Your Nickname: Thea
Have you read and do you agree to the Code of Conduct?: Yes
Are you over thirteen? Yes
How did you find us and decide to write with us? Friend
If you have written other characters here: Yes
If Yes, list them all: Primaries: Brett Abraham, Carys Whitman, Declan Ó Móráin, Jagger Stone, Liadán Ó Móráin, Torolf Gundersen, Walton Dodd, & Winifred Oliver || Secondaries: Callum Knight, Hunter Radley, Herschel Reid
Is this a Primary or Secondary Character?: Primary
Full Character Name: Dervla Ide Bagnold
Character Birthday & Age: August 8, 1978 | 32
City & Country of Birth: Folkestone, Kent, UK
Blood Purity: Pureblood
Alma Mater: Hogwarts (Ravenclaw; 1989-1996)
Job/Position: Funeral Home Operator
Wand: Dervla's wand is a hair shy of eleven inches long. It is made of Yew- a wand wood noted to be quite apt for necromancy and the dark arts. The core of her wand is dragon heart string- an unusual combination. The core tends to be dangerous when paired with Yew, but Dervla has had few accidents with her wand during her ownership of it. (Though her spells do tend to explosive or over powerful if she is in a temper.) The wand is inflexible with a spiraled shaft.
Physical Description: Dervla is a tall woman, standing at 5'10". She has a solid, curvy build and in the right circumstances will use those curves to her advantage. She has thick, brown, naturally curly hair that falls around her shoulders when curled and partly down her back when relaxed via magical means. She has a tanned skin tone year round due to spending lots of time in the sun in the summer months. Her face, chest, back, and shoulders are heavily freckled. Dervla's arms, legs, etc. are also freckled- but much less so. She has hazel eyes. Dervla's smile is quite bright and fetching, and she smiles quite often considering her job description. Dervla carries herself with confidence and has a very confident stride. She's a woman who is in charge and takes control of most situations.
Personality Description: First and foremost, Dervla has dedicated herself to attaining knowledge and experiencing new things. She loves to learn- about everything- but is especially fascinated by ghosts, the dead, necromancy, and death magic. She's been pursuing this line of magic since graduating Hogwarts, and does so illegally at this point (since being let go from the Ministry of Magic). She loves to travel, see new places, and doesn't shy away from trying new things. Dervla has done a lot of risky and dangerous things in her life just for the sake of the experience. She will try (almost) anything once. She is constantly visiting other countries to learn more about their culture, to peruse their magical knowledge, and to get away from the humdrum life of London.
Confident, talented, and very independent Dervla is not a witch to be trifled with. She was cut off from her family after she was fired from the Ministry, and although she was given a large sum of money to never voluntarily contact them again, and since then she has taken care of herself. Dervla has learned to be self sustaining, something many pureblood witches never seem to obtain. Her wand work is scary and she has many talents. (Though she seems to have a lot of talents, she has not mastered very many things outside of the realm of death and operation of her business.) She refuses to let anyone get in the way of the things that she wants to do and the things she wishes to accomplish. She is driven to the point of obsession and has been known to go for days without sleeping or eating if she thinks she is "onto something".
Dervla is definitely short tempered. She doesn't take well to insults or slights, and she gets a lot of them in her line of work. She's quick to hex/curse those who cross her the wrong way (except for customers) and likes to intimidate others. She has learned it's a good way to go about getting what she wants. Dervla's loyalties are to her best interests and the pursuit of knowledge. She has few qualms about breaking the law these days and could easily be pushed further into the realm of darkness by the right influential voice assuring her she is on the right path. (She might be independent, but Dervla does crave the support of others.)
A social being, she enjoys going out for drinks and spending time with friends and meeting new people. She does not always find it easy to make new friends, as she tends to say things that creep others out. (Like commenting on someone's beautiful bone structure in a tone of voice that indicates she is not at all attempting to compliment their beauty.) Those who manage to get past the fact she spends all day with dead people and who can learn to ignore her strange quirks and comments find a loyal and devoted friend who is generous, helpful, and willing to fight for you. (She was raised in the home that prized honorable Gryffindors, after all.) Dervla does not live her life in darkness. She enjoys laughter, good times, and being happy. Dervla likes gardens, flowers, nice weather, fun, and excitement. That just tends to get lost in her creep factor.
History: Dervla Ide Bagnold was born August 8, 1978- just one year and two days after her elder brother, Kurby, turned one year old. Her family was one of the few pureblood lines who stood up against Voldemort, a legacy they are proud of. Her grandmother was Minister of Magic. It seemed a perfect set up for a respectable family to be born- until her father became a werewolf. Dervla does not know the whole story of how this happened, and never asked. She grew up in Ireland, away from the hustle and bustle of wizarding London, in a home full of siblings. She barely remembers her father. When he passed away, she was not overly affected by it. She'd long since been burying herself in books and make believe to tune out the tumultuous home life and constant fights with her siblings.
Hogwarts was an amazing time for Dervla. She was quickly sorted into Ravenclaw, and was ecstatic for it. She liked being branded by her intelligence and devoted herself entirely to her studies. Her grades were impeccable. Dervla did not participate in any extra curricular activities which were not educational. She had a group of close friends in her house, but rarely socialized with those from other houses. She did her best to distance herself from her brother- she was afraid his reputation of being short tempered and confrontational would hurt her own reputation or scholastic chances. Dervla was determined to make her parents proud with her grades and to stand out from among her many brothers and sisters.
Dervla's OWL and NEWT scores were impressive. She was being courted by the Department of Mysteries after her OWL scores and was determined to join their ranks as soon as she graduated. Her NEWT scores were quite impressive, and she was obsessed with theoretical, ancient, and taboo magics. Dervla was convinced a spot as an Unspeakable would give her the chance to satiate her thirst for knowledge and get her hands on the less mainstream knowledge.
Finally a graduate of Hogwarts, Dervla was excited to pursue a career at the ministry doing research for the Department of Mysteries. But once she got there, she went down a very unexpected path. Placed with a Death researcher to learn the ropes, she soon found herself fascinated by necromancy, death, and death magic. Dervla quickly proved herself to be a brilliant researcher and talented witch. After the first few years as an Unspeakable she was left to her own devices. A private lab (because those death researchers were awfully creepy) found Dervla with the freedom to pursue the type of magic her superiors were hesitant to test. At the age of 22 she began to seriously investigate necromancy. Ancient texts, exotic magic, illegal topics- she became consumed. Dervla worked late hours, would rather spend her evenings in her lab with her corpses than out with friends or family.
But eventually... people began to ask questions. What was Dervla getting up to? Why did she need those weird ingredients for her experiments? It all sounded suspiciously close to trying to create inferi or walking skeletons or preserve bodies for far longer than they should be. Within one year of research on her own, Dervla made leaps and bounds in her pursuit of necromancy. But the freedom and joy was short lived. Shortly after turning twenty-three, Dervla was fired from the ministry of magic. They found her lab notes, research into dark magic- things clearly considered illegal by the ministry of magic. The sort of stuff You-Know-Who had tried to do. But because she had been doing the work within ministry walls, the fault was that of her supervisors for not discovering it sooner. Charges were not pressed, and instead she was let go.
There was a lot of talk about that Bagnold girl who was a necromancer. Her family was disgusted and outraged. How could she do such a thing? Surely she knew better than that! They promptly disowned her, especially when they realized she had every intention of doing her best to pursue the line of research she had been in, authorities be damned. She was given a large sum of money to leave the family home without fuss and to never acknowledge or contact them again. She was devastated that they could not understand what she was doing was not out of a desire of darkness. She was not evil. Dervla was just dedicated, and she'd discovered so much in such a short period of time! Evil was about your intentions. The magic itself was not inherently bad if you did not use it for for bad purposes, after all.
Dervla left the country to chase after all of the information she could find on the subject, and to let the gossip die down. It was hard to walk down the street when people thought you were a dark witch. She learned much from the countries with less restrictions. She returned to England about two years later, her trunk heavy with texts and instructions, items that she would probably get in trouble for having. With fresh perspective and eagerness to continue her work, Dervla immediately set about establishing a livelihood. She opened up a small funeral home, operating out of Diagon alley. Business was slow to start, the rumors starting fresh. But after a couple of years of affordable and excellent service, people were far less afraid to bring their deceased loved ones. Dervla appeared the very picture of a reformed individual who used her lack of squeamishness to offer a much needed service. The ministry was also checking in regularly, and the longer she went without complaint or report the more her business grew.
Since opening her funeral home, Dervla has used it as a way to further her research. She will keep the bodies of those who are supposed to be cremated to research and experiment on, giving the family ashes that are not (entirely) human. She started to run in criminal circles- it was the only means to acquire the things she needed. Word soon began to spread in the criminal underground about a necromancer among their midst, and she found herself with colleagues and friends who were more than happy to entertain her in seedy bars. Friends are hard to make in her line of business, and she does enjoy the company of people so she takes what she can get. Dervla has not dedicated herself to any one cause- instead still operating under the guise of self preservation and the pursuit of knowledge.
Though she does not admit or acknowledge it, the further her research goes and the more she dabbles in the dark arts the darker she becomes. The lines of ethics are blurred and she has lost most of her scruples in the relentless chase for success and the ability to learn and experiment. Dervla also does necromancy for hire at the right price. Though not particularly greedy or materialistic, money makes the world go around and she needs to travel and buy the rare books, artifacts, and other items/ingredients she needs. Her family still refuses to claim her, though she proudly boasts the Bagnold name (as purity is important in her circles) and calls her business the "Bagnold Funeral Home" despite their protests.
Describe your job duties and how you go about them: Dervla owns and operates a funeral home catering to the magical world. She prepares bodies for burial via magical embalming and also applies makeup to the dead. Dervla also has a crematorium on site for the cremation of bodies. The funeral home also hosts funerals, receivings, and memorials. Since it is a small funeral home, she only has two other people on her staff. She has a boy who takes care of the stables for the animals which pull the carriages and hearses to the grave sites Dervla also has a record keeper who keeps track of monetary side of things as well as advertisement and answers most owl inquiries.
Elaborate on your expertise in your field: Having always been fascinated by the dead, and a former unspeakable who deal with the dead, she's been around dead bodies for quite a while. She learned magical embalming at the ministry and the rest of her business she has built via trial and error as well as getting the help/advice of other funeral home operators (both magical and muggle). Her funeral home has been in operation for five years now, so she has learned most of the tricks of the trade via experience.
Sum up your character in one paragraph: Dervla Bagnold is a woman who did not intend to set off down the path of darkness. If you were to ask her now, she'd still insist she is anything but. She has a strong thirst for knowledge, and tends to become obsessive over the topics she is most interested in. Once legally researching necromancy and death magic at the ministry of magic, she was dismissed when her experiments began to go "too far" according to her superiors. Since then she has begun to walk the line between criminal and intellectual, breaking the law to obtain the necessary components to further her research. She runs in criminal rings these days, because nobody else will have her. An intelligent, competent, talented, and strong witch, Dervla is not a woman you want as an enemy. She has lost most of her scruples in the last few years in her desperation to gain knowledge and understanding. Though her research and job deal with dark themes, she is not a particularly mean or dark individual. She enjoys socializing, likes to learn, and is as inquisitive now as she was as a child. But the further she treks into necromancy, the further across the line she travels- and if she continues on her current path, it is only a matter of time until she is lost to dark magic.
Dervla Ide Bagnold: Funeral Home Operator / Necromancer