Mabel

This character is retired, and is no longer in play.

Gilded Age Sailing
Portrayed by Georgie Henley
Name: Mabel Hawker
Aliases: 'Hawkes' 'Skipper'
Birthday: Feb 10, 1921
Position: Gryffindor
Lineage: Half-blood

Description

A young lady of perhaps sixteen years, Mabel is a girl of average height, medium red-brown hair swept back somewhat into loose curls. Just growing into a fashionable figure, her blue eyes and average features might seem plain, though served fairly well by a touch of makeup and some attention to her hair: there's a hint of the aristocracy in her slightly-uneven upturned nose and the arch of her brows, though a dusting of tan on her fair skin and a limber strength of carriage hint at perhaps a sporting lifestyle.

She wears some nicely-made Hogwarts school robes, a school uniform in grey woolens trimmed in Gryffindor colors of red and gold, along with a black over-robe lined in Gryffindor red: Generally kept tidily early in the day, and more-casually-worn with shirt-tails out in the later afternoons, her uniform, and the recurring scuffs in practical, but well-made shoes, carry a notion of a fairly active girl accustomed to casually trying to keep herself put-together.

Background

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Mabel Clarice Hawker is the daughter of Madeline Yaxley, (one of three sisters from the old Pureblood Aberdeen Yaxleys,) and Charlie Hawker: a sporting, adventurous Canadian shipping tycoon. As Madeline's sister Lilian had decided to marry a Muggle-born, 'Maddie,' a somewhat flapperish Gryffindor, determined to escape the family strife by taking a post overseas with the Department of International Magical Cooperation. There, caught up in the lavish aristocratic Muggle lifestyle of the Roaring Twenties, she'd meet the dashing Mr. Hawker at the Newport yacht races. The two would soon find themselves with an infant Witch along on their frequent junkets and adventures: Mabel spending her young life moving between between Halifax, Newport, and Bristol, she'd come to consider the family's sailing yacht to be a true home, particularly as world-spanning summer adventures were the times spent with her otherwise-busy father.

The Crash of 1929 would reduce the opulence of their lifestyle, not enough to curtail their summer-yachting ways, but the Newport mansion would be sold off, and the little family settled into a more modest estate outside Bristol. There, Mabel would come to school age astride the Muggle and Wizarding worlds, while her Muggle relations took charge of the Halifax end of the business. This change would tie her family more closely back to Aberdeen, where her father's 'new money' shipbuilding interests and her ties to the wizarding aristocracy often brush uncomfortably-close. Meanwhile, as tensions and coming war in the North Atlantic promise uncertain times for the family's fortunes, Mabel's mother hopes to reconcile with her relatives, and prove to the Yaxleys that the Hawkers are worthy of note.

Mabel, from her early Hogwarts years, would somewhat emulate her mother's attitudes toward the Wizarding world: always testing boundaries of respectable aristocratic eccentricity, particularly with regards to Muggle influences and fashions, though Madeline Hawker herself would grow somewhat more restrained in this very regard. The Gryffindor girl, trying to live up to what she saw as the best of both worlds, would therefore find herself gravitating toward whatever challenges might suitably prove some worthiness. As such, Nearly Headless Nick took an interest in Mabel's adventuresome spirit and encouraged in the girl, perhaps a little too much, something of his own quixotic knightly chivalry. The House ghost has rarely failed to cheer Mabel, even in the face of various failures and missteps: as such she's taken that version of 'Gryffindor spirit' to heart, albeit in her own 'modern' sort of way.

Passing school years would find that though occasionally struggling with some aspects of her classwork, she's grown into a dab hand at the more-active pursuits of a Witch's life, becoming a rising star in the Duelling club and perennial Quidditch reservist. (Though with good aptitudes as a Beater, her mother finds this a little too-unladylike, and insists on both good marks in class and some more-refined activities before allowing her on the team.) Still an avid flyer, (both of brooms and enchanted sailing ships,) sailor, and orienteer, Mabel's proud to be able to navigate by the stars, (Astronomy being one of her classes,) and been up in a Muggle airplane: she's a fan of the popular celebrity aviatrixes, magical and Muggle. Dreaming of accomplishing feats of such daring and exploration herself one day, she's found a personal heroine in Jocunda Sykes, the first to fly across the Atlantic on a broom in 1935, and even named her owl 'Earhart.'

Concerns for a Muggle world approaching the brink of great upheavals remain close to her thoughts and concerns, even as her mother seems to prefer she'd groom herself for the relative safety of the wizarding world.

Wand

Rowan and halcyon feather, 11", resilient.

(A reasonably-stout, gently tapered affair of reddish rowan-wood, with a darker-finished, diamond-chequered haft and brass lanyard ring somewhat reminiscent of a British revolver from the Great War.)


Pet

Earhart, a northern Great Horned owl that Mabel's particularly close to, though he often affects a rather Jeeves-like manner.

RP Hooks

  • Rampant. Pureblood. Half-Blooding: Mabel comes from a rather divided branch of the Aberdeen Yaxleys, and despite her mother having run off and married a new-money Muggle from Canada, Mabel's related to several of the old pureblood families. (There must be a male Yaxley cousin or two, likely a Slytherin.) Rather than disown her mother Madeline and burn her from the family tree, (Being more concerned with males to carry on the name,) the Yaxleys seem to have decided to treat her marriage to a Muggle as a protracted eccentricity she might one day grow out of. Maddie sees fit to make an occasional appearance at certain Wizarding high society functions, sometimes with Mabel in tow, playing on just such a premise.
  • Muggle Connections: Mabel's father is in ship-owning and ship-building, with interests in Bristol, Nova Scotia, and Aberdeen, and as such has widespread business dealings in that arena, and soon, increasingly, with military interests. Mabel has Canadian cousins in the business, some in the Canadian armed services, or soon to be, though they're ignorant of the wizarding world, at least so far as Mabel knows.
  • Bristol Fashionable: The family's modest cliff-side estate at #2 Zig Zag Walk, (Prince Lane, Clifton, to Muggles) is an old house perched on a series of terraces between the Avon River shipping channel and the well-to-do Sion Hill area of Bristol: concealed wizarding-world entrances aside, Mabel's family hides in plain sight, appropriate to her father's position and mother's avant-garde ways: there's possibilities for various staff and helpers and perennial yachting crew: Bristol as a port city and near to RAF and other interests, there's plenty of potential connections there, as well as with local wizarding people.
  • Mummy's School Days: Born about at the turn of the century, and graduating in the Great War years, Maddie Yaxley would be known as a fun-loving, eccentric young socialite from Gryffindor: to some, a blood-traitor: to others, 'the same old Maddie,' only now she's got a daughter coming of age, since she had Mabel rather young by some Wizarding standards.

Logs

Logs featuring Mabel Logs that refer to Mabel

Quirks

  • Nautically-obsessed
  • Nearly-Headless Nick Groupie
  • Plucky
  • Wealth: Rich

Relationships

Lois

Lois
First cousin, fellow Gryffindor, and classmate, Lois is the eldest daughter of another tradition-breaking Yaxley sister, and the two might seem a slightly-mismatched pair of bookends, Lois continually trying to help her more-athletic and quixotic sister fit in as a traditionally ladylike witch… to the extent Mabel can, that is.

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Madeline Hawker (nee Yaxley)
Mother. Mellowing flapper and prodigal daughter of Clarissa Yaxley. Maddie, a perennial liason for the Ministry in International Magical Cooperation, and treads certain lines of upper-class eccentricity in both worlds: hoping to come to some reconciliation between her sisters, she sometimes sends mixed signals about how much Mabel ought to emulate her.

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Charlie Hawker
Father. Muggle shipping magnate and yachting enthusiast. Rather dotes on Mabel when business allows, encouraging interests that keep her interested in the Muggle world, despite getting a kick out of having witches in the family, particularly the Owl Post, which he uses frequently to keep Mabel up to date on the shipping news.

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