Verity Ashworth

Verity Ashworth
Gender: Female
Height: Above Average

Blood status: Halfblood
Raised in: Wizarding
Home: Puddles Way -- LilyGrove

Boggart: Her baby brother Ezra's body lying on the floor, motionless.

Patronus: Unknown
To most people at Hogwarts, Verity is a sociable and energetic person who always has her friends' backs. Curious and just a little bit nosy, she's usually a good person to have on your side because she will fight hard for what she wants -- going far enough to break rules if necessary. She likes getting along with people her age, and genuinely enjoys conversations, including gossip.

What some people might notice when they get closer to Verity is that, as much as she loves to chatter and investigate things, she rarely talks about her own home life. Sure, they'd be able to talk about the other Hogwarts-aged Ashworths, but beyond that Verity is a bit of a brick wall, and this is by design. She's a little embarrassed by the life she lives when she isn't at Hogwarts, and especially by her mother-figure, Aubrey.

She can be clingy to the people she calls friends, getting nervous if they ever seem to be drawing away from her. She wants people to stay in her life rather than fade away, which can lead to her double-booking herself if there are two things she wants to do that both involve her friends.

Verity is independent and able to do most things on her own, but if she works with a group she'll usually try to lead because it's easier for things to go her way if she's in charge. Another part of that is that Verity generally thinks that she understands people and their personalities, and can typically assign people to roles that best fit them in the situation.

However, Verity is also a person that tends to bottle up negative emotions until they explode out. Hypocritically, she's easily frustrated when information is hidden from her or she's shut out, and these things tend to make her "blow up" a little bit faster. She'll be very defensive or lash out at people who she's frustrated with, and even people who haven't done anything until she's had a little bit of time on her own.

Verity's family is incredibly important to her, especially her baby brother Ezra, who is her last full-blooded connection to her dad. She is protective of him and can be put on edge more easily than if her other family members were put in danger. That isn't to say that Verity doesn't like Jaxen, Reena, or Kody, but she considers Ezra to be closer to her and worries if he ever seems to drift away.

While sometimes it may not seem like it, she loves Jax, Reena, and Kody and as she’s gotten older Verity has realized the strength of the love that their family has for each other, and has leaned on it herself more than a few times. She genuinely cares about her entire family and wouldn't hesitate to start rumors about or duel anyone who tried to mess with them.

One important connection Verity feels like she lacks is a parental connection. With her biological parents gone, the only adult she's relied on is her technically-aunt Aubrey, and while at times Verity tries to reach out, it's an exercise she quickly finds frustrating, and she gives up all over again. Otherwise, she mostly relies on Jaxen and Reena, even though she's well aware that they're not much older than she is.

At home, Verity is a little more quiet and reserved than at school, feeling that she is a little bit of an outsider with the other Ashworths because of her own frustrations with their situation and the way that she feels about her dad. When she's not quiet, it's usually because she's either in a very good mood, or a very bad mood, something that quickly becomes obvious.

Verity's favourite hobby is art, and she generally prefers to use pencils rather than ink. She loves to draw little pieces of her life, like nature, but she's working on drawing people. Right now most of them look a bit wonky. Her creativity comes from her spontaneity, and in that way she's a little bit like Aubrey -- one of the connections she's okay with having. She doodles pretty much everywhere, from the margins of her homework to her own arms and legs. She's also known for giving her friends cool 'tattoos' with ink that's supposed to be used for homework.

Appearance is another way that Verity expresses herself, though she hasn't made any completely drastic changes, like shaving her head or completely dying it yet out of consideration for Aubrey. She's been considering experimenting with makeup, but is a little shy about it so hasn't gotten very far. The uniform at Hogwarts is very stifling to her, and she'll typically mess with the uniform either by rolling the sleeves up or even cuffing the pants.

At school, she enjoys Defense Against the Dark Arts as an outlet for her emotions, and can sometimes be found searching through history textbooks for any hints of the past. She's not a particularly academic student, because while she is curious, she tends to follow her own whims and what grabs her interest rather than what her professors want her to be focusing on.
Verity's mother left her family shortly after Verity's baby brother Ezra was born, leaving Verity with no memories of her. The next two years were spent with Verity, Ezra, and their dad, Conrad, living together. Verity doesn't have any exact memories of the situation, but she knows how she feels when she thinks back on those days, and she definitely knows how she felt about it when her dad died.

It was incredibly difficult for Verity to adjust to the loss of her father and all the changes that came with it. Screaming tantrums, sleepless nights, and refusing to share were all common in the beginning, and for a while Verity associated this trauma mostly with her aunt, Aubrey, who had stepped up to take care of Verity and Ezra after the death of Conrad and her own husband, Marcus.

Verity was aware her childhood was different than it could have been, and painfully felt the loss of her dad, especially when she tried to lean on Aubrey for help and it just wasn't there. She quickly learned that her older cousins, Jaxen and Reena, were much more reliable than their mother.

Seeing first Jaxen, then Reena go away to Hogwarts made Verity envious of the time they spent learning to do what she thought of as cool spells. For the year that Reena went away, Verity was a nightmare to endure the nannies sent by her grandparents, demanding that she be in charge since she knew the rules of the house, and wasn't she just old enough to do things by herself by now?

When she went to Hogwarts, at the same time as her cousin Kody, Verity worried immensely about Ezra. He was young, and she was nervous that he'd get into trouble because she wasn't around to help him out. Sometimes, she would have nightmares that one of the nannies turned out to be evil and had killed him, or there wasn't enough bread for sandwiches so he was starving.

On the other hand, Hogwarts was a place where Verity was allowed to be herself. The castle seemed humongous after all that she had been through, and going home again would usually lead to an emotional explosion within the first week due to all the changes she faced between the two places. The only consistently good thing about home was Ezra.

Now that Ezra's started at Hogwarts, Verity has been more hesitant than ever to go home -- believing that one of the only reasons to return is to seek out more information about her parents, and why nobody will ever talk about them.