Chapter 11:

By A Thread: Teddy, Donzo, Maurice, Corky

By A Thread
Teddy Lupin: Shapeshifter
Part 2 of 16

If you are reading the Charmer at home, here is what you know about Ted Remus Lupin:

Born to war heroes Remus Lupin and Nymphadora (Tonks) Lupin, who died in battle only two weeks later, Ted (perhaps you have heard enough to think of him as "Teddy") is the godson of Harry Potter, with whom he has frequently been seen since infancy. You may have heard of a confrontation he had with Fenrir Greyback - the werewolf who had attacked his father in childhood - four years ago. Beyond that, if you are of a particular age, you may have known one of his parents in school, or been a student of the much-beloved (if short term) Professor Lupin, of Defense Against the Dark Arts. He is a person of some interest, if you're interested in the war history, but no one of any great moment on his own.

If you are reading the Charmer at school, there are other things you're more likely to think of when the subject of Teddy Lupin comes up:

He is the only Gryffindor in seventh year, the fine thread holding the two sides of the war together in the House that took the greatest number of casualties. This, of course, makes him a prefect, but he is in all likelihood the one you want to catch you, as he tends to forget that he can dock points. He is at the center of any school crisis, from fires in the Forbidden Forest to escaped werewolves to accidentally released plagues. Older students think of him as a flirt, younger ones as a mentor. Oh, and he's a Metamorphmagus, who changes his hair color on a whim and morphs different faces for anyone who asks, if he's not busy. In all, a fun, kindly sort of person who's always doing something interesting.

For those in the seventh year, Teddy Lupin is, quite simply, the one who defines our years at Hogwarts.

This is not written lightly, nor on single authority. With a single exception - other than Teddy - the members of the year were surprised that the assessment was even at issue.

Perhaps it was partly a function of his status as the only member of his House in his year, but from the start, Teddy moved freely among the Houses - yes, my own Slytherin House as well - and because of that, we were all drawn together. It was also a function of his personality and his odd predilection for getting into the thick of anything that was happening. Those in other years may think that there was a glamor attached to him being Harry Potter's godson, but in truth, we all lost interest in that early on. It was simply that Teddy would do something, and the rest of us would find ourselves, in one way or another, carried along in the current.

Teddy himself is not impressed with this analysis, claiming that it "makes [him] sound like a force of nature" rather than a person, and that he certainly never intended to make anyone feel pulled along.

"I'm not anything particularly special," he says. "Just Teddy."

Perhaps so, but "Just Teddy," even before Hogwarts, hadn't had a life that most of us would take as average.

After the death of his parents, he was raised in the care of his grandmother, Andromeda (Black) Tonks, a representative of the divided Black family - cousin of Sirius and Regulus Black, sister of Bellatrix Lestrange and Narcissa Malfoy... and wife of Muggle-born Seer and Healer Ted Tonks, for whom Teddy was named. Andromeda Tonks invited the young Harry Potter to stay in her home after the war, and it was in this environment that Teddy spent his early years, until Potter married Quidditch star Ginevra Weasley and moved to London. The two families remain close.

The Tonks home is full of books, plants, and memories, all of which color Teddy's recollections. "I was happy," he said. "I knew I didn't have my parents, but you don't really know what that means when you're very small. Granny and Uncle Harry took care of me, and loved me, and... well, that's really what you need at when you're little, isn't it? Someone to trust."

But those around him know that, even at eleven, his happiness was pulled over anger, like a sheet over a corpse. By the middle of our first year, he'd become involved in a search we didn't understand at the time, for traces of his parents and their friends. Of this, he will still tell almost nothing, though it's difficult to miss the wedding ring he wears on a chain around his neck - found that year, frozen into the mud under the north battlements, where his father fell in battle. He refuses to discuss how he found it, giving an uncharacteristically cool smile and saying, cryptically, "It was a bit of Magical Mischief." Later that year, he nearly died in a fire in the Forbidden Forest (complicated by an attack of the Red Caps which, at the time, still plagued the school).

By third year, it was becoming obvious that he'd inherited some of his grandfather's skill as a Seer, though he largely rejects the term. "I can't tell fortunes," he says. "I can't See who's killing people, and I've never been able to predict anything useful to keeping myself or anyone else out of trouble." When asked what he does do - in regard, particularly, to the discovery of the Brimmann pirate treasure - he frowns deeply, then shakes his head and says, "I can't say. It's just - " He rolls his eyes at the suggestion of the word "Seeing."

As to his future, most people not close to him have assumed he would take up teaching. It is a skill he has very clearly inherited from his father, and one from which his school friends have benefited immensely. But teaching is not a career that calls him. "My father was Professor Lupin," he says. "And he was quite good enough at it that I don't need to try and outdo him." Nor is he interested in "outdoing" his mother, an Auror. Instead, his searches have led him to the Department of Mysteries, where he will apprentice on the condition that he earns the requisite N.E.W.T.s.

There is, of course, one last question that must be asked of a Metamorphmagus: What on Earth do you really look like?

He sighs, and says, "Well, it's a deep secret, but as you've managed to be polite... I suppose..."

He makes a great show of effort, contorting his face as he is almost never seen doing. A green patch disappears from his brown hair, and waves crop up.

There are no other changes.

"I didn't say it was a big secret," he says.

By A Thread
Donzo McCormack: A Roll of the Dice
Part 3 of 16

Perhaps it's the way he saunters in with a grin, or turns the chair around like a dancer twirling a prop. Maybe it's the way he sits on it backward, chin resting on his hand. Whatever it is, one thing is clear: Donald McCormack-Duke knows how to handle an interview.

This is hardly surprising - Donzo McCormack has been performing since he was ten years old, and has been interviewed by fan magazines in sixteen countries since then. His first headlining tour this summer was sold out in most of his American venues, and he hasn't gone more than three months between hits in the three years since the release of "Into the Gray," a rock ballad that earned both critical acclaim and a substantial profit. His latest hit, "Mask," has been used as an introduction to Lee Jordan's "WizardWatch" radio show for the last two months.

Given all this, he has kept a relatively low profile at Hogwarts - Head Boy and consistently near the top of the year, but otherwise a quiet presence, known for his measured and thoughtful responses in class, and his proclivity for joining the long-running game of Muggles and Minions with his friends in Hufflepuff. "That's where 'Into the Gray' came from," he says. "No one believes it, but the whole thing came from an adventure out on the moors, and the bits about rolling dice to find our fate were actually about rolling dice." He shrugs. "Maybe the critics are right, if they take it to another level and decide that the whole game is metaphorical, but they won't even believe me that the song came from a game, which seems strange to me, as lyrics are poetry, and poetry is about taking the mundane and making it profound." He gives a bright, rock star smile, as if to discount the talk of poetry and metaphor. "What do I know, though?"

Born two months after the Ministry of Magic fell to Voldemort, Donzo is the eldest student in the smallest year. Born in the United States - the city of Asheville, North Carolina, to be precise - he is also one of the handful of survivors of the Death Eaters' plans at St. Mungo's.

"My mother was Muggle-born," he says. "She was called in by Healers, before anyone knew what was happening, and she went. They said something might be wrong. But when she got there, she was forced into a room where they planned to terminate her pregnancy before she was taken in front of the Muggle-born Registration Commission. Luckily, word had leaked out to some American operatives - in fact, to a group of them masquerading as a band, called the Pondhoppers - and they spirited her away. I was born at their compound in Asheville, and I spent the first five years of my life in the States - sometimes in Asheville, but mainly touring with the bands, as the Pondhoppers joined my father's band, the Weird Sisters, for quite a long time. We're still very close." He looks out the window. "I think that my parents had considered staying there. They wouldn't be the only ones, I suppose. But my grandmother and my aunt were here, and they promised it was all right to come home. I think Dad missed going to their Quidditch games."

Donzo's grandmother, of course, is Catriona McCormack, and his aunt is Meghan McCormack, both of whom played for the Pride of Portree. His father, Kirley, has habitually used the patronym Duke. "It's confusing," Donzo admits. "Legally, Dad and Aunt Meg are both 'McCormack Duke,' and so am I. My grandparents had a really odd arrangement that way, since Nana doesn't have any brothers. Aunt Meg went by McCormack, and Dad went by Duke. When I started performing, Dad let me choose. I decided on McCormack, since 'Donald Duke,' as I was reminded on my first day at Hogwarts, sounds unfortunately close to the name of a cartoon waterfowl." He grins. "Does that solve the great mystery?"

His childhood, aside from performing and touring, was isolated. The only child in his own family, or in the social circle of the two bands, he claims not to have met another child until he arrived at Hogwarts. "It's true," he says. "I think the youngest person I knew was one of the roadies, who taught me how to play Muggles and Minions. Other than that, the only thing I knew about other kids was in the fan mail I sometimes got. None of the others in the band had children until Donaghan Tremlett's wife had a baby last year. So I had this huge complex at Weird World, and they all built it around anything they thought a child might like, and I had all the attention of half a dozen adults, and, as you might expect, I didn't come here having much of an idea how to relate to anyone else in the year. I kept accidentally name-dropping, and talking about things that didn't make sense to anyone else. Thank God Frankie Apcarne had a Muggles and Minions game going, or I probably never would have learned."

Whatever his social flaws, they never translated to his classes. A scion of a long line of Ravenclaws, from the start, he immersed himself in school work, making a name for himself in Charms and Transfiguration, and - to the puzzlement of his classmates - History of Magic. He shrugs at this. "What can I say? I like history. Is that a crime?"

When asked what being a part of the smallest year has meant to him, he grows thoughtful. "It was an awakening," he finally answers. "Standing there, at the shore of the lake, with only four little boats aside from Hagrid's, seeing the others, knowing that it wasn't just my strange life that kept me from knowing anyone my age... it really brought things home. What in the hell did we do to ourselves here?" He shakes his head. "But at the same time, there's a sense of family that I think we have, just because there are so few of us. I think that having so few people made it possible for all of us to see each other as individuals. I can't even imagine a Gryffindor-Ravenclaw hex war in our year, and not just because of the lopsided numbers. It just wouldn't work. There aren't enough of us to support anything like that. You need more than fifteen people before you can split up into tribes."

As to the future, he is sanguine about his continued music career. "I have what I need, even if I never have another hit," he says. "But I like what I do, and other people seem to like what I do, so I don't think I'll be retiring any time soon. And as a bonus, it doesn't require a single N.E.W.T., so I'm free to study whatever I like for as long as I like. I just submitted a paper to Challenges in Charming on the character of the Patronus charm and its corporeal shapes, and I got an encouraging reply. I hope that means that I'll be able to keep studying while I sing. I'd like that, I think." He winks. "It's a roll of the dice."

By A Thread
Maurice Burke: Minding Our Own Shop
Part 4 of 16

"Yes," Maurice Burke said nervously on his first night at Hogwarts, "as in Borgin and." This is a matter he discharges as quickly as possible on any first meeting, rather like explaining away an embarrassing skin condition.

But although the untimely death of his cousin earlier this year leaves him in line to inherit the infamous Diagon Alley shop, Maurice is quite adamant in his refusal to have anything to do with it. "I don't feel 'never' is an extreme enough position," he answers when asked if his interest in it was likely to kindle.

Quiet, small, and unassuming, Maurice seems an unlikely choice as a House champion - let alone a champion of Slytherin House, which to the world outside of Slytherin often stands for the very same things the shop does - but from the start, Maurice has been fully devoted to his House, and to its rehabilitation. From first year on, he's spearheaded an effort to keep Slytherin out of the troubles that have plagued it in the past, beginning with his admonition that Slytherin House would now solve its own problems. Raising an eyebrow and giving one of his rare, ironic grins, he says, "Perhaps I should have said that we'd be minding our own shop from now on."

The Burkes are an old Slytherin family, of course - Maurice's parents, Henry and Salvina (Selwyn) Burke, were both Slytherins, as were several generations on either side. Henry Burke saw his own father, uncle, and grandfather killed in the first uprising by the followers of Voldemort, and survived only because his quick thinking Slytherin mother feigned her own death and that of the two children she was responsible for - Henry and his now-orphaned cousin, Veradisia. The three remaining Burkes took shelter in Muggle London, in a flat secured for them through Mr. Borgin's influence (Maurice wrinkles his nose at the necessity of revealing this). After the war, the cousins grew up together, and Veradisia took a post at the shop whilst Henry apprenticed as a book-keeper at Gringotts.

When the second war began (as is now generally acknowledged) with the death of Cedric Diggory, Henry wasted no time on the Ministry's official version of that event. Veradisia had overheard Hogwarts students in Diagon Alley sharing Albus Dumbledore and Harry Potter's version, and both cousins decided it would be wise to absent themselves from the country. Veradisia's job made her disappearance quite easy, as she traveled regularly, but Henry needed to uproot himself and his young wife. He didn't hesitate to do so, and got as far away from Britain as he could. He found a post keeping books for a Muggle inn on the Falkland Islands, and promptly removed there. It was there, in the wild and remote South Atlantic islands, that Maurice and his brother Wendell were born, and remained until Maurice's eighth year.

"Dad just realized that there wasn't much of a wizarding community in Stanley - one old witch who kept chickens, really, and that was it - and that Wendell and I were growing up without meeting any other wizards. He and Mum had to keep their magic to a minimum as well, to keep from being noticed, though we sometimes did take holidays to wizarding sites. When he and Mum started thinking about school, they decided that it was time for us to get used to England. I was terrified at first. There are so many people!" He got used to the crowds quickly enough, and by the time he got to school, he'd become rather adept at reading people, much to the discomfort of some members of his House who have found themselves on the receiving end of his cool stares. He also early demonstrated a nearly eerie knowledge of the familial interrelationships in the wizarding world.

"Oh, that," he says with a snort. "Well, I did spend most of the first year back at the shop, listening to Borgin natter on. I didn't have anywhere else to go while my parents were at their jobs. He always knew how everyone was connected to everyone else. There were books of it in back. It was about the only thing that interested me there. I'd just pore over those books for hours. It's really too bad that people like Voldemort and the Blacks - well, some of them - gave that sort of thing a bad name, because it really is interesting, knowing that a person you've never seen before may have the same ancestors as you do. Plus, it's always fun to tie the snootier ones to their less exalted cousins."

In school, Maurice has been solidly in the middle of the year, excelling in Defense Against the Dark Arts and Arithmancy, but, as he puts it, "plodding along solidly enough" in his other classes. "I'm good with numbers and gold," he says. "I know business, and I'm quite good at working out deals that go to everyone's advantage, but none of those are taught for O.W.L.s or N.E.W.T.s. Since that's what I mean to do - I'm already managing financial matters for a singer we all know and are exasperated with from time to time, and I've got a few more clients in the wings when I leave school - I don't really have to excel on any of the other classes. I'll have a few N.E.W.T.s, and it's enough. I don't feel any need to complain about it being impossible to take a dozen classes these days."

Has his passion for changing Slytherin faded since first year? He talks about it less than he once did, but he emphatically denies any lessening of urgency. "It's not really about changing Slytherin," he says. "It's about changing what people think of when they think of Slytherin. There was never a time when every Slytherin was somehow practicing the Dark Arts, but some of our more prominent members have certainly made it difficult to downplay that. I just want to keep the Dark Arts out of Slytherin House. Be as Slytherin as you want to be - there's nothing wrong with a good dose of ambition and cunningness - but for God's sake, you don't have to be evil. There's a difference, trust me. Evil isn't just another word for 'alternative methods.' I want people to think of Slytherin House as - well, not evil. I suppose as... a House full of people who can get things done." He shrugs. "That's not going to happen if we don't absolutely sever the connection between the House and the Dark Arts." He smiles faintly. "So I'll have to continue minding the shop, won't I?"

By A Thread
Corky Atkinson: A Normal Life
Part 5 of 16

It's difficult to miss Corin Atkinson - at six feet, six inches in height, he towers over most other students and teachers. His easy, fair-minded manner as a prefect have earned him the affection of younger students, like third year Neil Overby, who says, "Corky's everyone's big brother, but especially mine. I can always tell him anything."

"He said that?" Corky asks, looking pleased. "That's cool. I never was anyone's big brother. I think of myself as a little brother. And I promise, my sister thinks of me that way, too, and never lets me forget it."

In fact, when asked what his most important role is, he is quick to say that it is being a brother to his beloved older sister Tessa, a Squib who attends a Muggle university in southern Ontario and plans to become an actress. Tessa is equally devoted to him. "Are you kidding me?" she asks. "Before he turned into a giant, he was about the size of a pygmy puff, and someone had to scare off the neighborhood bullies."

Unlike the other seventh year students who were born abroad, Corky didn't land in Canada as the endpoint of a daring rescue, or as a precaution taken by parents whose foresight was sharper than most. His mother, Eleanor Gamp, married Corin "Hutch" Atkinson in 1990, and the family had been living in Wychwood, Ontario, for several years when the war broke out. While the events may have been a matter of discussion in the Atkinson home, there had never been a plan to return to Britain in the first place, so there wasn't anything for the war to disrupt.

"We had a normal life," Corky says. "I went to a Muggle school as soon as I learned to control my accidental magic - I couldn't have been older than six - and I played sports, wizard and Muggle. We watched Quidditch in Toronto, and Flooed down to Buffalo a few times a year to catch Quadpot games. I played a little Quadpot with some friends, and a lot of hockey. We travelled a little bit, saw a few things. Dad liked to fish, but we never did catch much. When I was eight, Mom bought a cabin on Lake Erie so we could go there in the summers. I was really little, and I sometimes got into fights, but there was never anything bad." So why come to Hogwarts, instead of attending Snowleaf, the well-regarded Canadian school of witchcraft and wizardry in Nunavut? "I flipped a coin when the letters came," Corky says, then amends, "Oh, fine, my mother said that she got a lot of detention at Hogwarts, and I couldn't imagine a place where my well-behaved mother would always get detention. She forgot to tell me that she was a hellion when she was here."

"Hellion" may be something of a strong word, but Eleanor Gamp's name is found in more than one of the detention files kept by Argus Filch - considerably more files than her son's name. Corky hasn't, in his time at Hogwarts, been particularly prone to the trouble his friends and yearmates have got into, and has rarely had more than one detention in a year.

"Quite disappointing, really," he says. "But the opportunities just didn't come up often, even with Teddy, Maurice, Donzo, and certain editors of school papers tugging me toward trouble." He winks.

He is an odd sort of Slytherin - not only not prone to trouble, but also known for his fair-mindedness and honesty. He admits that the Sorting Hat initially considered placing him in Hufflepuff, and is not entirely sure why it ultimately chose Slytherin. "My mother was a Slytherin," he muses, "but not all of the Gamps have been. Maybe the Hat just realized that, if there's a short way and a long way to do a job, presuming that the outcomes are equal, I'll always choose the short way. 'Work smarter, not harder,' isn't really a Hufflepuff motto." In the end, he admits that he just doesn't know.

As a student, he has excelled in Defense Against the Dark Arts and Ancient Runes, but has gained the most attention as a fact-checker for the Weekly Charmer, a capacity he has served in for most of his six and a half years at Hogwarts, after an unfortunate incident of misquoting in an early issue necessitated the creation of that position. Does this suggest a future in journalism?

"Not a chance in hell." He grins broadly. "I'll leave that to my more esteemed colleagues; it's up their alley. After this year, I'm putting up my little magnifying glass and getting out of the newspaper business."

What he does plan to do with his life is more of a mystery, and one he hasn't frequently discussed. He winces when the subject comes up. "This is where I prove I'm a particularly bad Slytherin. I didn't have any grand plan going into my O.W.L.s - I just wanted to see how I'd do, and then take the N.E.W.T.s, only the ones I did well in don't really match each other." Surely, he has some notion. "Oh, I have an idea," he said. "I can think of certain parties in my life who might not like it, though, so I'll keep it to myself until I'm sure."

Some light might be shed on the mystery by owls arriving nearly every week bearing the Snowleaf seal. Though he momentarily argues that the letters are private, he finally concedes that nearly everyone at the Slytherin table has already seen them. "Well," he says, "I guess the secret's out. I'm going to coach a hockey team made up of enchanted caribou. Snowleaf meant to keep it a secret, it's going to be a great fundraiser." He grins, and doesn't offer a more realistic explanation, though the receipt of letters from a school during a time when seventh years are seeking apprenticeships would suggest nothing less honorable than a future in teaching, to which it is hardly possible for "other parties" to object.

"Even in Nunavut?" he asks, raising his eyebrows.

This, on the other hand, could give them second thoughts.