Adele Greenwood

Adele Ursa Greenwood is a 7th-year Slytherin.  She is a background character in the first two stories, and takes a more prominent role from Part IV onward.

## Adele Greenwood

### Relatives

Basil Greenwood - father
Margot Greenwood - mother
Eustas Greenwood - uncle (deceased)
Fillona Greenwood - aunt
Neil Greenwood - cousin

### Titles

Lady Adele, Baroness of the Greenwood (Yorkshire Dales)

## Biography

The Greenwood family held a magical barony in the Yorkshire Dales before the Statute of Secrecy stripped them of the title.  They still hold a seat on the Wizengamot, but have otherwise fallen on harder financial times in recent years.  At least some members of the family, including Adele herself, are of African descent.  Two of Adele’s ancestors were members of the 18th-century Silver Spears dueling society.

Adele was sexually assaulted before she went to Hogwarts.  The incident has not been discussed in detail, but the perpetrator was definitely a man (possibly her deceased uncle, Eustas).  It seems likely that Adele’s mother encouraged her habit of carrying several knives on her person in response to the incident; otherwise, how her parents responded to it is unknown.

Adele expected to be Sorted into Ravenclaw, but instead landed in Slytherin.  She had minimal interactions with Harry Potter before his disappearance.  She also realised almost immediately that she could get more effective Defense lessons from Nizar Slytherin’s portrait than the revolving door of actual professors (bar Remus Lupin); she is, therefore, one of the only NEWT-level students not taking NEWT Defense because she doesn’t need to.

Adele jumps at the opportunity to restore her family’s magical title, partly to help bolster her family’s standing in the Wizengamot and partly as a last-ditch effort to make her parents acknowledge her as more than a marriageable commodity.  She is also the only retitled Hogwarts student of age to become a war mage when the necessity for more than one becomes apparent.

## Personality and Traits

Adele’s first love is academia, to the extent that she once promised Nizar that she would tell him the day she noticed someone was flirting with her without someone else pointing it out.  Her grades don’t necessarily reflect her studious nature, as she’ll get lost pursuing the rabbit holes a starting topic takes her down until she reaches the end and fall behind on deadlines.  In addition to honing her Defense skills on her own time, this self-studying approach has led her to tracking down non-magical scientific theory.  She also seems to have a fascination for the arts, particularly visual art.

Adele is uncomfortable in large crowds, particularly large crowds in which she is the center of attention.  She lashes out violently at unwanted physical contact from men.  While becoming a war mage has done wonders for her self-confidence, she’s still slow to advocate for herself and quick to justify her actions if those actions aren’t wholly above-board (she is, however, improving on both fronts, shaking off a tendency to flinch when called out and requesting that people stop talking about a problem that involves her like she’s not in the room).  She has a morbid sense of humor and prefers to do her grieving in private, when necessary.

## Relationships

Adele’s parents, Basil and Margot, are emotionally abusive.  Adele accepted their behavior as normal until she got to Hogwarts and found more useful adult mentors in the form of Severus Snape and Nizar Slytherin.  Her parents encouraged her to limit her social circle to British-born Purebloods, are more interested in marrying her off to someone who can restore the Greenwood family’s reputation than what Adele herself might be able to do in that regard, and react badly to her reclaiming the family title, threatening by letter to “bring her to heel.” (It seems very likely that they become Marked Death Eaters as opposed to silent sympathisers in direct response to Adele refusing to bow to them any longer.) Basil is arrested in both the Ides of March raids and the April 4 battle at the Ministry of Magic.

Adele’s aunt, Fillona Greengrass Greenwood, is the only family member she is known to have talked about with any level of fondness.  Fillona was married to Eustas, Basil Greenwood’s brother, until Eustas met with an unfortunate broom accident. (It’s heavily implied Fillona arranged for Eustas to meet with this accident; if Eustas did indeed assault Adele, it may have been retaliation.) Fillona holds the Greenwood family’s Wizengamot seat as of the Minister of Magic election in Part VIII.

Neil Greenwood, Eustas and Fillona’s son and Adele’s cousin, was a Ravenclaw who finished Hogwarts in 1991.

Adele harbors a self-indulgent crush on Salazar Slytherin.  She knows this is going absolutely nowhere for several reasons and is keeping it to herself.

## Appearances

Here is a list of all chapters Adele appears in. Chapters where she is physically present and interacting in the scene are in **bold**, while chapters where she is only mentioned by either the narration or other characters are in plain text.