Alicia Spinnet
OOC
| Game | Journal | Portrayed By |
|---|---|---|
| Sidelines | ali_spins | Isla Fisher |
Basic Stats
Full Name: Alicia Daisy Spinnet
Nickname(s): Ali
Gender: Female
Age: 28
Date of Birth: May 8, 1978
Zodiac: Taurus
Sexuality: Lesbian (mostly-closeted)
Relationship Status: Single
Bloodline: Halfblood
Hometown: Whitby, Yorkshire, England
Current Residence: A small, two-bedroom flat on an off-shoot street from Diagon Alley
House & Year: Gryffindor 1996
Occupation: Chaser: Montrose Magpies; public spokeswoman: Hestia's Hearth
Wand: 10 in, poplar, phoenix tail feather
Pet: None
Family
Father: Harold Jackson Spinnet (wizard; Ravenclaw 1996; mortician; b. February 1, 1948; d. March 15, 1998)
Mother: Maude Imogen Spinnet (née Davies; witch; Ravenclaw 1966; midwife; b. April 18, 1948)
Brother: Patrick Spinnet (Hufflepuff 1994)
History
Harold Spinnet and Maude Davies spent seven years going to school together in the same house. Seven years of classes together, sharing a common room, eating at the same table for meals. It would be easy to assume that they were school sweethearts who married and settled down to start a family, or even that they were friends all through school, only to discover later that they loved each other. In actuality, Harold and Maude weren't friends in school. They hated each other: Maude didn't like Harold's morbid sense of humour, and Harold viewed Maude as too old-spirited, like an old woman trapped in a young girl's body. After Hogwarts, they went their separate ways: Harold got a job as a gravedigger, hoping to work his way up to mortician one day, and Maude started Healer training, hoping to apprentice with a midwife. It wasn't until several years later that their paths crossed again at a mutual friend's wedding. They both got a little bit drunk and ended up spending a good chunk of the reception talking, and they even set up a date. Even sober on their date, they seemed to be forging a connection. A couple years later, in 1972, they were married. By this time, both had started realising their individual career dreams: Harold was an assistant mortician at a funeral home in wizarding London, and Maude was nearing the end of her apprenticeship with a midwife.
It wasn't long before their family of two became a family of four. First a son, Patrick, then a daughter, Alicia. Alicia grew up learning much about both the beginning (from her mum) and end (from her dad) of life. She saw that everybody is born in much the same way, and everybody is the same after death. Everyone is the same, so everyone ought to be treated the same. Nobody is inherently better or worse than anyone else based upon blood alone. These were the ideals that Harold and Maude wanted to instill in their children, and Alicia took it to heart.
Growing up, Alicia also loved quidditch. One of her favourite birthday presents when she was little was a toy broomstick that levitated and let her zoom around the backyard on it. She was, quite frankly, a natural on the broomstick, and she had dreams of becoming a chaser, so another favourite childhood toy was a practice quaffle, which she practiced day and night with, throwing it and catching it with her parents or brother, and trying to get it through the makeshift hoops that her dad constructed for her in the backyard.
Alicia was nine when Patrick went off to school, and she started counting down the days until it was her turn to board the Hogwarts Express. Two years later, she finally did, and though she was disappointed to not be sorted into Hufflepuff with her brother, she felt that Gryffindor was a better fit for her, the home of the brave. She tried out for quidditch, and secured a spot as reserve chaser until her third year, when she finally joined roommate and friend Angelina Johnson as starting chaser, along with second year Katie Bell. And, of course, that was also the year that Harry Potter started Hogwarts, and he was named seeker for the team. Once Alicia was a starting chaser for the team, she also quickly became the chaser who most often attempted penalty shots for the team when the other team committed a foul, due to her natural and honed skill at getting the quaffle through the hoop.
Alicia cared greatly for her Hogwarts Family: the quidditch team as well as other Gryffindors. She was horrified and offended when Malfoy used the m-word to refer to Harry's friend Hermione in Alicia's fourth year, and screamed at him for it. She also frequently, over the years, stood up to Oliver when she was worried about her teammates, such as when she suggested they stop a quidditch match in her fourth year and ask for an inquiry when one of the bludgers was insistently going after Harry, afraid that it might kill him.
She wasn't old enough to toss her name into the goblet in her sixth year, for the Triwizard Tournament, but she cheered on Angelina when she did, and when the names were drawn, she gave her support to Harry. That didn't mean she didn't support Cedric, as well, but Harry might as well have been family because of quidditch. She was rocked, as the rest of the school was, by Cedric's death, and she never doubted for a moment what Harry claimed, that You-Know-Who was back. And when Harry started up Dumbledore's Army in Alicia's seventh year, she was there, despite that she was two years older than Harry and most of the other students. She attended as many meetings as she could, without being caught by Umbridge because she was already busy enough with quidditch and helping Angelina find replacements for Harry and the Weasley twins after Umbridge banned them from the team.
Throughout her years at Hogwarts, Alicia started noticing that something was … different. While all her girlfriends were noticing boys, and the boys were starting to notice them, and people started pairing up and starting to date, she found that she wasn't noticing boys, really … she was noticing other girls. At first, she tried to ignore it. She tried dating boys, but it just never felt right. She tried suppressing the thoughts she had about other girls for years, tried forcing herself to like boys instead, but by the time she was nineteen, she could at least admit it to herself, if not anyone else: she was gay.
After finishing school in 1996, Alicia went out for professional quidditch and scored a spot as a reserve chaser for the Holyhead Harpies, though she was quickly promoted to starting chaser before the end of the season. All the stupid jokes and comments about the Harpies being a team of "raging lesbos" did nothing but make her even more … ashamed of how she felt, and she just tried all the harder to deny it all. The war, though, had a way of distracting her: in the summer of 1997, her beloved father, a muggleborn, was imprisoned in Azkaban for the crime of stealing magic. When she got word the following March that he had died there, all she could think was that it wasn't right. And also that, maybe, being gay wasn't that different from being a muggleborn: it was something she couldn't control, and while there would always be people who would think less of her for it, there were others who would love her anyway. When her DA coin called past and present DA members back to Hogwarts for the Battle of Hogwarts against You-Know-Who and his Death Eaters in early May, Alicia returned to fight with Oliver, Katie, and Angelina, joining their friends. Alicia almost got out of the battle unscathed, except for a curse that slashed up her legs left her in St Mungo's for a few months.
Once she was released from the hospital, her legs were still a little stiff, and she would forever walk with a bit of a limp, but she was still able to keep her seat on a broom and, therefore, still able to play for the Harpies, and she remained one of their best chasers for several years until 2005, when she was traded to the Montrose Magpies and rejoined her old teammate and captain, Oliver Wood. Beyond playing, Alicia also got heavily involved in the new charitable organisation, Hestia's Hearth. It was started shortly after the end of the war by a woman, Malina Harrison, whose muggleborn husband was wrongfully imprisoned in Azkaban and died there. The charity struck close to home for Alicia, because of her father. At first, Alicia simply donated her money and time to the organisation, but she also grew close to Malina, who asked her to become a public spokewoman for the charity in 2000, and Alicia happily accepted the position.
Also in the years following the war, Alicia had her first relationship with another girl. It was something entirely different for her, and the first thing that ever actually felt right for her, in the romantic department. Her girlfriend was fully out of the closet, and she continually pressured Alicia to do the same, but she just couldn't. The Harpies' PR person was the first person to really straight-out ask Alicia if she was gay, and then severely cautioned her against coming out: she was still a relative rookie, and it could damage her reputation, and that of the team. And when she got involved with Hestia's Hearth, the rep pointed out that a gay spokeswoman could harm the organisation, as well. So Alicia stayed in the closet, which ultimately led to breaking up with her first girlfriend, who couldn't stay with her when she was in the closet. Even now, Alicia has only actually come out to a few very close friends. She hasn't managed to break the news to her mother or brother yet, though, out of fear of losing any more of her family.
Personality
Alicia is one of the nicest people you'll meet, and surprisingly even-tempered for a Gryffindor. Unlike many of her housemates, Alicia won't charge headfirst into things or lose her head; instead, she stays level-headed and pragmatic. There needs to be a plan before just jumping in headfirst. But she was sorted into Gryffindor for a reason: she's brave, and she has very high standards of personal integrity and nobility. She cannot stand people who use the m-word, or who belittle people simply for their birth, whether it be the muggleborns belittled by the purists, or the poor belittled by the rich. She stood up to Umbridge when questioned about Professor Flitwick (one of her favourite teachers from Hogwarts!) and joined the DA to oppose her, not to mention that she fought in the Battle of Hogwarts.
Speaking of the Battle of Hogwarts, she has some minor body image issues. With her legs scarred as they are from the curse she caught in battle, she doesn't like wearing shorts or short skirts. The Harpies would always put out a sexy calendar, and for the shoots, she got help to put extensive charms on her legs to hide the scars, but she still posed in ways that hid the front of her upper legs, and she immediately pulled on a pair of jeans to cover up her legs as soon as she was done being photographed. She gets nervous about people seeing her legs, and she even hates just looking at her own legs.
Her injury wasn't career-ending, though it forced Alicia to seriously look at what she could do for a job after she could no longer play quidditch. After all, every time she's on the pitch, she runs the risk of a career-ending injury. She doesn't think about that once she's on the pitch, but in the hours leading up to a match, she will sometimes get a little nervous. She's started taking business classes through independent study in her free time around practices, thinking she might like to work in business management someday … or maybe even become a manager of a quidditch team, once her playing career is over. Alicia tries to look several steps ahead, so that she's not left hanging in midair without a broom if something happens.
Alicia is like a PR rep's dream: she never does anything that might introduce negative publicity, but instead does a lot of charity work and is always happy to pose for a picture with a fan or sign an autograph or talk with the press. She's also become the public spokesperson for the non-profit Hestia's Hearth, which provides assistance to families in need. Despite (or perhaps because of) all this, she keeps her private life as much out of the media as she can. It's why she hasn't publicly come out of the closet: partly because it's not the public's business, and partly because she was cautioned years ago that it might hurt the team or the charity.