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Entry tags:	!application, !info, character: ashley cuffe, psl: absenceoflogic

For corsair/jisforjames

The Basics

Name: Ashley Amelia Cuffe
Gender: Female
Age: 23
Date of Birth: 7th April 2032
Hogwarts House: Hufflepuff 2043-2050
Blood Status: Halfblood
Family: Mother - Olivia Cuffe (nee Wentworth) (muggleborn)
Father - Liam Cuffe (pureblood)
Sister - Lucy Cuffe (four years old)(DOB: 14/10/2051)


History

The Cuffe’s were a long line of purebloods and were well respected within pureblood circles so none of the family were happy when Liam fell in love with muggleborn Olivia Wentworth. It had been bad enough that he hadn’t wanted to work for the Daily Prophet, as was traditional in the Cuffe family, but to marry a muggleborn on top of that was unacceptable. Luckily for Olivia, Liam didn’t really care what his family thought and married her anyway, resulting in him being cut off from his family. Ashley was born around two years later on April 7th 19 2032.


From a young age Ashley was very family orientated and always wanted to know why she didn’t know her aunts, uncles, grandparents and cousins. To try make up for this she was often taken to spend time with her mother’s side of the family. Because of this she has a good knowledge of muggle culture and really enjoys muggle movies. Now she even has her own TV in her flat so she can watch it when she’s bored.


Although Ashley really loved her muggle relatives, she always felt a bit of out place when she would cause some accidental magic while playing with her cousins. She was sure that as much as her cousins liked her they also thought she was really weird. For this reason she was really looking forward to starting Hogwarts and getting to meet some people who were also magical.


During the sorting ceremony she found herself standing next to her cousin, Ryan Cuffe. Upon finding out his name Ashley immediately began forging a friendship with him. When it was her turn to be sorted, the hat placed her in Hufflepuff without too much deliberation. She was disappointed to then watch Ryan be sorted into Slytherin. Determined to get to know her father’s side of the family Ashley started spending more time with Ryan and his Slytherin friends and although she did have a good group of friends in her own house to this day some of her closest friends were in Slytherin.


Excited about meeting Ryan, Ashley wrote home to tell her parents the good news. They were less than thrilled and although Ashley continued her friendship with her cousin, she did stop mentioning him in her letters home. Her parents reaction to her getting to know the other side of the family meant that aside from the few other cousins that were already at the school and the ones that ended up in the years below her that Ryan introduced her to, she didn’t get a chance to meet the rest of the Cuffe family for a few more years.
It wasn’t until her 5th year that Ashley got the idea to write to the current editor of the Prophet, her grandfather Atticus Cuffe (Barnabas allocating the job to him when he retired. Nepotism was very common in the Cuffe family), asking if she could work there during the summer holidays. She then spent the break between her 5th and 6th year at the Prophet, mostly doing mundane tasks but also getting to know the various other Cuffe’s that worked there. Ashley was pleased to discover that the family did not hold her father’s decision against her and although she didn’t agree with their views on bloodlines she was more than happy to put those differences aside in order to get to know her family.


The rest of the Cuffe’s becoming part of Ashley’s life unfortunately also resulted in them returning into Liam and Olivia’s life. Atticus and his wife Brenda started lecturing their son about his decisions again as well as offering him a well paying job at the newspaper. Needing the money, Liam took the job and began to work with his family. Their dislike of his wife caused a rift in their marriage and although happy to have met the rest of her family Ashley did not like the effect it had on her parents. Olivia and Liam started to argue all the times. Ashley had always liked going home for holidays but with her parents fighting she started to dread it and spent a lot of her holiday time working at the paper or at her friend’s houses.


During Ashley’s 7th year her parents considered filing for a divorce. Although Ashley knew that since they fought as much as they did it made sense, she refused to admit that divorce was a possibility and very few of her friends actually know that her parents almost got divorced as she kept it very secret. She was noticeably upset about something during this time however and when Olivia and Liam realised how much this was affecting their normally so cheerful daughter they decided to try counselling. This, combined with Liam realising that his wife and daughter were more important than money and leaving the newspaper resulted in an improvement in their marriage and not long after Ashley left school Olivia fell pregnant with Lucy.


So happy that her parents had worked things out and were having another child, Ashley doted on Lucy from the moment she was born. Despite the age difference Ashley adores her baby sister and often babysits her, both for the opportunity to spend time with her and to help her parents out and allow them to spend time together and go on dates and the like to keep marriage stable.


After leaving school, Ashley immediately started working at the Daily Prophet. She isn’t a reporter for any particular topic yet, not because she hasn’t been offered a regular segment but because she’s too indecisive to choose what she actually wants to write about on a long term basis. Getting to write about a completely different topic every time is more interesting anyway! She also wants to earn the right to be a permanent fixture in a segment due to her writing skills, instead of just being offered it because she’s a Cuffe.


Her parents and the rest of the Cuffe’s have gone back to not speaking to each other unless necessary but Ashley is very glad to have both sides of her family in her life and her parents and the other Cuffe’s even try to put aside their differences at Christmas to have a family lunch together for Ashley’s sake.





Personality

Ashley is the type of person who likes to pretend she's perpetually happy. Whether or not she's actually happy is less important to her, as long as everyone else thinks she's happy. Luckily, she is usually cheerful and doesn't have to pretend very often. When she is upset, however, she really hates showing it which is why she acts like she's always happy. She really enjoys acting silly, especially with her little sister, and loves to have fun. Along with enjoying acting silly, Ashley also enjoys being dramatic for the fun of it. She was in drama club during school and although doesn't get a chance to actually act anymore she does often over dramatise things just to make them more fun. Looking after her sister is one of her favourite activities and she can often be found at her parent’s house playing dress ups or making mud pies or something along those lines with Lucy. Lucy seems to find Ashley's dramatics amusing which just makes Ashley enjoy it more. She seems to have an abundance of energy and loves to always have something to do, even if it's not something exciting.



Although she likes to always be doing something, she definitely values play over work and will only do her work when she has to. She's very glad for deadlines, as she knows that without them she'd probably never get anything done. It's not that she doesn't enjoy doing her work, because she does, there are just other things she'd rather be doing. Despite preferring to have fun over working, once she starts working, she is very productive and is good at doing her work well in a short space of time. When she was at school many people just assumed she wasn't that smart because people rarely saw her doing her schoolwork. She's sure the blonde, cheerful, hufflepuff thing didn't help with that reputation either but it never really bothered her. She knew she was smart enough and mostly she got good marks so what other people thought didn't matter. The only people whose opinion she cared about were her close friends and they knew she wasn't dumb anyway.



Ashley values her family and friends over everything and is extremely loyal to them. She doesn’t think it’s at all weird that her four year old sister is one of her favourite people to spend time with and so doesn’t care if other people think it’s strange. Unless you are her friend or family member then she really doesn’t actually care what you think about her. She thinks judging people without getting to know them is stupid but if people want to think she’s dumb and strange without actually trying to get to know her then they’re probably not the type of people she wants to be friends with anyway. Although she doesn’t care much for those she’s not friends with, she is generally kind to most, unless they have judged her, because it’s easier to act happy all the time if you’re getting along with most people and not arguing.


Arguing is one of the things Ashely hates most. She can't stand getting in fights with people or even hearing other people argue; even if they're people she doesn't know very well. Causing an argument is the quickest way to upset Ashley. When she gets into an dispute herself, she'll usually argue back with whoever it is until she realises that she's arguing. Then she tends to get even more annoyed and instead of trying to solve the issue will just walk away and ignore whoever it was for a few days to let herself cool down before trying to discuss the problem civilly. Communication is important after all!

Ashley can be a little absent minded and has been known to lose things only to find them in really weird spots a few days (or months) later. She also used to accidentally arrange plans with one friend, forget about them and arrange different plans with a different friend at the same time. Now she keeps a diary that tells her what plans she’s made for the day. She always tries to fill her days up as she dislikes having gaps of time in her diary (and in her day) in which she has nothing to do. When she first meets people they often thing she’s joking about having to check her diary or about scheduling something in but they soon discover that’s actually how she keeps herself on top of all the plans she makes for herself.


She’s also a little clumsy and is rather accident prone. Although it’s not usually anything serious she rarely doesn’t have a few bruises or scratched somewhere on her body. Often she can’t even remember where she got them from, being so used to just bumping into things that she hardly notices anymore. She will proudly tell you that despite being accident prone she is still yet to break any bones (touch wood!) and is fine with people laughing at her if she does fall over or walk into something. She worked out a while ago that it’s better to laugh along with them than to just be laughed at. It’s more fun to be able to laugh at yourself anyway, in her opinion.