Sabine Trefethen: An Explanation of an Enigma
My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun;
Coral is far more red than her lips' red;
If snow be white, why then her breast is dun;
If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.
I have seen roses damask'd, red and white,
But no such roses see I in her cheeks;
And in some perfumes is there more delight
Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.
I love to hear her speak, yet well I know
That music hath a far more pleasing sound;
I grant I never saw a goddess go;
My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground:
And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare
As any she belied with false compare.
-William Shakespeare
In all honesty Sabine has much less beauty than most other women, but is not entirely displeasing. Regarding her form, she is a tall and intolerably slim (in fact, positively waifish) woman with an air of dignity and stillness about her. Her cheekbones are high, nose fine and straight, and her jaw strong.
The complexion of her skin is pale, almost characteristic of an anemia patient, and shows only a few signs of wrinkles at the corners of her mouth and her distant hazel eyes. Past-the-shoulder, inky black hair likewise shows only the most minute signs of age with the wisps of grey beginning at her temples. Fairly straight until it terminates in loose curls and waves, it's usually pulled into a neat bun at the back of her head for practical purposes, and is therefore not particularly severe or fashionable.
Sabine is a layered person: her outermost appearance is one of monochromaticy, blending all emotions into a sort of gentle, restless melancholy. Even when she is quite active (for she is rarely still) or engaged in cheerful conversation, her face normally remains still, allowing for healthy emissions of passion now and then, whether it be surprise, anger, mirth, fear or misery. Rarely does she lose her composure, however, even during these candid moments.
Just below that is her femininity: first, the people-pleasing tactics that she was taught as a child in a conservative home: etiquette, some degree of compassion, the impossible ratio of her smiling at people as opposed to smiling in general, and most surprisingly a learned impulse to touch her companions frequently in conversation, especially as a gesture of comfort or reassurance.
Second, those things given to her at birth: a tendency towards extreme likes and dislikes, personal sensitivity, and a degree of selfishness (although she is almost completely void of vanity) that makes it difficult to empathize with those unlike her, or understand the magnitude of a situation that has left her primarily unaffected. There is also a small portion of her that will entertain for no questionable length of time the occasional romantic notion, but because her perception of romance is somewhat skewed many think that she disregards it entirely.
There is also a large part of her mind that is devoted to education and knowledge- she appreciates both of these traits greatly, and liberally admires them in other people. She herself is well educated: aside from several courses in Charms, Potions and Defense Against the Dark Arts, she is fluent in Latin, almost so in French and reads and writes some Greek; her logical mind allows her to excel at mathematics, and she has read enough science texts to understand its theories and purpose. She holds a great deal of interest in a vast variety of areas, and has a secret preoccupation with the dark and warped in literature and the fine arts. Magical or muggle: it bears no difference to her.
Innermost is Sabine's youthful counterpart, the little girl that still craves the weird, twisted and dangerous. Sabine is not, perhaps, wise, or the most talented of women, but there are some admirable qualities about her. One just has to look for them.
If you would like to know her history, it will interest you to learn that she was born on November 6, 1960 in the village of New Berlin, New York. She and her parents, Lionel and Regina Trefethen, lived in the tiny magical division of New Berlin, not far from a train station that went directly into the capital city. The Trefethens were not a rich family, but they were decently well off, and Sabine never went without.
Both Lionel and Regina had formerly attended New York's upper school of wizardry: the Sir Simon Regalus Academy of Magic, and never denied themselves their personal pursuits. Lionel was part of the upper management of a publishing company that produced spellbooks, which has, in the long years since, been absorbed by one of its erstwhile competitors. The same company employed Regina as a researcher, verifying the accuracy of the information in the books before they were released to the public.
Sabine had a natural independent streak, and from her parents learned a lesson that became ingrained: knowledge is worthwhile. As a child, she wasn't necessarily given to misbehavior, but was guided more by her curiosity about things. At times, a certain disregard of other peoples' feelings and property manifested itself. Interesting objects, provided they were small enough to be absconded with without drawing undue notice, would sometimes disappear. She didn't have a lot of friends, but she didn't seem to mind. Even at such an age, she was distant - occupied with her own thoughts and not much affected by the world around her.
After her lessons with Regina (who worked from home and oversaw Sabine's education) were through for the day, Sabine would often wander about the yards, gathering as many possible specimens as she could of different kinds of plants, grasses, insects, rocks, etc. Anything small and portable was fine; if it was weird, even better. At first, this merely resulted in a large collection, wherein every sample had been identified and preserved.
It wasn't until Regina got an assignment to "fact check" a potions manuscript when Sabine was 9 that she ever even realized that potions existed. Sabine pulled up a stool and watched her mother work throughout that entire period, and found that she could recognize a lot of the components that were being used. Nettles? I've got some of those. Ground wasp stingers? I could make those. At the end of the process, there would be something very strange and bubbly and, importantly, powerful. Even if their purpose was something as mundane as to remove grout with ease, they did what they were designed to do.
Sabine was absolutely fascinated with the process, and spent the next couple of years reading everything that she could find about potions and begging her mother to make more of them. Regina, startled by this abrupt change in her daughter's personality, did her best to try to incorporate demonstrations into Sabine's lessons, letting her chop up ingredients or pull the wings off the necessary dragonflies, et cetera.
At age eleven, Sabine was permitted to be schooled at home in the additional areas of Charms, Transfiguration, et cetera in addition to her previous math, science and Latin lessons- as was the custom for New Berlin youths who were not qualified for one of New York City's preparatory magic schools, and was looking forward to finally being able to attempt some magic on her own. Through this, Sabine discovered that she adored the other areas of magic exactly as much as she had previously adored Potions- at age twelve she was introduced to some of the rest of the magical population of New Berlin, and privately declared that she absolutely /must/ outperform her peers in magic. Sabine was a homely little girl, and this was her way of compensating.
Finally, at fifteen, Sabine donned the deep purple and gold Regalus Academy robes and crest, and was whisked away to the glimmering lights and beautiful buildings of New York City- a place she had only experienced a few times in her recent childhood. Incidentally, her doting aunt who lived in the city had taken on asking her every summer to come and stay with her, as she fully believed Sabine needed to be taught to act like a lady. It most did not work, but Sabine learned a good deal of useful things from Aunt Agatha.
There were no Houses at the relatively new school (founded 1792) to speak of, but there was certainly a great deal of tension between the pure-of-blood and otherwise. Recently, in America, a Muggle Liberation and Equality Act had been passed, stirring up copious opinions and disagreements amongst the students. The teachers had long since given up; the dormatories had been split purposely according to blood, with those from all-magic families in the east wing, muggle-borns in the west and the smallish halfblood population in the northwest. Likewise, the educators often found their seating plans in need of tweaking when a student from Muggle parents found themselves in a fullblooded "area".
(( Fabrication Quickie: American witches and wizards in my background are prone to use 'Fullblood' as an Americanism as opposed to the 'Pureblood' Britishism. As well, to avoid the use of 'Mudbloods' which may be used amongst close appropriately-blooded friends as a term of endearment, the more snobbish Regalus Academy fullbloods have taken to heart the less vulgar reference: 'Mundanes'. ))
Sabine did very well academically while she was at Regalus, though her social skills needed a great deal of work. The lack of friends didn't bother her, nor did it ever really register with her that people thought her kind of scary. Things seemed fine in her eyes. Because she had never displayed any tendency towards leadership, she never bothered with the elections held annually for Student Body President, nor did she take an interest in Quidditch or its American answer Quadpot- although she made a point to make the school Dean's list of excellent academic students at every semester.
Shortly after admittance into the school, Sabine grew very close with Tarla Prestan, a sharply witty and beautiful (opposing Sabine's own tragically plain features) witch who, although only average in her studies, was rather well liked amongst the purebloods of the school. Tarla was also waist-deep in (and very brilliant regarding) magical politics, something that starkly contrasted her usually completely thoughtless and tactless nature to create a sort of eerie balance.
At sixteen, the two girls shared a dormitory- that was also the year that they adopted Abigail Brooke. Abby, while happy and playful enough to make up for Sabine's own lack of cheer, was somewhat clueless and seemed slightly dizzy all the time- in short, the three complimented each other spectacularly, and they became as tight as triplets. In their second year of friendship, Sabine and Tarla declared that Abigail was 'their Mudblood, and if anyone called her as such it would be them, God damn it.'
They were Regalus' answer to the Marauders: they annoyed the teachers, snuck out after curfew and declared themselves detectives, were bent on causing mayhem and rivaled one another to fierce extremes.
All three girls ascended from the school in early summer of 1979, Sabine holding with her four CATs (Charms, Transfiguration, Herbology, Potions) and five TOADs (Charms, Transfiguration, Potions, Defense Against the Dark Arts and an advanced Defense Against the Dark Arts course, which she had gained a keen interest in by that point- she had relatives in Britain put into Azkaban for association with Grindelwald a few decades prior, and so the subject struck a particular note with her.) Like many witches and wizards, Sabine was unsure of her life's direction from there and decided to experiment.
(( Fabrication Quickie: CATs and TOADs are similar to OWLs and NEWTs.
CATs: Common Achievement Tests. Taken in between semesters of one's final year; measure the witch or wizard against the average and awarding one CAT for each subject significantly (15) above said line of common achievement. TOADs: Tests Of Academic Direction. Taken at the end of one's final year specifically for the purpose of deciding whether one is qualified for a TOAD certificate, which shows that the graduate has taken and passed (75) the courses necessary to qualify for an American Institution of Higher Magical Learning, or an apprenticeship with the State's Magical Offices, a hospital in the wizarding world, etc. ))
After graduation she accepted a position in Manhattan as an apprentice to an elderly wizard who supplied certain efficacious but difficult to brew potions for local magical medical centers. She studied under him for two years, leaving to try an au pair program with Abigail Brooke in France (someone needed to give the poor girl some translation help; she spoke only several high-school equivalent courses worth of French, while Sabine had undergone lessons with her aunt for ten summers during her schooling years), and then to teach a remedial Potions course at a preparatory school, shortly followed by the acception of an offer to teach Latin as an elective at Regalus Academy.
While Tarla Prestan climbed the political ladder, keeping Abigail close beside her, Sabine accepted a permanent position as the Charms professor at Regalus. She was twenty-four years old.
That was how the public saw it. When Sabine was twenty, something extremely significant occured in Britain- a baby boy had beaten Lord Voldemort, the wizard that had been terrorizing Europe since Sabine's school days. Because New York had its share of magical British residents and visitors, not a week went by that Sabine could pick up her Swish magazine (a recommended read for well-educated witches with sections on etiquette, news, politics and international terror) or her preferred newspaper (The New York Crosswands was more to-the-point than the Howler, which had a gossipy undertone) without reading of one of the Dark Lord's murderous rampages. Sabine had thought that the best she could do was follow the stories and rejoice or sympathize as it was fit, but apparently that wasn't good enough.
Long since, at the significant beginning of her political career (as mayor of her small, fullblooded hometown), Tarla Prestan had traveled to Britain for research and met Albus Dumbledore, with whom she established an immediate connection- at first for buisness purposes, but who with a good heart could resist falling in platonic love with the man? Albus deemed her trustworthy and bestowed a tremendous honour upon her when he asked her to attend a few meetings of the Order of the Phoenix with him. Abigail and Sabine, as Tarla's closest friends, were quietly informed of this in person. Shortly afterwards the Order began to have less frequent meetings and, with Voldemort seemingly gone, eventually it stopped uniting altogether, with Dumbledore only keeping sharp tabs on its members, British and otherwise.
It was for this reason that Sabine was kept informed of the progress of Harry Potter and the events surrounding him- like the Mafia, once you were a part of the Order of the Phoenix, you were expected to bear the responsibility involved. Generally, Sabine regarded this knowledge with a distant sort of respect- she could not tell; Tarla had made certain of that "It's not personal, dear, it's just buisness.", neither did she care to great lengths.
At any rate, she was relieved for the opportunity to take a break from America this past year, and honoured at the chance to finally meet Albus Dumbledore and become a part of his organization. Her duties were simple: she would attend meetings with Tarla and Abigail, and assist Dumbledore by temporarily filling the positions needed at Hogwarts while certain professors were away on their own… endeavors.