Morgana Hollingbury
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| Morgana Hollingbury | |
|---|---|
| Biographical Information | |
| Born | 8 October 1956, 61 |
| City of Birth | London, England |
| Current City | London, England |
| Residence | Morgana's Novelties, Diagon Alley, London, England |
| Blood status | Half-blood |
| Physical Information | |
| Gender | Female |
| Height | 5'9" |
| Hair Colour | Black, brown in the sun |
| Eye Colour | Brown |
| Skin Colour | Light olive |
| Relationships | |
| Father | Linus C. Hollingbury |
| Mother | Emily Hollingbury |
| Siblings | |
| Magical Characteristics | |
| Wand(s) | |
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| Education | |
| School | Hogwarts |
| House | Ravenclaw |
| Class of | 1975 |
| Occupation | |
| |
| Character Information | |
| Neon | |
To everyone she knows save for certain individuals, Morgana goes by just Morgana. To some contacts in the black market, including the Syndicate of the Seven Seas, she is known as Madame le Fay. And to Mordecai and Arcturus Hollingbury, her real name is known - Morgana Hollingbury.
She is known as one of the most premium artefact and antiques consultants and dealers for the wealthy, her expertise near unparalleled. For those who know her as Madame le Fay, her expertise as an artefacts thief and smuggler is more known amongst them, though she has not stolen or requisitioned an artefact for over two decades now. Morgana herself would sooner shed this past, but she knows that it's practically impossible and only hopes her history either fades into obscurity or she is forgiven of it. Neither of which seems to be happening anytime soon.
She owns Morgana's Novelties in Diagon Alley, both a shop for wixes looking for antiques and artefacts as well as a consultation office for appraisals.
Mordecai considers her his sister, feeling that their father was not justified in disowning her for such a minor issue, but he's torn about treating her as family and staying true to his family itself.
Arcturus is aware that she's his aunt but has no idea of her story as Mordecai cannot speak of her.
Appearance/Distinguishing Features
Morgana does not look as old as she is in reality, but there is a certain weariness to her mien that tells the story. She stands at 5’09” or 175cm, and usually has eye shadow and lipstick on at all times. Her skin is light olive. Her eye colour is naturally brown, set in a rectangular face framed with shoulder-length black hair that appears brown in the sun. She does love putting her hair up and fiddling with it when idle, as it’s her favourite part of her body. Which says a lot.
She is not particularly curvy, having a shoulder-hip ratio that is approximately equal. Her shoulders are also a little broad for her liking; she tries to diminish this in appearance. Morgana knows how to accentuate her curves using fashion, though, so it’s rare to see her exactly as she is. At first impressions she seems classy, dignified, prim and elegant. She dresses well, and prefers formal and smart casual clothes. Her voice is slightly deep and a little husky; she often uses this to her advantage. When she gestures, her movements are deliberate and careful, but not necessarily slow.
Morgana has several scars on her body which are only obvious if she exposes her back, which is why she doesn’t wear dresses with open backs ever. She’s also not proud of her hands, which are large and slightly mannish, but since she can’t change them she just puts up with them.
When she needs to move softly and quickly in the dark, she usually wears a dark grey hooded cape that reaches down to her hips. She wears old and slightly loose blouses underneath it, and form-fitting pants that still allow fair ease of movement. All she carries with her in this getup are her wand and a small uninteresting bag with an Undetectable Extension Charm that carries her diversion tools. Around her neck is a scarf that allows her to obscure the lower half of her face, and if she's moving in the dark she puts on dark makeup around her eyes so her skin doesn't stand out too starkly, as well as disguising her voice.
At home she wears comfortable clothes that match the season and jeans. She seems more casual, friendly and less uptight about how she looks, although it is rare that someone gets invited to her house and therefore sees her this way.
Personality
Morgana is closed off, reserved and shrewd. She holds many at arm's length and is known to be shrewd and calculative. In honesty she was not like this when young, but the wars took their heavy toll upon her – because of this, she is also pessimistic and cynical when it comes to social relations. Outside of that, however, she is very driven, independent, determined and decisive. When she knows what she wants, she will get it by all means necessary. The only people she wouldn’t dare manipulate are her family, out of respect and love.
She is business-minded, thrifty and clever in the ways of haggling. Her secret weapon is her ability to mask her emotions well especially while lying. She can read body language well and interpret between the lines – a skill honed by years of bargain in business on her own.
Morgana is a focused person. Once she’s prioritised her tasks, she’ll never stray from the path until the list is completed in the right order. She loves plans, but if she has to come up with something on the fly she is quick-witted enough to do that.
On the outside she is image conscious and doesn’t have a good opinion on her natural looks. She loves standing out and yet blending in. She deeply wishes that she is prettier than she is right now and used to alter her appearance almost daily to achieve the effect, but lately she has lost interest in hiding her appearance. Morgana avoids mirrors for this reason and only uses them when necessary.
Her shrewdness and manipulation come into play when it turns to dealing business with her. She knows what she wants; she expects the other party to know what they want. She’ll keep to her word if they keep theirs – if she doesn’t trust them, she’ll make sure they do. Unfortunate clients who have breached her contract have met with hostage situations of people or things they find dear and have to pay extra interest to get them back or be threatened by Dark magic. Otherwise, she’ll keep her charm and use it to her advantage.
Sadly, because of her past she finds it difficult to be close to people she cares for. She avoids them for the fear of being hurt by those who don’t fully appreciate her, and she is uncomfortable with physical contact. There are days when she feels paranoid about her old life of crime, knowing that the Ministry of Magic could come knocking on her door at anytime and request that she pay her due. She also regrets never having been a Cursebreaker, which had been her dream job.
Despite the fact that she thieves from mostly Muggle residences, she has nothing against Muggles apart from disdain for their lack of knowledge and buying magical items only because they’re “old”. In fact, she doesn’t have much respect for those who try and hold their blood status above everyone else’s; her opinion is that in death all are the same, and those who think their blood status is more important than family is either compensating for something or trying to hide their insecurities.
As for other criminals, Morgana keeps them as contacts, but as usual won’t be close to them. Now that she’s trying to reform herself, she has distanced herself from such company, but it’s proving difficult to tear herself away entirely from the community. However, she has standards – there are some crimes that she’ll shrug off, and some that she will shun in silence. Since she has spent some unfortunate time in the company of Death Eaters, she does not think highly of those who uphold their doctrine.
History
Childhood
Morgana was born several years after Mordecai, with a few complications, but became a happy, curious and intelligent child over the years before attending Hogwarts between 1965 to 1972. While her father was strict and stern with the two of them, Morgana's spirits were never dampened and she often served as Mordecai's cheerleader and motivator during their childhood and teen years.
Hogwarts
She was usually remembered by Hogwarts professors and alumni as the girl who had a somewhat morbid interest with the Dark Arts and real-world applications of every spell they learned, be it good or bad. For Morgana, everything was a tool that had no morality, only for what it was used.
For OWLs she took Potions, Charms, History of Magic, Transfiguration, Astronomy, Defence Against the Dark Arts, Herbology, Arithmancy and Ancient Runes. For NEWTs, she promptly dropped Astronomy and History of Magic. For all exams, straight Os, but she was described to be exceptional in Transfiguration and Arithmancy. She was also a member of the Hogwarts Duelling Club as well as being a Chaser from her second to fifth year, and a prefect from fifth to seventh year.
Early Adulthood
When she graduated from Hogwarts in 1972, she immediately took up a Cursebreaker internship at Gringotts. She was kept busy by the work due to the First Wizarding War, and one night when she leaving Gringotts she was abducted and imprisoned by Death Eaters for interrogation, her wand taken from her. She was rescued by Aurors eventually, but after that she had a fascination with the Dark Arts as well. Morgana never found her first wand, so she returned to Ollivander's to obtain another.
Morgana never really recovered from her experiences in the First Wizarding War. Whatever she had gone through she never spoke of it again. Her father was unsympathetic towards her for getting 'easily captured' and she grew distant with him as a result. As an act of defiance she turned to studying Dark Arts spells, ignoring the protestations of her brother.
Mordecai, however, never betrayed her. It was their father who eventually discovered her secret when he stumbled upon her books. An argument broke out between Mordecai and their father, her brother fighting to keep her in the family. Despite his efforts she was promptly disowned and thrown out of the house, and Mordecai was told never to speak of her again. To this day Mordecai blames himself for not being a good enough brother to prevent her disowning.
Without a home, Morgana fled to the Leaky Cauldron and stayed there while she turned to theft to pay her rent. Her Cursebreaker knowledge, though incomplete, was enough for her to break into inadequately protected houses to steal various valuable items. At first she was contented with stealing them for herself and selling them to the people who wanted them. Then she noticed that there were people who were more than willing to pay far more than the worth of such items in order to get their hands on them. At this point she decided there was no going back and began to discretely advertise her services to people.
She made a fairly good living, although she eventually moved out of the Leaky Cauldron because she had jobs that took her around the country. Over the years she honed her skills, being able to infiltrate residences, get close to the targets and then steal their possessions, making sure to change her appearance and name every time. It was easy to forge her identity in Muggle areas, and she was long gone by the time the police caught onto the counterfeit documents.
Criminals tended to spread word like wildfire, however, and Morgana had her own ears and eyes through her contacts. When she caught wind of the Death Eaters stirring once again, she didn’t take chances. Morgana left the country in early 1995, residing in Germany, Switzerland and France. She didn’t stop thieving, but her schemes continued to become more and more significant until the Ministries of those countries noticed her and started putting out warrants for her.
She moved around plenty, escaping identification from less than knowledgeable Muggles. Morgana was good at acting, and would put up different personalities to fool her targets and those searching for her. It was during this time that she felt she was at her peak – the adrenaline rush was indescribable every time she got an offer, and she was paid well. She stored her wealth away in places only she knew, hiding them with magic and never giving away her secrets. If she wasn’t paid the way her contract was written as, she would turn to her knowledge of the Dark Arts in order to torment her client until she got what she wanted.
While she was never lacking in wealth or tasks, she did lack in romance. Her love life could be described as “threadbare”, only decorated with flings and one-night stands. This was not to say that no one was interested in her – she had both men and women approach her and she often reciprocated in the hopes of finding someone, but to no avail. Morgana repeatedly lost interest in her partners soon after meeting them. Eventually she stopped, hurt enough by disappointment and unhappiness in how fickle she was. For several years she turned people down, and then eventually buried herself in her work to avoid the subject.
After the Second War, she moved back to Britain. Her interest in the Dark Arts and thieving started to wane, evidenced by the intervals between each theft increasing over time. She wanted to rest and live a normal life, although she was fairly certain that the Ministry wasn’t going to let her off so easily. So with her wealth she bought a space to in Diagon Alley to sell off the items she had pilfered over the years. Most of her stock would be items she took on a whim with her, almost as if she was a kleptomaniac, and a few were items that the clients did not claim on account of not being available to ever collect them. Such as the one man who was assassinated the night she procured his items.
These days it’s easy to find her in her shop, as she hasn’t been taking theft jobs as she tries to adjust into a more peaceful and less risky job. She genuinely wants to be known as reformed, but without any formal arrest or pardon from any government she knows that she is still marked as a criminal, no matter how lesser of one she is. She hopes, however, to one day return to her desired path of Cursebreaker for Gringotts.
Her shop name is Morgana’s Novelties in Diagon Alley. Most wixes frequent it as a novelty shop, as most of the artefacts and antiques she sells in there are of little value and are only worth a collector's interest in, say, Muggle knick-knacks and they are sourced legally. The wealthy however visit her here to discuss the value of their prized possessions. She is also occasionally asked to attend auctions as an antiques appraiser due to her knowledge.
2013-2017
Morgana severed her connection with most black market traders in 2012 and her French sponsor René Cartier, returning to Britain and re-opening her store, keeping the Morgana’s Novelties name and making herself more accessible in general - antiques dealer to the majority of the population, consultant, Curse-breaker and artefact assessor and restorer to the wealthy. Cartier was not necessarily in favour of this, bemoaning the loss of his ‘favourite thief’, but Morgana had found him tiring and overly clingy with too much of a traditionalist and had wanted to be rid of him for a long time coming.
She remained in contact with "Chaz", her European contact who keeps her updated with as much news as possible, who in 2014 informed her of what would be the start of the Dragonsblood Curse artefact trade and cautioned her to keep an eye on the news. Morgana would take note but not involve herself, knowing that should the Ministry of Magic learn of the trade she would be suspect number one and she had no intentions of digging her hands into that.
The cursed artefacts would eventually begin to cause trouble here and there in isolated locations in Europe, but they were surprisingly few and far in between in frequency. With a little help from Chaz Morgana obtained more information about the artefacts out of personal interest and conflict, as she is usually against the desecration of artefacts. While she was certain that the British Ministry of Magic would have picked up on the case eventually, she did not volunteer her information to keep a wide berth between her and the Ministry.
Despite her laying low, Morgana’s presence at luxury auctions made her a more well-known figure, becoming a recommended expert to many old and wealthy families on assessing their family artefacts and removing any problem spells from them. In business she remains known as Madame le Fay rather than Morgana, only keeping that name restricted to close friends (such as Chaz).
She has not visited Arc or Mord since, keeping away from them. She knows how they’re doing, keeping a watchful, protective if silent eye over her family even if she is no longer allowed to be in contact with them, only wanting them to be alright and safe.
As of 2017, she is one of the few who has as much information on the Dragonsblood Curse artefact smuggling trade in Britain, and is waiting silently for people to find her to ask as she has no intentions of bringing to light her criminal past. She knows they know where she is. It would only be a matter of time.
2018
Morgana, better known as Madame le Fay to the public, has left her criminal past behind to pursue a more ordinary lifestyle, albeit one of a high-class standing as she uses her knowledge and expertise as former artefact thief to act as a consultant for luxury fine art auctions and freelance Curse-breaker for beleaguered wealthy families burdened with a cursed artefact. When not living the high life she remains selling antiques to the general public, usually Muggle novelties. She has not made contact with her family due to being disowned, but remains watchful and protective over them, and keeps a wide berth from most people she knows despite her resentment of never being able to return to her Curse-breaker life - and also keeping away from the Ministry, though she knows it will only be a matter of time before her past catches up with her.
Interests
Antique Appraiser
Using her skills as a Curse-breaker and her expertise as a former artefacts thief hired to reclaim artefacts for collectors or government authorities who need a little extra help, Morgana remains one of the more premium antiques consultant in the business with her extensive research and knowledge of antiques, able to identify their history, origin and make within a short time.
Her skillset of being able to identify the genuine article from fakes as well makes her a favoured consultant for auctions. As such, despite her retirement from what must have been a lucrative if illegal job, Morgana still remains well-off with her main consultancy being her major income.
Information Broker
Morgana tends to act as an information broker; however, she is not usually the firsthand informant. She gives light information, and to those who request in-depth knowledge she directs them to her contact Chaz while protecting him. The two of them are strangely close, sharing a platonic relationship.
Air Manipulation
Unbeknownst to most, Morgana is able to manipulate air the same way her nephew Arcturus manipulates water. Her focus is a secret, but she is able to use the wind to silence her footsteps and uses it as a way to help her scale walls and keep her feet light. She has never mentioned this to anyone, preferring that no one knows her secret to her skills as a thief.
