fem!Finland - Maija Kivailaakso [Done]

Character's name: Maija Kivailaakso

Country of origin: Finland

Year: 4th

Age: 14

House: Hufflepuff

Personality:

Maija is a naturally happy person, the first to give you a hand if someone needed it. She’s shy at first but quickly opens and proves herself to be a loud and boisterous girl. The type of girl who would wrestles with her friends playfully if they took something from her, as well as the type to bite if push came to shove.
Since a young age, her first and foremost quality is that she’s a hard worker. Maija is incapable of standing still, relaxing to her means a good day at work or a long hike in the mountains. Despite having a very obvious weakness for food, the young Finnish girl is very active. Overall, Maija has a very strong personality.

After being accepted into Drumstang, Maija experienced within herself a personality split. At school, she kept up a cold façade as to not draw any attention to herself for the first two years, she hated it. One day she finally snapped and ended up fighting against a boy three times bigger than herself. He didn't have the chance to pull out his wand, before she tackled him to the ground. Maija found some long forgotten strength left in her limbs. Winning the fight was worth the three months of detention and all the dirty glares in the world. She used to cry like any other child before attending school, but since she turned eleven, tears just don’t appear in her eyes.

Appearance:



Muggle-born, Half-blood, or Pureblood?

Half-Blood

Strengths:

Quidditch
Transfiguration
Charms
Patient
A lot stronger than she looks
Active

Weakness:

Speaking clearly when frightened
Letting people get away with things
Maija is extremely ticklish
Potions
Easily becomes restless

Likes:

Sweets
Hiking
Mountains
Flying
Muggles - So far, the wizarding community hasn't really impressed her.
Her Mama - She wouldn’t hesitate to drop everything for her.
Christmas

Dislikes:

Bullies
Pure-blood elitists
Being told what to do
Sour Food

Quirks:

Maija loves ugly sweaters, on herself and on everyone around her.
Maija loves Heavy metal music, when she's at home with her mother, she sets it as her alarm and falls asleep excited to hear it.


Your Character's backstory:

For the longest time, it was just Maija and her mother. They lived next to the spa resort that Mama worked at, Maija would help clean the rooms to, she thought it was fun and better than going to that daycare with all the other little kids. Mama was fun to be with all the time. Maija was 6 years old when she first noticed something strange. She was scrubbing the floor trying her best to get it to sparkle like when her mother cleans it when suddenly it did start to sparkle, but not at all like how a clean floor at a spa should, but like a crown -a sparkling glittery crown. Mama walked in and dropped her supplies; the floor had magically turned into diamonds.

Their life after that changed, but only a little. The owners of the spa gave them a piece of the wealth as they felt morally obliged to do so and then went onto an early retirement. Maija and her mother then took over the business, the old owners took the diamond floors and replaced it back to the regular tiles. For a strange reason that Maija couldn’t really understand, Mama looked at her more thoughtfully after the event, and with some sort of sadness that only confused the young girl further.

Life continued on, as it always did, except now Maija attended school. She didn’t do very well in an academic environment, she would rather hide in the woods behind the spa than to sit down and do her schoolwork. The only way her mother was able to get her down from the trees was by coaxing her with treats. This turn of habit would forever dictate Maija’s weight.

On her tenth birthday, something terrible happened. Something that Maija would forever look back on as one of the worst days of her life. Her father walked into her life. Maija never met the man, and she had never cared to. Her thoughts about him were bitter and she knew in her gut that she and her mother were better off without him, that they didn’t need him. They managed to be self-sufficient and even become successful with their lives. The man who walked out on them had no place in her heart.

Discovering the fact that she was a wizard wasn’t what made her so angry on that day, it was the fact that he took her away
from her mother. “A witch needs to be brought up in a wizarding family, not by some muggle whore.” He threatened her and her mother, that Maija had to come with him or there would be hell to pay. They both gave in; they were both terrified by the cruel wizard. Maija especially, she had never been so afraid in her entire life.


We Just Got A Letter:

The next year, Maija would be muted by that fear. She was no longer the adventurous little girl who ran away into the woods every day after school. She was a thin small thing who did what she was told, because she didn’t understand her situation.

Her father only started to show some level of kindness to her when a letter from Drumstang arrived. Maija didn’t understand the situation fully, at the time, but looking back she realized that the only reason her father came to take her away was because he and his pure-blood wife were incapable of having children, and he refused to not have an heir. He probably would have sent her back to her mother if that school had only rejected her. But her father’s pure-blood status allowed the school to overlook the fact that she was born to a muggle mistress.

The one good thing about being admitted into Drumstang was that she was allowed to spend Christmas with her mother. Maija’s joy would be unwavering around that time of year, no one at the school could bully her out of it.

-

During the summer of before her fourth year of schooling, Maija received a letter from Hogwarts, asking her to join the exchange program. She showed it meekly to her father, who at first told her to reply and refuse the offer. Much to Maija’s disappointment, this past year was when she had finally snapped out of her muted stupor of fear and fought back. She only sort of regretted it now, since it was hard living somewhere where nearly everyone hated you.

So instead she kept the letter to herself and put off replying, she prayed every night that her father would have a change of heart.

Her praying paid off, someone had put into her father’s head that going to Hogwarts would be an incredible experience as well as a great honour. It would boost both his and his daughter’s prestige in the world’s eye. And on the day that his thoughts were wavering in favour of Hogwarts, he spoke to Maija about it. She said she would reply right away that she could go, before her father could change her mind again.

And with that, Maija’s adventurous spirit returned.


The Sorting:

She held her breath and counted backwards from ten, she squeezed her hands together in her lap. She was trying her best not to bounce around excitedly. So far everything about Hogwarts had grabbed her attention and completely wooed her. It was nothing like Drumstang, which had also left in a different kind of awe. The boat ride was beautiful, but physically boring and now the waiting for her turn was killing her with its slowness.

Finally a professor called out her name, butchering it, but still recognizably hers. She walked up the steps, her eyes fixed on the now quiet hat.

The sorting hat, she had only received a brief introduction to each of the houses. At first she liked the sound of all them, thinking of qualities she had of each. It was only until she walked into the great hall did she realize she didn’t want to be in Slytherin or in Ravenclaw. One house seemed to house people who gave her the same vibe as those from Drumstang while the other seemed to be filled with very studious people who would probably get exasperated with helping her with schoolwork.

So that left her with Hufflepuff and Gryffindor.

Now she was sitting on the stool, the hat was drawn over her eyes.

Wow, I have a small head- That you do. She blinked, wait what was that? What do you think, child? Have you not paid any attention to what you have seen today? The hat. I thought you would just yell out the house, not be a voice inside my head- . . .this is strange.

The hat seemed to chuckle in her ear. It was just as she thought, strange. It felt like he was reading everything about her.

You are a difficult child, but I can see plainly where you belong. You remind me so very much of a good friend from very long ago. One word of advice, don’t ever be afraid to speak up.

“HUFFLEPUFF!”

She looked up at the cheering table and made her way down to it, the smile was bright on her face. It would be nice, she thought to herself, to belong.