vane, ophelia elisabeth

[Ophelia Elisabeth Vane]

classified file

OPHELIA ELISABETH VANE

Full name: Ophelia Elisabeth Vane
Nicknames: Fee
Age: 30
Date of birth: February 9
Current residence: London, England & Paris, France
Primary residence: apartment in London
Second residence: family home in Paris

Physical:
Height: 5'4"
Weight: 115 lb.
Hair: short, blonde
Eyes: brown
Build: thin, delicate

Family:
Christopher Vane, 55, father, diplomat, Dept. of International Magical Cooperation
Adèle Vane, née Lévesque, 53, mother, unemployed, socialite
Mathias Vane, 26, brother, Ministry employee
Gabrielle Vane, 23, sister, healer
Unmarried, no children

Education:
Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry
Ravenclaw alumna

Occupation:
WWN, senior foreign news reporter/editor, head of foreign news, 2 years
Daily Prophet, foreign news reporter and columnist, 7 years
Dept. of International Cooperation, assistant liaison and translator, 1.5 years

Notes:
Multilingual: native speaker of English and French; speaks another 4 languages fluently (Spanish, German, Italian, Chinese) and additional languages to varying degrees of competency.
Noted involvement in Daily Prophet internal disputes prior to leaving the publication.
Veela heritage a few generations back.



Ophelia Vane is a reporter who travels and writes and alternately charms people and drives them crazy. Currently the head of foreign news at the flagship news program at the WWN, Ophelia serves as editor but continues to work as a writer and reporter as she has for the past ten years. Although she is based in London, she doesn't simply send her staff out or rely on foreign reporters, but still hops between cities and from country to country like she did as a young reporter at the Prophet. Her skills as a reporter with a speciality of foreign news are grounded in her background as a traveler and a childhood of frequently moving around. She's both English and French, speaks many languages, has lived in ten countries long-term, and visited dozens of countries around the world. Her ability to connect with locals and understand cultures, as well as her extensive knowledge of foreign politics, has made her one of England's best foreign correspondents. Plus, she's quite intelligent, with a sharp mind that processes economic and political facts and works through the puzzles of complex foreign issues.

Having spent the majority of her first twenty years abroad, from Spain and Germany to the United States to China and Japan, as well as her mother's native France, most of the time that Ophelia lived in the UK was when she attended school, and she rarely lived in England until she settled in London again when she was twenty. All this time around the world, between living where her father was sent and traveling to many more places, has made Ophelia into this worldly traveler. When combined with her upperclass background, the result is that Ophelia has acquired refined tastes; she likes good wine and good food, dresses very well, often goes home to Paris, speaks many languages, and would love to talk about literature and politics. She could easily be pretentious, but her experiences have helped push away the pretensions of her high society mother and keep her firmly cultured but aware. She's familiar with the upperclass life she grew up in, but also comfortable everywhere else, with anyone.

She looks delicate, with her features and small frame and short blonde hair, and always looks classy and very well dressed, even tends to carry a bit of glamour in a newsroom and look eye-catching at events. She has a remarkable resume and collection of by lines, impresses others, and easily charms everyone. In fact, she's extremely charming, able to charm anyone from the person at the coffeeshop to the mothers of all her past boyfriends to the minister of magic and any foreign leader. It helps her get what she wants, including getting important government officials to talk to her and making any interviewees feel at ease.

However, that dainty and sleek appearance belies the confident, loud, brash, and bold person inside. She contradicts many expectations by being fiercely independent, quite political, and having very strong opinions. Ophelia speaks her mind, which would get her into serious trouble, except she's able to charm and talk her way out of anything; she could get arrested for murder and talk her way out of it. Still, she's really outspoken when it comes to anything beyond her precise, clear journalism; she argues like nobody's business and can cut your argument into pieces with clever and cutting words of her own, a smile on her face all the while. She doesn't always have a filter or know when to shut up, putting her loudmouthed side in constant conflict with her refined, classy side. Somehow, she manages to be both at the same time - she looks classy and serene at work or a press conference or a party while ripping your argument apart. Ultimately, Ophelia's charming as hell, juggling the two sides of her with ease. She makes even her worst debates and frequent swear words sound charming and strangely likable or at least intriguing.

Ophelia is flighty, a free spirited person at heart. Although she is no longer traveling full time, she still picks up and disappears to places around the world in pursuit of a story or simply to spend the weekend in another new place. She gives up on relationships and moves a lot - from places, from men, from topics, from focus. The Prophet was her only constant for a long time, along with a certain man, even if she wasn't fully aware of that at the time. However, she still manages to have some points of dedication. She cares very, very much about her job and the issues she covers. After a decade in journalism, her accidental career, she has developed a strong sense of journalistic ethics, and can get very stubborn and even righteous about things. In a way, she seems to act like a crusader for justice, with issues of injustice around the world but also when it came to the problems she saw in action at the Prophet. The result was that she fought and fought but eventually quit in protest with her morals in mind, and went elsewhere to try to be a good journalist.

Still, Ophelia has problems with commitment. She's really only committed to her job at this point, but she loves fiercely when she does, even if she still has problems with it. Feelings were not a thing that were taught to her while she was growing up; she moved a lot and never formed lasting and serious connections. Plus, she had a bad model in her parents, who argued and didn't communicate and largely hated each other; they were always at war with each other, and had complicated relationships with their three children. As an adult, Ophelia continues to have issues with relationships. Although she tends to charm or fascinate people, she has few close friends - there's a difference between impressing people and making them like her, and actually forming real friendships. Her only serious romantic relationship ended... badly, and she hasn't recovered the ability to be in a relationship like it. She was in that relationship before she knew it, serious before she knew it, and kind of never knew it until it was too late, when she began to more fully realize what he did mean to her and what they had; she'd loved him, but hadn't known how to process it or really examine that. She was kind of oblivious to that, even after nearly four years together and more years as close friends. But then she got bitter and held on to her grudges about their breakup and her criticisms of him, and ended up not being able to start a new, real relationship.

Christopher and Adèle Vane's first child was born on an icy cold February evening in London. They named her Ophelia, after a brief continuation of the argument that had followed the parents-to-be for months. Her parents argued throughout the pregnancy and while her mother was in labor; then they briefly halted their arguments to dote on their newborn daughter over the following months. Her parents were so deeply in love until they married, which came not long after meeting. It all went rather downhill after that, even before they had their first child. What followed was Ophelia's childhood full of overheard fights and yelling, French curses shouted across the house, and a pressure of two parents who each wanted their child to do only what they want. There was constant attention on her intelligence and on her success, but never on Ophelia herself. It was always about her parents wanting to prove that they can raise their daughter best, just one of many sources of contention in their relationship. Her siblings, Mathias and Gabrielle, are born four and seven years later, products of the periods of reconciliation between her parents. Ophelia, who already didn't have close friends, loved her siblings immensely, and they stuck close together while growing up in a household that shifted between countries and was frequently filled with pointless disagreements. Her parents never divorced, even after more than thirty years of an extremely on and off relationship, and it was never a strong or stable relationship for their children to experience.

Ophelia's father worked as an important foreign relations official in the Ministry, becoming a diplomat, and his work often brought them to stay in various countries, as well as bringing Ophelia and her siblings along on trips around the world. The Vane family lived abroad more than they lived in England while she was growing up, and her mother also brought the children to France as often as possible; "This country is horrible, my children should be raised in France with their family!" her mother often screamed. She didn't always mind their foreign homes, but she would find things to complain about in order to fight with her husband. At her mother's insistence, Ophelia learned to speak French just as she learned English, so Ophelia was able to understand the complaints her mother issued on a daily basis. Her father soon started teaching her other languages, helped by a series of tutors in the different places they lived. She became fluent in half a dozen languages, as well as picking up bits of a handful of other languages. Fee took to other languages and new places better than her siblings and her mother; she was always more comfortable in new places before the others, and easily picked up the languages and customs. While she had several languages beyond her English and French, her mother stubbornly stuck to those, and her siblings were in between, with far less fluency than her. Her father, of course, was immensely pleased that Fee seemed to have his natural ability for learning language and the curiosity about other cultures, so he began grooming her for a job in international work, something that she was never interested in. Ophelia loved languages and culture, places and travel, but she didn't want his job. She didn't want to work in an office in London or spend her days in meetings with stuffy officials, even if those meetings were in exciting and interesting cities. But if her father succeeded in one thing, it was sparking her interest in other places.

She returned to the United Kingdom for a substantial period of time when she turned eleven and eagerly headed to school, leaving her hyper critical parents and her jealous younger brother behind. Later that day, the hat took its time sorting her, but put her in Ravenclaw. Her years at the school weren't too remarkable; she got good grades, worked hard in the classes that interested her, read a lot, eagerly engaged in debates and discussions with people, and landed several detentions for being too strongly opinionated at times. The hat had mused that she had potential to be ambitious and determined, but that was what it had not seemed to get right. Although certainly bold and endlessly curious and stubborn with a love of knowledge and some passions, she simply was not ambitious like those around her in her house. Fifth year came along, when she sat down with her head of house to discuss career plans. He shuffled the papers that come from her file, saying, “Well, Miss Vane, you are very accomplished academically in various areas. Are there any career fields that are you particularly interested in?” But Ophelia had no idea what she wanted to do. When she graduated, she still didn't have an interest in a particular career field. She'd considered a wide range of things; she decided to be a healer for a little while, then changed to something in law enforcement, before the department of mysteries held her attention for a while. But then she graduated, with no completed job applications and no interest in holding a job at all. Without thinking, she said absently said to her father, "Maybe I'll take a break and go travel," which he quickly latched on to.

Before she knew it, her father had immediately gotten her a job at the ministry in his department, a job he knew she would be good at. She spent her entire life observing what her father did and being taught to do it; she was actually more qualified than some of the people who had been there for a few years, with the ability to speak several languages, a personal experience with what she has to do, and an intelligence that her father was actually proud of. Meanwhile, she found her job to be both incredibly boring and very pointless, translating and drafting memos and speaking to people about this and that. The only excitement she got was when it wasn't a day at her desk or in a tiring meeting. Ophelia quit over a year later and told her father she couldn't take it - she needed something more exciting, and hated the way her father pushed her into it with immense self-satisfaction.

So she moved out of her apartment and left London, traveling for a year, with just a suitcase and some money and free time and comfort in new places. She gallivanted across Europe without a schedule, returned to Asia for the first time in several years, hopped across South America and ended up in a few North American cities, periodically sending cheeky postcards home to her parents. And when Fee returned to England, twenty one and broke but feeling so much better than before, she was sure she wanted to work with something internationally related but exciting. Someone told her the Prophet was looking for someone to write about foreign issues, so she just went for it and applied for the position. There was no journalism experience on her resume – honestly, it was impressive enough that she had a resume at all given her apathy – but she was an interesting person and had other things to bring. Thanks to her many languages, extensive travel experience, comfort with travel in a foreign place, ability to talk about foreign issues, and a special perspective, she landed the job after impressing the editor who hired her. She had rebelled against her father and stuffy office jobs and government politics, only to return from traveling to report on them.

It surprised her how much she liked the job. She becomes the newest foreign news reporter, but soon began to distinguish herself. The first time she has a story on the front page, she was insanely pleased, sending the copy to father with satisfaction. She became a top notch reporter, eventually becoming their top foreign news reporter and a columnist; she jumped from country to country; she charmed the leaders of every country into talking to her. She met Alistair Lancaster - Vincent - not long into her time there. She had to bite her tongue and not shoot back an argumentative comment at something he said, because she knew who he was; of course she did, everybody knew the only child in the family business. But she resisted, because his dad was her new boss and she quite liked the job so far. But they became friends, after she couldn't fight the urge to argue about an issue with him, horrifying a nearby editor until Vincent had laughed and let her debate with him. She fascinated and impressed him, made him loosen up, with that devilish grin and boundary-toeing attitude and all that grace. She never treated him as a superior, either, or as a member of the Prophet's owning family. After a few years as friends, staying up late talking in his office and judging people at events and never stopping their debates about everything and anything, they ended up dating. Surprising even herself, Ophelia and Vince were together for nearly four years until their relationship fell apart.

When Ophelia started seeing censorship and inaccuracy in the paper, she started protesting that, which didn't go too well within the paper, which was being influenced by the ministry and other powers. There were some serious and concerning things happening that she heard whispered around, but she never saw them in the Prophet. She did see the ministry affiliated editors, the huge influence of the Prophet that was being used even then by the Ministry. She eventually defiantly quit, before she could get fired by Vince's father whose opinion of her had rapidly shifted, righteous and going where her work would be used and her talent valued. In the process, though, her relationship also rapidly shifted. Soon after she quit, they broke up after a huge explosion. They both stepped too far, and soon after she left the Prophet, she left his life too. Afterwards they basically cut off all contact with each other; she didn't speak to him for months, though they have acted pretty terribly to each other in the inevitable times they've run into each other over the past two years, Fee all sharp and scathing and Vincent detached and dismissing when they do interact. Deep down, though, they've missed each other, even if Ophelia would never admit it, or probably even recognize it for what it is.

By then, she'd become a little obsessed with journalism and with the idea of doing what she wants; looking for more journalistic integrity and interesting work, Ophelia is offered a job at the Wizarding Wireless Network as head of foreign news at their new primary news program. It's a perfect fit. She’s able to report on political, social, and cultural issues and help get the things that are actually news and put them out there for people to know. The job at WWN became her life; Fee's thirty now, often working through the night and disappearing to other countries when she's not satisfied with getting bits of information from a contact. She almost overestimates what she can do, but it doesn’t stop her from going after what she wants with an extreme amount of drive that she didn’t know she had until she got out of school and out of the ministry. Maybe she doesn't have much of a life and maybe she doesn't let people get close, maybe she wears her mask of a polished and intelligent woman as armor and she’s tougher than people expect from her dainty appearance - but she’s good at her job and she’s very, very proud of that. She still looks impossibly classy and polished, rather than an overworked crazy reporter who swears like a sailor and is kind of permanently stuck in different time zones and sometimes sleeps in her office in the middle of a story. But she still loves the change and energy of it all, loves having new story after story and running all over the place, and keeps pursuing important stories around the world, at home in London and anywhere else.




jana / time zone: est / contact: pm