Physical Description

To be perfectly blunt, Molly looks like the poster-child for Hufflepuff. Friendly, bubbly, honest, the anti-elitist. All of these things are perfectly etched into her form.

Molly has a broad face framed by thick but slightly mousy light brown hair. She usually keeps her mop cropped just past the nape of her neck for practicality’s sake and dyes a lighter shade of honey; but it grows fast, and ofttimes crawls down her shoulders when she isn’t looking. Flyaway strands have been known to escape her loose buns and messy ponytails, but Molly’s girlishly expressive hair decidedly suits her kind features. When she does tame it with a comb and potions, she wears it parted to the side, and swept in soft layers just above her shoulders.

High forehead impeded only by expressively arched cocoa brows, Molly seems to have inherited a singular noble feature in her father's cheekbones. The rest of her face is egalitarian, rosy, and spry. Even her cheeks melt at the command of her emotions; their cushiony presence is oft rounded on either side of a shy smile, the sharpness masked by a natural blush and warm, crinkled eyes. When she isn't smiling or evading the glances of others, her doe's stare is alert with wonder. Molly looks perpetually surprised.

At 5’2” she is petite but shapely, with a comely bust and feminine hips and thighs. Her legs are small and pale, and her shoulders round softly on a compact bone structure. Molly looks decidedly less girly the less she wears. But, being a modest sort of woman, she usually keeps herself appropriately clothed, not overly fitted, and thus looks a bit younger than she is.

Personality Description

Molly is patient but clumsy, driven but not ruthless, and clever but not brilliant. She is bookish in the sense that she enjoys reading, but she is by no means an academic spirit. Where Frank is good with books, Molly is dedicated to their shells, to the fancy decorations which paint their exteriors and invite eyes to peak inside.

Molly is that artsy, wandering spirit who is nevertheless a bit drawn into her shelf, a little shy and soft around the edges, a woman prone to blushing and mumbling and making no sense at all. She gets trapped in her head quite often, an old habit from living quite alone in the countryside with one too many cats. Even now, in her little flat in the city, Molly can drift in and out of daydreams without a drop of potion to prompt her.

Not loud or brash, Molly is easily excitable in the overly-sheltered-as-child, exceptionally dorky, kind of cute sort of way. She’ll jump or clap or gasp at all the wrong moments, giggle and sob when it isn’t necessary, and she always find new ways to surprise herself. Molly will turn the tiniest creak in her floorboards into an alien home invasion; she speaks to her cats and hums while she works and tells stories to her employer as the pretty entrepreneur drifts off to sleep in the lap of her luxurious empire.

Molly is good very good at baking unhealthy treats, can cook up a decent meal, and loves to paint. She’s terrible at offensive spells, but can defend and heal pretty well. She has a habit for using her wand over her hands, as she was raised by a witch, but has very few qualms with getting her fingers dirty-- mostly in soil, paint, or dough. She is earthy and intuitive, but cannot read people particularly well. She is bound to lose a duel against any normally-abled and sane adult witch or wizard.

History

By the time Janie Hudson learned she was carrying the child of Daniel Pratt, it was too late. She tracked down the man with whom she'd had a few-sticky-summer-weeks romance, only to find him enamored with his new love-- his only love, really, as he and Janie had never been quite serious. Or they'd never said so.

With a sigh and a rub of her belly, Janie found her way back home by bus. She was too tired to attempt magic, and she'd never been particularly good at it, anyway.

The thing was, even though she'd never been in love, not really, she'd thought she'd seen something special in Dan. It was why she'd gone the extra mile for him, wasn't it? She wasn't that sort of girl! Not Janie! Not normally. It had been the first time either of them had done anything like that, and the young witch had chalked it up to that aura he had... he was a muggle, sure, but there was just something about him.

Unaware of the existence of his eldest child, a problematic little seed planted and growing splendidly in the tummy of one Jane Hudson of Nottingham, Daily Prophet secretary by day, cafe waitress by moonlight, Daniel Pratt went on to marry and start a family with his pretty muggle bride. While Katherine raised Frank and Isabelle, Jane chose single-parenthood, bestowing only the common thread of a surname on her new baby daughter, Molly Jane (Hudson) Pratt.

Though she was born in the metropolitan buzz of Nottingham, Molly grew up mostly in a small town outside of the city. Langley Mill, which sits on the edge of Derbyshire, not too terribly far from civilization, boasts (not) many a old, charming-if-shabby wooden bungalows. The single-story, single-family house in its sparse little plot, some few acres, provided more than an adequate childhood for Molly; it's expansive porch and indoor fireplace under a great, big wooden mantle and set in an absurdly tall exposed-brick chunk of wall were her favorite two places. Those, and the windowsill alcove bed her mother fixed up for her when Molly outgrew her cot. The 'sleeping shelf', as the little girl called it, was prime real estate for any lover of cats. And Molly had a lot of cats.

Books were her second favorite thing. Curling up with stray kittens, those snuggly white balls of cotton, or ancient, three-legged, pirate-eyed, flea-infested little lions she'd found in gutters and wells, the only child would turn her infantile space into a castle tower. Which just happened to sit plop in the middle of the overgrown grass.

"Rapunzel, Rapunzel!" Molly would cry, holding open the window and leaning over the sill to faithfully eye her favorite feline, Little Bell Grimm-Pratt I, whose namesake she'd stolen from the Campanula or "little bell" Rapunzel plant following a particularly nerdy ravaging of the old Herbology books in her mother's garden shed. The cat, coincidentally, had been hiding behind two of such books, in a planter full of dry soil. She'd been living on Garden Gnomes, chasing them away from the outdoor cupboard, and was thus welcomed into the lives of Molly and Janie. (She also served as an end to that particular mystery, the Disappearance of the Expletive Bearded Weed Dwellers).

Her hair hardly long enough to twine its way down into the grass, Molly would play the story in reverse, with the cat being the damsel in distress, lost in a jungle of poisonous roots, its long and ginger-flecked tail its only hope for escape. The Heroine, Knight Milania in Shining Brooch, would hang by her wellies and hope for the best as she snaked out of the window and attempted to lure Little Bell into her grasp with promises of seductive catnip.

It was during these not-so-glamorous fairytale moments that Molly had her first surprise, the moment Janie had been waiting for, the very reason Molly didn't go to school with all of the other little girls and boys who took a bus past the porch every day and disappeared into town.

The first signs of magic showed their sparkle-- quite literally-- when Molly was painting a banner for the top of her mattress-turned-fortress. The castle’s proud flag suddenly burst with animated life-- a glittery crest whose Molly-drawn animal symbols roared and pawed at their corners, and monogrammed letters which changed colors and became frighteningly florescent in the dark.

Her mother had never been happier.

When Molly got to Hogwarts, her world spun and wouldn’t stand still. Being around so many children, and away from so many cats, was like stepping through the mystical mirrors or falling down those gaping black holes in her storybooks.

Molly loved Potions, because it reminded her of cooking and baking with her mother, and she liked looking at the stars, too. Anything that allowed her draw or use her imagination became an instant source of amusement, followed by genuine fascination.

But a natural student, she was not. Academia was for the Ravenclaws. Molly, a true, sunshine-yellow badger of the Hufflepuff plan, worked hard to keep her marks up, and only some of them were O’s.

Molly’s true talent was for extracurriculars: art projects, clubs, fundraisers-- she always loved becoming involved in those sorts of things, those bits of self-expression and team spirit that didn’t require points or marks or scores. Report cards, those always made her knees quiver, and the idea of losing someone else’s hard-earned points garnered a stutter or a small yelp. But painting scenery for a school production, or sitting under a willow with her sketchbook and dipping her feet into the lake were Molly’s fortes.

Oh, and there was one other thing she was very good at: Annoying anyone with the shared name of Pratt.

But could one blame the girl, really? Her surname was her only source of evidence that she actually had a father. And before she’d gone away to school, she’d sometimes even imagined her mother had picked it randomly, because it didn’t sound terrible with ‘Molly.’ But Janie had remained flighty and uncomfortable, if not sternly tight-lipped on the topic of Molly’s mysterious genetic contributor.

Edward and his brother Daniel were a wealth of easily-inflamed information. She bugged, and bugged, and bugged, until one day, in the summer before her third year, she was invited to their house. An actual invitation!

Molly did not tell her mother. It was the first lie she’d ever spoke to Janie’s face, but she knew she couldn’t tell her, or she wouldn’t be allowed to go. And her heart ached to know. And so, with a dash floo in the grate, she stepped into the flames and whirled her away onto the other side of the looking glass.

The Pratts were very kind. Apparently they also knew more than Molly did: when Eddie and Dan had told their father about the silly little second year who wouldn’t leave them be, he had talked with his wife and brothers and cousins, names had been tossed around, and someone had apparently fessed up to knowing a certain Jane Hudson.

What no one expected was that it would be Dan. (No, not that Dan.) The father of two (now three) was the least suspicious man on the planet, perhaps. Or that was Molly’s first impression. The wide-eyed child blinked at him, then at his wife, then down at his children, a dark-haired, mild-mannered boy and his baby sister.

Molly’s brother and sister.

Frank was a curious addition to Hufflepuff house. He was awkward, bookish, completely the opposite of Eddie. But as the years wore on, Molly grew ever fond of the boy whose existence she’d been so wholly unaware of. And as tensions mounted in her mother’s household, where Molly oft secluded herself to bask in the pain and betrayal now firmly heaved onto Janie’s shoulders, she turned to Frank. He became a companion, a good friend, a confidant. A brother.

Her father tried and still tries to get to know her, but it’s always been hard on him, and understandably so. After getting the story straight, and coming to the realization that her mother had run-- had never said a word-- Molly has never blamed Dan for his general awkwardness around her. She feels quite bad for his wife and for his kids, too, though she considers them as much as family as she’s ever had. She only wishes her dad were a bit more affectionate and candid at times. She writes it off as her being the oldest, but sometimes feels like he doesn’t consider her one of his real kids.

The war was the next great hurtle in Molly’s life, but it was not one she faced alone. She was not a soldier, not a girl who craved violence, but rather a dreamer, one who read about its absolution in chivalrous, knight-drenched courts. But Voldemort’s destructive army, his cruel mantra of hate forced a bit of courage down Molly’s throat, and in those years, she did her best to re-patch her relationship with Janie.

After graduation-- slightly hampered and prolonged by the war-- Molly set aside her N.E.W.T.s on a shelf in her mother’s house, and hulled her things to London, trying a revolving door of new and interesting jobs. Not having to be in school was fun, but also daunting.

A herbologist’s assistant. A bookstore clerk. An astronomer’s secretary. And, finally, the personal assistant to Dolly St. James. Or, technically, the second assistant, but who’s counting?

The things Molly has always wanted to do most-- to bake and to paint, and professionally so-- has never quite happened. But Dolly’s generous paychecks are making it more and more possible with each passing day, and so Molly continues to follow her bubbly, bosomy, and very, very famous boss from party to book-signing to bar and back again. Besides, Dolly is a very kind employer and friend, and their names rhyme, which Molly’s sees as a good omen.

Career

Describe your job duties and how you go about them.
Molly is the second assistant to Dolly St. James. This job entails everything from book-keeping and broom-hailing to meeting with publishers and tucking Dolly into bed after twelve too many drinks. But it's a fun job, and there's rarely a dull moment. Dolly pays well, probably more than anyone else would dream of paying a personal assistant, and Molly is happy to tag along to glitzy events, glamorous dances, and fancy dinners. Her badger-born patience and good handwriting are a daily necessity. Everything else is sort of impromptu and completely unexpected-- which is nice, because while Molly tries her hardest, she is not the most organized of professional assistants to walk the planet.

Elaborate on your expertise in your field.
Nothing and everything. Molly has had many odd jobs and is as virtuously patient as any Hufflepuff could be. She's good at babysitting Dolly when Dolly needs it, and is also a good listener when her employer requires an audience. But the benefits are mutual, as Dolly St. James has turned out to be quite the good advice giver herself, and brings out the inner adventurer in Molly.

She as only recently begun to play with the idea of restoring old covers to the antique books and other rarities Frank finds in his tome-trapping ventures. She is massively excited and grateful for the opportunity, and it has brought her closer to her brother's personal sphere as of late.

Career Update: Molly decided to start baking professionally in 2010 and will open her own Bakery. See the career change application.


Sum up your character in one paragraph.
Molly is in many ways the female counterpart to her brother, which is sort of hilarious, seeing as they weren't raised as siblings. However, while frequently "stuck in the clouds," and an all-around "wouldn't hurt a fly" sort of soul, this badger is perhaps a smidgen less socially awkward than her sweetheart of a baby brother. Molly has a bit of a bohemian edge to her spirit, and when opportunity strikes, she breaks out of her shell and shows everyone the other face of Hufflepuff-- the driven badger who has earned her keep.

History Continued

Molly married Casper Bagman shortly after graduating Hogwarts.

Career Change


Why have you chosen to change careers?
Molly has always had a love and talent for baking, cooking, and sweet things. She spends much of her free time baking old favorites, trying new recipes, or simply experimenting in the kitchen, and she is finally in a position to be able to bake professionally rather than just as a hobby. For Molly, baking is a form of creativity, a way to bond with anyone and everyone, and a way to burn all of that extra energy.

Elaborate on your expertise in this new field:
Molly began experimenting in her mother’s kitchen well before she arrived at Hogwarts. It was not uncommon to find the room covered in dough and little hand prints. Her baking adventures grew as Molly did, and once she began to study magic, she also learned to incorporate it into her recipes (though much of what she does is still by hand).

Molly has perfected many recipes over the years, but still has endless ideas for new ones. She is used to baking large quantities and has provided baked goods for various local and personal festivities.

The witch loves combining her passions (painting and baking) to create cute, colorful, seasonal baked goods, products that seems to suit the quaint and magical Godric’s Hollow perfectly.

For the business side of things, her decade of office and assistant work have made Molly a good multitasker and a much more organized person than she might ordinarily be. She has built up a decent number of contacts and certain, endearing way of networking.

Describe your new job and how you go about doing it:
Molly’s business venture include lots and LOTS of baking (obviously), interacting with customers (everything from basic service to suggestions and larger, custom orders), record keeping, managing a couple of employees, and keeping the bakery clean, warm, welcoming, and colorful. Much of her business will probably be owl orders.

Hollow's Hearts will likely open in the fall, once personal adventures have been achieved.