AISLINN COLLINS - MUGGLEBORN - TATIANA MASLANY - TAKEN POTIONS ASSISTANT
Aislinn, who goes by Ash, was raised in muggle foster care after she was abandoned by her parents at the train station as a baby. She recently found out who her parents were and why her mother abandoned her. She is muggle born. As a child, she frequently ran away from her foster homes and spent most of her time on the streets. However, her childhood friend, Rowan was the one bright spot in her life. They learned how to fight together and survive on the streets, the two were nearly inseparable. However, when Ash was 9 and Rowan was 11, he disappeared and she wouldn’t see him for two more years. She had no real childhood, but she was a tough kid, a survivor. It was on one of the occasions that she had run away from her foster family and had been sleeping in a dark alley between the folds of a cardboard box, when the owl delivered her letter from Hogwarts.
Despite thinking that the letter had to be bullshit and she was stupid to believe in magic and the sort, she very stupidly found herself scribbling on the letter “I accept but don’t know how to buy all of the supplies.” She gave the owl the letter and the owl took off. Thinking the whole thing had been a dream or something, Aislinn went back to sleep. She was awoken the next morning by a grim looking Minerva McGonagall who spent a lot of time tsking about how dirty Aislinn was and where she was sleeping. She explained that Hogwarts was real, that Aislinn was a witch and that she could attend Hogwarts and the school would provide a scholarship fund to pay for her supplies.
McGonagall took Aislinn to Diagon alley and helped her purchase all of the things she would need for her first year at Hogwarts. Including a wand that was made of maple wood with a dragon core, 12.5 inches long and supple. And McGonagall even added 9 galleons to the fund so that Aislinn could purchase a black cat that would be a trusted companion for years to come. Once the day was over, Aislinn thought she would be returned to that alley in muggle London, but instead she was brought to a family McGonagall knew. The arrangement was only temporary until the start of school.
Once school started, the sorting hat was placed on her head and the hat sat silently on her head for minutes to come. She thought maybe the hat would spout out that she wasn’t a witch and she was an imposter and couldn’t be sorted, but after agonizingly silent minutes ticked by the hat finally yelled out “GRYFFINDOR!” Aislinn was sorted into Gryffindor. At first she was happy with the sorting, everybody seemed friendly enough, but there would be times when she worried that maybe the hat got it wrong.
Ash was also very surprised to find that Rowan was there at Hogwarts and in Gryffindor. She was upset with him for leaving her and not telling her about Hogwarts or anything about his life. But she forgave them and the two were thick as thieves once again.
As a student a Hogwarts, Aislinn was often bullied. She couldn’t answer questions about her blood purity or her parents or anything that other students might have wondered about her.
Ash was guarded and didn’t make friends easily. But among her friends, the people she held dear to her were Rowan, Lyra, and Cecilia. They were the people she trusted and let in past her walls and defenses.
Additionally she got into fights occasionally. Not just fights with magic, but physical fights too. She spent a lot of time getting disapproving looks from McGonagall and Dumbledore. And many times she worried that the next time she landed in their office, she would get kicked out. But it never came.
Her best subjects were Defense Against the Dark Arts and Potions. Nobody was more surprised than her. But she really enjoyed potion brewing and she had a natural ability to do so.
During the holiday breaks, Aislinn stayed at the castle. But when summer came and everybody returned home, Ash felt like she had no place to go. But the couple, the one who McGonagall had taken her to stay with before the first year started, were happy to take Aislinn in. She never became too close to them, but she always appreciated the kindness they showed her. They became like a foster family to her, but unlike the muggle families they had never demanded anything of her for the care and protection they offered her. They were good people. To this day, she still goes back to visit them for holidays and birthdays. They still correspond frequently and they are the closest thing she ever had to real parents.
When she was 16 and Rowan was 18, he left Hogwarts and that would be the last she saw of him for ten years. It broke her heart and she missed him terribly, but she was a survivor and she would survive without him. But life at Hogwarts without Rowan had been hard for Ash.
After she left Hogwarts, she became a professional brewer, making potions for wealthy families. But her skill in potion brewing brought the wrong kind of attention to her. A certain dark wizard wanted her recruited. But Dumbledore got to her first, offering her a position as the potions professor. The offer came right after Ash had been attacked by a hooded figure as she walked home one night. The event scared her and she was only too happy to accept Dumbledore’s offer. But that wasn’t the only reason why she took the position. Hogwarts had been such an important part of her life, that she wanted to give back and she wanted to inspire other students the way she had been inspired.
There are also a few familiar faces among the teachers. Including Rowan, who is now the Groundskeeper and who she has not seen in ten years. Just when they had started rekindling their friendship and maybe finding it was a little more than friendship, Rowan abandoned her for the third and final time. One day he was there, the next he was gone, nothing but a piece of parchment where he he scribbled a “Sorry. Don’t hate me.” and had left it for her to find.
Rowan had abandoned her again, just like her mother had abandoned her at the train station as a newborn baby. Recently Ash tracked down her birth parents, finding them in muggle London. She found out that her mother and father were both Muggles who did not know anything about the wizard world. Her father didn’t even know Ash existed because her mother had kept it a secret from him. Ash is keeping that information secret, not willing to tell anyone she doesn’t trust, for fear that she will become the new target for death eaters.
While Ash has the ability to be charismatic, if she tried, she finds it safer to keep her guard up than to risk being hurt. Another thing to note about Aislinn is that the lines are blurred between dark and light for her. Some of her actions might be as morally questionable. She just doesn’t see every action as being good or bad, black or white. She thinks everything in terms of shades of grey.
STRENGTHS: Strong-Willed, Street Smart, Brave, Blunt
WEAKNESSES: Unconfident, Bad temper, Stubborn, Sarcastic
CLOSE FRIEND: Cecilia Owen
