Ceres A. Wickenburg.

[Ceres A. Wickenburg]

General Information

First Name:
Ceres Aline

Last Name:
Wickenburg

Heritage:
Pureblood

Birth date:
August 11th, 1960

Age:
13, soon to be 14.

Place of Birth:
Wickenburg House, London

Current Location/Home:
Wickenburg House, London

Look

General Appearance:
Ceres is not a very tall girl, but one of the smallest of her class. Of course, one could say that is because she is one of the youngest girls in her class, being born in the middle of August - and, to a certain point, that would be correct. But, Ceres was even shorter than the girls in the class below. It seems that her short height has a genetic cause. And, what she lacks in height, she does not even try to make up with her weight. She has a very slender, skinny body, thin, long limbs, a flat stomach - perhaps her body figure derives from her eating habits: She tends to eat very little, but instead savor the taste of the food more instead. She just is not so hungry, and simply can't understand how some children could stuff themselves full with food. Such a behaviour is unimaginable to her.
Ceres has a very white, milky skin, eyes like a deer, and soft, wavy light-brown hair. She seems to be very fragile, when in fact she has a very trained body - she enjoys to exercise and take a jog about the lake every once in a while.
The young girl doesn't take much care about her looks. She likes to dress from casual to formal - so from a sweater or a jogging suit to a fine blouse and a skirt. She puts on the clothes she feels most comfortable in, without much thought what others might think of her appearance. In her own little world, it doesn't occur to her that someone might be so shallow as to judge her personality and social status by the look of her clothes. What Ceres does wear, and that at all times, is a small golden locket in form of a necklace, containing small wizarding pictures of her grandparents on her father's side - a token she had received from her father. She does not put on any other kind of jewelry, neither does she put on any make up at all. She thinks it makes her look older by years.

Eye Colour:
Chocolate brown

Hair Colour:
Light brown

Background

Parents:
Helen Artimisia Wickenburg
Daniel Adam Wickenburg

Siblings:
None

Other Family:
Michael and Judith Wickenburg (grandparents) (both deceased)
David (brother of Michael) and his wife Malka Wickenburg (both deceased)
Mirjam Wickenburg (sister of Michael) (deceased)
Robert Adam Twickenham (fiance)

Personal History:
To explain Ceres' history, one has to understand her father's and grandfather's history, because it influenced her own very much.
The Wickenburg family had been a very respected pureblood family with jewish roots, living in Vienna. They had made their income by publishing a wizarding newspaper, the very popular (among wizards and witches) German Der Greif. From father to son, the production of this daily newspaper had been inherited, each member of the family had found a place to work there - as journalist, editor, photographer or in the publishing office. In 1932, Ceres' grandfather, Michael Wickenburg, and his two siblings, David and Mirjam, inherited the newspaper from their father. David, being the eldest of the siblings, took over the position of main head of the publishing office. Mirjam busied herself with the layout and the editing position, and Michael went after his precious hobby: shooting photographs.

It was in 1938 when the family first realized that their newspaper emporium would not last much longer. One has to realize that in 1938, many things happened at the same time: Not only did the muggle Adolf Hitler take over Austria and include it to his German Drittes Reich, and with that, the capital Vienna as well, without any resistance. Also, in the magical world, did Gellert Grindelwald rise to unimaginable strength in Europe, which put pressure on each member of the wizarding community. And those two combined brought many problems to the Wickenburg family these days: The Wickenburgs were jews, and that was well known. To Grindelwald, this little fact was of no importance. But to Hitler, it was. And Grindelwald, on the other hand, had asked the Wickenburgs numerous times to join his side, yet they always had declined. The Wickenburgs, although of entirely pure blood, were no followers of Grindelwald's idea of purebloods reigning over all other kinds of bloods. That cause the Wickenburgs to be seen as blood traitors - equals to muggles and muggleborn, not worth much more than simple worms.

Out of these two reasons, being Jews and being blood traitors, the Wickenburgs had to leave - to flee the country. They did realize it - only that is was a tad too late. In all the chaos of the two wars (Second World War and the War against Grindelwald), the Wickenburgs were caught up. Only two family members managed to successfully flee: Michael, and his newborn son, Daniel. Michael's two siblings, his sister-in-law, and his own wife had been caught in the war, and killed in the process.

Michael fled to England, to London, seeking a new, safe home there. He had nothing left: All that the Wickenburgs had possessed had been left in Vienna, ready to be stolen or ruined. Michael was forced to start totally anew. If it hadn't been for little Daniel, he certainly would have given up, signed himself up in the army on a suicide mission. But Daniel was all his reason, his cause to live on. Michael built up a small shop in Diagon Alley, nothing important, but enough to feed little Daniel and help the two of them survive the raging war. Michael received much help from another wizarding family, who lived just around the next corner. He received clothes, food and spare money every now and then, to help the two of them along the way. This family also had a little daughter, just one year younger than Daniel: Helen Artimisia. The two children were nearly inseparable, growing up together, being the best of friends.

Daniel and Helen attended Hogwarts when they were eleven. For Daniel's father, it was awful to be separated from his son, who after all was all the family he had left. But there also was the positive fact of Michael saving much money with only one person to spend it on (himself), knowing that Daniel would be well taken care of at Hogwarts.
It was no big surprise at all, for neither of the two families, when Daniel and Helen proclaimed their engagement straight after graduating from Hogwarts. Neither was it very surprising to find Helen heavily pregnant, only a couple of weeks after their marriage. It is only sad to say that Michael never had the chance to greet his granddaughter. The heavy losses in his life, especially the loss of his beloved wife, and all the strength it had cost him to built up a new life for his son Daniel had weakened him, and had caused his far too early death.

Ceres Aline Wickenburg was born on August 11th, 1960. She would remain the only child of Daniel and Helen - the birth had weakened Helen too greatly to go through another such stressful state.
The little girl grew up in a very loving surrounding - to the last Wickenhams, love and affection were thought of as being most important. After all, both Helen and Daniel had experienced how hatred, rage and brutality could ruin a person and the interaction between persons. Both had experienced unforeseeable losses, pain, unnecessary death and heartbreak - and thought it best to raise their daughter without personally experiencing any such things. They wanted to shield Ceres from all the evil of the world - with the only exception of Daniel telling little Ceres all the stories of her ancestors, the newspaper publisher family, who was wealthy and respected, living in an expensive Vienna town house. Daniel enjoyed telling Ceres about their family's past - he was reminded how his own father, Michael, had told him those stories, sometimes with exactly the same words and phrases. However, Daniel left out the bad parts of the story, the flight, the death, the murder, until he thought Ceres would be old enough.

Ceres grew up to be socially a little underdeveloped than her peers. She preferred to stay at home with her parents than to go out and explore the world. She did not like to play or to talk with other children - perhaps the reason behind this was that all these children always talked so much about their families, their grandparents, their aunts and uncles. Perhaps another reason was that Ceres did not grow up in a wizarding community, but among muggles, and felt like an outsider with her magical abilities. Fact was, she liked the time best that she spent in bed, with her dad sitting on her bedside and telling her all those stories about the legendary (as she liked to think of them) Wickenburgs. She had a special bond to her father, after all, they had the same past, the same family history, and it influenced Ceres far more than the little history she ever learned about her mother's side. Helen did not talk much about her family, and there was no one else to ask. At the time Ceres was eleven years old, her mother Helen was the only living member of her family left.

In September 1971, Ceres boarded the Hogwarts Express for her first year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. It was very difficult for her to be away of her family, especially of her father. But she enjoyed being at Hogwats. She was fascinated by all the new surroundings, the lovely landscape, the ancient castle - and there was so much to learn! Ceres developed a thirst for knowledge during her first year at Hogwarts, it consumed her, she wanted to know more about those halls and walls, their history, everything the paintings could tell her. Ceres wanted to understand the magical world, more than her parents had explained to her. She tried to suck up all information she could get in classes, like a dry sponge, thirsting for more and more water.

Ceres' hunger for knowledge caused her to socially seclude herself even more. Instead of interacting with peers, she would stare into books, gathering information. She would spend certainly too much time than healthy in the library, would always carry books around with her, and would only talk to people, teachers or students alike, when necessary and absolutely unavoidable.

Character Traits

Personality:
Her family's history has influenced Ceres more than she realizes. The wonderful Wickenburg family, once so renowned, so praised, so successful and wealthy - Ceres carries the deep desire in her to live up to those high standards - but she does not realize she wishes this. She wants to make her ancestors, long deceased, proud of herself, she wants to make up for everything they had lost, due to two men's madness. It is her deepest wish to make her father proud, to restore the family name and family fortune, and to regain the family's position in society. That she has to work for, that is her one and only goal in life.

But, one has to understand, all these wishes are unconscious, deeply hidden within Ceres' character. She does not realize that these desires are the motives behind her acting. Ceres only knows: She has to work hard, she has to get good grades, she has to succeed. She is a perfectionist - her family's history caused her to be one. Although Ceres is a bookworm and is able to quote whole paragraphs if not chapters from various books, she does not think of all this knowledge as one of her strengths. No, she is a perfectionist. That means, she thinks she knows close to nothing, or at least not enough, compared to anyone else. And that although she mostly runs about with her nose stuck in a book. She is more than insecure, doubting herself and her knowledge at any possible chance. She has the deep desire to be good at something, to succeed, and works very hard to achieve those goals she has set herself. And yet, there is this deep thought inside herself, telling her over and over again: She is not good enough. What she does is not good enough. She has to try harder.

This causes her to believe that indeed, what she does for school, for her father, for her family, is not good enough, not worthy. She does not realize how proud her father is of her, how much her mother loves her, and not because of her grades. Ceres simply is unaware of her strengths and of all the things she already knows and succeeds in. Knowledge still can be enhanced, after all.

With all this pressure she puts on herself, Ceres leaves out her social life, entirely. It seems that she lives only for books, for filling her brain with information, for learning, for working hard. She has no time for friends, she tells herself, for how could friends help her family redeem themselves? What are friends even for? Ceres has her books to talk to and to share thoughts with. She has the professors to ask and gain even more knowledge from. She never takes a break. It's like a drug to her, she is unable to stop. Friends, or any other social interactions have not much place in her life.

As mentioned, Ceres is socially underdeveloped. She does not know how to talk and interact with her peers. She always tries to be polite, but when she has nothing to say, she stays quiet. She only talks when necessary. I doubt there is any person who could ever get to know her - she is in a shell, not letting anyone save for her family inside. She never has had a friend before, her father had been the substitute for friends.


Strengths:
Ceres most strongest ability is - anything to do with books: reading a book, researching in books, quoting books and authors, using a library, etc. After having spent three entire school years of studying, researching, writing essays, collecting and connecting various informations, the term bookworm might be an understatement.
What keeps Ceres going are her parents and family - dead or alive. Ceres has a very strong connection to her parents, especially to her father. Making them proud keeps her going, it's like the fuel in her tank.
Ceres is a lone worker - she works best on her own and easily succeeds expectations that way.

Weaknesses:
Social interactions are Ceres' greatest weakness. She can not socially interact - she never learned how to, and she does not dare to try and find out, just like that.
Her family, in a certain way, is another great weakness. Living her life entirely for her family, although most family members already are dead, is not only overly unhealthy for a young girl like Ceres, but even more is it taking the chance from her to develop her natural personality, to let her have happiness and cheerfulness. Wherever Ceres goes, she carries the burden of her family's fate with her, although this burden does not belong to her.

Other Information

Pets:
none

Wand:
Lime, 9 1/2, unicorn hair;