Paige Jacobs

[Paige Jacobs]

PAIGE JACOBS

Birthdate: 5 May, 2021
Current Age: 13
Wand: Oak 14 3/4 Essence of Raven Feather
Residency: Napier, New Zealand​

APPEARANCE​

Hair: Naturally - Brunette with red/gold tinges in afternoon sunlight.
Currently - Dyed dark brown, cut just above shoulder length.
Eyes: Blue
Height: 5'5''
Build: Slim, average height for her age
Wardrobe: Wears casual clothes that often look second hand. She doesn't often get new clothes, and mostly gets her clothes from opshops and other cheap places. She also wears a lot of woven bracelets on her right arm that she made herself
Distinguishing Features: A long thin scar along the right side of her left palm - she doesn't remember how she got it.

PERSONALITY​

"But she was never sorry for wishes that would burn."
Although sweet and friendly, over the years Paige has become quiet and reserved in others' company. She doesn't like to spend time with people who don't like her - which is basically everyone she knows. So, when she does meet someone new she's overly keen to make them like her. She can come off as a bit clingy, and she'll often go along with anything in an effort to be liked.
She likes to have fun and prefers to be outside doing things such as walking or swimming, rather than being inside. She is easily humoured and enjoys a laugh, which she often uses to distract herself from things she'd rather not be thinking about. She is not the sort of person to put off solving a problem, and will actively seek out ways of doing so. She is quite even-tempered, laid-back, tolerant and accepting, and not very competitive.
Likes: Paige likes to do athletic-type things, as she feels that she feels that she needs to be active in order to distract herself from certain things. She also enjoys meeting new people, and any activity that will allow her to 'escape'.
Dislikes: Talking about her foster family(s), or spending any time with people who don't like her. She will not talk to such people unless absolutely necessary and she may even leave an area if she feels like she needs to keep away from a certain person. Paige also doesn't like to be stuck inside doing nothing, and will often find some way of entertaining herself to relieve boredom.
Strengths: Paige is pretty even-tempered and tolerant, so she doesn't often fight with others.
Weaknesses: Paige has been abandoned a lot in her life, and she's never had any real friends either, so when she does find someone who wants to spend time with her she can become 'clingy' in an effort to keep them around.
Hobbies: Paige swims a lot, as it's a solitary activity, but not for competition. She also likes to bake a lot, but doesn't often find a chance to do so.
Hopes: To find some friends, or anyone, that will accept her.
Fears: Paige fears that she will never have a family of friends, and will be on her own forever.
Secrets: Her foster father, David McGrath, broke her arm in a fit of rage before she started her third year.

FAMILY​

"In the beginning, I believed in love and things."
Paige doesn't really consider herself to have a 'real' family. She knows nothing about her biological parents, nor much about her adopted mother that died when she was very young, and neither of her foster homes have ever welcomed her whole-heartedly in the family respect.

SCHOOL​

"Well there is magic all around you, if I do say so myself."
House: Hufflepuff
Year: Third Year
Favourite Subjects: Herbology, Potions
Favourite Professor: -
Best Subjects: -
Worst Subjects: Everything, as she's never taken the classes seriously.
Worst Professor: -
Plans/Goals: Paige wants to start doing well in her classes, as she's suddenly realised that this is the only education she's going to get. She also wants to try to make friends (again), and has decided she needs to be different to her previous self in order for this to work.​

 

[Paige Jacobs]

HISTORY​

Paige was born in Wellington, New Zealand on May 5, 2021. Her parents were not together and neither wanted to keep her so she was put up for adoption. A woman named Rae Jacobs, who had no family of her own, adopted the baby girl and named her Paige. Rae loved her very much, but one day when Paige was four Rae left her with a neighbour for ten minutes to buy some more milk. On the way home, she was hit by another car and died on impact.

"A flood of tears that no one ever really heard fall at all."
As Rae had no other family, Paige was put into foster care with a couple living in Nelson. Harold and June Coulter took in foster children on the principle that such children needed to be taught the right values in life in order to stop them becoming a burden to society when they grew up, so they were naturally very strict with Paige. They kept an emotional distance from her, not only because they didn't want her to become attached to them, but also because there was something strange about the young girl. When she was younger the Coulters noticed her hair was always slightly red whenever she got upset or angry - and although that stopped once she got older other small unusual things began happening. Unnerved by such incidents the Coulters always kept Paige at arm's length. The other kids at school also noticed that she seemed somehow different and actively shunned her, leading Paige to become quite lonely and accustomed to her own company.

"I went forth with an age old desire to please."
Not long after she turned 10, the Coulters informed Paige that they were going to be moving to Australia and that she was going to another foster family in Napier. Although saddened by their abandonment of her, Paige was excited to go to a new place where she would hopefully have caring foster parents and lots of friends. However, once she arrived the girl noticed that Karen and David McGrath were having significant marital problems and had clearly only taken her on because of the extra money that was provided to take care of her. Disappointed that the McGraths hadn't been at all what she had hoped for, Paige tried desperately to make some friends at her new school, but came off as overly clingy and weird to the other kids. Realising that everything was going to be exactly the same as before, if not worse, Paige completely retreated from everyone else, preferring to spend time on her own.

"Hear the call of a nightbird singing 'Come away, come away'."
Just before Christmas that year, Paige caused a cheesecake to explode in front of the McGraths when she picked it up. Frightened, and fed up with her marriage, Karen walked out on both her husband and Paige that night and disappeared. Over the next four months David began drinking heavily and Paige tried to stay out of the house as much as possible. Not long after her birthday in May, Paige came home one day to find a stranger in the house, who proceeded to tell her and David that she was a witch and was invited to attend a magical school in September. However, due to problems with the muggle foster agency, including the disappearance of Karen and the fact that Paige was required to attend (muggle) school by law, she was unable to attend the first semester of the year and instead had to finish out her muggle school year before arrangements could be made to explain away Paige's absence from her foster home. Although still quite doubtful of the magical world, Paige was hopeful that she might finally find somewhere to belong.

"In a web that is my own, I begin again."
She began at Hogwarts in the middle of the year, arriving just before the second semester started. Paige spent the first few days overwhelmed by all the activity and magic around her. She tried to make friends, but felt slightly out of place as everyone else seemed to have their groups of friends sorted already. She felt that rather than try and disrupt them, she would just take it easy and experience her new life away from foster parents of any kind. Paige didn't really pay any particular attention to her classes, seeing them as oddities of a magic school rather than anything she would actually need to learn. When the year finished, she went home over the break and spent as much of it as she could outside avoiding David, which wasn't particularly easy during the winter. As Paige came back for the second year, she began trying to make friends, but came off as too eager and 'needy' for their liking and they slowly distanced themselves from her. She continued treating lessons as entertainment and ended up getting 'Poor' for every single class. This didn't bother her, as at twelve she hadn't even begun to comprehend the fact that she would need to qualify for a career one day.

"I could never really tell you what this did to me."
During the winter break between her second and third years, Paige began to have increasing problems with David. He had always blamed her for his failed marriage, and he had recently received a message from Karen's lawyer requesting a divorce. He had already been abusing alcohol for over a year, and began doing so even more. One night he began yelling at Paige and when she tried to leave, he grabbed her arm so forcefully that he broke it. The extremity of his actions managed to jolt him out of his rage, and he remorsefully took Paige to the hospital. The girl was shocked and angry about what had happened, but while realising that David truly was sorry, she also knew that she would soon be leaving for Hogwarts where she would be able to stay all year. She didn't forgive David fully, but told him that she would lie to the hospital staff and pretend she had fallen over, (allowing him to keep custody and, more importantly, the payments for her upkeep), if he would promise to quit drinking while Paige was home. David agreed and no more was said about the incident. A few days before she left for Hogwarts, the cast finally came off, and Paige cut her hair and died it darker, trying to push herself to be different as the new school year headed her way.​

Lyrics: Rooms On Fire/Some Become Strangers/The Highwayman/Edge of Seventeen ~ Stevie Nicks