Gadget Girl |
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Portrayed by Emily Browning |
Name: | Hephaesta Aphrodilia Mulciber |
Aliases: | Phae |
Birthday: | 3 February, 1923 |
Position: | Inventor |
Lineage: | Pure-blood |
"Wizards have to break numerous rules of the universe to perform magic, Hephaesta. Muggles create amazing things without breaking a single one. Remember that, and greatness is in your grasp." — Fabrio Mulciber, in one of his more lucid moments
Hephaesta (heh-fes'-tuh) understands machines and artifacts better than she understands people. She does crave human interaction. She just isn't always sure how to get it. As a result, she tends to come off as quirky and weird. She has a truly gifted mind, and like many intelligent people, she is thinking on a different level that impacts her social skills. This also extends to her affinity with animals — or rather, her complete lack thereof.
Most of Phae's private time is spent either nose-deep in a book, or tinkering with some new gadget or creation — many of which have had unintended side-effects…or simply exploded. It isn't that she is careless. Rather, she likes to push the boundaries of commonly accepted artifice theory, even frequently incorporating Muggle technology or concepts into her inventions. Sometimes the results are spectacular…sometimes just spectacularly explosive.
Wand
8 3/4 inches, willow, slightly firm, with a dragon heart-string core.

Pet
Hephaesta does not have a traditional animal companion, instead favoring Gizmo, her clockwork owl. See "Magical Gadgets," below.

Mulciber Family
The Mulcibers are well known as arteficers and inventors.

Description
Standing just over five feet tall, Phae doesn't present an imposing figure. She has a round, cherubic face dotted with light freckles over her nose and cheeks. She has inquisitive hazel-green eyes, and full lips frequently formed into a curious "O". Her auburn hair generally has a windblown look, which she tries to control with braids. Nonetheless, she always seems to be blowing loose strands out of her face.
Phae was born with a lame left leg, just like her father. The birth defect is beyond magic's ability to heal. So she wears a special clockwork leg brace that allows her walk normally. She still has a slight limp, running is difficult, and she clicks and whirs as she moves, but otherwise she gets around alright.

Phae in Fourth Year, sporting the first iteration of her Site-Rite Goggles
Background
The spark of invention has been the hallmark of the pure-blood Mulciber line for countless generations. Very few of these notable artificers have served the Ministry, as the Mulcibers have generally resisted efforts to regulate the creation of magical artifacts, believing it stifles innovation. Every generation of Mulcibers has produced at least one talented artificer to meet the demand for the excellence the family is known for.
Hephaesta first demonstrated her gift at age 7 when, in a burst of uncontrolled magic, she inadvertently charmed a Muggle typewriter to intercept the messages of passing owls in the vicinity. Naturally, the Ministry of Magic was alarmed, and quickly confiscated the typewriter. As she grew, she was drawn to machines of all types, delighting in disassembling and reassembling them (often in a totally new configuration). Her father, Vulcanio, was delighted, and provided her with an endless supply of gadgets and doodads, of both wizard and Muggle origins, to play with.
By the time Phae was old enough to attend Hogwarts, she already had an intuitive understanding of technology and magical artifacts. She had even read Muggle books on mechanics and physics, and though much of it was still over her head, she had a basic grasp of physical laws…and how to break them with magic.

Phae in her Seventh Year at Hogwarts
From her first day at school, she demonstrated a keen grasp of the magic of locomotion, quickly taking to most any spell involving manipulating physical objects and getting things from here to there. Levitation, broom riding, summoning spells…they were Phae's playground.
As a First Year, Phae was largely invisible. Not literally, but she may as well have been. She was far more concerned with her books and gadgets than with people, and for the most part, others were just fine with ignoring her. By her Second Year, Hephaesta started to come out of her shell a bit. As her inventions garnered attention, she was interacting more and more with other students. By her Third Year, she had earned a bit of a reputation as "that girl with the funny toys." But this was also when some people started to notice her natural skill on a broom, when she was performing impact tests on her long-standing mechanical owl project (it started as a flight test…but, well, it didn't fly). There were overtures from the Ravenclaw Quidditch team, and Phae soon found herself as a second-string Seeker…with no Quidditch experience whatsoever. Still, as far as she was concerned, this meant she just gained a slew of new friends. Being Ravenclaws, they were even somewhat receptive to her efforts to apply arithmantic formulae to analyze their plays.
During the summer after Phae's Third Year at Hogwarts, she was especially industrious. Her father helped her secure an apprenticeship in the creative laboratories of Macnair Magical Manufacturing, where she expanded her applied knowledge of magical artifice by leaps and bounds. Her experience gave her new insights that finally led to a working prototype of her magical clockwork owl, Gizmo. She also practiced at Quidditch, to better help her team in the upcoming school year.
Through her years at Hogwarts, Phae proved herself as a valuable member of the Ravenclaw Quidditch team, but in her Seventh Year she chose to leave the team to focus on her studies. Though her genius became well known, she tended to keep her head down, always being a presence in the background rather than one of the stars of her house.
Quirks
Lame Leg | Phae's left leg was born twisted and weak, and she requires a leg brace to walk semi-normally. |
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Machine Whisperer | Machinery seems to "speak" to Phae, and she to it. She has a natural intuition for technology of any kind, be it wizard, goblin, or Muggle in origin. |
Animal Enmity | Animals just don't seem to like Phae very much. |
Socially Awkward | She's always had a hard time understanding how other people think, which has led to more than a few misunderstandings. |
Wealth: Rich | The Mulcibers are an old pure-blood family, and do quite well for themselves by selling inventions and collecting royalties on their patents. |
RP Hooks
- Though she has graduated, Phae is spending the summer of 1941 at Hogwarts, working on some sort of special project in the castle.
- Known for her weird mechanical "toys".
- Her grandfather, Fabrio Mulciber, is cared for in the Long-Term Residence Ward of St. Mungo's.
- Family's country home is in Surrey County, but they also maintain a London townhouse at 51 Chilworth St. in Bayswater.
- Phae was the Seeker for the Ravenclaw Quidditch team in the 1938-39 school year.
School Performance
Classes | Year 1 | Year 2 | Year 3 | Year 4 | Year 5 | Year 6 | Year 7 |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Astronomy | E | E | E | E | E | ||
Charms | O | O | O | O | O | O | O |
Defence Against the Dark Arts | A | E | E | A | A | ||
Herbology | P | A | A | E | E | ||
History of Magic | E | E | E | E | E | ||
Potions | E | E | O | O | E | E | O |
Transfiguration | O | O | O | O | O | O | O |
Flying | O | ||||||
Arithmancy | O | O | O | O | O | ||
Muggle Studies | O | O | O | O | O | ||
Study of Ancient Runes | E | E | E |
Magical Gadgets
- Clockwork Leg Brace
- This device is based largely on Muggle science, though it is charmed to make it lighter and more comfortable to wear.
- Gizmo the Clockwork Owl
- A clockwork owl, fully functional and capable as a messenger. In fact, Gizmo can go further than other owls, as he never gets tired or sick. He has another benefit as well: a wizard-space storage compartment in his torso, allowing for larger and heavy items to be sent via owl post. Gizmo is a thinking machine, with intelligence roughly equal to a normal owl. His creation was only made possible with the aid of the engineers at Macnair Manufacturing.
- Wand Buffer
- Phae debuted these little devices at a Hogwarts craft faire in her Second Year. They look like brass eggs, until one end opens up to reveal that inside, half of the egg is actually a buffing pad that vibrates and spins automatically to polish a Wizard's wand. It can actually be used to polish most anything, giving it a lustrous shine.
- Wand Buffer, Version 2
- The new iteration of the wand buffer is an elongated device intended to remain stationary. The wand is placed inside, and automatically rotated while spinning buffing pads with Polishing Charms worked into them move up and down along the wand, bringing it to a gleaming shine while a busy wizard is otherwise occupied.
- Site-Rite™ Goggles
- Phae's safety goggles are actually much more than mere protective eyewear. They enhance what she is looking at in a variety of ways, including microscopic and telescopic vision, and seeing clearly through normal obstructions, such as darkness, smoke, fog, rain, etc. Phae insists that they may even be able to penetrate lesser invisibility and obfuscation spells, if she could ever calibrate them just right.
- Clockwork Heart Pendant
- This one-of-a-kind piece was made for Ophelia. Close inspection reveals that this pendant is actually a collection of tiny cogs and gears — such as one would find in a pocketwatch — arranged in the shape of a heart. Two additional pieces of metal form a pair of wings. When a small key on the back of the pendant is wound, the entire this starts to move, gears spinning in an intricate dance, and the wings slowly flap.
- Bubble Thruster
- Though she only has a miniature prototype at the present time, this could be Phae's most ingenious development yet. A thruster engine, based loosely on the Muggle jet engine, but which produces thrust created by an Ever-Bubbling Potion contained inside a pressure system. As a result, it has the whimsical effect of leaving a trail of iridescent bubbles in its wake. Intended to be attached to brooms to improve speed and power.
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Ophelia's Clockwork Heart Pendant |
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Site-Rite Goggles, Mark II |
Logs
Logs featuring Hephaesta | Logs that refer to Hephaesta |
Relationships
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Josie |
Gallery
