â°Â ââ â introducing: mary macdonald ! â
age:Â nineteen
blood status:Â muggleborn
occupation:Â intern for the wizengamot
affiliation:Â order of the phoenix
positive traits:Â brave, reliable, astute
negative traits:Â hot-headed, self-critical, competitive
suggested faceclaim:Â diana silvers
â° ââ â associations: aesthetics ! â
bright coloured flowers, touching hands, pale pink lingerie, soaking in the sun, a brush of hands, movie marathons with popcorn and hot chocolate, the smell of books, the sound of the sea, listening to pop music while brewing potions, play fights, loud jokes, a pint down the pub.
â° ââ â known information: biography ! â
Mary Macdonald first knew she wasnât like everyone else at her Muggle primary school when she was seven years old. Until then, she had been perfectly normal: a group of friends, a member of the gardening club, and a spot on the local football team. During one of the teamâs matches, Marlene found herself getting frustrated. As a striker, she had struggled to score all match against the other sideâs goalkeeper. She found herself wishing, in the last few minutes of the game, that she could get one goal. Just one would be enough to see her team to victory. As she broke free in the final moments of the game, and streaked down the pitch towards the goal, her wish for a goal was clear in her head, and her irritation felt like it was crackling around her. She took a shot, and⊠the ball swerved (in a way she had never seen a football swerve) right around the goalkeeper and tightly into the top right corner.
Her team celebrated, but Mary was in shock. She knew that she wasnât that good; she didnât have that kind of control over the ball. And she didnât know what had made the ball take the trajectory it had, but it had happened when she was wishing for a goal with all her might.
The next time Mary Macdonald experienced something she couldnât explain was when she was eight. Sheâd had a long, tiring day: a maths test, a spelling test, and a particularly mean girl on the playground who she had told to back off but who had pushed Mary down anyway. Sheâd hurt her arm, but she didnât want her parents finding out, knowing well that being seen as a âtattle-taleâ would make things a whole lot worse. So, when her mother asked her to pass the potatoes at dinner, Mary knew full-well that she would see the scrapes. But she couldnât let that happen, nor could she simply not pass the potatoes. She felt her desperation crackle around her this time, as she wished for the potatoes to just pass themselves to her mum.
She almost fell out of her chair in shock when the potatoes simply levitated themselves to the other side of the table, and plonked themselves down right in front of her mother. Both her parents glanced at Mary, shock and concern clear on their faces. She tried to explain what had happened, but they refused to believe her, that she had simply wanted for the potatoes to move, so they had moved. In the end, though, Mary had forgotten about her arm, and successfully avoided her parents finding out about it, so she considered the night a success.
After that, though, she recognised the crackling feeling sheâd felt both times sheâd wished for things to happen, and things had. It was easier to find it again â not easy, but easier. When she was nine and there was a boy in class who pulled her friendâs ponytail, he found some force pulling his own hair back even though no-one was there. When she was ten, and she was distraught at breaking one of her dolls, the doll repaired itself and looked as though it had never been broken in the first place.
When Professor McGonagall, came to talk to Mary and her family about Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, her parents were shocked to learn about the existence of magic. Mary, to the Professorâs surprise, was not. She had known there was something more, and she explained the wishing, then the crackling feeling, then the things that happened to the Professor, who looked slightly impressed with her. She learned that it was uncommon for a Muggleborn to figure out how their accidental magic worked, but not unheard of. That she was special, but not unique.
Mary was sorted into Gryffindor in two minutes â an average sorting time, really. The hat had considered Ravenclaw, her natural intelligence clear in how she had (vaguely) understood her magic at eight years old, but ultimately decided on Gryffindor. It told her that it believed Gryffindor was where Mary needed to be, where she would truly come into herself. Mary happily took her place among her new housemates at the Gryffindor table, and it felt like home.
For the next few years, she picked up magic quickly, but not the fastest. She was in the top third of all her classes, but she didnât particularly stand out in any subject. She selected Ancient Runes and Arithmancy as her electives, and found that she had a natural affinity for Ancient Runes, and that was her specialty. She learned about warding, the creation of magical artifacts, curse-breaking, and more in that class, and was pleasantly surprised to see how well the subject overlapped with Arithmancy, which she was just as competent in as her other classes.
One day during her fifth year, hurrying back from the library close to curfew, she was stopped by a Slytherin she recognised as Mulciber. As a Muggleborn, she knew well to avoid the Slytherins as much as possible, but the corridor was deserted and there was no one around to help her, and no clear escape route. She had library books in her arms, and only ten minutes to make it back to the tower. She tried to keep walking, but he planted himself in front of her, and when she looked up at his face and saw his smirk, she knew that something was going to happen. Something turned out to be the Imperius Curse, which he placed upon her in the deserted corridor. He told her to take her outer robe off, so she took her outer robe off, despite very much wanting to keep it on. She was screaming in her head at her body to stop, stop, stop doing what he said, but she couldnât. Then he told her to take off her jumper, followed by her shirt, followed by⊠the desperation was building up, and it was crackling around her, and she wasnât sure what would happen but she just wanted him to stop and she was so close to something happening⊠when a Prefect could be heard approaching their corridor, asking who was there â he had clearly been drawn by the noise.
Mulciber disappeared quickly, leaving Mary standing in the corridor, bare from the waist up, and her skirt half unbuttoned. She felt the curse break when he left, but she could hear the footsteps of the prefect and she could feel her heart beating loudly and her hands were shaking and she couldnât do anything to hide what had happened when the prefect rounded the corner. Upon seeing Mary in the corridor, clearly traumatised and half undressed, he immediately called for Professor McGonagall, her head of house, who took her back to her office and spoke to her, helped her, but ultimately couldnât do anything because Mary refused to say who had done this to her. After all, she knew that being seen as a âtattle-taleâ would make things a lot worse.
From that point on, she stuck to her housemates closely, never going anywhere alone or without a fellow Gryffindor. She had been wanting to stay out of the war the wizarding world seemed to be building up to. Mary had thought of going to a Muggle university after Hogwarts; she hadnât been quite ready to give up on all that the Muggle world had to offer. After the incident, though, she knew that she had to stay in the wizarding world and fight the people like Mulciber who would wreak havoc on the innocent. Over her summer, she tracked down a Muggle trauma counsellor, to whom she told the story (with the magical parts omitted), who helped her work through it and come out the other side stronger than she had been before. She still sees the counsellor every two months now that she has left school.
Following her N.E.W.T.s, she followed a lot of her housemates in signing up for the Order of the Phoenix. She was also offered a position as an intern for the Wizengamot, which would allow her to mingle with the other junior members of the ministry and hopefully pick up on any gossip or rumours that could help the Order. It would also pave her way to a career within the Ministry, which seemed like a practical idea for her future⊠if she survived the war that sheâd inserted herself right into the centre of.
All canon information can be found by clicking here.
â° ââ â ministry docier: connections ! â
marlene mckinnon: close friends, her go-to person
lily evans: good friends, she looks up to her
dorcas meadows: good friends, also her crush