Father: Leonard Jones (64)/Muggleborn
Mother: Patrice Jones (59)/Half-Blood
Half-Brother: Evan McDonald (more estranged now)

CHILDHOOD: Carman's childhood was nothing too special. Her mother worked as a clerk in the Ministry and her father had been a carpenter's assistant. Despite their lives within the wizarding world, both of her parents made sure she understood and embraced both the magical and non-magical world since she came from both. Her paternal grandparents doted on her as their only granddaughter. She was a tad spoiled as a young girl, living life between the muggle and wizarding world fluidly - there was no question in any of their minds how the two joined. It just happened. Even as a young girl, Carman had been fascinated with Quidditch and would practically beg for her parents to teach her to fly and to take her to games. To her young mind, it was truly magical. Her parents tried to stay out of the line of fire as much as possible, especially as Voldemort rose in power, though thankfully she hadn't been born during those times. Carman grew up with the stories of "the boy who lived" as they called him, though didn't quite understand fully what that was all about (above mere adoration and fascination that the adults showed when the subject came up during conversation) until she started school.

SCHOOL YEARS: The school years have been grouped together depending on what school you attend. Please briefly touch on each year as you write your school year history. Pick the Remove what's irrelevant (Mahoutokoro and Beauxbatons have ten years, Durmstrang has eight.)

FOR HOGWARTS STUDENTS:
YEAR ONE/TWO:
By her first year, there had already been rumors about things going amiss at Hogwarts, though her parents insisted still that she attend Hogwarts and embrace the magical side of herself just as much as the muggle side. Being in Gryffindor, Carman saw quite a bit that happened within the common room and with the rest of her house, though she stuck to the shadows for the most part, choosing instead to watch. She excelled at dueling, even from a young age (well, if you could call being able to shoot someone's wand out of their hand being excellent). This was commonly a prank she pulled on her friends when they hadn't quite noticed her, especially after they caught onto her and it became a game as to who could hit the other first. Carman had made several friends within her own house as well as some from Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff and the midnight escapades into the corridors to sneak into the kitchens for sweets was a delight - especially if they managed to not get caught. She quite liked to believe that she was sneaky enough, though her detention time was relatively frequent because of this.

YEAR THREE/FOUR/FIVE:
By the time she got to her middle years in Hogwarts, the war with the Death Eaters and Voldemort was just starting again. While she wanted desperately to be able to help fully, she settled for joining Dumbledore's Army where she truly found her love of a duel. The thrill of the fight was an adrenaline boost like no other. With this revelation, Carman delved into all the spells that she could and convinced her friends to practice whenever they could sneak away. Despite the stress, she kept a lot of her carefree personality because no matter what happened she knew there was backup in her friends and her parents supported her unquestionably. Well, at least until things turned truly bad at Hogwarts.

The school had been hit hard with Dumbledore's murder and Carman was right there with the rest of her house in loathing Snape and all the evil that he stood for. Her parents almost pulled her from school - in fact several of her friends' parents did just that - but Carman insisted, begged and convinced her parents to allow her to stay in order to protect what she loved. When the Battle of Hogwarts came, she'd already trained in every spell she could (though quite a few were still above her level at this point) and she'd taken up learning some martial arts, acrobatics (her parents had simply insisted that she take gymnastics as a young girl, so it came somewhat naturally), as well as the daggers. The last one was an almost accident to discover. Along with her wand, Carman used a twin set of daggers that were a mixture of steel and silver to combat wolves as well as death eaters who didn't quite know about close-quarters fighting. After all, catching people off guard had been something she'd enjoyed, what with the pranks she played on her friends.

The battle had been especially difficult. She'd survived with several bumps, bruises and gashes but had been forced to watch some of her closest friends die in front of her, or at the very least they were in critical condition by the end. Some never recovered. Even as an adult, she sometimes wakes in a cold sweat from nightmares of that battle. She'd had many since then but that one was so gruesome and terrifying that it had essentially implanted that image into her memory like a fire brand that haunted almost as badly as a ghost or a dementor. Needless to say, everyone was thankful to have the peace that followed that battle.

YEAR SIX/SEVEN:
With the war done, Voldemort dead, and the Death Eaters disbanded, Carman returned with what remained of the students in Hogwarts to her studies. It was during the couple of years leading up to the big battle that she'd decided she was going to work to become an Auror, if only to try to protect the weak against the likes of Voldemort, Bellatrix and the like who completely terrorized both the wizarding and muggle world alike. The battle had shown her her own weak spots and, once she'd healed enough to start training again, she threw herself right back into it again. Since discovering the room of requirement, that became her training room.

Thankfully the magic of the room knew exactly what she needed whenever she visited so, depending on her wishes, she could practice with her wand, daggers, acrobatics, or a combination, all for the hopes that she would be able to get an edge when she graduated. Being less talented with herbs and potions, Carman traded tutoring for those subjects with those who needed help in other subjects. The end result was a few more friends to laugh with and quite a bit more knowledge (and an insane amount of essays... why were there so many essays?!) to be able to pass her N.E.W.T.s with high enough scores to be able to get into the Auror program. Her parents and other family delighted over this - an Auror in the mix of all of them was something else, indeed.


ADULTHOOD: 
The first several years after graduating Hogwarts saw Carman learning the rigorous structure she needed to know as an Auror, learned from those who were assigned (and volunteered) to do her practical training in the field and took quite a few hits in the beginning. There were several points where Carman truly wondered if this was something she was cut out to do, what with how frequently she felt she failed despite the praise from her superiors that a rookie could (mostly) hold their own. Her training from Hogwarts never stopped, she merely took to remote fields or found those willing to spar with her in both hand-to-hand combat along with magical duels. There were too many times she found herself with her proverbial pants down and had to be rescued. She learned quickly, though, and strove to never make the same mistake twice.

By the time she turned thirty, Carman had already been a full Auror for several years and had taken down her share of magical mayhems. She certainly wasn't the best on the force, but she was a force to be reckoned with. Her fighting style stood her apart from the rest of the Aurors and, while this was truly a good thing, such a reputation became a curse as much as a blessing. Dark wizards knew her since she stood out a bit more than the rest of her peers. Despite this, her training ended up paying off in the end and by the time her mid-thirties came around, she'd earned a reputation for being the knife cutting through a battlefield. She'd let nothing and nobody stop her, even if it was just for stubborn relentlessness to be the best in the field. Sitting at a desk was almost like torture, so she strove to be in the field as much as possible. This led to some reprimands because her reports tended to come later than they were supposed to. Even now, that is something she needs to work on. Her partner had to remind her at the end of their shift to submit her reports so neither one of them would end up in the dog house again. (Yes, again).

There were a lot of things that Carman regretted in her youth. She had been a reckless teenager, making mistakes for a good she thought was right while dragging herself down a dark path that still haunted her to that day. She was bitter, crude and didn't tolerate the presence of many people. The fact was when you saw as much death and destruction as she had over the years, it got to you and not just in a light way. It struck your soul, tore you apart from the inside out until it left you as nothing more than a shell of what you used to be. These days Carman thought only of the regrets of the past. Regret for how dark she'd become, giving in to her own damnation so easily instead of pulling through and holding out like Cordelia and Danielle had. Instead she turned bitter, blaming everyone around her for her mistakes and for her life being hell. Of course Kat had a lot to do with it, however the two of them fed off each other. Carman started to take things wrong at every turn, seeing that the only way to win the war was to take her own attacks to their level. In the end she was hardly better than the Death Eaters she fought or even the ministry who screwed them all over.

Carman had hoped, after all these years, that some shred of goodness and humanity had survived the test of time. Surely she wouldn't have this intense bitterness eating away at her soul forever and that she would finally be able to find closure before she died. There wasn't much hope but the seclusion in Russia made it a bit easier to take her mind away from the chaos of the fights in the UK. Her home there seemed like a distant memory, a relic of the past that seemed long gone, as if from centuries ago. There were few signs of the little girl who ate her weight in ice cream in the kitchens as a kid, taking full advantage of the house elves' hospitality and eagerness to serve the students of Hogwarts. She was a Gryffindor. Bold, brave and, most of all, she was someone with something great to prove. But she did a lousy job at doing even that. The history books told students of the Third Wizarding War and the struggles the Order faced against the Death Eaters. They talked of the valiant attempts to quench the flames of destruction and painted her the hero. A hero.

Back then Carman would have delighted in seeing her listed as that, along with the people she fought alongside. They'd won but what did they really win? So many people died and even more either lost their humanity or their sanity. Some lost both. Children and adults alike suffered under the tyranny of the Ministry and the Death Eaters and back then it seemed like there was no end to it. Friend turned foe and while they all tried so desperately to remember that their real opponents wore masks and killed innocents, those lines were blurred. Mistrust spread like wildfire. By the end, the death eaters almost won. The Order fought among themselves more than they fought against the Death Eaters. They had lost control and gained it back so many times that the public even started to doubt their competence. People like herself and Evan left because the ability to deal with their opponents without the restrictions of the Order was far more effective than following their rules. But that only ended in disaster for them all. Evan disappeared and Carman sunk to all new lows.

Even her closest friends couldn't help her back then and her desire for vengeance and to see the light leave Katarina's eyes was what drove her to new ends. There were no restraints and certainly no bars held. The ministry fell, the Death Eaters disappeared and the Order was left in the wake of the chaos, declared the victors after years of fighting. Yet there was little celebration. Many of the people who fought in the wars disappeared, choosing instead to spread out across all of Europe. Perhaps they thought that if they gave themselves new scenery and new people who didn't know the extent of their involvement in the war, they would be able to return to normal. Or at least what was the equivalent of normal. Carman went to Russia, choosing the life of a hermit with her husband. Their home in the mountains provided everything they needed. They worked for the ministry there first but then Carman's own issues began surfacing and she chose to simply retire. Retirement wasn't what she'd expected at first but the simplicity had its benefits, mostly when it came to her mental health.

She'd stayed that way for years, getting into a routine and a sense of contented happiness was finally growing on her. That was, until that day in the marketplace which found her not only fighting again but also found her back within the borders of her home country. It was weird yet somehow nostalgic. So many memories surfaced. So much pain. Yet with that pain also came the memories of her family and friends laughing and having fun together, the fun they had as kids. It was buried, almost lost to the winds of time, but it was there. One just had to know where to look. A few days after she'd arrived in London, Kenneth had approached her about the whereabouts of one Cordelia Lupin. At first she simply stared at him. She knew that he was starting to gather people for war, there was no other way of seeing it. There was a threat and it was only natural to bring in those who'd defeated the disasters in the past. But was it really fair to reign in people who were barely getting over the pain they'd gone through and drag them out of their seclusion?

Before they'd gone their separate ways, Cordy had confided in Carman where she was thinking of going. France was a beautiful country with a lovely people. A person could remake themselves into someone new easily there. The peace had called to the former Hufflepuff in ways that Russia had called to Carman. So they'd parted ways when the war was over and lost each other in the passage of time. Now Kenneth wanted her to call on her best friend again and pull her back. At first she protested. If anyone deserved their peace it was Cordy. But he was very convincing. It only took a few days to track down an exact location and she found herself apparating on the outskirts of a small village in France. Carman could see why this area drew her best friend in. It was beautiful, quaint and quiet. The perfect retreat.

Carman weaved through children running around playing, their laughter carrying quite a ways, and people walking and talking. It was like stepping into another world. She could just feel some of the stress melt off of her. Her steps led her slowly towards a quaint cottage not far away from her apparation spot. Yet, instead of immediately knocking, Carman stood there for a couple minutes with her finger hovering just in front of the doorbell. Could she really do this to her? Bring back all the pain of the past? Wouldn't it be better to just leave her be? Part of her almost dropped her hand and turned to leave but instead she found herself pushing the button and the sound of the bell ringing through the house told her the resident had been alerted of her presence. The next moments seemed like an eternity before the door finally creaked open.

Her breath was pushed from her lungs. There, standing in front of her was none other than Cordelia Lupin and all Carman could do was give a croaked "Hey," what with her throat finding that specific moment to stop working. A tear streamed down her cheek. Cordy looked well, better than she had been while living in London, and that only made her glad. Carman sighed. "It's been a long time."