Hogwarts School: A Harry Potter RPG

CHARACTER INFORMATION

Character name: Muriel Hollybarrow

Previous and/or Current Character(s) if applicable: Eviguin Lackless, Tippa Lackless, Linwood Hale

Character age: 55

Character education:
1916-1921: Incomplete education at Salem School of Witchcraft and Wizardry
1929-1930: Brightshadow Coven Wiccan Apprenticeship, Chicago, Ill.
1930-1945: Continued study and practice within Brightshadow Coven
1945-1951: High Priestess of Brightshadow Coven; mentor to eight wiccan initiates
1954-present: Continued self-study

Strengths and weaknesses (details please):
"The Curse of Knowledge" means Muriel tends to forget not everyone has lived the same experiences or learned the same teachings, and while educating others is one of her greatest joys, her students quickly learn to play an active role in slowing Muriel down when they don't understand. When asked questions, she'll take the time to explain answers thoroughly. Otherwise, she may just assume everyone is on the same page as she.

In other ways, she's profoundly empathetic. Having lived through loss, conflict, joy and love, as well as immersion in a few different cultures within her lifetime, Muriel offers a worldly perspective and kind words to those seeking advice or comfort. Being emotionally sensitive has its drawbacks as well, because she has to expend a bit of extra effort when she needs to remain impassive or exact punishment for transgressions. More often than not, she lands on the side of leniency, unless her temper is triggered - that might lead to a harsher reaction than deserved.

Having spent most of her life on the outside of the wizarding world - rather, immersed in the realm of traditional witchcraft - Muriel's greatest challenge is marrying her two lives. Being open-minded works in her favor here, but she's learning about Hogwarts and formal education right alongside the students (and doing her best not to give into the frustration of being, essentially, a fifty-five year old witch child).

Physical description:
There is a fine line between self-care and self-indulgence, and Muriel walks it, though sometimes she leans a bit too hard into vanity. Long blonde hair and fringe frames a face decorated with tasteful cosmetics for a woman of her age, and she most commonly drapes herself in flowing black dresses topped with fitted professional jackets or loose flowing shawls. Muriel carries herself with gravitas and moves with the grace of her dancing youth, favoring broad sweeping gestures in accompaniment to spoken words.

Personality (nice, rude, funny etc. Paragraph please.):
Balance in all things. Muriel repeats this phrase in her head many times per day because she aspires toward it, not because she succeeds. Though she likes to think of herself as a patient, level-headed woman, she is a person who feels very deeply, from exuberance to rage, though the latter emerges only in the most provocative situations. On the day to day, she is a kind, thoughtful individual who values the gratification of hard work done. Most of all, she does her best to hold to the Threefold Law: energy given to the world, bright or dark, returns times three.

Hopes and dreams. Why are you teaching at Hogwarts?:
The most rewarding part of Muriel's role in her coven's hierarchy was the opportunity to mentor initiates in the way of the craft. She sees participating in the education and well-being of others as a contribution to the universe that will bring good in return to herself and others. Regarding Hogwarts specifically, she was called to emerge from years of healing from grief to give service of something greater, and she believes her involvement at Hogwarts will act as a transition from one phase of life into a brighter chapter.

Biography (500 words minimum. There is never such a thing as too much.):
Muriel has carried many names throughout the decades, and while all of them deserve recognition for the transitions they've provided along her life's journey, the mantle she proudly carries nowadays is that of Hollybarrow.

She was born Muirgheal MacDermott in 1905, the only daughter of two non-magical parents residing on a small plot of land outside Dublin. At nine years old, perhaps a bit late compared to other wizards and witches, her magical abilities revealed themselves in a particularly sudden and fruitful garden - one that the MacDermott family hadn't planted for. As the next couple years passed, they were drawn into the country's political affairs. Unrest and revolution motivated the Irish against the United Kingdom and, though they were only indirectly related to some of the Easter Uprising leaders, and not at all involved in the violence, Domhnall MacDermott fell victim to execution in April, 1916. Muirgheal and her mother, Brigid, managed to escape to America.

Brigid dropped the surname prefix and Muirgheal spelled her name more recognizably as Muriel, so the two would fit in better among the Americans of Boston, Massachusettes. Muriel Dermott attended Salem School of Witchcraft and Wizardry until she turned 15 years old while her mother lived with a wealthy American family in exchange for housekeeping and kitchen services. In 1920, her mother took ill and Muriel, always a dependable child, left school to provide her care. It was difficult living as Muriel worked in Brigid's stead while trying to keep her mother comfortable in a tight, unpleasant quarters. Two years hence, Brigid Dermott passed away, leaving Muriel on her own.

For the next phase of her life, Muriel moved to the Windy City and was swept away by the Roarin' Twenties. Here she forgot her worries for many years, engaged in the everlasting backroom party in prohibition era Chicago. The party lasted until 1929, when Muriel met the love of her life, Johnathan, who by some twist of fate was a member of a small neo-pagan coven. For a year and a day, Muriel learned from the coven's High Priestess a more earthly form of magic than the spells taught to hereditary witches at magical schools. The Irish witch was initiated into the Brightshadow Coven at the conclusion of her mentor-ship, and was particularly skilled in rituals involving purification, divination and conjuration.

On the same day of her initiation in 1930, her name changed again to Muriel Sinclair in a pagan hand-fasting. For the next twenty years, she and Johnathan practiced traditional magic and created two beautiful children. Johnathan lived long enough to see grandchildren born to each of them before his life was taken in a tragic car accident in 1951.

Struck by grief, Muriel left her coven - passing her High Priestess position of six years to her daughter - and returned to her homeland in search of solitude and internal peace. Despite the suspicion and wariness of the people there, she settled down in a village called Bhearú O'Cuileann, colloquially known as Hollybarrow, because her readings of fate told her to stay. Eventually the people there came to acknowledge her as an asset, appreciating the strange things that happened at her hand because they usually defied reason in the benefit of someone's farm, newborn or readings of the future. She took on an apprentice during this time, the youngest son of a local farmer, who early absorbed all the information he could about herbs, crystals, elementals, homeopathic medicine and other useful skills.

She lived in peace there until, motivated by a dream in 1960, Muriel began correspondence with witches and wizards in London and at Hogwarts, seeing her path was to take a turn once more.

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:

Every day in the last few months, Muriel learned something new about how to thrive in the secret world of magic - easy magic, wand magic, which she had somehow been born with despite her non-magic lineage. Recently, for example, she'd discovered a spell that allowed her to bring objects right into her hand from across the room! A delightful discovery, despite her preference to cross the distance to the things she needed, creating intention in the things she did.

Today, though, she learned how utterly little she knew about wizard transportation. Somehow, in the many years between her time at Salem and now, she'd forgotten adults could simply pop from one location to another instantaneously, at will. Muriel had forgotten portkeys were set up to accomplish the same, with a bit more assistance. And she could swear that nobody had ever taught her about the miraculous powder that carried one from fireplace to fireplace.

Well, she learned about it today, from the helpful fellow in the candy shop of Diagon Alley, who seemed aghast when the older witch hadn't any idea it could be done.

"Anneka Ivanova, I presume!" she announced breathlessly with her Irish-American lilt. She swept into the room, black skirts swishing around her booted ankles and hand already extended toward the Headmistress. "So I am," she admitted, glancing at her other wrist mid-stride. "With any luck a job offer comes with a map, hmm?"

A grandmotherly smile hovered at her eyes and the corners of her lips as she waited just an arm-span away from her potential employer.


*Lesson Plan sent to Anneka Ivanova, 6 August 2020