History

Percy Pomfrey, like many in his family, grew up to be a healer. It seemed to be a family trait of the Pomfreys that they should go into the healing profession. And though he lived in Ireland, he worked for many years as a specialist healer at St Mungo's in London. Arietta was twenty-four when they met, and a professor at Hogwarts. The pair started dating after meeting when Arietta's brother wound up in hospital after a nasty Quidditch accident. Despite the slightly unfortunate circumstances, they hit it off pretty much immediately and very well. After just one year of being together, the couple was married and expecting their first child.

Unfortunately, their first child died before they were born, and this was a very difficult thing for poor Arietta to grasp. She had been so sure that it was going to be a boy, and yet when the child had died it hadn't even been old enough to tell the gender. The loss crushed her, and she took a whole year away from work.

When she finally came to terms with it, she and Percy decided they would try again. And try again they did - to no avail unfortunately. It took them many, many years of trying, until, when they had pretty much given up hope, Arietta was with child. At forty-one, she was rather surprised at their luck, and tried not to get her hopes up too much, lest they be crushed once more, but the pair were ecstatic and could not manage to contain themselves. As it happened, Martha was a healthy baby, and the birth was not problematic at all. Percy and Arietta referred to her as their little miracle.

Then, the second miracle. Completely unexpected and definitely not planned, Arietta discovered she was pregnant again at nearly forty-four. The healers were very concerned, considering her patchy history before Martha - with the miscarriage and then seeming infertility - and her unusually old age to become naturally pregnant. Once again, despite their worries, they were gifted with another baby girl. With Lyanna and Martha now in the house, Arietta decided to quit her job and work on a local newspaper instead - Hogwarts was simply too far from her precious baby girls.

And so Martha Pomfrey grew up in Cork, Ireland, amongst a loving family of four. Her parents' jobs provided a fairly good income to the home, and the family certainly lived comfortably. Martha was spoiled to a point, but her parents were adamant about impressing the importance of both gratitude and not expecting to be given her every whim. She was supposed to have learnt the lesson of being humble, but that was something Martha never really grasped.
 
At three, her first bout of accidental magic struck her when she nearly toppled down the stairs when she wobbled off her toy broomstick. She had been hovering about a foot and a half off the ground - the maximum height the broom would go, and tried to pull around the corner to fly down the stairs far too fast. As she turned, she rolled off her broomstick with a surprised shriek that woke the new baby Lyanna. But instead of landing on her head and probably breaking several bones, she found her self landing softly at the base of the stairs, toy broom clattering down the staircase behind her. She cried anyway - because she shock was enough to scare the bravest of three year olds, but was rather excited afterwards when she realised she'd done magic.
 
After that incident little Martha threw herself into trying to do magic again - which lead to her doing some incredibly stupid things, like jumping off the railing at the top of the stairs and trying to make her magic save her (no such luck, only a broken ankle and fractured wrist), and her love of risk-taking and general adrenaline rushes probably stems from such adventures. Her parents were rather reluctant to buy her an actual broom with the likelihood of her ending up in a tree after pulling a ridiculous stunt being so incredibly high, but she eventually won out on that battle, thanks to the influence of her favourite relative, Poppy, her father's cousin and a skilled, recently-accredited matron, who promised to patch her up if anything too bad happened. She received her first real broom for her sixth birthday. She never flew into a tree, but she did fly into a wall twice, and once she went through the neighbour's window.
 
At seven, she joined a junior quidditch league at a local pitch and found she enjoyed the sport more than almost anything. Unfortunately, she had to leave her beloved Cork team behind when her parents decided to move closer to Percy's father in Edinburgh, Scotland, when he grew ill. At eight, she made the move, and almost immediately found a children's league in Edinburgh to join. She continued playing for the children's team right up until Hogwarts, wherefore she decided it was time she moved onto bigger and better and more grown up things anyway - like real quidditch. At least, that's what she told herself. It probably had a lot more to do with the fact that she wouldn't actually be able to keep going while staying at Hogwarts.
 
In terms of her magic, she was able to control it sometimes, but that was very rare, and it frustrated her to no end - particularly because she needed magic to reach the place where her parents hid the Honeyduke's chocolate bars.
 
It wasn't a huge surprise when Martha's Hogwarts letter came in 1971, though it was a huge excitement. She wanted a party in honour of the arrival of the letter, and her parents laughingly obliged, so long as she helped set up and pack away. She agreed eagerly, and was given the job of making the cake. Martha had a natural talent for cooking, and her father had been happy to teach her his art - Arietta, unfortunately, had a list of things she could make about as long as the palm of her hand. Anything too complicated and she risked burning the house down. She left the cooking to Martha and her father, and occasionally Lyanna, if the girl was feeling particularly helpful.
 
Diagon Alley has always been one of her favourite places in the wizarding world. Her parents didn't take her there often, and when they did, it was really only to go to one shop, and maybe the Leaky Cauldron or Florean's afterwards. So her school shopping trips were always a huge excitement - at least until she reached the age where she could just go to Diagon Alley whenever she wanted - which was really only the last two summers or so.
 
Ollivander's was a source of great wonder to the eleven year old, and she asked at least fifty questions of the poor wandmaker while they were finding her wand. They were very engaged with her, though, and seemed to enjoy her enthusiasm. Eventually, she left, her new wand in hand, and a huge grin in place.
 
Hogwarts was more amazing than she could have ever imagined, and the moment she first saw it silhouetted against the starry sky, she vowed to explore every nook and cranny, and find out every secret it had. Hogwarts, in Martha's eyes, looked like an adventure waiting to happen - or quite possibly many adventures. She wasn't nervous about the sorting, exactly, but rather curious about the whole process. Her mother had been a Slytherin and her father a Hufflepuff, and as she waited patiently for the 'P' section of the list, she wondered which she would fit into. It never occurred to her that she might be sorted something outside of her parent's houses. In fact, the hat hardly even considered either of them. It hesitated between the other two, but decided upon Gryffindor. It wasn't a very long hatstall either - not compared to some of her peers, anyway.
 
She fit in well with the general Gryffindor crowd, and her parents seemed proud enough, though Martha has always thought they were disappointed because she wasn't in either of their houses. She made friends quickly and easily, and her first year got off to a very good start. Not that it lasted very long. She was the first first year of the year to earn a detention - for sneaking one of the school brooms out of the broom stores and taking to the pitch. She had already started to miss the local Quidditch pitch from home, and so she thought she'd fix that with a fly around the Hogwarts one. Not a very good idea, apparently. She landed herself three detentions and lost Gryffindor one hundred points, and it wasn't even three days into the year. She didn’t seem to have a very good track record with the whole broom thing, because in her third year she accidentally flew into one of the Quidditch hoops and fractured her arm. That in itself is embarrassing enough, but she tried to fix her broken wrist with an episky (which she'd heard off of one of the older students, once) and ended up dissolving all the bones in her hand. It's an experience she never wants to repeat and never wants anyone to find out about.
 
Again with the detention, Martha’s second week in her first year brought about another set when she broke someone’s nose by punching them. The poor boy had attempted to nickname her ‘ginger’ and that definitely hadn’t gone down well.

As a creative person and a generally talented writer, Martha couldn't survive without a journal, and so her trusty little leather-bound book made it with her every year to Hogwarts. But she is very certain of the fact that it is social suicide to keep such a thing, so heaven forbid if anyone were ever to find it and *heavy breathing from Martha at the thought* read it. Currently, it's cleverly hidden under her mattress in an invisible bag she bought in her fourth year - though the magic around the bag is starting to fade now.
 
It didn't take Martha long to realise that academically she was well above average, and so she simply didn't study, and over the years as her assignments grew later and later she became more and more of a sense of frustration to the professors. She's lazy, and has probably gotten lazier over the years. It's always particularly annoyed the professors because she does well anyway. She actually managed to do a tiny bit of study for her OWLs - a very impressive feat for Martha, and it certainly paid off (though she's of the opinion that she basically would have got the same marks whether she'd studied or not). She received Es in most of her OWLs, an O in Care of Magical Creatures, Defence Against the Dark Arts and Transfiguration, and she just barely scraped a P in History of Magic (apparently, that one actually did require studying). Her sixth year, with nothing particularly important on in terms of school, involved an awful lot of relaxing and enjoying the fun parts of life - which certainly didn't involve History of Magic. She might have to step up her game for this year, though, if she wants to actually get a good job.
 
Another contributor to her lack of academic motivation is that pesky love of quidditch she has. Despite her best efforts, she wasn't accepted onto the team in her first year - she told herself it was only because it would be unfair to the other first years - nor her second. Three seemed to be the golden number, as she made the Gryffindor team as seeker in her Third year, and has kept her position ever since. Quidditch means everything to her, and perhaps is the only reason she actually ends up handing in assignments - she has to keep her grades high enough to maintain her position on the team.

While at Hogwarts, Martha was fascinated to learn more about the whole muggle world - everything was just so different. Her favourite lesson had definitely been the one about the box that shows pictures - but with sound. Which was, objectively, insane. She went and saw a so-called "movie" as soon as she was allowed. This also brought about the proper discovery of muggle clothing.

Though it fascinated her, she was raised in wizarding society, and so never really got all that into muggle fashion. As such, when wearing muggle clothing, she prefers it to be loose - hoodies, track pants and loose-fitting t-shirts make up her muggle style, though she likes wizarding robes far better. Her favourite item of muggle clothing is the dress because it actually allows for air around her legs - she finds pants kind of confining - and it's a singular piece of clothing, rather than the twenty-five that seem to be needed to make up a muggle outfit. At any rate, robes are definitely more comfortable in her opinion - they are, in fact, her preferred style. She does, however, have this sort of obsession with leather jackets, and owns five. Considering her incredible ability to change her mind in a split second and general spontaneity, Martha generally ends up in muggle clothes so that she doesn't have to worry about not being able to visit muggle places. Often, particularly when at school - though not always, her outfit is complimented with a broom slung over her shoulder.

Other than her clothing habits, Martha is the sort of person that stands out in a crowd. Partly, it's because of her build – at just shy of 183cm, she's much taller than most of her classmates, and most of that is an awkward amount of leg. Her arms and legs seem almost too long for her body - she's incredibly lanky, and the muscle that she does have isn't bulky or clearly defined. It's not just her build that makes Martha stand out, though, but her bright head of ginger. She's nearly always found with her glowing red hair twisted into a bun, and occasionally a high ponytail, both of which are usually pretty messy because she forgot to brush her hair again. She rarely wears it down, as she hates it getting in her eyes.

Despite Martha's inelegant body distribution, she's surprisingly coordinated and not particularly clumsy. I wouldn't go so far as to say she's elegant, because she's so unladylike she's possibly the furthest thing from elegant to ever have existed. But at least she doesn't trip over her awkwardly long legs every five seconds.

Her hazel eyes are incredibly deep - you can practically see the constant turning of the cogs of her brain through them if you look long enough. She's not the person you'd expect it of, but there's actually a burning intelligence behind her eyes. They're always searching - she's an incredibly observant and perceptive person. Despite their inherent intelligence, there's usually a spark of laughter glimmering in them, as well as the warmness that comes with her personality. Her skin's kind of pale and covered in freckles, particularly over the bridge of her nose and her cheeks and across her collarbone. Martha's generally pretty enough, though not what one might call the conventional beauty.

In some way, whatever beauty she has must have paid off - or perhaps it was just her inordinate amount of confidence - because Martha's first kiss was in the summer between her second and third year, and it didn't take her long to discover that she rather enjoyed kissing boys. Across the next few years, a new priority of having a boy to kiss was added to her general agenda of creating havoc across the school with her pranks and annoying the professors. More recently, towards the end of her fourth year, she discovered that things could go further than just kissing, and boy has that been a wild ride. She's very likely already earned herself a less than decent reputation among her classmates.

With the rumours gathering around Voldemort - and so recently for her parents after Grindelwald's destruction - Percy and Arietta immediately went to Dumbledore. Martha's parents, while to the rest of the world are neutral in their standing, have secretly sided with the order, using their jobs to help provide information to the group. Martha only knows about the Order's existence by accident - her parents didn't want her to find out because they knew she'd try and get involved. Now that she does know about it, it's her dearest wish to be apart of the Order, though her parents have forbade it until she's of age.

Going into her OWL year, Martha's aware that she needs to step up her study game, but is similarly aware that this isn't particularly likely to happen. So long as she can skate, she will. Besides, she really only needs to get just enough to pass everything and her parents will be happy enough.