Nadine Pinn
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| Nadine Zendaya Olayemi Pinn | |
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| Biographical Information | |
| Born | 30 September 1974, 43 |
| City of Birth | Northampton, England |
| Current City | London, England |
| Blood status | Half-blood |
| Also known as | Nadine Gamp |
| Physical Information | |
| Gender | Female |
| Height | 5'7" |
| Hair Colour | Black |
| Eye Colour | Brown |
| Skin Colour | Dark |
| Relationships | |
| Extended Family | |
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| Children | |
| Magical Characteristics | |
| Wand(s) | |
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| Education | |
| School | Hogwarts |
| House | Slytherin |
| Class of | 1993 |
| Occupation | |
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| Character Information | |
| Playby | Sophie Okonedo |
| Kit | |
Nadine is an auror, but in the last five years has a vampire specialism. Her keen interest in pursuing law-breaking vampires led to a rogue vampire nearly ending her life in Manchester in 2016. Her dislike of vampires is visible and public. She wants harsher penalties, a lower population size and to prevent immigration of vampires.
She married her long-term partner and father of Aoide Shacklebolt, Rex Shacklebolt, in summer 2017, though didn’t take his name. Nadine returned to work as an auror in autumn 2017 but find herself sidelined due to her accident, which has left her with lasting symptoms.
Name Meaning
Nadine - French form of the Russian name Nadia (Russian: Надя), Nadia being a diminutive of Nadezhda (Russian: Надежда). The name Nadezhda means "hope" in Russian.
Zendaya - To give thanks
Olayemi - I am worthy of wealth
Appearance
Nadine has a bright, welcoming smile and an ease with those around her. On a short first interaction, one might only remember her appearance for her voluminous black hair if not tamed into a neat bun, and perhaps the way her eyes at first glance seem narrowed. Her examination of others is often shrewd and in general she tries to be more observant than the average witch.
Her cheeks are often flushed. Nadine bustles around, uses large expressions and dashes from place to place. She only stands at 5ft7 with a slight build but one might imagine she were several inches taller by the way she can command her voice and presence. In a room full of wizards seeking strategy on how to apprehend a criminal, or at the bar, she can outshout and project her voice. Her sharp elbows cut through crowds with efficiency.
Nadine has a truly ridiculous, but sometimes highly infectious, laugh. It can be heard before she is seen in the auror headquarters.
Day to day, Nadine wears her bright crimson auror robes, but outside, she has a delight in silk. Her daughter, Ariadne enjoys bright colours, something Nadine indulged in when she was younger. These days she goes for slightly quieter colours. That said, a good half of her social wardrobe is entirely black.
Personality
Nadine was sorted into Slytherin. She is well read, informed, and works hard to network. Her upbringing was very good, with strong morals, strong sense of looking after family and friends. Slytherin took her for ambition, drive and determination. She is logical, and pulls apart whatever is presented to her, whether it is a witness, a statement, interview, crime scene or a pursuit. She is very clear in her goals, but tactful and diplomatic about achieving them. She is not bad cop, rather good cop who negotiates cases to increase her success rate, while strategically shovelling dead-end cases to trainees and those with little ambition in the department.
Despite her strategy, Nadine would be nothing without her team. Under pressure she can falter and become entirely indecisive. She needs her team to back her up, as an audience fuels her confidence. Socially, Nadine needs friends and family around her to feel herself, improve her mood. She hates to be lonely. When she falls out with other people she is defeatist and is guilty of overspending to make herself happy. Her fallouts are over her backhanded comments.
As a friend and colleague, Nadine is discreet, sympathetic and easy to talk to. She knows how to put people at ease, hiding any true feelings about them. It is a lure to let them open up to her so she can seek more information. She does her best to befriend Head Aurors, Department Heads in particular.
Childhood
Nadine's maternal family were Nigerian immigrants to Britain during the 1950s, the surname Pinn came from her mother's marriage. The surname is Anglo-Saxon and Old French origin. The Pinn family have married muggles and have a number of squibs in the tree. Geographically, her paternal family are spread over central England. Nadine and her siblings grew up in Northampton. Later, one of Nadine's older brothers moved north and settled in Telford. His daughter, Roberta Pinn, Nadine's niece, works on Level 5 and is a few years older than Ariadne.
Nadine knew about the magical world as a child but was chiefly raised in the Muggle world. She attended a local primary school until her signs of magic began to cause disruption that might be too difficult to explain. At this point, her parents sent her to Lyra Gamp in Godric's Hollow, who tutored her for a few years along with others of their age. Nadine was the same academic year as Lyra's eldest son, Orion Gamp. Nadine got on well with the Gamp boys, and it put her in good stead for when she arrived at Hogwarts, with plenty of friends and a good grasp of how to do her homework.
Hogwarts
Nadine was sorted into Slytherin in 1986, to her joy along with Orion. The pair were initially thick as thieves, but as first year wound on, they moved into different friendship groups. Nadine settled down and found different friends who shared her studious outlook, particularly female friends. Her school years were happy, and she had quite a diverse, wide group of friends across the years. Amongst her classmates was another future auror Luthas Blair, cursebreaker Josephine St Just, dragonologist Alphonse Zephyr, apothecary Tessa Calvert and unspeakable Marietta Grimlish. Her Slytherin housemates included future bar-owner Frederick Dodger, seer Stella Elphick, potioneer Lucrezia Di Luca, future Head of Beast Division Balfour Spectre and direwolf Dugan Macduff
Nadine studied divination, runes and care of magical creatures as electives. She is not a seer, but her studies of the subject have made her sympathetic and thoughtful about other people's abilities. Care of magical creatures was fun, and has been handy later in the brushes as an auror. Nobody wants to be the wrong end of a blast-ended skrewt.
Her ambition to do wandwork grew from her third year. She was absolutely captivated by a talk from an auror in Defence Against the Dark Arts. Nadine was enthralled by the histories of aurors and dark wizards, and it became quite an obsession. Her family considered a noble profession to pursue, and only stoked the fires of her determination. In her fifth year (1990-91) Nadine became a prefect, something she took particular pride in.
A summer job saw her sorting Hogwarts text books for sale at Flourish and Blotts. Hagrid can go to hell for his book choices.
The arrival of Harry Potter to Hogwarts in 1991 was treated with disdain by Slytherin house in general once he had been sorted into Gryffindor. Nadine couldn't see how such a weedy boy could ever have fought off the Dark Lord, especially not as a mere baby! She, along with others were frustrated by favouritism demonstrated towards him, especially in losing the house cup. Who defended a prized alchemy creation with a chess set, honestly.
Seventh year appeared doomed when Nadine heard the news that the replacement for Quirrell was Gilderoy Lockhart. The girls swooned and his lessons were abysmal. Her determination to become an auror seemed dashed and she complained bitterly to Snape. When nothing seemingly could be done, and then it seemed Hogwarts might be closed what with the petrified students, Orion was there to lift her spirits. Her troublemaking childhood friend had become a striking young man with the gift of the gab, unending energy and eyes - she thought - only for her. He was a perfect distraction from her dismay about her seventh year becoming a complete disaster.
Only, he added to it.
Motherhood
It's hard to take the practical part of your Defence Against the Dark Arts NEWT when you're pregnant. Nadine almost ended up leaving before sitting them, which twelve months earlier would have seemed like the end of the world. But in her teenage naivety, Nadine thought she and Orion had it all worked out. In early July 1993, after the end of their final year at Hogwarts, the pair married. It was a hurried process, nothing overtly special. Both families were unprepared for becoming grandparents through children barely out of Hogwarts. Nadine suspected the Gamps considered her the ruin of their first son, but when their first grandchild arrived, matters were smoothed over for a little while.
Ariadne Gamp was born on the 28th July 1993. Both parents were smitten. Nadine was an attentive mother, Orion an enthusiastic father. Everything seemed to be perfect despite their inexperience. Nadine did her best to return to her studies, though it was hard to balance being a new mother, especially as Orion was also doing his best to find them a job and somewhere to live. However, the pair were happy enough and stuck together. Little Ariadne was forever gorgeous and loved in Nadine's eyes.
1994 - Living Abroad
In 1994, life began to change for the young Gamp couple. Orion found work with Devia Orbis. He bought a boat, and convinced Nadine that they could go away, work abroad and travel as a family. With not much else going for her and a loss of direction in her life, Nadine agreed, game for adventure. It seemed as good a route as any and they were husband and wife. They left Britain despite the worries of their parents - and could not have timed it better. Death Eaters at the world cup, Voldemort returning… Britain took a nosedive after they left.
They stayed away until Ariadne was three, writing, reviewing and picking up casual work. It wasn't a great living, and during the time their marriage had become strained. Orion was less attentive, Nadine could see his eyes were wandering and she had her suspicions. She became somewhat homesick, feeling isolated, especially as trouble was increasing back home. Nadine worried for her family.
One night she caught Orion cheating on her. Frustrated, but not entirely surprised, she returned home alone with little Ariadne. Both sides of the family were in agreement that Orion had done terribly of her, and as much as she appreciated the Gamp family's support in Orion's absence, she couldn't help but notice some relief from them that the marriage would soon be dissolved. Despite her sadness over that part of her life ending, and the great unknown of how she would cope alone, she was surprisingly accepting of the situation. She and Orion were not meant to be tied together, their intense, fun relationship as teenagers had been meant to be just that. In times of war there were more important matters to consider, and her daughter came first.
1998 - Restoration of the Ministry
With the war resurfaced Nadine's determination to be an auror. Had she gone and trained straight away she would have been qualified and fighting for the good of the country! Instead she had a set of NEWTs and nothing to show for it. When Voldemort was defeated, she did not delay to apply to help in any way she could, joining the flood of people joining the Ministry (amongst them was also her ex-brother in law, Cepheus Gamp). She began by proving her abilities in administration on Level 2, assisting in compiling evidence against Death Eaters and other dark wizards from the war.
With a new found confidence, Nadine struck up a relationship with a level five colleague, Rex Shacklebolt while working on one particular case. The two hit it off.
In 1999 Nadine's former sister in law, Andromeda Gamp left Hogwarts in the summer and entered into Auror training which made Nadine very jealous. Ariadne was getting older, but with a small child in tow, Nadine and her partner initially disagreed. Instead, Nadine focused on learning all she could about law, and taking on increasing amounts of responsibility at work.
Aoide's Arrival
To Nadine's initial despair (soon overtaken by joy) she became pregnant once more with her second daughter, Aoide Shacklebolt.
Nadine took leave to look after Aoide when she was newborn. As she juggled new motherhood, she continued to study theory. Ariadne elected to spend more time with her father as time went on. Nadine tried not to feel put out by this. It was important for her daughter to also know her father, but she still missed her terribly.
Her twenties fast running out, Nadine applied for auror training, pulling out all the stops. Her three years of training took her through to just before Ariadne was off to Hogwarts. There were times where Nadine felt it was too much, that she was neglecting her duties as mother - but the fathers to her daughters kept her going, understanding it had been her aspiration since she was a teenager. It made all the difference to hear Ariadne tell her new friends on the platform at Kings Cross that her mum was an awesome auror who had gone to Azkaban to deal with the prison break in June.
2011
Since then, Nadine hasn't stopped. By the turn of 2011, she was qualified seven years as an auror. Involved in investigating the Remembering Day Murders, and then the Corpus Inversus cases, her strategy of picking cases hasn't been so good of late. Ariadne has spent more time in the holidays with Orion too. It was frightening to think her first daughter would be embarking on her own career in a matter of months, and that Aoide was off to school.
2013-2017
Nadine has remained an auror through the five years. In 2016 she took a step back from pursuing promotion after a case nearly killed her. Since being involved in the investigation of the bloodless bodies which were later identified as Cass Motley’s vampire feedings, Nadine had taken a particular interest to investigating and enforcing the new vampire feeding legislation. This included visiting dens and covens to check paperwork was in order as protection for the more adminly sorts from Being Division.
Hoping to prove herself worthy of her application for senior auror, Nadine pursued a hunch that there was a vampire feeding without a license in Manchester and went after them without backup. She was warned once already about doing this, but believed she had handled countless encounters with vampires up until then and handled herself well. But this time it went badly. She pursued her quarry to the top of a building as they tried to evade her through bat form. This vampire was old, older than Nadine anticipated, and knew what they were doing. She had turned psychokinesis on Nadine, drinking sloppily from her in a rage before throwing her from the roof.
She was found by muggles, and it had caused a right headache with the statute. Obliviating paramedics, bystanders, and the muggle-worthy excuse trying to explain Nadine’s fall as a suicide attempt. St Mungo’s pulled out all the stops to save her, and it was touch and go whether she would pull through or whether the vampire in question had taken enough blood to turn Nadine, or simply kill her outright. Luck had it that she pulled through, though it took months in St Mungo’s. If she had been a muggle she would have died just from the impact, let alone the blood loss. After St Mungo’s it was months at home, feeling powerless to do anything, and a creeping paranoia that the vampire would come to finish the job.
Nadine consumes garlic daily, carries stakes and has an ugly bite on her lower neck and shoulder from the attack. She suffers from some memory problems, and relies on writing down or using a quick quill to record conversations much more than she ever used to. She is a staunch supporter of stricter legislation with vampire feedings and immigration. She wants punishments to be much more serious to reduce the numbers of vampires in the country.
Rex, her long term partner and father of her second child, Aoide, married Nadine in summer of 2017, though she did not take his surname, and wore a dress with a high neckline and collar.
Returning to work in autumn 2017, Nadine finds people now avoid sending her to risky jobs, and she is often assigned to training (or ‘babysitting’ in her words) the young aurors. She still works her way onto any case that involves vampires, including supporting the inspections. One day she will catch up with that same vampire and stake her good and proper.
Career
Nadine is an auror. She pursues those who break the law, apprehending in person, investigating after an event. Part of her job is practical, in the field, but a good third is in the office in London, compiling evidence to take a case to the wizengamot. 3 years of auror training, 7 years on the job, before that worked on level 2 compiling evidence and paperwork to assist aurors.
