Davies

## Davies Family

The Davies are an American Deaf wizarding family where the majority of the members are either Deaf, Hard of Hearing, or native ASL users who are hearing.

### Site Lore

> *“The world has watched the deaf community come of age. Together we’ve overcome our own reluctance to stand up for our own rights.”*
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The Davies family is a truly unique wizarding family. Their roots are strongly in the world of advocacy and humanitarian projects, taking them all across the world and leaving with buildings named after them, and school programs started in their honor. At some point in the very distant past, the family had humble beginnings but they came into a bit of money which grew over time and given their history, they promised to put it to good use. As they have an altruistic nature, the Davies family live humbly; most would consider them middle class but they don’t want for much. Their money is best used in their advocacy projects and supporting their passions. However, their interests are very narrow in nature; the Davies family has been culturally Deaf for generations and their projects and programs mainly aim to advocate for those who are experiencing oppression in the educational system.

Extremely adept in non-verbal magic, they are nothing to scoff at when it comes to dueling and they certainly do not hesitate to tell you how they feel about things when given the opportunity. Contrary to most other family structures, the Davies are a matriarchy; it makes sense, they are a family of strong women who will not settle for less. The current matriarch of the Davies family is the CEO of their non-profit advocacy organization while the patriarch handles the finances. All members of the family are Deaf, Hard of Hearing, or CODAs and their first language is American Sign Language. Their culture, strong-mindedness, blunt honesty, and desire to change the world guide their actions above anything else.

Sybil and Elijah Davies came from very different worlds; Elijah was born and raised outside of Baltimore in a small and poor hearing family who struggled to make ends meet. When he was five years old, he became incredibly ill and lost his hearing soon after. He grew up communicating with his hearing peers, missing most of their conversations but nodding along all the same, and making use of lipreading in his classes at Ilvermorny. Regardless of the barriers that society created for him, he was determined to be the first child in the family to do great things, and he was. He went on to graduate and become a noted Arithmancer at a relatively young age, and became more involved with the Deaf community, learning ASL and meeting others who had similar backgrounds to his own.

Sybil grew up in Rochester living a vastly different life; Deaf from birth and belonging to a family of Deaf individuals her first language was American Sign Language and she worked hard to become fluent in written English but, proud of her heritage and culture, never spoke. A proud Deaf woman, she began to travel soon after graduating with to advocate for more accessible education.

During her travels, she ended up in Maryland for a conference to present on her experience and that was where she met Elijah. He was a bit timid and there was a language barrier, his signing skills rough around the edges, but she found him so cute that she rearranged her schedule to end up back in the same city for a second trip. After years of traveling to see each other, they decided to make things official and Elijah moved to Rochester.

On a beautiful June day, Sybil and Elijah got married in her parent’s backyard-- he took her name, something he was happy to do. A year after their marriage, they welcomed their oldest daughter, Harper into the world. After that Jayden joined their family bringing his drive and ambition with him. Then shortly afterward, their youngest Maya was born. Sybil continues her advocacy work, traveling all over the world as she is needed and Elijah has taken up the accounting for their organization.