Katy Baxter
OOC
| Game | Journal | Portrayed By |
|---|---|---|
| Life, or Something Like It | keeps_going | Billie Piper |
Basic Stats
Full Name: Katherine Olivia Baxter
Nickname(s): Katy
Gender: Female
Age: 22
Date of Birth: May 3, 1981
Zodiac: Taurus
Sexuality: Straight
Relationship Status: Single
Bloodline: Muggleborn
Hometown: Brighton, England
House & Year: Hufflepuff 1999 (was in Azkaban 1997-1998; did not return for 1998-1999)
Occupation: Keeper: Kenmare Kestrels
Pet: None
Family
Father: Thomas Baxter (muggle; banker; b. September 15, 1950)
Mother: Emma Baxter (née Clarke; muggle; secretary; b. February 7, 1951)
Brother: William Baxter (muggle; reporter; b. October 23, 1979)
History
Thomas Baxter and Emma Clarke met in a rather traditional way: at work. Thomas was a banker, and Emma was a secretary at his bank. One day, he asked her to join him for lunch, and then they began dating. In 1977, they were married. Their early married life was quite normal and very muggle (even though they didn't know that the word muggle existed; now that they know the word, they agree that they are quite muggle, and quite proud of it, too), with no odd occurrances or anything out of the ordinary. Their first child, a son whom they named William (Will for short), was born in late 1979, and although their life became much more busy, what with having a baby around the house who needed feeding and burping and changing and sleeping, the Baxter household was still as normal as any other household that had a normal new baby.
However, it was when their second child, a daughter named Katherine (Katy for short), was born in mid-1981 that their normal, muggle lifestyle came to an end. Oh, yes, the first few years with baby Katy were as normal as can be with two young children running around the house, but then things started getting just plain downright weird. Of course, anytime that anything odd happened around Katy was just chalked up to coincidence, or just plain ignored. Surely anything weird happening with Katy was just the reactions of a younger sister trying to get attention from her parents and older brother, since Will was always earning high marks in school and was popular and athletic, while Katy only managed passable marks and was clumsy and shy. The idea that she might be a witch was preposterous, as witches were things of fairytales and didn't really exist. Or so the family assumed.
They were proven wrong in the summer of 1992 when, shortly after Katy's eleventh birthday, a representative from Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry showed up at the Baxter household, and they informed the family that Katy was a witch and invited her to the school. Thomas and Emma, of course, thought it was all completely bollocks, until the representative showed them a display of magic and pointed out that Katy being a witch would explain anything weird that might have happened around her growing up. The family finally accepted the news that Katy was a witch and that Hogwarts was the best place for her, so on the first of September, 1992, Katy joined her fellow young witches and wizards at Hogwarts. Unknown to Katy, however, the news fostered in her family a sense of fear, fear that she would return from school the following June and turn them all into newts, or something.
At the school, she was sorted into Hufflepuff, though she knew very little about the different houses, only what she had heard on the train. Despite the Sorting Hat's song about the differences between the houses, she didn't really understand why they were being split up like that and told that they were different from each other, then have them compete against each other. It was certainly a change from home; while at home, she was constantly being compared to Will, at school she was looked down upon for being a "mudblood" (she had to ask one of her new friends what that meant) and a Hufflepuff.
As in her muggle primary school, Katy did not particularly excel at any of her classes at Hogwarts, with Herbology and Potions being the only exceptions. Classes like Transfiguration and Charms, which required more wand-waving and magical prowess, were beyond her. Katy felt as though she didn't belong at Hogwarts, a feeling only enhanced by the threat of the heir of Slytherin that year. The ultimate bright spot of her first year were flying lessons. As clumsy as she was on the ground, she felt light and free on a broomstick, and although she knew nothing of quidditch before starting school, she became obsessed with the sport, watching all of the matches and checking out any book on the subject from the library.
At home, Katy felt even more out of place than ever before, due to her family's distrust of her. She ended up spending most of her holidays after that first year visiting her best friend, one of her roommates from school who grew up in the wizarding world and often helped explain to Katy the things that she didn't quite understand. It was only her friends and quidditch that made Katy really feel as though she belonged in the wizarding world at all, and thanks to her family, she felt as though she didn't belong in the muggle world, either, so she spent much of her years at Hogwarts feeling lost and out of place.
In her second year, Katy made the Hufflepuff Quidditch team as the reserve keeper. Even though she was only twelve, she nursed quite a large crush on the team's seeker, Cedric Diggory. The following year, when he was the Hogwarts Champion (or … co-Champion), she cheered loudly for him and, vainly, wished that he would ask her to be his date for the Yule Ball. She was disappointed when he asked Cho Chang, but she also figured that of course he would want to go with someone older, prettier, and more sure of herself, instead of a lost little third year. His death at the end of the year rocked her hard, and she was afraid to trust the Harry Potter boy and Professor Dumbledore about Lord Voldemort being back, because everything that she had heard about him simply terrified her.
As the previous Hufflepuff keeper had finished school the previous year, Katy gained the position of starting keeper on the team, which she held in her fouth and fifth years. Quidditch really became the only thing that kept her going in the face of everything going on in the wizarding world, looking forward to practices and matches and reliving all the matches she played in the past. In fact, that became the only thing that kept her sane. In the summer of 1997, only months after the shocking death of Professor Dumbledore, she was arrested by the Ministry of Magic for "stealing magic." Her fears that she didn't belong in the wizarding world were seemingly confirmed, and though she would have been fine with just returning to the muggle world, what happened instead was that her wand was snapped in half and she was thrown into Azkaban, the wizarding prison.
The time that Katy spent in Azkaban was scarring to her. The Dementors, which had scared her enough when they had been at the school in her second year, now terrified her. All of her fears and worries about not belonging anywhere raged through her mind, courtesy of the Dementors, and she was utterly helpless. She fought with herself constantly, reminding herself about quidditch, the feel of the wind in her hair as she flew, the joy of blocking a shot into the goal. Her memories of holidays spent with her best friend also kept her going, memories of feeling warm and comfortable. It was a hard fight, but she managed to keep those memories, despite how much it felt like it would be so much easier to just let go and sink into a depression.
When Voldemort was defeated again and she was freed from the prison, Katy was permanently scarred. Although she bore no physical signs of torture, her mind and soul were riddled with scars from her time in Azkaban. She was even more lost than before, trapped between two worlds and feeling as though she belonged in neither. It wasn't until several months after her release from Azkaban that she felt truly alive again, and that was when she had the chance to ride a broomstick again. The sun on her face and the wind in her hair went a long way to healing those deep-set wounds from the war.
Katy never returned to Hogwarts and, as such, never sat for her N.E.W.T.s, and with no muggle school records beyond primary school, she had trouble finding work. She finally got a job as a sales clerk in Quality Quidditch Supplies on Diagon Alley, where she earned enough to afford a small flat in the area. The lack of professional quidditch disheartened her, as she didn't at least have the distraction of listening to quidditch matches on the wireless to keep her going. She also held out a vain hope of being able to try out for a quidditch team, which had been something of a dream of hers while at Hogwarts.
Her chance for quidditch came when it was finally announced that the sport was coming back, and try-outs would be held for the various teams to fill in spots that had been vacated, either due to the players dying during the war or finding other callings. Katy tried out and was rewarded with the starting keeper position for the Kenmare Kestrels. Although she still struggled with depression from the war, she finally felt as though she was on her way to being right again, and to feeling as though she had a place in the world.