Kara tends to speak softly, but her words contain a degree of eloquence. Her manner is courteous. She is neither shy nor silent, but believes patient persistence rather than forceful energy will make her voice be heard.
Personality: Kara is most comfortable around people, not in noisy crowds, but with a roomful of warmhearted peers. She’ll say a polite word in passing to anyone, though she is only chatty with those in her age group. The upper year students make her uncomfortable, but she hides it well.
She will trust anyone who hasn’t done something drastic, multiple times over, to prove themselves unworthy. Such could leave her an easy target of manipulation. Her loyalty toward her house, her friends, and anyone she deems in need of it is strong. She isn’t a stranger of putting others before herself. Kara does possess a sense of pride, however, and she would have others respect her.
Only hard work redeems her in academics. She is eloquent in the use of English language, but struggles in math and technical things. Therefore subjects such as potions and transfiguration present difficulties, but she loves charms, and her way with words makes most written reports sound very good until professors look more closely at them for an understanding of material. It’s a challenge she often presents to herself to do more studying, and not to use her strength to cover up the weakness.
Kara has her clumsy moments, and will now and then be victim of forgetfulness, but she can laugh at herself, and knows that true strength shows itself in many ways.
History: Both of Kara’s parents dwelled in England all their lives, though their ancestry was mixed European. Each attended Hogwarts and proudly wore a Gryffindor badge. After graduation, Sean joined the Ministry. He began working with the Floo network. Then, for a time he helped administer apparation tests before settling in with broom regulation. Karen opened a shop in Diagon Alley, selling an assortment of magical trinkets useful for the household. They’d known each other since their later years in school, though Karen was one year older, and continued seeing each other from time to time. However, it wasn’t until Karen was out of school five years that they wed.
The birth of their first daughter, Kara, didn’t keep either from working. Karen left the shop in the care of a trusted employee for a few months, but checked in from time to time, and quickly took back full charge. Kara came with her, and a lot of business was generated by curious housewives stopping in to see the child, and picking up a trinket on the way out. Two years later another girl, Samantha, joined the family. Then in two more years, Andrew, the first boy.
The three children grew up with each other for companions, mostly spending their time in the back room of their mother’s shop. As they were wizard children, they didn’t attend formal school, but were taught reading, writing, and arithmetic by Karen and her assistant, Helena. From their father they learned Quidditch, a game for which he never lost a love, and heard many tales of the adventures he embarked upon in his Hogwarts days.
As she helped her mother stock shelves with self-knitting needles and key chains that beeped when Muggles were near, Kara thought ahead to when she would attend Hogwarts. She thought a lot about houses, and which one she would be in. Her parents put great value on courage, as did she, but there was something in the Hufflepuffs, the ones portrayed by her father as only being good for a laugh, about which she wanted to find out more. Somehow, she didn’t think the virtues of loyalty, patience, and diligence sung of by the Hat were worth less than courage.
She departed when she was eleven years old to cries of, "Come back soon," from her siblings, "Send an owl when you get there," from her mother, and "Go on, Kara, make the family proud," from her father. Those words echoed in her mind through the first months at school.
She was sorted into Hufflepuff, something about which, at first, she was not sure what to think. It was a fine house, but from the talk of her parents, not to be compared to Gryffindor. After meeting some of her housemates, she determined they were wrong, and set out in her long letters home to prove her point. Her heart was almost broken, though, when she went home for Christmas holidays.
Her brother and sister were jubilant, and her mother was smiling, but her father was unusually silent whenever she mentioned school. She asked her mother about it, who responded he was just tired from work. It was Andrew who broke in. "He’s a little disappointed, I think, because you weren’t in Gryffindor."
Kara looked to her mother, hoping for a denial, but all she could offer was a weak smile. She approached her father about it, who heartily denied any prejudice against the house. "Any house you’re in, daughter, is a worthy house indeed." But Kara wasn’t convinced. She knew that more than words would have to prove Huflflepuff’s honor. She needed actions, deeds, proof that courage could be found in patience, and loyalty, and work.
She returned to Hogwarts determined to do something, as many somethings as it would take to redeem herself in her father’s eyes.