hey, isnât that MARIETTA EDGECOMBE? i read a daily prophet article on them, once ; the TWENTY EIGHT year old pure blood WITCH is a RAVENCLAW alumnus who has gone on to be a BROOM-MAKER. iâve heard they can be quite INDEPENDENT & ADROIT, but i donât know⌠they came off very STANDOFFISH & INHIBITED in that interview. it really is hard to know what to believe these days though, isnât it?
TLDRÂ Â ;Â Â marietta, a popular ravenclaw in school, fell out of favor and the public eye after betraying dumbledoreâs army and having SNEAKÂ scarred on her face. at the beginning of the war she diverted from her familyâs plans and apprenticed for a custom broom-maker whose workshop doubled as a hiding place for muggle-borns and half-bloods trying to get out of the wizarding world under voldemortâs rule. she returned to hogwarts for the final battle & lost her mentor in the fight ; marietta kept the workshop open after the war and has been working as a custom broom-maker for several years now. she is a solitary sort of person, in part because she never knows where she stands with people. has a cat named cordelia. sort of comes across as a bitch. reluctant and sort of absent order member because she sure as hell doesnât stand with those theyâre against, but she doesnât go out of her way to jump on causes or missions.
there are two marietta edgecombes ; childhood and adult. everyone changes, of course, as years roll by - - - but this is a SHARP, pronounced change heralded by a faint word still visible on her cheek. SNEAK, it reads, in fading pockmarks that never quite left her face no matter what potion she drank or creams she tried. she tries to keep those two versions of herself extremely separated ; the marietta of school is not the marietta of adulthood. not in the slightest.
PT IÂ Â ;Â Â GOLDEN & HAZY & HORRIBLE
in school she was a smiling, bubbly, giggling thing. marietta was always part of a group of other ravenclaw girls from the moment she stepped onto the train for the first time. her familyâs connections ensured that sheâd had a gaggle of pureblood playmates from the time she could toddle about, and those friendships aided her never having trouble finding friends. the fact she was always friendly, always smiling, and always willing to help with a homework assignment didnât hurt.
maybe she would have stayed that marietta forever in another lifetime. itâs easy enough to envision her following the path laid out before her from a young age ; working some ministry desk job and being the young woman who was always smiling from her desk, marrying youngish to someone else with an old last name and having a few kids to carry on the line. thatâs where the divergence was. thatâs where marietta grew up.
freshly seventeen and in a battle she didnât want to take part in. marietta only joined DUMBLEDOREâS ARMYÂ because of her friendship with cho - - - cho, mourning, running head-first into danger that marietta couldnât stop her from. so she did was any good friend should do - - - follow. but only to a certain point. it seemed dangerous and foolish, this fight, and marietta knew the deeper she let herself become entangled in it the more dangerous it was for her mother and her position at the ministry. marietta didnât mean to rat them all out, really, even if no one will believe that ; she only wanted to give a HINT. but umbreidge pressed, and marietta bent, and SNEAKÂ bloomed across her face so painfully and so obvious that it shut her up.
by the time umbreidge asked again marietta couldnât remember who was in dumbledoreâs army ; she doesnât know WHOÂ cast the memory charm, but someone must have, surely, for something she knew to melt to something she didnât. itâs easy to guess now, but then - - - marietta had fled from the room after being shook about by one professor and seeing the headmaster fight the ministerâs guard and didnât speak of it again. refused to - especially in the face of disdain from those she figured were likely in the army and the sudden distance from the girls who had once claimed being her FRIEND. it was never the same after that.
PT IIÂ Â ;Â Â TWISTING PATHS
luckily she only had a little time left in school. unluckily war bubbled up through the cracks soon after she graduated. marietta had never made plans for what she would do, really. it was going to be whatever her parents wanted for so long, but this ministry, this STRANGE AND CRUEL AND UNFORGIVING thing? marietta couldnât swallow it. her mother tried to offer her a job but marietta turned it down without a second thought. she moved into a little flat in the slowly more frightening diagon alley. she read books and thought and eventually happened upon something strange she hadnât expected, hadnât even thought about.
a broom-maker looking for an apprentice. willing to teach the dying skill, so often relegated to large business rather than singular craftsmen. it isnât as though marietta was doing much of anything else, other than running down the money her parents were willing to give her, so she JUMPED. so she met cornelian crow, a man as eccentric as his name, and began learning to create brooms by hand. it was an ACCIDENT she discovered the hidden rooms and tunnels connected to the workshop ; pathways and hiding places for muggleborns and half-bloods crow hid and helped away from the increasing patrols hunting them for sport. it STINGSÂ that crow had been keeping it from her - - - but can marietta truly FAULTÂ him? so she doesnât say anything about it. so she starts helping quietly.
so the two of them hear from someone they are helping that something is about to happen at hogwarts. so crow & marietta go back and FIGHT. marietta had never been a duelist of any great merit but hells, she fought as hard as she could. she fought until it was over, and she buried crow almost alone because he had no family and few true friends. when she went back to her flat ALONE it was with a broken nose and a mouthful of blood and the acrid smell of burning her nose and no idea what to do next.
PT IIIÂ Â ;Â Â DO THINGS , FIGHT THINGS
what else was there to do but hang her own hat on the workshop and begin taking commissions for brooms? customers are rare, but each broom she makes costs triple what you can buy in stores, made by mariettaâs careful and rough hands to specific requests and pointed specifications. itâs a quiet existence, but maybe she likes it like that. in truth, marietta doesnât know. she likes being left alone, that much she knows.
she adopts a cat. she has a small circle of friends she gets drinks with and a wide circle of people she avoids because their presence sets her on edge and makes her go cold and quiet and on the edge of unkind. itâs just how she reacts to those she doesnât know how to react to.
the fact she has somehow stumbled back into membership of a GROUP seems ironic to marietta, but she is not the most active member of the order of the phoenix. she offers the hidden places in her workshop if they are needed as safehouses. she comes to meetings that seem important. she does not linger or chat.
