Josephine Elizabeth Wexler

[Background] [Personality] [Description] [Outfits] [Family]

• Name Meaning
  • Josephine: he will add
  • Elizabeth: an oath
• Birthdate: June 25, 1924
• Role: Third Year Student
• House: Ravenclaw
• Wand: Whippy white poplar, medium-long, with a topaz dust core

Background

Rumor has it that when Eva Wexler and Amalia Amythest took over Honeyduke’s candy store in 1922, something changed in the air at the shop. All of the sudden, men started hanging around the shop, chatting up the two young shopkeepers. Eva was out nearly every night, socializing with the patrons at the pubs nearby (something she claimed was networking), and it was through these interactions that she became well-acquainted with Arnauld Ribouet, who owned the Hog’s Head Tavern at that time. She was also seen out and about with several other men fairly often during that time, so it was not a very big surprise when she learned in late 1923 that she was pregnant.

While others in the town may have been shocked by the knowledge that such a free-wheeling woman was at the helm (or helping at the helm if nothing else) of the candy shop, it didn’t hurt business at the place, as children are rarely so discerning with their spending money and since there was no other competitor for sweets in the relatively small wizarding town.

It was on June 25, 1924 that Josephine Elizabeth and Estelle Bidelia Wexler were brought into the world. Their paternity was still, at that time, unknown. This didn’t, obviously, stop the two girls from growing very quickly. In the time after they were born, Eva’s attention was split between caring for the girls and caring for the shop. It must be left to wonder, then, how she managed to meet another man so quickly and cultivate a personal relationship with him. Whether it is feasible cannot be the question, though, since it did happen. Just a few months after Josie and Essie (as they were quickly dubbed) were born, Eva found she was pregnant again. This time, however, the paternity was not in question. The father of this child was Tommy Fallon, cousin of Eva and Amalia’s close friend, Avery Goden (nee Fallon). The two were obvious comrades, given that the man owned Zonko’s Joke Shop, which was nearby to the confectionary.

As things between Eva and Tommy progressed, Eva found that she would much prefer ownership of her own shop – one without a prior history and clientele. She wanted to try out her wings as a true businessperson. It took a while, but Eva finally settled  on an empty shop space in the northeast end of Diagon Alley. Plans were made that she would move with her girls into the London area after her next child was born.

Tommy, meanwhile, had been planning to move himself into London, planning to commute to Hogsmeade, rather than living closer to the shop, in order to be nearer to his child – and Eva. It was mid-April of 1925 when Tommy finally tried to propose to Eva, who happened to have gone into labor right about that very moment, rendering her unable to give him an immediate answer. She is unsure to this day whether the shock of the proposal set off her labor or not. Charlot Rose Wexler was born on April 20, 1925, less than a year after her twin older sisters. Eva afterward agreed to marry Tommy.

On August 3, 1925, Eva and Tommy married, and later that month, Cordial Confections officially opened its doors to the public. The next few years sped along for Eva as well as for her children. In 1926, Arnold Slade Fallon joined the family. He was followed by Joscelyn Maureen in 1927, and Daphne Lorraine in 1928.

By this time, Josie and Essie were big enough to help out (in small degrees) both around home and in the shop with Eva. Eva often had the older three with her in the shop, letting them sort candies, or sometimes push the broom (if the girls were willing to cooperate). It was on one of these days in the shop that Josie first exhibited her own magical ability.

What was supposed to be a simple task of sweeping the floor turned into a full-throttle argument between the three little girls as they all argued about the best method of bringing the dirt into a neat pile and moving it into the pan. Charlotte wanted to zig-zag across the room in the pattern of the floorboards, while Essie wanted to go up and down the room in a more orderly fashion. Josie’s idea was to convince their mother to give them three brooms and to each start in a different place, moving the dirt into a large pile in the center of the room. The argument began to escalate into hysterics, and at its culmination, a loud wooden clatter was heard. In her anger, Josie had managed to magically divide the broom into three equal parts. Unfortunately, the three equal parts were in length rather than in amount of bristle, so there were two parts handle and one part broom.

These incidents were fairly infrequent around the Wexler/Fallon home, though the arguments were plentiful. Edwin Jared and Edina Jordan Fallon joined the family as the second set of twins in 1929, and by this time, Tommy was the primary parent caring for all the children, arranging for their education and taking them on outings. Eva was spending most of her time at work, but somehow this did not stop her becoming pregnant one last time. It wasn’t until late August of 1930 that Gilbert Thomas joined the family.

It was after this and much to the bewilderment of the children, they found that, for a time, their mother stopped coming home at nights. They occasionally saw her for an outing, but for five months, she seemed to stop living in their home. The younger children seemed mostly oblivious to the change, only occasionally asking for their mother instead of Tommy, whose job was the primary care of the children even still, but the older children, particularly Josie, Essie and Charlotte seemed to take it very hard that they were not seeing as much of their mother as they would have liked. At the end of five months, however, Eva rejoined her family in the evenings, without any pomp and circumstance and without any further explanation to her children about what went on.

Things went smoothly over the next few years as Josie and Essie became more and more obsessed with stories about Hogwarts school with each passing birthday. After their tenth birthdays, the girls could hardly contain themselves, demanding that they be allowed to go to the school a year early, under threat that they might spontaneously combust if they didn’t get to go. As Hogwarts was not in the practice of admitting ten-year-olds, the girls obviously did not get their way, and neither did their promise of combustion prove true as the months dragged along toward the day when they would soon become Hogwarts students.

Sorting day did finally come, though not a moment too soon for the oldest Wexler-Fallon girls. The two boarded the train after enthusiastic goodbyes from their siblings and teary goodbyes from their parents. Josie and Essie were oblivious to any of the sadness of parting from their family members; their eyes were only on the sorting hat and the school that they’d heard so much about. The twins made a few quick friends of other incoming first years as they headed toward the school, and before they knew it, the train arrived at the station, then they were on the boats on their way to the castle. After a brief scare from the Divination teacher regarding the giant squid in the lake, the group of first years arrived at the castle to be sorted. It was only after they entered the impressive great hall that Josie felt her first twinge of fear at what could possibly happen. What if it turned out that she was a squib after all? Wexler, Estelle was called – one of the last, and sorted into Hufflepuff. Josie’s eyes grew wide at this as her sister breathed a sigh of relief and skipped over to the Hufflepuff house table. What of their dreams to be in Ravenclaw together, just like their mother? Before she had much time to think about it, Wexler, Josephine was being called up, and she took her own turn under the hat. After a few moment, the hat announced that she was to go to Ravenclaw, and Josie was filled with mixed feelings: joy at having been sorted to Ravenclaw – “just like Mummy!” and sadness and fear at being in a different house than Essie. The twins found themselves well and truly separated for the first time in their lives.

As it turned out, the separation didn’t affect Josie as much as she had expected. She spent a lot of time with her sister as well as fellow first year, Joscelyn Duval. The three of them were nearly unseparable and were often seen together in the castle and, when weather permitted, on the grounds. One thing that Josie had not bargained for was the difficulty that she would have with actual magic versus the limited magical theory that she had begged her parents to teach her at home. Josie found the first year’s studies quite challenging, though not beyond her capabilities. She earned good marks, though not the best marks of anyone in her year. Her first year ended on a positive note, and Josie returned home to her parents and seven other siblings feeling like a different girl, and looking forward to her second year when she would no longer be the newest kid in school, and she’d have a year’s worth of knowledge to her credit.

Personality

Strong-willed and energetic, Josie is very much her mother’s daughter. The girl can be so single-minded that she will not budge from thoughts of, pleading for or about and even going so far as screaming sometimes in regards to the object of her focus. It takes a great deal of talking-down to convince the girl to calm down again, though a well-argued point can often sway her opinions on matters of importance to her.

Josephine is a natural-born leader, always ready to round up a group and lead them into “battle,” often without bothering to formulate any plans beforehand. She is a veritable social butterfly, naturally, enjoying large groups of people best, though the intimate gathering of friends can often suit her needs just as well. (After all, a good game of Wizard’s chess only involves two, and Josie can never turn down a chance at chess.)

Despite all of her energetic and social ways, learning dominates. The girl, whose energy cannot often be contained by her parents, regardless of the diversions that they provide, can often be found seated quietly and primly at her grandfather’s knee, listening intently as he shares stories about his work, about his life’s experiences and about other subjects of his own fascination. The young girl soaks up this type of information like a sponge, though her parents have been hard-pressed to get her to sit down to books to learn from them.

Description

A rather petite girl, even for her age, Josie is slightly on the plump side. She has chubby cheeks and extremeties, while her stomach seems to pook out ever so slightly under her clothes. The young girl has wavy dark auburn hair, which is usually fairly unruly due to her current lack of knowledge as to how to tame the mane. She has a face full of fairly prominent brown freckles topping pale skin. Her eyes are hazel and are framed with long, dark lashes. Her nose is fairly small as noses go, but it does not seem abnormally small in relation to the size of her face. The girl’s teeth seem fairly jumbled in her mouth, almost as if her mouth is too small for the number of teeth that she has.

Outfits

School Robes

The girl wears black robes, standard for any Hogwarts student. The robes hang on her small frame, made larger than the girl actually needs. The fabric hangs down to the floor, dragging along on the floor by a couple of inchecs, concealing her sturdy black boots. The boots are too big for her in the same way that the robes are, and when she walks, the boots clunk along the floor loudly. On the left side at her breast is a Ravenclaw house patch, under which she has attached two ribbons, one in dark blue and one in bronze, twisted together.