Naya Crawford

##### Positives

> Naya is a very kind and caring individual. She likes to take care of the people around her and she likes to help people that are less fortunate than she is. She sometimes will sound harsh, but she has a really big heart and cares for the success of the people around her. Naya is very smart and intellectual - particularly surrounding healing. She has a passion for healing and studies it a lot, from old methods to new ones. Naya is a person that people would like to have in their corner if there is a situation going on. She is very level-headed after all of her experience and doesn't freak out even if a situation would warrant that. She is quick on her feet and is at her best. Naya is rather spontaneous, which is both a positive and a negative for her. She makes decisions on a whim (typically surrounding her romantic life). She is definitely a go-with-the-flow type person.
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##### Negatives

> Naya is a very romantic person and loves romantic gestures, which is terrible for her because it often means she has bad taste in men and is a sucker for someone that knows how to play their cards in the right way. Naya is very unforgiving because she feels if someone has shown her their true colors, she ought to believe them the first time. Small things she will forgive, but she has nothing for those that get on her bad side in big ways. Naya tends to be rather dependent on the people around her which isn't really something people will pick up on at first. She's not dependent in the way that she can't go to the bathroom herself, or won't go out to eat herself, but she's dependent in that she has never really been single very long in her life. She just doesn't like being alone. Naya is very disorganized, no matter how much she tries. She keeps books and papers everywhere.
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#### History

***TW: Mentions of controlling relationship.***

##### All Dressed in White

> One's wedding day is meant to be the most important day of their life, the day that they remember so clearly. I should have listened a little more deeply because it *was* an important day in my life, and it was definitely one I would never forget, no matter how many tears I cried, wishing that I would. Everything had been perfect with my fiancé. I was so sure that he was the love of my life. We dated all through Hogwarts, with a few breaks in between. It hadn't been the easiest of relationships that I had ever had, but that was simply because we knew each other too well. We practically grew up together. Hell, we did grow up together. It was why it had been so entirely shocking to me when I was standing in my cheap white dress that I made myself just to save money, that he never joined me.
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> What an ass.
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> At just 20 years old, I experienced my first devastating heartbreak. I should have listened to my friends that didn't like him, or my parents that warned me I was moving too fast, but just like that, they were all right and I was all wrong. I haven't even gotten to the worst part of it yet, though.
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>    I was the youngest of three sisters, though there were enough years in between our ages that we weren't exactly close in the beginning. I should have found it strange when one of my sister's was getting a little too close to my fiancé, but I was naïve and thought them having a solid relationship was a good thing. As everything began to fall apart, it turned out that he and my older sister had started an affair months prior. On my wedding day, what was supposed to be the happiest day of my life, they decided to run off to be together. Honestly, they can go kindly fuck themselves.
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> He blamed me for it, saying that my dreams were interfering with what he dreamed up for us. I was too busy, so he says, to spend time with him. I will not apologize for picking up as many shifts as I could at Mungo's as a healer trainee just so that I would have money to go overseas for my dream of working in Healers Without Borders. I wanted to go where healers weren't common to help people out. Is that such a bad thing? That was my passion, my dream, and he knew that from the start. I knew what I wanted to do since I was a little girl, even before I knew about magic. I knew I wanted to help people. I knew I wanted to work hard so that I could make a difference. He used to love that the most about me, but I guess some things change, and some people become people you would never recognize.
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> He used to be my everything. In school, we would study together (amongst more inappropriate things) and reward ourselves with a nice date each Hogsmeade trip. We would laugh until we cried, and compete in every class that we ever shared together. He was my first for almost everything romantic and other, and we shared the dream of improving the world with our knowledge. What good was being the smartest person in the room if you couldn't use it to bring others up, too? He was my breath of fresh air when I was arguing with my parents about everything under the sun, simply because we didn't always see eye to eye. They wanted something more practical for me, something that wasn't going to bring me overseas and probably dead before I was thirty (their words). They didn't understand my dreams - but he did. At least, so I thought. He and I competed a lot - healthy! Mostly. Sometimes, I had to let him win the competitions, though, because he would get incredibly upset if I won, and it just wasn't worth it to me. I spent a lot of time letting him win, while needing to make it seem like he didn't win. Do you know how exhausting that is?
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> We moved in together the day we graduated, and living together had been an absolute dream since my parents told me I couldn't come home anyway since I was old enough to live on my own. I really hated them for it at first, but I grew to understand it and appreciate them for doing it, I suppose. I started work at Mungo's and then participated in a program where I could do some of my training with Healers without borders as a trainee, knowing that there was still a lot that I needed to learn. It meant that I was often gone for long periods of time, but I apparated or floo'd when I could, and we had made it work. He actually came to see me once, and he proposed, and it was the most romantic and sweetest thing ever. That beautiful ring is now in the ocean somewhere. I should have put a hex on it and gave it back to him. Missed chances.
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##### Some People Never Learn

> And by that, I mean me. I apparently never learn. I took up a more permanent position at St. Mungo's so that I could learn more, which I did, but I used my vacations and whatever time I could do continue doing work for Healers Without Borders. I worked too much, but it led me to the next supposed love of my life. You see, I wasn't entirely used to remaining single, since even on my breaks with my last one, I was generally with someone else, so after things with my last relationship ended so poorly, I was dating someone new within months. I was so stupid, but I reasoned it would help me to get over my heartache. Once again, I should have listened to friends, but what do I know? For a Ravenclaw, I can be really stupid sometimes, I suppose. It wasn't supposed to be anything serious for either of us, but he was a really good guy who I met in the Healers Without Borders work that I was doing and I thought we had a real connection.
> I hadn't realized that it was a real connection to hell, but hey, live and learn.
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>    We had only dated a few months before he proposed. Rather than do a wedding, which I was 100% against because there is only so much embarrassment a person can take, I figured I'm not getting any younger, and he's someone I do care for. I did care for him. He was so funny and kind and he took care of me even when I didn't want him to. He never questioned how much I worked and how much work was important to me, and he encouraged my dreams. I got to see him chasing his dreams - though I never realized it was all a façade. It couldn't really get any better than that, could it? So, on a spur of the moment decision, we married. Things were good - really good - at first. He was a nice distraction, and I did love him. Maybe not the way I needed to, but he was good, until he wasn't.
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> He took control of all of our finances, and pushed away all of my friends and my other sister that I was still in contact with (not the bitch that stole my fiancé). Everything I did or wanted to do, he questioned with such disdain until I gave him the answers he wanted. He wanted a hot wife that would stay at home because he would provide, and I'm sorry, but have you met me? Hot, yes. Stay at home? You must have fallen off too many brooms.
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> We were married only a year before we were divorcing, and it wasn't a pretty one, either. He manipulated it so he took most of my money - the money I had saved up from working as hard as I did. I was stupid to be so in love with the idea of being in love, and I lost so much out of it. Most of all, I lost my dignity, my friends, and my self-worth that I had to fight like hell to get back.
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> Fuck him.
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##### Did I Mention I Never Learn?

> For someone so smart, relationships make me so daft. I at least waited a little bit longer before I was dating again, so that's some improvement. After my last breakup, I left Mungo's and went to be a healer oversees. I had gotten the opportunity to teach classes, as well, which I found to be the most rewarding. I taught mostly girls as we went through women's health with them as they seemed to be most comfortable talking about it with me. We did various classes with them so that they could know what to do in an emergency and if a proper healer wasn't around, that they would have an idea on where to start or what they could do to help. I don't know how I got roped into teaching more and more, but I loved every minute of it because I believed in what I was teaching them - that even the basics of healing could save lives. It was honestly the best decision of my life at the time. I had moved to South Africa (on a farm, surprisingly), and learned more about brewing potions and alternative healing than I ever did. I was so far away from the people that hurt me, that I got a little too comfortable. Not all men could truly be the same across multiple countries, so when this one man wooed me (quite literally in the sense - he spent a lot of time going above and beyond to get my attention and it took over a year before I even agreed to go on a date with him - I was in love.
> Again.
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>    We married a year after, when I had just turned 27. This one might have even lasted, maybe, if it weren't for a tragedy. My sister (not the cheating bitch) and her husband perished in a portkey incident months ago. My sister never told me that she named me the person to take her kids if ever something happened to her, so on top of mourning the loss of the good sister, my whole world was upended. I couldn't make her kids move all the way to Africa, not after they just lost their parents. I couldn't alter their life anymore than it already was being changed, so I made the only choice that I could, and I told my husband that we had to move to Europe.
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> And you know what he said?
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> *No.*
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> He bloody said no! He wanted me to have my nieces and nephews move to Africa and live on a farm, make new friends, probably go to different schools (honestly, I'm a little confused how it works but I'd imagine it would be a hard sell to get them all to go to Hogwarts when one hasn't even started school yet). Regardless, I didn't want that change for the kids that were now suddenly in my care. He refused to go, so, I did what I had to do, and I chose the kids. What was I supposed to do? He's a grown man - they're kids. He can take care of himself - they can't. Easy math.
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> He said he never wanted kids, and thought I didn't, either. He wanted me - can you believe it - he wanted me to give them to my cheating whore sister. Did he know me at all? So, I've officially packed all of my belongings, and am still filling out divorce paperwork, while I sign my new lease for an apartment that is hopefully big enough for me and the kids I'm still in the process of officially adopting. There's a lot of paperwork going around, but I know that I need to make it work, because being a single mom of four children was not on my to-do list when I didn't pop them out myself.
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> Now that I'm back, though, I've filled out applications for employment, but the one I am most hopeful for is the one at school, because with all of the kids at school, I want to be close enough to keep an eye on them because as the aunt, I need to protect them like my own. Plus, I already know that I have a lot to offer when it comes to Hogwarts and with everything that those students have been through lately, I am hoping to make a difference.
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> To not my surprise, I got the job at Hogwarts as the matron healer, and spent the next year traveling anyway as we went to the different schools. It had definitely been a challenging year with all of the additional students and traveling, but it was definitely what I needed. I used the time to learn from the other healers, and to develop relationships with the people I was working with and for. With my first year at Hogwarts out of the way, and the second year firmly in one place, I am looking forward to getting used to the scenery.
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### Connections

#### **Family**

###### Connor Crawford

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> She gets along with her dad, and will send him different collectibles for his various collections from the places she travels to.
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###### Rumer Crawford

> She is closer to her mum than dad, though not for any particular reason. Although she doesn't see her parents a lot, shopping trips with her mum are the best.
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###### Evie

> There were quite a few years between them so Naya wasn't as close to her sister as she would have liked, though they maintained contact over the years now that they were older.
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###### Camilla Crawford

> The sister that she hates the most and doesn't get along with - Camilla ran away with her first serious boyfriend and she's never forgiven Camilla.
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###### Wellsley

> Her nephew - she's working on this relationship more now that she's in his life for good. She would visit them every so often, but she wouldn't say that she was the closest to them since she was gone so much.
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###### Kace

> Her nephew - she's working on this relationship more now that she's in his life for good. She would visit them every so often, but she wouldn't say that she was the closest to them since she was gone so much.
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###### Noella

> Her niece - she's working on this relationship more now that she's in her life for good. She would visit them every so often, but she wouldn't say that she was the closest to them since she was gone so much.
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###### Mercy

> Her niece - she's working on this relationship more now that she's in her life for good. She would visit them every so often, but she wouldn't say that she was the closest to them since she was gone so much.
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#### **Friends**

###### Katelyn Beck

> Old friend and co-worker, and someone that she's going to be seeing a lot more of now that she needs all of the parenting advice she can get.
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###### Nicholas Wolff

> Longtime friend from school, she's stayed in contact with him through letters and he's someone who had been present when she was left at the altar.
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###### Doona McCannell

> One of her best friends - she loves this girl something serious so she's happy that she's back and they can actually see each other more in person.
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###### Persephone Prewett

> Someone she's met on her travels, and someone that told her about the open position at Hogwarts, which she is most thankful for. Now, coworkers.
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###### Fletcher Wood

> She's known him from school, and he had been friends with her first ex. Now, coworkers.
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###### Oriana Morales

> They were friends when they went to school together, and it had been years since they've seen each other, but they've since reconnected at Hogwarts now that they're both back and working together.
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#### **Romance**

###### The one who left her at the altar

> They had dated on and off throughout Hogwarts (mostly, on), and she was so sure that he was the one for her. They had been set to get married, when he left her for her sister. She has never forgiven him and has only spoken to him a handful of times since then (each time has not been pretty).
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###### Divorce # 1 (TW: Abuse)

> He had been the rebound from number one, but she didn't actually expect for it to turn into anything serious, until it did. They dated a few months before he proposed. It turned into an abusive relationship before she divorced him and he took most of what she had.
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###### Divorce # 2

> Currently separated and working towards a divorce, he had been everything she thought she wanted, until her sister unexpectedly died and left the kids in Naya's custody. She wanted to move back to England to care for them, and he wanted to give them to the other sister. It's not turning out to be a pretty separation.
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#### **Enemies**

> All of her exes, to be honest.
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