Biography[]
Early Life[]
Sephirah Valeria Larkham was born on April 13th, 2004 to David and Cornelia Larkham. She is their first born child and the apple of her father's eye, who was thrilled to find out Cornelia was pregnant only a month after they married. Cornelia was 18 and had just finished her career at Hogwarts a month prior, and married David almost as soon as school let out. David was 21, almost 22 years of age when they found out they were expecting.
Sephirah was born in Edinburgh, Scotland, where the couple were vacationing at 4:23 in the morning. The couple quickly returned to their home in Bath, where Sephy spent most of her younger years, although the family travelled rather extensively to keep up with various family members, as it was especially important to the Romanov family, to whom Cornelia belonged to, that the family kept in touch and stayed together always. Her brother, Albert was born when she was 4 years old. The two had a natural affinity for one another and were unusually close, with Sephy often playing mother to the boy as they grew up.
As a young girl, her mother impressed deeply upon her the importance of maintaining proper appearances to always flatter the family. She had strict rules for how a girl should be raised, but Sephirah was heavily influenced by her father's carefree attitude that earned him popularity with so many people. Seeing her father's reception around others made her want to be just as popular and loved as he was, which led her to adopt many of his mannerisms, much to her mother's dismay. Not to be deterred, her mother only became more strict and harsh with her judgement and expectations. Sephy, wanting to please her mother badly, tried very hard to toe the line but found her nature just wasn't compatible with the cool, detached, heavily scripted way her mother was in society, although she greatly admired her mother's absolute elegance and majesty. This juxtaposition of her mother and father's very different temperaments, and her nature versus her nurture, would set the stage of the majority of Sephy's trials and tribulations throughout her Hogwarts career.
First Magical Showing[]
About a month after her brother Albert was born, Sephirah was running around playing with a play wand when she pretended to cast a spell onto the baby. Sparks flew from her wand, which was normal, but her mother scolded her for playing around the baby like that. Flying into a tearful fit, David had to restrain her tantrum as Cornelia chased the now levitating baby Albert into the garden where he suddenly dropped, being far now from Sephirah. Cornelia was able to slow the baby's fall with her quick wand work and Sephirah was sent to bed without any desert that night.
School Career at Hogwarts[]
First Year[]
When Sephirah first arrived at Hogwarts, she spent the first few weeks in awe of the older students and sought out their friendships, which were only mild at best. Amongst her own peers, she forged a few solid relationships, amongst whom were Lacey Callaghan, a fellow Gryffindor NPC, and Arabella Hamilton, also a fellow Gryffindor. The trio remain close up to present day, although their social circles have widened significantly.
For the remainder of the school year, Sephirah attempted to be a model student, get good grades, and be exactly what her mother wanted her to be, but the influence of the older children was heavy on her, and she found herself very attracted to the outgoing, gregarious students who seemed to rule Gryffindor house, spending a lot of her time trying to get in their good graces just to be around them.
Second Year[]
For Sephirah's second year, she was much more at home at Hogwarts and looked forward to her year. She began to adopt the gregarious ways of her idols, which isn't to say she copied, but simply allowed to bloom latent personality traits inside her which had been heavily suppressed by her mother, who kept in regular contact through the owl post. During the month of October, she experienced a potions mishap which made her hair fall out. Her outraged mother personally came to the school to make sure she wasn't seen until her predicament was fixed. This began a long tradition of Sephy getting into trouble, and someone from her family bailing her out.
In March of that year, she fell off her broom during flying lessons and spent 2 days in the hospital wing. While the flying instructor was able to slow her fall, she still hit her head on a rock as she came down, and this had to be monitored for a few days. Her mother was again quick to make an appearance, this time with her father David in tow, as the young couple still weren't used to their daughter being away for an extended period of time. Her mother in particular had a rough time not being able to micro manage her daughter from close range, and began to write daily owls. Sephy received her first howler in April, after not writing back to her mother that day.
Third Year[]
By her third year, Sephirah was growing in popularity and her latent personality traits inherited from her father really began to bloom. She found she loved quidditch and tried out for the team, making it to the final try outs but unfortunately, her mother stepped in and forbade her to play, pulling her off the team before her first practice. Enraged, Sephy stopped writing owls to her mother for a week, in which she received a howler every day she didn't write. She did, however, write to her father often, begging him to come to her rescue and placate her mother, but in the end, it was a battle she could not win. Embittered, she found an outlet for her anger by getting into mischief around the school. Her most notable prank that year was turning Professor Grimault's hair orange, and for it received a week's detention and had to clean the owlery for a month.
Education wise, Sephirah continued to do well in her studies, and found she particularly enjoyed and excelled in Transfiguration and Arithmancy; the latter she began that year and found she quite liked it.
Power struggles with her mother continued all year, but at the very end, she acquired a promise from Cornelia, who relented to allow her to play quidditch the next year once David finally learned to put his foot down with her.
Fourth Year[]
In her fourth year, Sephy was now cemented as a mischievous prankster, gaining even more popularity as she was now not only accepted by the kings and queens of Gryffindor, but was one of them. In that year she became bold and found a lot of self confidence, and even began to have a little following herself with the younger years who looked at her like royalty. Her pranks were numerous, including, but not limited to:
- Flooding the boy's bathroom, was not caught
- Stealing a necklace and various bits of jewelry from the mermaids in the Black Lake and suspending them just high enough above water so that they could not reach, received a 10 day's detention cleaning up trash on the grounds
- Transfigured the sand in the Slytherin hourglass to flobberworms, bursting the glass open, received a month's detention in the Dark Forest and a letter written home to her parents. Also received a howler from her mother.
- Switched the labels on all the potions ingredients in the classroom, causing massive confusion when it was time to brew. Class was canceled that day until all the potions could be re-sorted, wasn't caught.
As promised, her mother allowed her to play quidditch that year and she was admitted to the team as a first choice for her natural skills. Her lithe frame and fast reflexes earned her the seeker position, which she would play until her seventh year.
Fifth Year[]
Her fifth year only saw her continue to rise to the top ranks of the Gryffindors, both in popularity and grades, for her mother made sure her grades we top notch. By now, Sephirah was used to getting her way and her attitude towards others was very entitled and snobbish. However, along with her increasing snobbery, came increasing drama from others whom she had offended. She had several jinxes placed on her that year, including one to make her teeth grow, one to make her babble incessantly, the leg locker, and one to make her oversleep half the day away. The Gryffindor Head of House, noticing from several teachers that she was not in class, had to find her and wake her up. She pulled less pranks that year due to the drama around her and her snobbish attitude, by the end of the year, was sobered up.
In terms of relationships, she made a close friend that year, Astara, a Slytherin girl whom she spent a lot of time with. She also had her first real crush on a skinny, blonde slytherin boy named Baxter, whom she crushed on her fifth and sixth year.
This was also the year her first cousin, once removed, Draco Romanov came to the school to teach Arithmancy. Sephirah, knowing he was an auror, was rather puzzled to see him there, but was under strict instructions to not even let on that she knew him. Of course, as pureblood families go, the connection was eventually found out, but Sephirah chose to say little about him. It became evident why he was there when students began to die and the headmistress was found to be guilty of several crimes.
O.W.Ls[]
Her marks on her O.W.Ls are as follows:
Sixth Year[]
Sephy's sixth year was rather uneventful; she continued to crush on Baxter until it was found out he was gay, much to her dismay. She continued to excel in quidditch and as an official upper year, Sephy Larkham, now known as "Lark" was known by everyone in Gryffindor and most everyone within a year or two of her at school. Her major pranks were few, however, she fell victim to the poltergeist Jeeves several times that year, the worst was when he locked her in an unused classroom and she had to be rescued by staff.
At home, pressure was beginning to mount on her to start looking towards her future and think about what she wanted to do. She thought about fashion design as a good job to have and figured she would go in that direction. That year was also the year Sephirah "came out" to society at the annual debutante ball within her pureblood social circle. Her date was a blonde Norwegian boy named Hans Skoglund. The two hit it off, prompting her mother and Hans' mother to form a friendship/alliance of sorts in which they made premature plans for their childrens' futures.
Seventh Year[]
Her last year has so far turned out to be a rather appropriate culmination of her Hogwarts career.
Quidditch[]
Her crowning achievement was securing the position of Gryffindor Quidditch Captain, a position she cherished more than anything. Her first game, was, regrettably, against Slytherin, and the team was demolished in one of the most embarrassing losses Sephy had ever known. She fell into mild depression over it, especially since her most hated rival was co-captain of the team. Humiliated, she spent a lot of time after that game in hiding. Also, she was being scouted by professional quidditch teams, and after her loss, Sephy was sure she would never be recruited. However, at the winter ball, Sephy received news that she had indeed been recruited to play pro quidditch by her favorite team, Puddlemere United.
Friendship with Upton Zero[]
In the beginning of the year she got closer to a boy who's family was friends with her family, Upton Zero. They spent a good deal of time together until she began to butt heads with a sixth year Slytherin named Nyle Arens. Zero, sensing a coming attraction between the two, began to feel uncomfortable with the pair's confusing relationship, seemingly hateful, but it seemed Upton had picked up on an undercurrent the other two weren't aware of until later. Feeling in the middle, Upton often accused Sephy of playing games with him and using him. Sephy, who was beginning to form an attraction to the boy but wasn't willing to admit to it, found herself unable to convince him that she wasn't, and the pair grew apart, no longer able to communicate effectively. More and more, they argued and fought until the damage was done and they were no longer good friends, refusing to speak to each other for a time. Slowly, they began to repair their friendship after the Christmas break, but the major damage was done.
Secret Relationship with Nyle Arens[]
True to prediction, Nyle and Sephirah frequently fought bitterly in public but found themselves snogging in private after a case of mistaken identity after Arens had taken an aging potion and trying to get into the Gryffindor Common Room. Sephirah led him into the Room of Requirement, telling him it was the common room and somehow the pair ended up kissing until Nyle finally felt he had to let her know who he really was. Shocked and horrified, the pair were suddenly put into a predicament neither knew how to handle. Being her first kiss, Sephy found the mixture of hate and magnetic attraction intoxicating, intriguing, and addictive. The pair, hating each other too much to actually plan any rendezvous, had an interesting knack for running into each other after curfew, usually while Sephy was making her way towards Hogsmeade to stock up on candy. Strangely enough, the two never had any real conversation to get to know one another, but instead bonded unintentionally over their love of inflicting pain on one another through insults and sharp tongues, and their inability to get a handle over their attraction for one another.
As their secret affair gained more and more momentum, the two began to indulge in mental power games with one another, something they both seemed to enjoy immensely. Particularly notable was after the humiliating loss to Slytherin in quidditch, Sephirah had to hold her end up of a bet they had and wear his personal tie around for a week. Being seen in green was humiliating and angering to no end for Sephirah, something Nyle well knew and took pleasure in. However, wearing Aren's tie gave Sephy a plethora of opportunity to think about the boy, and though she usually thought ill of him, it was during this time that she realized she had fallen in love with him, for through his actions and everything that was left unsaid, Sephy could feel a current of a strong bond; and somehow felt she understood him on a level neither were willing to talk about. The affair came into question when Sephirah came to be suspicious of Aren's actions with Helena Arlet after getting into a physical altercation in which both girls tumbled all the way down the Grand Stairs in a cat fight watched by half of the school. It ended with a pair of shoes thrown at Nyle's back and the Christmas holidays swiftly coming.
It was later found out by Professor Romanov, who, on Cornelia's strict orders, put a stop to the pair and Sephirah was forbidden to ever see the boy again.
Friendship with Wyeth Ehrenbock[]
It was in this year that Sephirah finally struck a friendship with Wyeth Ehrenbock, a pureblood from a very old family that she of course had always known of, but until this year, found no reason to engage with, him being a Slytherin and very different from her in manner and attitude. The two first began to speak after a major prank Sephirah pulled, where she bombed the dungeons with ten boxes of dung bombs and a crate of fireworks with her friend Eva Boscerelli. They then bonded over their problems in the dungeons, and afterwards, became fast friends, then best friends, and eventually, lovers.
Their friendship was found to be suspicious by two of Wyeth's girlfriends, Mimi Sinclair and Isa, and, after an incident that landed Wyeth in the hospital, She had a major fight with Isa and then with Mimi at the winter ball, where Mimi punched her down the stairs outside the Ravenclaw Tower and into broken glass, breaking her jaw. The sheer amount of physical altercations Sephy was getting into, mixed with a broken heart she was nursing from her breakup of sorts with Arens, left her heavily depressed; something she wasn't familiar with. Added to the mix was the now constant badgering by her mother of her expectations to fulfill her family duties of marrying pure, or securing a proper job fit for a socialite. Her being found out by Professor Romanov about her sneaking around with Nyle and the howler she received for it from her mother sent her into a bigger depression, when it was made clear by her family that she was under no circumstances to ever entertain any ideas of getting serious with the boy, whom the family considered unfit for a husband due to his non-pureblood status. Miserable, Sephy went home for the holidays and did her best to recuperate, attending various parties, but when she came back, she was rather different and more subdued, although she put an air of being back to normal.
Relationship with Azrael Talbot-Darcy[]
While getting to know Sebastian, Sephirah became entangled with yet another dark Slytherin named Azrael Talbot-Darcy, a pureblood wizard whom she never paid any mind to, being a Slytherin and the fact he was always so quiet and seemingly made friends with no one but a few people within his house. One day he came up to speak to her, and she found him strange in cryptic in his manner of speaking. The two began to run into each other more and more, each time with Azrael trying to strike up a strange and awkward conversation with Sephy that she found to be unnerving, as if he were trying to play mind games with her.
Upon finding Sephy one day on the bridge in deep conversation with Wyeth, Azrael asked her to meet him in the clock tower during dinner time. Unbeknownst to Sephy, Azrael had carefully planned the meeting's time and place so that he could assault her while everyone was eating far away. Beating her mercilessly, he revealed his jealousy that she should speak to anyone other than him and unveiled his future plans to finish his father's work to get a strong pureblood movement going and eventually eradicate muggleborns from wizarding society. It was also discovered he had intentions to marry her due to her family and connections, and had been watching her for years while he carefully and quietly plotted away. Sephy ended up in the hospital wing and told no one but Wyeth of the events. In fear for her life and for her family's well being, she agreed to enter into a relationship with him, to the shock and anger of Wyeth. Afterwards Azrael treated her very well and slowly learned to be receptive to her and even to share some of his emotions; something he had never done before. It was later revealed that he did indeed have real feelings for her, but his violence against her was never forgotten, and she never reciprocated the feelings, although she feigned it.
Suicide Attempt[]
Afterwards, Wyeth landed himself in the hospital again, where he and Sephirah fought over her changed demeanor, and fought again when Wyeth finally told her about his feelings for her, and how they had been growing for a time without him aware of it until he realized he had been comparing everyone to her. Desperately trying to get away to the potions classroom to steal some ingredients for euphoria, Sephirah tried to dodge him and the argument when Helena Arlet appeared. Sephy used the distraction to get away, but Wyeth chased her anyway. Once in the classroom, the pair calmed down, and, egged on by a certain someone's constant insinuation that Sephy was indeed in love with Wyeth, she kissed him to see if it was true, confusing Wyeth, who ended up storming off angrily. Unable to handle the constant fighting, the overwhelming pressure from her mother, quidditch, upcoming N.E.W.Ts, family expectations she couldn't live up to, sustained trauma from her relationship with both Nyle and an un-named Slytherin, she took a vial of Hemlock she has wittingly labeled "Euphoria."
Professor Romanov, who had been watching Wyeth and Sephirah arguing while visiting Professor Grimsbane, saw Wyeth leave angrily and waited for Sephy to leave, but when she didn't, he came in and found broken jars everywhere and an unconscious Sephy on the floor, already blue. Panicked to lose his cousin, he raced her to the hospital wing where CeeCee Ehrenbock, the healer's aide, attempted to figure out the cause of her sudden arrest. Fearing she was dead, Professor Romanov and CeeCee rushed to figure out a strategy, and finally CeeCee stuck a bezoar in her mouth and used the rennervate spell to start her heart again. She came to very slowly, and had to spend three days in the hospital wing while her family was in a silent flurry trying to come to grips with what appeared to them to be a suicide attempt. It was suggested she go to St. Mungo's, but David Larkham put his foot down and refused, ordering Cornelia to finally back off her for a while until they could get to the bottom of her issues.
Sephirah Larkham's astrological birthchart, showing a mutable grand cross and square.
Notable Astrology[]
Sephirah is an Aries sun, Aquarius ascendant, and Aquarius moon, with her moon sitting exactly on her ascendant. She has a grand cross formation in the mutable signs of Sagittarius, Virgo, Gemini and Cancer, as well as a near perfect square and a 5 pointed star. Her Pluto sits in her tenth house in Sagittarius, and both her Venus and Mars sit under the sign of Gemini.