educated people they appreciated the fact that their youngest seemed to possess a formidable brain, but as traditionalist members of high society, they were worried that this habit would turn her into some horrid sort of anti-social, shambling, awkward bluestocking. As such, their concerns meant even more lessons in ladylike behaviour for Eugenie -- but this was a step in going very far overboard, and it pushed their already very well-behaved daughter into the depths of being fanatically devoted to being polite.

Upon her admission to Hogwarts, Eugenie's parents were hoping that she would be Sorted into Slytherin like her model brother, but were unsurprised that she was placed into Ravenclaw instead, given the fascination with books she displayed from an early age. As a rare high-class bird in Ravenclaw without her brother around to show her the ropes most of the time or the other girls in her class to hang around with, Eugenie initially encountered a great deal of trouble with her new Housemates, since they seemed to differ so much in background, but has since been able to close the gap and relate to them far better -- though she'd never say that she knows them or can relate to them as well as they can relate to eachother. Eugenie made up for the differences with her Housemates by getting into her reading even more, and soon distinguished herself as a student of History in Professor Binns's class -- it also helped that she believed sleeping through his class was highly uncouth. Eugenie was quite the horrid scientist, unfortunately, and bombed her GCSE exams in maths and science to a spectacular degree, but she's not entirely concerned about that, besmirching the dignity of the Gamp legacy in science notwithstanding. Even if they have an effect on her ability to follow her mother, her father and now her older brother into Cambridge, she supposes she isn't supposed to have much of a career anyhow.

GCSES: English (A*), English Literature (A*), General Humanities (A*), French (A*), History (A*), Maths (E), Philosophy (A*), Religion Studies (A*), Science (E).

A-LEVELS: English Language, English Literature, History.

SPORTS: Swimming (Summer Term), Water Aerobics (Michaelmas Term, Lent Term).

EXTRACURRICULARS: Book Collector's Club, Classical Society, History Society, Literary Society, Modern Languages Society. Understudy to Lady Macbeth for summer play. Recently named Ravenclaw Prefect for Year 13 in Cho Chang's place.