Writer’s Block:

Hi, I’m Michael. I’ve been a member of Absit Omen since its inception, though for much of that time I was inactive. I currently play the following primary characters: Minerva McGonagall, Tempest Sage, Elysia Hughes, Elijah Grimlish, Mathieu Vaillancourt, Pandora Puddifoot, Chadwick Blish, and Jacqueline Devereux. My secondary characters are Maxen Whitman and Tipper the House-elf. A few of my characters are deceased: Gawain Robards, Charlie Robards, and William Smythe. I have retired Paetyn Harper and Henry MacLeod. I've also retired Corby Gent, who may be up for adoption if the character creator is interested. I am over 13 years of age and have read the code of conduct (numerous times, actually). Pandora is a primary character.

Pandora Paz Puddifoot

Character's Birthday and Age: June 23, 1984// 25 Years of Age

City/Country of Birth: London, England

Alma Mater: Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry//Hufflepuff House//Class of 2003

Job/Position:

Owner and Manager of Puddifoot’s
the shop formerly known as Madame Puddifoot’s Tea Shop in Hogsmeade Village

Wand:

Pinkheart, 9 inches, with a fairy hair core

Type of Creature:

Werewolf

Is this Creature Registered with the Ministry?:

Yes

Physical Appearance:

Thankfully Dora didn’t inherit the Puddifoot family appearance. Instead of the pasty skin, rosy cheeks, and stoutness she possesses a darker complexion and a slim figure. Her eyes are a happy brown and she has long, dark lashes. Her dark hair, when straightened, falls down past her shoulders, but is usually kinky and curly from the humidity and heat of the kitchen, as well as her natural heritage.  She has a beautiful smile and dazzling teeth that seem to light up a room.

She’s of a respectable height, standing at a firm 5’11. She wears minimal make-up, and can be seen in lots of happy colors, though usually nothing too excessively bright. When people first see Dora, they can almost always tell that she’s a happy and caring person, just by the way she holds herself.

The attack that made her a werewolf left a horrid scar on her pelvis, and since then, Dora’s never worn shirts that don’t completely cover her midriff.

Personality Description:

Dora is a lover and a fighter, though she’d much rather not admit the latter. Whether it’s with the man of the hour, or with friends she’s doted on all her life, Dora values putting a very high stock on love. Love makes the world go round, after all. Though she’s a complete hopeless romantic, she also has a realistic view on life and understands that you don’t know what’s your favorite scone if you haven’t tried all the flavors. She finds relationships interesting, even when not her own and tends to pry into others love affairs with scantily-veiled fervor.

When it comes to magic, the Puddifoot heir is dreadful, and indeed – achieved ‘D’s’ on all her OWLs. The only things that Dora truly excels at are magics dealing with love and the like. She can whip up an amortentia lickety-split, but ask her to turn a mouse into a pincushion and she’s lost.

Those close to her have said she can be a tad obsessive and nosy. Like her ancestors before her, Dora thrives in the company of others and enjoys the matchmaking aspect that Puddifoot’s offers. A social butterfly in the highest degree, when not in the shop, Dora can be seen having drinks in the Three Broomsticks or partying at a local club. Though she tries hard not to be, sometimes Dora gets a bit gossipy, and usually ends up envious of those that she matched up in the first place.

Since being cursed with lycanthropy, Dora’s temper seems to flair much quicker than it did in the past and she has to work extremely hard to not snap needlessly. Though the curse weakens her and makes her ill closer to the full moon, she pushes through and tries to only miss work on the actual nights of the full moon, though sometimes she ends up taking a couple days before and after.

History:

The story of Pandora Puddifoot isn’t one of privilege, nor even one that is remotely happy – but it is her story and hers alone.

Mister Paxton Puddifoot of Hogsmeade Village was never a conventional man – but then again… when had anyone heard of a conventional Puddifoot? Even at a young age he put little stock in magic, which was just as well as he was rubbish at everything even remotely magical. When youngsters his age were out in the gardens seeing how close they could get to the venomous tentacula without getting attacked, little Paxton was inside disassembling muggle fellytones and trying to figure out the inner workings of ecklicktricity, and trying to see if that would improve the family business any.

It’s no surprise, therefore, that when poor little Paxton flunked out of Hogwarts for managing to fail every OWL offered, he took a couple years off to live among the muggles – snapping his wand in two before leaving the small wizarding village. As things sometimes happen, Paxton fell in love… deeply. It’s a curse of the Puddifoot family to be easy to fall and hard to keep. Though his mistress, Madam Elisabeth Bristol, loved him as much as any woman could love a quirky man like Paxton, there was a deep secret between the couple; because Paxton had been too cowardly to admit his heritage to the woman he loved so.

She bore him one daughter, and for a short while, the small family lived in bliss. But guilt is a horrid thing, and the guilt of the secrets between the two soon had Paxton acting erratically – even more so than usual. The two began to drift apart, with poor little Pandora mixed up in the middle. When Pandora started showing magical prowess, as all magical children do, the secret was out. Elisabeth, distraught with the lies and deceit – plus a whole bunch of freaked-outness – couldn’t take the strain and chose to leave.

Devastated, Paxton returned to Hogsmeade to raise his daughter, where he had a family and support system. At the age of three, little Pandora could be seen running around Madam Puddifoot’s Tea Shop, owned by her Aunt, chasing the cat and otherwise flourishing in the social environment. Business was booming, and as Pandora grew, she learned how to help. It started with busting tables, taking away the trash and refilling the coffee. She made sure the sugar was always full and that the dishes were always sparkling. Eventually Auntie Puddie – as Pandora took to calling her – took Dora into her apprenticeship and started teaching her the backbone of the family business: baking.

Pandora loved the kitchen: the sight of the gleaming pans, the smell of baking pastries, the feeling of dough beneath her hands. In the kitchen she could be a famous artist, molding her clay into a fanciful masterpiece for all to enjoy.

Hogwarts held no secrets for the young girl. When the castle lay only a stones-throw away the mysticism seemed to wear off rather quickly. Dora never got the experience of riding the Hogwarts Express, nor the exhilaration of running headlong into the brick gateway to platform 9 ¾. She was quickly sorted into Hufflepuff – a proud and happy badger. She found quickly that she wasn’t like most of the children that had wandered into the shop, arm in arm with their loves. They’d boast about their magical abilities and giggle happily about how talented the other was, and Dora simply wasn’t.

She’d inherited her father’s inability to perform even the most basic of spells. Simple transfigurations were a struggle and she had to practice extra hard to keep her head above water in all wandwork classes. Some of you may remember Dora’s first year as the fifth year that the famous wizard Harry Potter attended Hogwarts – and also the year in which the Ministry of Magic stuck its foot in where unwanted.

Dora didn’t mind, and truly – when one lives history, it doesn’t feel like history – it just feels like life. Though a background player in the story of Harry Potter’s legacy, Dora was certainly not a background player in her own life. Even with her dreadful magical talent (or lack thereof), she quickly made friends. The happy Hufflepuff was soon surrounded by friends from all houses and rarely was she seen alone. For what it’s worth, the Puddifoot’s believed the story of Mr. Potter and Headmaster Dumbledore, but they weren’t the type to brandish their business about the streets.

Dora’s second year went little better than her first, and then things started to go awry at Hogwarts. People died, and people got hurt, and though it’s hard for a second year to truly grasp the ways of the world – suddenly everything was changed.

She and her family attended the funeral for Headmaster Dumbledore, though she couldn’t remember an actual conversation she’d had with the man.

When Snape took over as head of Hogwarts and allowed those foul beasts: the Carrows, into the school, Paxton wished he’d taken his daughter and run when he’d the chance. Now there was no choice: attendance to Hogwarts was mandatory, and though she would fare better than the muggleborns because of her halfblood heritage, she surely wasn’t in safe hands. Dora hated Hogwarts, and as a willful child, refused the terrors placed before her. She was constantly threatened and often tortured for her stubbornness, but the little Hufflepuff wouldn’t give in. When all went down, Dora followed orders and filed out through the portrait and ran home, only to find that her papa wasn’t there.

Paxton had run off to aide in the battle – a battle he’d never return from. For the next four years of Dora’s education, she had to deal without either parent. Her Auntie Puddie took great care of her, and when home on breaks, Dora threw herself into her cooking. Her A’s and P’s started slipping to D’s and T’s, and though she scraped through her OWLs, Dora flunked all her NEWTs.

Without any aim in life, Dora took to travelling the continent with the inheritance that her father had left her. She travelled the muggle way, in homage to her father – and perhaps had she not, she never would have been bitten.

She slept in a magical tent during the nights and travelled on foot most of the day. One night – with the moon high and full in the sky, Dora decided to press on a bit farther. There was a village a couple more miles ahead, and if she made it there rather quickly, she’d rent a room and have a nice warm meal.

The attack came out of nowhere. A crunch to her pelvis left Pandora in agony, and hard as she tried to stay awake, she could feel the consciousness fleeing quickly. When she woke, she was back in London with the smell of healers and hospitals all around her. But why was she so irritable? And why did her waist hurt so damn bad? When Dora looked at the disfiguring scars, tears fell mercilessly from her eyes. She still doesn’t know who her attacker had been or why she’d only been hurt and not killed.

Her first transformation was the worst. Even with the wolfsbane it hurt tremendously and she was irritable and sick for weeks before and after. Add that to the fact that Mungo’s put her in a cage ‘just in case’ and you had a right pissed off witch on your hands.

Her Aunt had a cage built into the basement of the tea shop, and closed the shop on all nights of the full moon. Eventually Dora got a grip on her curse. She learned to keep it under control, to keep the irritability at bay – and even when she wasn’t feeling up to par, she never let her issue keep her down.

Having a werewolf employed at the tea shop was making her aunt lose too much business, so Dora took on a job at the Ministry of Magic in the newly opened Remus Lupin Library and Resource Center. She took on an activist role after realizing that though the Ministry made a big deal of being ‘registered’ but offered little in way of equal rights.

In October of 2009, Madame Puddifoot died, leaving her shop, home, and legacy to her niece and heir: Dora. Dora left the Ministry to run the shop, though she changed quite a bit about the layout and services offered. 

Describe your job duties and how you go about them:

As the owner and manager of Puddifoot’s it’s Dora’s job to keep the café running in shipshape condition. She keeps the store stocked, keeps inventory, manages the staff, pays the bills, oh yeah – and she bakes.

Elaborate on your expertise in your field:

Dora was raised in the shop. Puddifoot’s has always been a family business and though her Aunt never had children, she always treated Dora as if she were. Dora knows the ins and the outs of the shop and how to run it due to her family’s tutelage.

Provide a short summary of your character:

Dora is a fun and loving individual. She cares too much sometimes and is extremely motherly. She enjoys a good book and a cup of tea, but also likes to go out on occasion. She holds her family and friends in the highest value and would do anything for them.

Character Name: Pandora Puddifoot
URL link to the Character's Bio:

Character Age: 33 34 in June
Character Occupation: Owner of Puddifoot's

Character History 2013 - 2017:

When Robin Louvelle opened the Werewolf Alliance in 2014, Pandora Puddifoot eagerly joined and volunteered as much time as she could to the cause. After the raid on Lapin[1] and the rally that followed[2] in 2012 and then the records leak at St. Mungos in 2013, things were looking grim for the werewolf community and Dora couldn't sit idly by while her people fought alone.

She couldn't dedicate as much time as she would have liked to the cause - raising twin toddlers was a full-time job on top of running Puddifoot's, but she was a well-known face in the Headquarters in London. She spent her time there as a werewolf counselor, taking a special interest in families and children.

Not all things focused on her 'wolfishness, however. Apollo and Artemis were soon toddling about Puddifoot's, playing 'muggles' under empty tables and creating entire worlds out of stir straws and tea bags. Pandora grew close to Puddifoot's in house diviner, the incredible Madam Rhiannon, and, by extension, several of the Grimlish children who often visited the shop on Hogsmeade weekends (usually trailed by a Puddifoot or two). 

After the vandalism of the Werewolf Alliance Headquarters in 2016, Pandora thought it prudent to increase security on the Puddifoot Safe House. Security wix were hired to watch the property on nights of the full moon, all werewolves had to enter the Safe House through the direct entrance in the herb garden rather than going through the shop and strangers were monitored closely. It was already their habit for Kale to watch the twins on Dora's transformation nights, but he began to take them for a couple of days before and after as well, just to be safe - and when Kale was unavailable, Rhiannon Grimlish loved to babysit.

With the children growing quickly and Puddifoot's continued success, it soon became necessary for Dora to hire someone to do some light magic around the place. The twins were constantly breaking things or writing on walls or somehow magicking themselves onto the roof and there was always something needing repaired or cleaned or duplicated in the shop. In early 2017, she hired Paetyn Harper for the job. He was often gone for long stretches of time, doing some weird stuff with trees, but he let her pay him in pastries and a place to pitch his tent in the herb garden. The children loved him and though he wasn't very intimidating, having an extra pair of eyes on the property did ease her fears considerably.

Not long after moving in Paetyn, Dora met Mathieu Vaillancourt and the two instantly hit it off. Math was strong and solid. Stable. He had ambition and drive and a keen wit. He was also incredibly gorgeous, though that was merely an added bonus. He got along with her kids and it didn't seem to bother him that she was a werewolf. Oh, they had their issues of course. They were both stubborn and hard-headed, and neither one could stand to be wrong. Mathieu was incredibly jealous and could sometimes be possessive and overbearing, but the retired Quidditch player had never been in a committed relationship before. He was learning, and he was growing.

Gamp Wolfsbane was an incredible improvement over Belby's version, though Dora felt the Ministry was too swift in switching to the newer variety. Like all things regarding werewolves, the Ministry felt they had a right to choose what was best. They controlled the distribution of the potion, so they controlled which potion to offer - regardless of what the werewolves of Britain might have preferred. At the very least, the Ministry should have continued to offer the Belby version to those who desired it or offered alternative avenues for those who preferred the old variety.

From the time of her first transformation, Dora had tried to work within the system to create a better world for her kind. The Ministry had had its issues, but she had truly believed that they were trying. Werewolves were dangerous - there needed to be regulations and accountability to keep everyone safe, 'wolves included. Wolfsbane needed to be monitored to ensure quality control and to prevent price gouging. Safe Houses needed Ministry support to provide security and ensure safety. Things weren't perfect, no, but Dora had thought there was a way to work with the Ministry to fix things. The death of Rory Weir, however, strained Dora's relationship with the Ministry to its breaking point. Since then, Dora has further tightened the security at Puddifoot's - with someone skilled in magic on the property at all times.

Just as Dora was beginning to settle back into a routine, 2018 hit and threw her life into turmoil once again. The attack on Bruce Ballentyne brought werewolf rights back to the forefront, while Mathieu had been promoted at work and the couple has been spending less and less time together. She's worried, but she's looking toward the future with hope. 

Summary: Dora's primary focus the past few years has been raising her children and running Puddifoot's. She has remained involved in werewolf rights and joined the Werewolf Alliance shortly after its founding, volunteering as a werewolf counselor at every chance. She's remained close to her family and friends, and has recently started dating ex-professional keeper, Mathieu Vaillancourt.

1.	To Catch the Pack
2.	Tread Lightly, Tread Loudly