personality
Laura’s a 300% kind of girl. While she doesn’t actually excel in anything, she puts as much effort as she can into everything she does.
Academically, she falls somewhere in the second quarter of her class. This is due more to hard work than natural talent – while she has natural intelligence, by the time she got to Hogwarts she no longer had enough of it to skate by without studying. As a result of her drive to succeed, she puts in much longer hours than most of her housemates seem to, which is a very Hufflepuff trait, but Laura’s not without a good brain in her head and courage in her heart.
Physically, Laura loves to work out, and adores Quidditch. She likes to rise early for a jog before breakfast, and plays as a Chaser. She knows she’s not the fastest, or the best flier, or even the best at catching and passing, but the sheer enthusiasm with which she plays puts her head and shoulders above some of the players with the so called natural talent. She has a habit of inadvertently boosting morale with her easy grin and her near constant optimism.
Socially, Laura likes a joke. It amuses her to come up with practical jokes – though, most of them aren’t really very good, and few of them, if any, worked when she tried them out. She has a ready smile and a laugh that seems to sit right on the edge of her tongue, to come tumbling out at the slightest provocation. But Laura’s not an airhead. She likes dry wit just as much as body function humor. She likes to talk, and is at ease with new people. Laura’s outgoing and very lively, and is very much at ease with her somewhat fluid sexuality.
On the flip side of the coin, she does have days when she feels down. She quite likes her own company, and doesn’t need to be surrounded by people to feel validated. She doesn’t like the feeling that people don’t like her, and hates it when people are angry with her, but if she finds out that people are talking about her behind her back, she usually doesn’t really care. Her somewhat difficult childhood taught her to poke fun at herself before someone else can, because it takes the sting out a little. Her singing voice is passable, but pretty average on the whole, and she can’t dance to save her life.
There is one thing that Laura’s really quite good at, and that’s drawing caricatures of people. She’s not an artist by any stretch of the imagination – she couldn’t draw a still life to save herself, and she still doesn’t understand abstract art – but somehow she’s quite adept at capturing the essence of someone with a few squiggles and a bit of shading. Her caricatures are always meant in fun and never intended to offend, but sometimes get taken the wrong way.
Laura's very maternal, and has enjoyed helping with all aspects of her younger siblings' care from a very young age. She has aspirations of using this talent in her future career.
history
Michael James Madley Junior and Elizabeth Jane Adams were Hogwarts sweethearts who married right after graduation. For the first year or so, they were blissfully happy in their little love nest built for two in Oxford. It was as if the world outside didn’t exist to them. Then Elizabeth got pregnant.
Things quickly began to fall apart. It was a difficult pregnancy from the word go. Elizabeth was wracked with morning sickness until nearly halfway through her second trimester. Due to this, she was unable to work, and due to the couple losing one income, they began to struggle financially. Elizabeth was miserable, only consoling herself with thoughts of her baby about to be born. Mike was frantic, throwing himself into his studies in the hopes of finishing his degree in social work sooner, so he could get a job that would support them more comfortably. He had deliberately chosen a career that could stand comfortably in both the muggle world and the wizarding one, though he would later find out that muggles were slightly more receptive to the idea of social workers.
They were forced to move from their somewhat upscale flat into one that was more within their means, but the new flat was smaller, and it was older, and it wasn’t as... nice, as the one they’d had to leave. It was also in a somewhat undesirable neighborhood. Mike was always at the library or at university studying, and slowly their marriage began to crumble.
Laura was born July 19th, 1981, in the heat of summer. She was a healthy baby, and for the most part a fairly placid one, but as the days went on Elizabeth found herself unable to bond with her newborn daughter. She grew withdrawn, almost sullen, and often refused to even look at Laura for hours at a time. During this period Mike took over most of Laura’s care, which forced him to cut back on his studies slightly. Despite this, he finished his diploma before Laura’s first birthday, and quickly found a job in an office that included daycare.
Elizabeth began to feel ill again, and tired all the time, and was even less interested in caring for Laura. Following the advice of her GP, she had some tests taken and was diagnosed with breast cancer. Despite the doctors doing their best to treat it, it spread to her lungs and liver, and Elizabeth died quietly in her sleep in August, 1983.
Though upset at the loss of his wife, Mike was realistic. For some time leading up to Elizabeth's diagnosis she had been tiresome, argumentative and generally impossible to live with. He felt guilty for these thoughts, but when he was honest with himself, he knew he had fallen out of love with her a long time ago. It wasn't quite a couple of years later that he met Amelia O’Connor through work. She was sweet, and kind, and great with Laura, who took to her almost immediately. Amelia fell pregnant, and gave birth to Abigail Rose on January 9th, 1985. Laura was three and a half, and fell in love with her little sister from first sight. Abby was a regular Houdini baby – she was able to extricate herself from even the most complicated five point harnesses. She was constantly on the go, always getting into something.
When Laura was seven and Abby not quite four, Mike and Amelia married, with the two girls as flower girls. Shortly before Laura’s eleventh birthday, Amelia had twins - Devlin Samuel and Michael James Madley the Third (Mickey) were so identical that most people had no chance of telling them apart, but the family never struggled.
academia
classes: Charms, DADA, Herbology, Muggle Studies
OWL results: Potions A | Transfiguration A | Charms E | Herbology O | History of Magic P | DADA E | Muggle Studies E
Career Aspirations: Undecided.
history: Laura started a muggle school at age five, and things looked like they were going well. She excelled in reading and writing, and her teachers suggested she be pushed up a year to see how she coped with the work. She flew through it, and the teachers pushed her up another year, making Laura a five-year-old child sitting with the seven year olds. Academically, she was fine. Socially, and mentally, she couldn’t cope at all. She made no friends, and was bullied by the bigger children, who didn’t like the fact that she was younger and smarter than them.
The decision was made, not only to change schools, but also to put Laura back down with her age group and write the whole experiment off.
By the time Laura was eleven, her troubled first couple of years of school were supposedly behind her, but now Laura was the goofy kid who spent most of her time in class chatting to her friends and giggling, and still managed to get top marks. She wasn’t well liked, a small group of friends her only refuge, Abby among them. The boys liked to call her "nerd" and "teacher’s pet", and at eleven, she lacked the maturity to rise above it. Her Hogwarts letter came as a huge relief. Laura saw it as a chance to start again in a new school with people who didn’t know her as "teacher’s pet".
She met Melanie Roberts on the train. Apprehensive at first, she wouldn't have spoken to the girl if Mel had not greeted her with a big smile and an offer to share her sweets. The two were best friends from that moment, and have remained so to this day. Coincidentally, Laura and Mel share the same birthday, July 19th.
Sorted into Hufflepuff, she quickly found to her dismay that the work was much harder than the "reading writing and arithmetic" she'd found so easy at primary school. But she was determined to succeed, which began her reputation for working harder than almost anyone else. There was a girl a year above her, Hermione Granger, that people said was smarter than any Ravenclaw and harder working than any Hufflepuff, but Laura ignored those stories, for the most part, and concentrated on putting in the effort she hadn’t needed to use before.
At Hogwarts, she's never really been called "teacher’s pet", though there are more than a few incidences of "nerd" and "bookworm". She learned to make fun of herself, in a way that makes her seem just naturally goofy, rather than let herself be made fun of. Her best subject is Herbology, and her worst is Transfiguration, though she still gets relatively good marks. She joined the Quidditch team in her third year as a Chaser.
romance
sexuality: Laura’s sexuality is fluid. She’s had dalliances with both girls and boys and although she doesn’t try to hide this fact, she doesn’t broadcast it either.
dating status: single
past: Justin Finch-Fletchley
Justin and Laura had been friendly most of their Hogwarts careers however took a romantic interest in one another in late-September 1996. They had an extensively physical relationship complete with excessive snog fests and even a number of inappropriate shag sessions. The relationship was ended after the winter holidays. By then Laura was starting to get itchy feet, and even though she liked Justin, she just didn't think she liked hi enough to stay with him. In the long run the mutual decision to breakup was for the best. Admittedly, however, Laura's forward personality has managed to catch Justin off guard twice since their break up and they've managed to hook-up off the record.
current: n/a
crush: Amy Runcorn, Romilda Vane
turn ons: a sense of humor first and foremost. She likes someone who knows what they are doing, but at the same time isn't averse to teaching someone just exactly how she likes to be kissed/touched, and she likes the smell of freshly washed skin. Laura likes honesty, but only when it comes hand in hand with tact.
turn offs: personal hygiene is a must. Laura has a relatively acute sense of smell, and a person who doesn't shower frequently will turn her right off. Likewise someone who tries to get too serious, too fast. Anyone who shows off to her about their money will be shown the door - Laura would much rather be blown away by the good someone can do with their money, not the presents that money can buy her.
history: Using her position on the team as a jumping off point for popularity, she began to make friends much more easily, which of course led in turn to spending time with boys. She loved the sense of power she felt she had over them – with just one glance at her recently developed chest, most boys would do anything she asked. It was a welcome change from boys mocking and ridiculing her, and truth be told, she played up to it.
She lost her virginity on a bet with a Slytherin boy, under the stands after a Gryffindor vs. Ravenclaw match towards the end of her fourth year. It didn’t mean anything, to her or to him, and if she was honest with herself, she was glad to get it out of the way. She’d spent a normal amount of time wondering what it would be like, and who with, and when and where, and as it turned out it was nothing special. Rose coloured glasses firmly cast aside, she began to view the male population in a slightly more jaded way.
Her first experience with a girl came that summer. She was sleeping over at a friend’s house, one from before she’d gone away to school. They crept downstairs and raided the liquor cabinet, and, as they say in bad romance novels, one thing led to another. It’s not something she’s repeated with that particular girl, but she has dabbled with girls since.
astrology
hufflepuff cancers: Hufflepuff Cancers are oriented first and foremost to the home and to all things domestic. The ultimate homebodies of the magical world, they are at their happiest when they are puttering in the kitchen, stirring up food in magical cauldrons or whipping up soothing, healing potions. These wizards desperately need to be needed. If cut off from family, a circle of close friends, or a flock of wounded birds to tend, they will get anxious and depressed, unless their energies are directed somehow to a cause or a person which finds them good use. They are caring and compassionate, and are excellent listeners.
cancer the crab: Astrologers are in broad agreement that the following are the characteristics of Cancer: The Cancer person is very protective, fearless, tenacious, retentive, resourceful, self-contained, defensive, family- and home-oriented, maternal, intuitive, shy, honest, generous, humorous, physically beautiful, quiet, traditional, emotional, loving, shrewd, proud, sensitive, protective, nurturing, cautious, helpful, purposeful, social, wise, easily flattered, hard-working, dedicated, romantic, imaginative, into heritage and history, security-oriented, nurturing, warm, sympathetic, patriotic, sentimental, caring, and extremely protective of loved ones.
The Cancerian is prone to changeability, hyper-sensitivity, awfully moody, touchy, patriotic, clingy, tenacious, devious, dominating, secretive, cold, insensitivity, madness, overcritical, harsh, suspicious, jealous, quick-tempered, violent, volatility, control issues, dependency issues, depression deceitful, lack stability, mean, aloof, dogmatic, eccentric, over-dramatic, controlling. The Cancer person is known to explode and lose their temper.
