Morag is very likely the most cranky person to ever be an Unspeakable. Please, whatever you do, do not ask her if she's ever been in love just because she works in that division. She has a homophobic streak as wide as the Atlantic ocean. Self-loathing is the new black, after all. Her rank of Ice Queen, however, is in dire jeopardy as Rabbit Tuor has taken to serious measures of induced thawing. Luckily for everyone else, if he's successful she'll simply evaporate and never be seen again.
Morag Sorcha MacDougal[]
Nicknames/Aliases: Mor, but pretty much only if you're related to her. Occasionally Mac if someone is feeling unoriginal or lazy. Mac is safer to use than Mor, though. Colleagues probably prefer to use things like Ice Queen behind her back.
Age: 27
Date of Birth: 25 August, 1980
Blood: Pure-blood
Alumni: Ravenclaw
Wand:' Myrtle, dragon heartstring, 11 3/4", supple.
Occupation: Unspeakable in the Love division. Morag spends much of her time working on love-related potions and compounds and studying their effects. She has also been studying how love develops and the effects of love on behaviour and physiology.
Home: She lives in a small flat in a small Wizarding area of Lockerbie, Scotland, furnished mainly with items purchased at second-hand stores.
Finances: Middle-class, as far as her paycheck goes. She lives comfortably and tries not to have to have to borrow money from her parents or her brother.
Household: Morag lives alone and likes it like that, for the most part.
Family[]
Mother: Iona MacDougal, nee Fairbairn (62) - organizes benefit dinners and other fund raising events for Wizarding charities in Scotland. A little obsessive about her house keeping; the family doesn't have House Elves because Iona insists that only a human could do it correctly.
Father: Alasdair MacDougal (70) - very successful solicitor and head of his own firm. He's Pure-blood through and through, but if you ask him what he is, he'll say, 'A Scot first, a Wizard second.' Not keen on the English in general; he thinks they muck things up too easily..
Siblings:
Mairead McLaughlin (39) - acts as her mother's secretary. Also helps with as much of the house keeping as her mother will let her get away with.
Lindsay MacDougal (33) - solicitor in his father's firm. A soft spoken man who could charm the feathers off a peacock. The only people he doesn't have wrapped around his finger are his sister and his children.
Other family:
Gordan McLaughlin, brother-in-law (43) - solicitor in his father-in-law's firm. Large and quiet and very fond of smoking a pipe.
Bridget MacDougal, nee Morris, sister-in-law (30) - Healer at St. Mungo's.
Isla MacDougal, niece (6)
Thomas MacDougal, nephew (4)
Relationship with each: Parents - Morag is closer to her father than her mother. Despite being a fairly busy solicitor, Alasdair was always more active in his children's lives than Iona, who was the resident workaholic. Morag shares her mother's tendency toward OCD behavior, and when left alone together they never seem quite sure what to say to each other.
Siblings - Morag is closer to her brother than her sister, partly because Mairead was already going to Hogwarts when Morag came along. Lindsay adores his little sister, even if he thinks she a bit odd and the fumes of potions have gone to her head. He'll still pick her up and twirl her around, much to Morag's chagrin. Mairead and Morag mainly commiserate over there mother...on the fairly rare occasions they are together and alone without Iona in the room. Other than that, she's always felt more like a cousin than a sister, someone she spent most of her life seeing only during hols.
In-laws - Morag would chose a visit with Gordon over a visit with Bridget anytime. Gordon is quiet and likes to stay seated when possible - it's makes his height of 6'5" less noticeable - and likes to keep conversation to a minimum and on neutral topics like the weather or the crazy old lady who lives in the house next to his and Mairead's. Bridget, on the other hand, is bubbly and rather loud and overly fond of expounding to Morag the virtues of all the single Healers or solicitors she knows, and of any other single men she may have met since they last spoke.
Niece and nephew - Morag quite liked them during their respective infancies, but now that they're running all over the place, she isn't quite sure what to do with them, though they both adore her. Usually she resorts to giving them small gifts when they see her. She's knows she'll spoil them rotten, but she doesn't plan to have any of her own, so she might as well, right?
External[]
Appearance:Morag has long, slightly wavy brown hair that reaches almost to the middle if her back. She usually keeps it pulled back somehow when she is at work. She has blue-green eyes and a roundish face, though her expression is usually more on the side of severe than cheerful. She prefers robes and has a penchant for wearing mostly one color at a time - all black, all white, all blue, etc. She doesn't wear much make-up. There's no point to it, in her mind
Height: 1.66m (5'5¼")
Weight: On the lower end of average for her height.
Eyes: Blue-green
Hair: Brown
Style of Dress: Professional. Morag mainly wears well-made, off-the-rack robes. Occasionally splurges on something more high end. She has a penchant for brightly colored blouses and likes vests.
Gait: Purposeful and fairly fast. Morag likes to get where she's going quickly and keep things rolling.
Manner of speech: Clipped and concise when at work or around her in-laws; a little more relaxed around her parents and siblings. Her accent is fairly typical of upper-middle class people in Dumfries.
Posture: Morag stands straight and keeps her chin up. She does tend to hunch over a little when she's sitting and working, though.
Typical scent: Various potions and their ingredients, soap.
First Impression: That's she's pretty but intimidating and decidedly odd.
Internal[]
Personality: The side of Morag that most of the world sees is cool, almost cold, and scientific. She'd rather be working at her desk or in the lab than be around people in a conversational situation. She's polite when such occasions do inevitably arise, but she tends to give people the feeling she'd rather be elsewhere. She has her work area organized just the way she wants it, and woe unto anyone who decides to rearrange anything as a joke or moves or borrows anything without asking. They're likely to end up hexed in some shape form or fashion. She does not deal well with perceived stupidity or people asking questions that, to her, have obvious answers. Most of her co-workers have decided not to ask her much of anything unless they absolutely need to.
She's very dedicated to her work. She triple checks her measurements or calculations before she begins any potion or experiment. She keeps detailed notes of every step she takes. She does everything by the book, as it were, even if half the time the book isn't written yet. In her free time away from work, she experiments with various non-love related potions, and notes the observable differences, but she's never tested these experiments on humans, just mice and rats, which she breeds herself. She sells the extras to pet shops or anyone else who wants them.
Morag uses her intellect as a shield, but there is another side of her, once you get past the brains and the polar ice cap. Few people have seen this side, and she has few close friends because of her tendency to block people out. With a trusted few people, she is open relaxed. These people are the only ones exempt from her usually rigid enforcement of her personal space. She can be very caring and tender, even if sometimes she'll be utterly clueless about how to deal with something.
Political Views: Morag doesn't really keep up with politics, as she feels most of it doesn't impact her. She figures she'll be able to deal with just about anything as long as another megalomaniacal blood purist doesn't crawl out of the woodwork.
Quirks/Habits:
- Tends to work through her lunch break unless someone takes it upon themself to bring food to her.
- Organizes her clothes by colour.
- Arranges her personal potions ingredients alphabetically and by level of toxicity. Finished potions she arranging by date, name, colour, and potential toxicity.
- Scowls when concentrating.
- Looks at people over the top of her glasses.
Strengths: Logical, organized, professional, uses her head, good with measurements, frugal, potions, herbology, charms.
Weaknesses: Emotionally closed off, something of a misanthrope, workaholic, somewhat OCD, not good with defensive magic, can't produce a Patronus.
Fears: Being outed, falling in love again
Philias: Potions, experiments, books, red wine
Hobbies/Interests: Collecting quotes about love (she magically tacks them onto a large cork board that she has set up in front of her desk), growing some of her own potion ingredients and other herbs, raising mice and rats for experiments, studying myths that somehow involve love, fine wine
Favourite Belongings: Her wand, her potions equipment, her "love board" (the cork board), her glasses.
Favourite Places:
- Dumfries, Scotland: She was born and grew up there. It will always be home.
- Hogwarts: She expects it's cliche to say school is one's favourite place, but she really did like it there.
- her flat: It's almost a lair, actually, with the lab and all. But it's cozy and it's hers.
Secrets: Morag is a lesbian. She's very much in the closet, to the point of being homophobic.
History[]
Morag Sorcha MacDougal entered the world on the twenty-fifth of August in 1980, the third and final child of Pure-blood Scots. Her brother, Lindsay, had just turned six in July, and her sister, Mairead, had turned twelve in June. For a time, the clerks at her father's law firm had a running bet as to whether or not a fourth MacDougal child would be born six years later in September. The people who bet on it not happening made a small fortune.
As a child, it seemed to Morag that she was the second of two children rather than the last of three. Her sister was an absence, and when home, more of a babysitter than a sister because of the age difference, which Morag noticed keenly. She didn't feel it as much with Lindsay. She followed him around and watched him do things; she was always more interested in watching him than trying to do what he did. When he left for school, Morag didn't talk to anyone for an entire month. After that, she adjusted to being by herself. She read Mairead's old textbooks - the ones she'd kept, anyway. She liked the pictures of plants in the Herbology one, and the descriptions in the Potions one.
When it was finally her turn to go to Hogwarts, Morag was thrilled. She'd get to see her brother more often, yes, but more importantly, much more importantly, she'd get to learn. Learn how to make the potions she'd read about. The Sorting Hat considered putting her in Slytherin, then decided Ravenclaw suited her a little more. Morag liked the sound of Ravenclaw, an besides, her whole family had been in it. Amazingly, the Potter boy that the world seemed to like to crow about so much lately was in her year, as well. Morag didn't take much notice of him. He was a half-blood, which admittedly wasn't his fault, and a Gryffindor, which sort of was, and thus not terribly interesting except when he got into trouble, which seemed to happen more often than not.
Morag found her calling in her Potions class. She didn't really understand why so few people other than Slytherins seemed to like Professor Snape. He was a highly intelligent man who brooked no foolishness. Also, she liked hearing rumours about him putting the oddly intelligent Muggleborn Gryffindor in her place. Morag did well in Herbology, too; she'd need to be in order to better understand Potions, she thought. She good in Charms as well, but was never that good with the non-theoretical aspects of Defence Against the Dark Arts.
When she was in her third year, she noticed something troubling about herself. While all the other girls were mooning over the boys on the Quidditch teams - and the other ones, but the athletes were perennial favourites - her eyes lingered only on the girls. She tried, but she couldn't see what was so attractive about boys other than the fact that girls were supposed to like them. She tried not to think about it, but found that increasingly hard to do. The Yule Ball during her fourth year was sheer torture. Morag went alone and spent the entire Ball sitting, scowling at the dancers. Everyone assumed she was jealous of the other girls, but she was really jealous of the boys, especially Cedric Diggory. She hated herself for it, but she'd gone and gotten a terribly big crush on Cho Chang. She ignored the older girl's presence in the common room, and managed not to speak a word to her until Cedric died. Morag wondered for a while if the fact that she didn't care that he was dead made her horrible, but what really made her feel horrible was what she said to Cho later when the girl was crying. Morag, in an attempt to exorcise her own feelings for the girl, told her to stop crying as she'd be over him in a month anyway. The crush went away eventually, but in the mean time, Morag managed to get dirty looks from most of the other Ravenclaw girls until they all went home for the summer. She had a few other crushes after Cho, and followed the same pattern of ignoring them or being a bitch to them.
Seventh year was a tense but very interesting time. After managing to convince her parents to let her return to school, Morag found herself doing almost as much teaching as learning as many of the professors left to join the war effort. She helped out with teaching Potions more than any other class, unsurprisingly.
After finishing school, Morag spent close to a year working in the potions dispensary in St. Mungo's. It wasn't much, but it was a job and it was fairly well away from combat, in which she had no desire to participate. When the war ended, she decided she wanted to something besides mix potions. Something more interesting. Something that would make it less easy for her sister-in-law to try to set her up on blind dates. And so, almost on a whim, she applied to the Department of Mysteries; whatever they did, it should be interesting and it would at least be away from most people.
The interview and the training that followed it were rather long and, in the case of the Veritaserum portion of the interview, a little unnerving, but she made it through just fine as she'd been sure she would. Morag considered going to work in the Death division, but she decided that Love would be more of a challenge, as she felt more ambivalent about that subject that she did about death. She took a special interest in studying the effects of love-related potions.
When she was twenty-four, Morag took a leap which she was sure she'd regret later. She charmed her hair blonde and went into a Muggle club that she heard was frequented by lesbians. She didn't plan on finding a long term relationship. All she wanted was a night, just a fling so she could maybe move on and call what she'd been feeling for years a phase. She met a Muggle girl named Samantha Harker, who thankfully wasn't English. Having sex with a Muggle woman was bad enough, but she couldn't bring herself to go that far against her father's teaching. It was a wonderful night and she should have left it at that...but she didn't. Her plan of 'just one night' stretched into days, then weeks, then months. Morag - calling herself Sorcha Fairbairn - practically lived at Samantha's flat. It was idyllic. Then Morag realized she was falling in love with the girl, and that couldn't be. There was no future for them, after all, and everything their relationship was built on was a lie of one sort or another. Morag broke it off shortly before her own birthday and went back to trying to ignore her feelings for women. So far she's at least not 'fallen off the wagon' too badly.
After that, Morag started studying the way love develops and its effects on those who fall in love. Sometimes she wonders if she did so to spite herself.
Trivia[]
1. Morag secretly enjoys listening to Cher.
2. She prefers working with men as she doesn't have to worry about falling for them.
3. She's farsighted and sometimes wears glasses.
4. Her favorite colors are black and white.
5. Of all her family members, she most afraid of what her father would think if he found out she was a lesbian. She overheard him discussing how he fired an employee when he found out the man was gay, and she's been a bit scared ever since.
6. Morag is afraid of heights. She doesn't mind being in high buildings as long as she's not near windows, but you wouldn't be able to get her on a broom. First year flying lesson? Involved hyperventilation and vomiting.
7. If Morag had ever had a crush on a man, it would have been Snape. And even then, it would have been more awe and mentor-worship than sexual attraction.
8. Morag has a few scars on her hands and wrists from working with potions. She usually keeps a glamour over them when not at work or at her flat.
9. Morag stays away from sugar quills because she once tried to write with one while trying to eat her real quill.
10. Morag prefers sandwiches to other foods because she can easily eat them and work at the same time.
11. Though she doesn't see her mice and rats as pets, they do sort of have names. The mice are named for white chess pieces, with the queen and the queen's side of the board used for females and the king and king's side used for males. The rats are named for black chess pieces, even if none of them are actually black.
Meta[]
Journal: cauldron_boil
Player: Amy