Ronnie Jay Beckham // Medicinal Magic

[Ronnie Jay Beckham]

CHARACTER INFORMATION
Character name: Ronnie Jay Beckham

Previous and/or Current Character(s) if applicable: Ronnie Jay Beckham, Ivory Summers, Andromeda Crowley, Évariste Altier, Pearce Märchen, Victoria Lisbeth, etc.  There’s quite a few, I’m sorry.  And more to come.  None have been professors.  Yet.

Character age: ...Nearly 19.  But she’s dedicated to the work(!).

Character education: Home education in medicine, grammars, and arithmetics until age 13.  At this time, her family and village had saved up just enough for her to make the travel from their little farmlands, and to buy the supplies for an education at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.  She attended the school until graduation, during which she was involved in both Quidditch and the Hospital Wing, and earned several leadership positions and awards of recognition.  These include the following: Co-Captain of the Gryffindor Quidditch Team for one term, and Captain for two terms; Senior Nurse for two terms, Prefect for one term, and Head Girl this most recent term.

Strength and weaknesses (details please): Well, in terms of magic, Divination is certainly Ronnie’s strength.  She has a skill level several degrees higher than the average adult, and uses it in her healing endeavors, to better adapt to each patient.  She is also relatively skilled at charms, which she uses largely to treat her patients, and to defend those in need, when muggle methods will not suffice.  Her magical weaknesses include Transfiguration and Conjuring & Summoning, though she aims to improve her skill in these subjects, now that she has mostly moved past the Jasper-Kedding-shaped mental block that kept her from improving.  In general, Ronnie aims to keep most of her studies focused toward healing magic, for though they can be useful, she is disturbed by the overwhelmingly high ratio of hostile curses to medicinal spells.

Besides magic, Ronnie’s strengths and weaknesses are nearly synonymous.  She has a soft spot for underdogs, those who have suffered hatred just as she had, or any otherwise traumatic experience.  The Lost and Lonely are her people— and they are both her strength and weakness.  She has done irrational, even cruel, things for them, and would do them again, should the situation call it.

Physical description: Small— though surprisingly strong, due to Quidditch training.  Ronnie is thin, and stands at approximately 5’1”, with no signs of growing any more.  Despite her small stature, Ronnie carries a certain presence when she is in her element— on the Quidditch Pitch, in the Hospital Wing, or in defense of a hell-beaten victim.  Ronnie was not built for leadership, but it was built for her, and, when thrust into its arms, she took to it like a fledgling to the air— first hesitant and inexperienced, but then suddenly airborne and just right for the job.

Personality (nice, rude, funny etc. Paragraph please.): While at Hogwarts, Ronnie was often considered by her peers to be the ‘mom’ of the castle.  (Bless Icarus for actually calling her such.)  She treated the patients in the Hospital Wing with kindness and patience, pressed Band-Aids to the scratches of the youngest, and words of encouragement to all.  All, that is, but the few who had managed to lose her respect through alleged “mistreatment” of her best friend.  Ronnie is hardworking, and gentle to the point of serene.  Her time spent as a victim to Jasper Kedding carved her into a hollowed out, waterlogged caricature of her old self, but she has recovered to a certain degree.  And it is her greatest hope to aid others in the same way.

Hopes and dreams. Why are you teaching at Hogwarts?: Ronnie’s true dream is to one day specialize working with young children suffering from anxiety and depressive disorders, PTSD, and overcoming traumatic experiences.  She is taking this as an opportunity to gain experience along the way, as well as to keep in touch with those at Hogwarts who she knows or believes need her.  Ronnie has a strong connection to the Castle, as it has been her only home for the past five years— she couldn’t leave it now.

Biography (500 words minimum. There is never such a thing as too much.):

Age 3:
She planted the spade in the dirt, chopping and jabbing like a crazed axeman at a stubborn tree trunk.  Ronnie was crouched over the spot of earth, a dragon poking at its pile of gold, and her tongue stuck out the side of her mouth in her concentration.  The child was determined to help the harvest.

A laugh billowed above her like smoke, and Ronnie looked straight up to stare at her father's mud-and-chestnut eyes.  They sparkled, and Ronnie wasn't sure if she should be ashamed or if she should laugh too.  She stood, offering up the spade in tiny palms.  “Daddy, I helwping,” she smiled, and giggled when the large man picked her up and easily placed her on his shoulders.

“I think you can help better this way.  Can you tell me where your mother is?”

The child gasped, patted down the top of her father’s head, and pointed a little finger across the fields.  “Way way way there.  Over where birdies happy in theiwr wittle houses and the ground smells like laughing.  Mummy there too.”  Another bronze laugh from the man’s throat, and Ronnie rested her little chin on his crown.  They were brown and white and a deep purple that ran like a river through tarnished gold veins.  Secrets and the scarlet poppies that burned almost as brightly as the mirth in Rupert Beckham’s eyes.  Mended fabric and wooden cups for potions; the little shack with a limping ceiling and her tiny palms wrapped around his thick worker’s fingers: father and daughter.

He was her great blessing, and she was his.

Age 4:
It came soft and strong, like everything else about Ronnie.  Magic, its feathery freedom and the way it opened her flesh and soaked her spirit.  Her bones felt grounded and light, but Ronnie knew nothing of its source but that she was bright and dark and the world was all suddenly red.  Not red like the blood of crying men, or the scrapes on the other childrens’ knees.  Not the red of anger that had once pulled Grandpa Davis to his grave, or even the red of August sunsets, crimson webs spun from memory and the briefest of moments.  No, this red was the color of the sun on her lap on a warm summer afternoon, the heavy taste of laughter in her lungs, and the thick touch of mud and water.  It was warm and soft, a texture-less pressure on her limbs; she prayed to Mummy’s Jesus that she would never lose it.

Rupert Beckham had left his daughter swathed in the wispy emerald grasses of the old meadows, while he blessed the cornfields with his enchanted touch.  (Daddy never used real magic on these fields, he had promised Ronnie, but she disagreed.  He was the magic of them, and they always grew bigger and brighter between his thumbs.)  Ronnie blended into the silky and rough lightness of the sky and earth, and     that’s when   the green     the ground    changed.

Magic.

The child giggled, and didn’t dare collect the poppies that suddenly turned up their little faces to hers.  Poppies that... hadn’t been there before.  But they grew under her eyes, in her eyes, between her fragile fingers.  And they smiled, and she did too.

Daddy was shocked when he saw it, on the last pages of the afternoon, and Ronnie felt distant when he placed her— once again— on his broad shoulders, and paraded her about the village.  (What’s the big deal?)  She clung to his hair and chuckled softly into its warm darkness, but her eyes were on the grass on either sides of the road.  They shifted and appeared scarlet— flowers that sprang instantly under her gaze, happiness just out of reach.

And     she didn’t know that day what it was— the violet and vibrant blue that slid through her veins, melted into the red and brown of her fingers— but she knew she wanted more of it.

Magic.

Age 10:
“You don’t want to do that,” Mabel said, arms folded across her chest.  There was that familiar petty sternness in her gaze, and Ronnie knew that word would get to their parents.  More specifically, their mother, because only she couldn’t see through Mabel’s suck-up faces.

“I do,” Ronnie said, voice quiet.  She didn’t look away, because she wasn’t scared.  She was stuck in her feet— in the tingling of her toes, in the rocking of her heels.  There was something comforting in the feel of the wood against her skin, in the anticipation of the splash.  And there was stability in the smoothness of the murky waters below them.

Mabel’s eyes narrowed and she stood up straighter; taller than Ronnie (and in her mind’s eye, taller even than the tree that stood behind them).  They were all small— the Beckham children— sans Mabel.  “I'll tell Dad, and then he won't let you read his healing books tonight.”  Smugness didn't suit Mabel's pretty face, yet she wore it like a pearl necklace, expensive— it had no place in towns like theirs.  Ronnie Jay offered her a raised eyebrow and the beginnings of a smile, because that was the currency of their fields.  But Mabel only huffed, and Ronnie briefly wondered if her sister was meant instead to sleep in the feathered four-posters of governors’ children, and tiptoe through paved streets, soles glued to bronze heels.  Not Ronnie.

She jumped.

Cool autumns clung to her skin, and buried her in the easy freedom.  This was home, and Mabel could only blame herself for rejecting it.  Ronnie would never leave.

Age 13:   
But in the end, that’s exactly what she did.

Ronnie was silent while they bid their farewells, and repeated mantras of her presumed success. She let their smoked tears and bitter smiles soak in her skin like a sliver of shimmery sunlight in January.  Joy pressed her fire-touch to Ronnie’s arm, and for once in her life she witnessed the sun    cry.  But no cobalt tear bled from her eye, though she left behind everything she’d ever known.  She was strong this morning, and they were eased in her wake— after all, how could she allow them to look upon her despair, when they had sacrificed so much more for this moment?  Months and years of scratching the bottoms of barrels, of locking away a few dollars here and there, of selling more crop than they ought to.

And her father was certain that it would all be worth it.  That, somewhere under the skin of Ronnie Jay Beckham, was the ticket to a more secure lifestyle.  And, misplaced and heavy though the trust was, she was determined not to let them down.

The wagon shuddered, and she along with it.  Absent sentences cried from the corners of Dad’s eyes, and his lips pressed together in a straight line.  Ronnie tucked her hair behind her ears, and looked straight ahead too.  To the future she would trace, to the chance she was to offer her family, to the heavy burden of fate—    and away from home.

(Or maybe, it would be home, after all.)

Age 14:
And when the girl— the woman— the Birch Tree— died, so did they all.  She scattered bits of herself across the tile floors of the Great Hall, when they gathered, and rubbed her tears into Ra’asiel’s midnight eyes and pale cheeks.  She was born again in the confusion and pain of her friend’s concussion, and never again stalled when faced with an urgent state such as this.

"Elizabeth!    You need to...you're going to get hurt!"

They were shaken and shivery for months, years afterward, and even in the freshest breath of Ronnie Beckham, Emma Grace Birch stood in her bloodless serenity.  The Gryffindor carried that memory forever, and blessed the wounds of others with the same hands that had clawed for freedom.  The same that had pushed themselves away from Professor Oliveroot’s protection, and latched bitterly onto the arm of the Jagged Man, that smoky June afternoon.  She stepped now with the same foot that had kicked at his shin, and tripped backward when Liz yanked her back.  She spoke with the same voice that had cried and begged and screamed— she was trapped in the past, and had grown from it.

"You can't take her!    You can't hurt her!"

She had been so young then.

Age 15:
The ache that Jasper Kedding stuck to her bloodied soul was wretched and unknown and familiar.  She could feel the heavy glances of once-bright eyes, felt the way a room darkened a shade when she named it hers.  The tired stutter of Casper Baines, thick in her ears and bold in her blood; Ra’asiel’s crisp sadness, like rain tucked under a woolen quilt.  And Caius Thorne, who was just as gray as he was blue, and the blackened look in his eyes on these Mondays when she hardly registered his presence.  Their practices on the Pitch had become dull and hesitant, equal parts weary and furious— clenched fists in soft mittens.

Some days she wished they knew her charcoal misery, but she choked before her lips could move, so she clamped them shut— strangled from the inside.  Only Icarus Argabright carried her burden, and she carried his.  They were the silence of November, and wildflowers pressed between pages.  The therapeutic way she wrapped his injuries and smoothed bruise cream into the spaces under his eyes: kindred spirit and familiar tears.

He was her great blessing, and she was his.

But this page was not for Icarus.  Its sickly rhythm belonged to Jasper, and its fractured texture would be owned by Ra’asiel’s faded steel fingers, and phantom articles.  Her quill bled for invisible eyes alone.

your fingers press bruises into my paper skin—
fold and unfold me ‘til i’m wrinkled and thin
you break my cold bones, and you sew my mouth shut
i cry silent and solemn, but you leave me to rot

i’m hid around corners and under your eyes—
cold and unkind and fixed - dark - on the prize
redemption is sour and sorrow is free
you have whispers and secrets that you take out on me

your words are your weapons, and they tear me apart—
a disease, a shooting, a sharp poisoned dart
i forgot who i was and my courage flew south
and my heart, how it pounds; now i’m drowning in doubt

She felt bitter and raw, drawn and quartered and sunk by the ink that stained the parchment.  There were so many words that split her head and begged to drip from her lips— but they did not escape her, even on this wretched page.  Her pain was a disgrace, and she was ashamed of it, as there were others who paid a toll far worse.                 (And the bruises of Icarus Argabright were    fresh and       real  and  the words that stung her   eyes    were       nothing   compared to them.)         But still she wrote the final letters of her downed spirit, and tore her broken wings from their creaky hinges.  A shame.

and i can’t see.

Age 17:
Darius Palomer’s lips were pine green shadows and moss against hers.  His skin felt slippery and warm, sometimes soft and sometimes rough and other times something completely unknown.  Hands like sandpaper, but smooth against her delicacy.  So long, she’d struggled against the chains of her own heart, and bled through the cracks that the Gods and the Monsters had scratched into it.  So long she had been crushed against the sharp rocks of Love’s island, washed away and torn to pieces— so close and so far from the safety of its shore.

But he was different.

She had found a home in him, and in the lines of the castle walls, and the serene chaos of the darkened forest floor.  This was exactly what she wanted   what she needed     and       yet    she          left    it       to           die.

(She had never been so stupid in all her life.)

Age 18:
Bold, mustard yellow streaks across summer sky, new colors that bled faux light into a dismal breeze and darkened day.  Her limbs felt sore, as if she were ninety years old.  Jonny— her summer companion, in Icarus’ absence; a loyal and combative crup next to the skittish dedication of her Eagle— barked somewhere far away.  She was alone in the shadow of the mountain’s peak, enveloped in the regrets that hung from her teeth.

Icarus was somewhere below— she could feel his grin and energy from even here.  A  curl caught her eye, just as imagined as it was real, and she wished to call out for him, wished to breathe her sorrows onto his shoulder again.  But she could not.  Not now, not this summer.  Not on any day where Ava’s tolerance (love, even?) of him were so bright as the joy that clung to his lips.  (Still, she felt sorrow stain her own, and she wished too for that bliss that he knew.  Alas, she had tossed Darius from her as flippantly as a persistent fly.)

Words   shattered   in her throat, halfway to his, or halfway to His, but caught in the fractured places of her mouth.  (Places that Darius— that He— had tasted; she shivered and blushed furiously at the kiss that she had torn right from her lips.)

"Icarus, he’s gone—   for real.      There’s a girl and — and .   .   and
I am nothing, am I not?     I did this."

She wished to plaster the words to his orange-pink cheeks, his sunset happiness and the joy that melted him from evening until morning.  Mirth in the afternoon, slow in his fingers and quick in his breath; trees and apples and sun on burning back.  (His watery grave was sweeter than any of them could have imagined.)  She wanted to tell him, she wanted to cry.

But she didn’t.  (He was happy, and she was not.)  He needed her strength, for the sake of his tangerine joy, and she needed him, whenever he declared her worthy of his presence.  (Ava was his queen, once and for all, and Icarus had accustomed himself to her throne far too quickly.  He was sick and prideful, despite how she smiled at his sudden weightlessness.)  But whatever moments he allowed her, she would claim eagerly, if only to replace the emptiness that Darius had left— the emptiness that suddenly felt more real.  (She had done this, she had dOnE  ThIS.)  But Icarus could fix it with a brush of his crooked feathers.  They belonged         despite the tarnished gold of Ava Adair       broken or fixed     together.

He, after all, was home too.


SAMPLE ROLEPLAY
(Please respond to to this in third person past tense. Do not write the other characters' reactions. Only your own.)

It was the largest office in Hogwarts and, perhaps to students and newcomers, the most intimidating. The shelves were filled with various odds and ends, with a place of honor for the Sorting Hat, and the walls held all the portraits of past Headmasters and Headmistresses.

In the middle of the room sat a large desk. Everything was in order, for the current occupant had always despised a messy desk. It was the sign of a messy mind, and she had always favored neatness.

A clock sat on the desk, which currently showed the time to be 2:05. The meeting was supposed to begin at 2:00 precisely.

Along with order, Anneka valued punctuality. She was a very busy woman these days. Even during the summer, she had a number of matters to attend to. Interviewing and hiring staff was only of those matters. The newest potential member of her staff wasn't making a good impression.

She paced the room, black heels clicking against the stone floor. When the door finally opened, Anneka turned, her expression reminiscent of a Russian winter. "You are late."

Explain yourself was what her face said.

Roleplay Response:
The first time that Ronnie had entered this office, it had been for her Sorting.  Gryffindor, the old hat had proclaimed, and for years Ronnie hadn’t believed him.  How could she, who could hardly introduce herself to her dormmates, or defend herself against sneers and threats, be a lion?  And she’d believed her own lies for so many years, tucked in the mindset that a lion must always roar, must always hunt, must always dig its claws into its victims throats— necessary or not.  It had taken until midway through Ronnie’s sixth year (under the gentle prodding of Palomer; oh, how she missed him) for her to believe her own soul.  A lioness was firm and gentle with her cubs, and so Ronnie would be.

“I apologize, Headmistress.  I was simply caught in—”  She smiled; apologetic, but without a trace of genuine regret.  These halls felt just as natural to Ronnie Beckham as she was sure they were to Headmistress Ivanova; surely the woman could understand, or at least, sympathize.  Everyone had a past before a future, and Ronnie knew even Anneka Ivanova had been something before she was Headmistress.  A girl, a woman, a lover, a mother— all things that Ronnie hoped to be, though in different circumstances.  (—At least, she supposed so.  After all, there seemed to be no Mister Ivanova.  She was truly sorry.)  “Reminisce, if you will.”

It was partially true.  Though Ronnie Beckham was different from much of the rest of her crowd— old and new professors, all elder— she, too, had memories to cherish and remember.  The majority of them hadn’t set foot in these halls in many years: nostalgia was to be expected of them.  And if not, a steely fortress that blocked such ‘foolishness’ from tarnishing their work.  But Ronnie was not that way.  She cherished the way her fingers felt against the familiar walls, and remembered how different and the same they had been years ago.  A wide-eyed third year girl, bookish and timid and lamenting her “inaccurate” Sorting.  A terrified fourth year, hiding around corners to avoid the sticky fingers and thorny words of Jasper Kedding.  A resigned and dismal fifth year, who fell from the sky and could not cry, but nourished redemption in the delicate way she patched up Icarus Argabright.

And then, a rosy-cheeked sixth year, who met Darius Palomer in the twisted vines and leaves around her legs.  Who fell in love with curls and a bright ocean, for the first time in so many years, felt Happy.

She had lost it all again, as she always did.  Broke her own heart and scrubbed the floors with its remains.  She had broken him, and this was her escape.  (Because as enchanting as a certain charming Quidditch player had been this August, his touch like February and eyes like April, he was nothing to Darius Palomer’s green soul.)

But she was not here to gawk, nor to allow her eyes to glaze in wonder and iridescent sorrow.  She offered the Headmistress a polite smile, fringed with sadness, but genuine at its core.

“When— may I ask— was the first time you set foot in this room?”  Perhaps it was personal information, and perhaps Anneka would be frustrated with her continued distraction.  But Ronnie was curious, and most people seemed to forget that Anneka Ivanova, too, had a past.  Ronnie would not be so fickle.  Everyone was important.

Lesson Plans will be PM'ed to Anneka Ivanova shortly.