Lucrezia Batyaeva

Professor Lucrezia Mikhailovna Batyaeva (b. 14 June, 1982) is an Austrian Witch, a scientist, and a researcher. After her education at Академия Белзалы (Akademiya Belzaly), she moved to the United States to do graduate work at Salem Witches' Institute, as well as mundane studies in chemistry and physics at Boston College and Johns Hopkins University. After completing her education, she returned to Austria to continue theoretical magical research and experimental potioneering. In July of 2014, she received a call from Hufflepuff Head of House Dax Polgara regarding the open position teaching Potions at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry in Scotland. Although she had never worked as a full-time professor, she agreed to become Potions Mistress as long as she was still able to conduct independent research outside of class hours.
== Early Life and Family ==
Lucrezia Mikhailovna was born on 14 June, 1982 in Reinweiler, Austria, a magical enclave in the suburbs of Vienna. Her parents, Mikhail and Ekaterina, moved to Vienna from Samara, Russia in 1977. Her father, Mikhail, worked as an investigative reporter for the Austrian national newspaper, while her mother was a professional artist.
Despite being an only child, Lucrezia grew up with very close relations to her maternal cousins, Tansilu and Velika Altanovna, who still lived in the Samara region. Tansilu is three years Lucrezia's elder, while Velika is two years younger. The three cousins spent most summers together with their parents.
One of Lucrezia's favorite memories when she was young was a summer trip she, Tansilu, and Velika took with her uncle and aunt, Altan and Evgeniya, to an experimental magic convention in Riga, Latvia. She cites this convention as her first taste of theoretical and experimental and the beginning of her quest for knowledge about the nature of magic.
Growing up in Reinweiler, Lucrezia was a bit mischievous, and would occasionally sneak into Vienna to spend time in Muggle music stores or coffee shops. Her parents were rather liberal in thought, and encouraged her exploration of the city. She grew up with many cats, dogs, owls, lizards, and other animals that her mother would rescue and keep in and around their modest home. Growing up, she planned to follow in her mother's footsteps and study magical art and art theory when she finally attended school.
Despite the good academic programs that would have been afforded her in Austria, when she turned eleven years of age, Lucrezia opted to return to Russia to study at her parents' alma mater, Akademiya Belzaly in the Omsk region of Western Siberia.
== Akademiya Belzaly (1993-2000) ==
In 1993 Lucrezia returned to her parents' home country to begin her schooling at Akademiya Belzaly, a small school with an average of about ten students in each year. The adjustment was a difficult one at first, as she had only intermediate skills in Russian. Her cousin Tansilu was also attending Belzaly, however, and proved a remarkable help for Lucrezia as she adjusted to Russian magical culture and vocabulary.
Despite an initial rocky start, Lucrezia soon found herself fascinated with magical theory, particularly of transfigurative magic, and magical history. She was never quite so adept at the practical sides of magic as well, and often tells students stories of setting things on fire during Dark Arts as well as melting several cauldrons during Potions and Elixirs. She earned very good grades overall, however, and completed her studies on the small honor role they had at Belzaly. She graduated with concentrations in Structural Dynamics (Transfiguration) and Magical Theory.
Lucrezia's first long-term relationship began at the academy. When she was sixteen, she began dating Jasmijna Petrovna, a student one year Lucrezia's senior. The relationship lasted two years through Lucrezia's last years at Belzaly. Following Lucrezia's own graduation and move back to Austria, the two women tried to maintain the relationship, but soon grew apart and the relationship ended on good terms.
== Return to Austria and Education in the United States (2000-2008) ==
Following graduation, Lucrezia returned to the Vienna region intending to apprentice to local transfigurative researchers or possibly entering into a branch of government that would allow her to research and apply what she learned in school. However, soon after returning to Reinweiler, she fell in with the odd, somewhat alternative crowd of youthful potions and chemical researchers that emerged in Vienna over the previous two-hundred years. Fascinated with the research they were undertaking, Lucrezia found herself switching focus to learn more about the unique and fascinating interactions of magical and mundane ingredients with forms of energy, magical and otherwise.
After a few years of study and apprenticeship in Vienna, Lucrezia realized that a more solid mundane foundation in chemistry and physics would be necessary in order to keep up with the flourishing - if oft-considered “odd” - research community in Austria. At nineteen, Lucrezia moved to the United States, first to Massachusetts to do independent post-graduate studies at the Salem Institute for Witches while also studying chemistry at Boston College. It was there that Lucrezia met her close friend and current colleague, Dax Polgara, who studied at MIT. The two maintained contact even after Lucrezia left, and it was Dax who contacted Lucrezia regarding the Potions professorship at Hogwarts.
During her time in Salem, Lucrezia was awarded die Kollerin Jugendpreis für Zaubertränke, a prestigious Austrian award given to young people who show particular aptitude and skill in potioneering and potions study. Towards the end of her time in Massachusetts, Lucrezia was also awarded the American-based Salem-Bishop Award for Potions Mastery for her independent studies with other leading potions researchers in the Massachusetts area as well as throughout the country. 
Following four years in Massachusetts, Lucrezia moved to Baltimore to pursue further studies of chemistry and physics at Johns Hopkins University. She stayed in the United States for nearly four more years before moving back to Austria. Early in her time in the U.S., Lucrezia also met another current Hogwarts staff member, Sarissa Greenwich, who remains one of her closest friends.
== Career in Vienna ==
Upon returning to Vienna, Lucrezia joined das Österreichische Institut für Fortschritt in der Zaubertränke as an associate researcher, where she assisted senior researchers in their studies and also worked as a Teacher’s Assistant helping other graduate students in their advanced studies of potions and potions theory. As Vienna is known for its innovations and inventions in the realm of experimental and micro-potioneering, Lucrezia was at the forefront of more progressive potions research and studies. 
The position also afforded her scholarly publishing opportunities, first as a co-author, and eventually her own independent research work once her reputation was relatively well-established. The first publication she co-authored in her time at the Institute was entitled Damals und heute: Zaubertränke auf dem Weg in das 21. Jahrhundert (or Then and now: Potions into the Twenty-First Century) in 2006. This was a rather lengthy publication compiled by potioneers throughout the German-speaking magical world that outlined the major advances in potions over the previous two to three-thousand years, as well as some of the more inspirational potential for the next one-hundred. Lucrezia’s first published article in which she was the only author was called Molekulare Veränderung in Übergangselemente Kategorie C (or Molecular Changes in Transitional Elements Category C) in 2008. 
In 2011, Lucrezia Batyaeva was awarded the prestigious Wandlight Preis, a pan-discipline award given in the German-speaking magical world to Witches or Wizards who show potential for tremendous innovation or success in their given field of research. Soon after this prize was awarded to Lucrezia, she was promoted to full-time researcher at the Institute, though she still occasionally co-taught classes on the university side of the institution. 
== Hogwarts Career ==
In July, 2014, Lucrezia was contacted by her old colleague, Dax Polgara, regarding an opening for a potions professor at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry in Scotland. Previously, Lucrezia had never considered teaching on the secondary school level, always intending to research and teach at a much higher and more advanced level. However, in discussing the position with her cousin Tansilu as well as a few of her colleagues in Vienna, she was reminded of the opportunity afforded to her through this position to encourage other young people to pursue research and multidisciplinary studies. She was promised she could still attend conferences and undertake other research endeavors as long as it did not conflict with her primary position as Potions Mistress.
Despite her initial trepidation about making the leap from co-teaching university-level courses to being primary Potions Mistress at Hogwarts, Lucrezia absolutely fell in love with the school, staff, and the students. While she does occasionally leave town for weekends or slightly longer for conferences, she always enjoys returning. Lucrezia has no plans to leave the position anytime soon, although should she ever be pulled away - which is exceedingly unlikely - she says it would have to be for a once in a lifetime research opportunity back in Vienna, or possibly for one of the incredible institutions that has sprung up in South Africa.
In February, 2015 Lucrezia was asked to take on the post of Deputy Headmistress.
== Trivia, Interests, and Abilities ==
By way of more trivial items, Lucrezia grew up in a house full of dogs, cats, birds, and occasionally lizards that her mother took in and kept. Upon moving back to Vienna from the United States, Lucrezia herself got a black cat that she named Sandman after the Metallica song “Enter Sandman.” As the name suggests, Lucrezia has a bit of a soft spot for Muggle music, particularly classic and ‘90s rock, although she also likes house and EDM. Lucrezia admits that when she was younger, even after graduation from Belzaly, she was occasionally something of a club kid, meaning she often went to dance clubs, particularly those in Berlin. She has attended the Muggle music event Electric Daisy Carnival a few times as well. 
Although she does not discuss it often, there was a brief time following Lucrezia’s return to Vienna following graduation from Belzaly where she considered becoming an entertainer rather than a researcher. She entered the local magical beauty pageant, Miss Großraum Reinweiler 1999, on a whim, and somehow managed to win. She moved along and succeeded all the way to the title of Miss Magische Österreich that year before being eliminated in the broader European competition. Following that success, she was offered a position with a magical theater company, who offered to give her theatrical training. Lucrezia cites her training for the pageant, however, as a great help to her in regards to public speaking, which has always been one of her strengths as a presenter at conferences as well as a lecturer at the university level.
If she were not a researcher or a teacher, Lucrezia says she probably would have become a beast and creature rights activist or lobbyist of some sort. Her upbringing was relatively liberal and progressive in sentiment, and she was raised to believe that all beasts and creatures have their own unique expression of magic, and that raising them to a position of equality in the magical world can only ultimately have a positive outcome for all, as we learn more about the positive uses and attributes of each form of magic on this planet and beyond. 
Although she was mostly careful to get them in places that could be covered by work-appropriate clothes, Lucrezia has six tattoos: the Tengwar Quenya lettering of Olca Narmo (“Bad Wolf”) on her left hip, the coat of arms of Samara city on the right side of her ribcage, a stylized tattoo of a black and yellow butterfly and a white moth with intertwining movements on her right shoulder, I believe tomorrow is another day and I believe in miracles written in script on her middle-lower back, and the structure of a resveratrol atom on her right hip. Her sixth tattoo is on her left wrist, and features a stylized drawing of the Slavic deity Simargl with Заря-Вечерняя (Zarya-Vechernyaya) written in small letters underneath it. Her cousin Tansilu has the same symbol with Заря-Зареница (Zarya-Zarenitsa) on her right wrist.
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