Jirka Tadeus Pascquil

Date of Birth: March 20th 1975

Place of Birth: Bochum /Germany

Height: 6´

Colour of Hair: blond

Colour of Eyes: blue

 Wand: Linden Wood, Centaur Hair, 8 ½ inches

Broom: Fegestar 812, StraTo Staubwirbel Sundspringer (for Quidditch)

 Interests: Parties, Books, Travelling, Discussions, Magical Creatures, Quidditch (Favourite Team: Bochum Blue Bolts)

 Academical Grades: Merseburg Graduate with full marks

 Family

Father: Ottfried Theolieb Pascquil works for the German Ministry of Magic in the Department of Mysteries.

His major spare time interest is Ancient Alchemy. He is well-known for collecting and possessing many priceless first editions and even old handwritings on Alchemy in all ages. Many archives owe him the completion of their copies or translations as well as the results of his attempts to redo the old experiments.

He is the author of several important essays, high-valued by experts, but not understandable to the common wizard.

On the other hand Ottfried T.Pascquil is an enthusiastic Fan of "Bochum Blue Bolts", Bochum´s Quidditch team, being a Chaser in a Sunday team himself in his youth.

Mother: Before marriage Eleona Pascquil (former Weyenberg) worked at the Institute for Magical Newstransmitting in Bonn. Now she is a housewife and manages Sonnwend Manor, the family’s home, all by herself, with only two house elves for help. She loves the challenge of her work and in her spare time writes books which help you managing your magical household more easily.

Her most popular ones are: "101 Potions for Everyday Life", "The Fast Cauldron - Complete Menus for the whole Family in less than one hour’s time", "Grandmother’s Secrets - Traditional German Kitchenspells" and "The Kitchen Wizard - Useful Advice for all Men still thinking a Cauldron is meant for Potions only" (unfortunately not available any more).

Siblings: One brother, Hark Zacharias Pascquil (born 1982), one sister, Ylva Nymphea Pascquil (born 1986). Hark works for the Ministry of Mysteries and Ylva studies Magical Design. Both are Merseburg Graduates as well.

Further Members of the Household: At Sonnwend Manor there are two house elves. Trixie, the female, works in the house, being of great help to my mother. Managing the household as well as helping writing the books. Both have fun writing them and like to spend their time locked up in Mom’s "Lab" (as Dad calls her kitchen).

Gwennel, the male, works on the grounds. He does all the repairs and the gardening.

 A ghoul lives beneath the stairway (as is has to be at a good wizard manor). He always has been there, no one can remember the manor without him, and he delights in ruining important working dinners of my father’s with his never ending howls. I think Dad trained him to do so.....Dad doesn’t like these working dinners, especially not at our manor, where he cannot leave them early.

Underneath the roots of the fourth tree, left side of the drive lives a couple of forest gnomes. When I was born, they lived there for several years already, and my parents always kept an eye on that they were treated with great respect and feel comfortable. I appreciate their strictness in this case, and I am very proud they show the respect the forest gnomes deserve. Even more, they taught my siblings and me to have the same respect.

In the attic we have about three dozens bats and in one of the adjacent buildings live our messenger owls. My father gets them lend by the Ministry if he needs them, so their number and kinds varied through the years. My mother owns a small one for her private correspondence and my brother has a raven called Odin whom he tried to train on delivering letters (and failed miserably).

To my father it is important that we have two guarding dogs free on the grounds at night. Strange mixtures of several kinds I often thought about as a child and understand now perfectly. I understand about their strength, their devotion....everything up to their amazing long lives, their extraordinary sense of weird incidents and their nearly unfailable judges on humans. However, these are details of breeding of magical pets and not of any interest here. In my childhood our dogs were named Absinth and Schierling. To me they were funny and strong mates. Absinth died when I was 14 and Schierling when I was 28. Now the ground duty is done by Thallium and Absinth 2. She’s named Absinth again because of my sister....she grieved for her old Absinth 1 for a long time.

Last but not least, every year in July Grandfather Tadeus visits the Manor for two weeks, sitting in the sun and telling stories about the "Good Old Times".

Curriculum Vitae

1975 - Birth

1977 - First signs of magical abilities.

My Aunt Tütü refused to hand me the soft-ice she was holding. I got very angry and it exploded in her hand. Her favourite hat was completely ruined and she was mad with me. Finally my mother managed to calm her down - at the afternoon tea I made the cream cake explode, this time ruining Aunt Tütü´s dress. I was locked up in my room for it, but Mom gave me a chocolate bar and Dad didn’t even tell me off. They were much too proud to get the first hint that their son was a wizard. Aunt Tütü saw it the same way after she thought about it for a while, and after she cleaned her dress and got a new hat two days later, she sent me a Singing Ball to congratulate me. A great gift for a two-year-old, for everyone around me a torture. Gwennel got it wet "by accident" in the end and said he couldn’t fix it. Gwennel never failed on fixing anything!!!

1978 to 1981 - Mixed Kindergarten.

It was annoying, for every game we played contained a test to find out if we had magical abilities. As for me, I proved it every time, hated my kindergarten teacher and made my friends do all kinds of nonsense.

Still my parents couldn’t get friends with the idea to send me to Kindergarten for Magically Gifted Children for they disagreed with the methods used there.

I wanted to become a member of a Magical Rescue Flying Squad and my best friend was called Oliver. He lived in Wattenscheid and never showed any kind of magical ability during whole kindergarten time.

At the age of four, Mom taught me how to read. I was very proud she considered me old enough - and that she spend so much time with me. Since then I always got new books for every birthday or Christmas. I was a passionate reader (unfortunately for my parents even late at night in bed when I was supposed to sleep).

About the same time I was allowed to fly a broom for the first time. Let’s say as soon as I was able to cling to it. It was Dad’s "duty" and I had many flying lessons of pure fun - even if I was allowed to fly supervised only.

1981 to 1986 - Elementary School for Probably Magical Children.

It was as good as proven that I wasn’t a Muggle, but my parents wanted to "be on the safe side" and sent me to a school which wouldn’t throw me out if I wasn’t a wizard but a Squib. I liked the school; we learned lots of interesting and fantastic things. My interest for Mythology and Magical Creatures was founded there.

I wanted to become a knight and my best friend was called Martin. He had his own wand!!! Oliver had been sent to a Muggle school by his parents and found Muggle friends.

School sports was playing Quidditch on school brooms. After I tried being a Seeker and being a Chaser, I became Beater and have been Beater since. The best position to play!!!!

1982 - Birth of my brother Hark.

I never liked the idea of having siblings. There may be many children being happy to get a little brother or a little sister - not me. I didn’t want Hark, I didn’t like him and I was jealous. Mom didn’t have time for me any more and I was expected to share my toys. At least my room was still my own.....most of the time I stayed in this room or was outside on the grounds.

My concerned parents never allowed me to approach Hark without one of them around, for it was very obvious that I would try to hurt him. If not on purpose than with my magic I wasn’t able to control yet. Back then I was very mad with my parents to do so, today I’m grateful they were so careful.

In Summer I got the first broom of my own and was allowed to fly whenever I wanted and wherever I wanted, as long as I stayed in the manor grounds. Now I could play Quidditch whenever I wanted - it was quite often, nearly every time I wasn’t reading a book....sometimes my friends and I did a broom-race....it was fantastic!! Dad started to take me with him to Bochum´s Quidditch Arena to see the Blue Bolts play. And he bought me all the merchandising articles he wanted to have himself, but believed he was "too old" for.

Yes, my parents did everything to assure me I was loved the same as before, even if they had Hark now. My mother asked me to read my books to her and my father allowed me to help him with his difficult experiments at his "Wizard’s Kitchen" (as Mom called his lab). I wasn’t interested in Alchemy this much, but assisting him made me feel important.

1986: - Two important events: The birth of my sister Ylva and the arrival of my Merseburg-letter some weeks earlier.

Everyone would understand that I didn’t care about having a sister much, I was too excited. Right at April 1st the letter was delivered by a huge, official-looking brown owl and one hour later all our messenger owls flew out to tell all the relatives and friends the good news. Jirka was accepted, accepted at Merseburg Academy of Magical Arts, Germany’s oldest and most famous school. My parents were incredibly proud; I think Mom cried some happy tears.....Congratulations arrived from all the aunts and even from Dad’s colleagues at the ministry. His senior officer wrote he hoped I would be interested in a job at the office after I graduated from Merseburg.....

Hark pouted because everyone and everything was about me and not him. Mom was in the last weeks of her pregnancy in early summer, but she nevertheless came with Dad and me to Essen´s Circlesquare Street to buy my school supplies. Books, robes, a cauldron......and most important, a wand.

My first wand of my own! We went to Schwarzenberg, Germany’s most esteemed wand-maker, for my father wanted me to have a really good one. It took us three hours.... But it is a really good one, for I still have this first wand (Willow Wood and Unicorn hair) and in all the years it never let me down. "Made in Germany", as it is said.

The wand I use now is a Schwarzenberg, too, and a gift from my father for sticking to one regular job – the one of a teacher – for a whole year.

Yes, in 1986 there still was this strange Muggle-Wall parting Germany in two halves. Bochum was located west of it and Merseburg east. Luckily, the wizard-world never cared about such Muggle-banalism. So I went to Merseburg and Hark cried half the summer for he had to stay at home without me. For some strange reason he always liked me, even if I wasn’t nice to him at all. When I left for school, Hark was four years old and never had shown any kind of magical ability. Guess who was the one taking every opportunity to tell him...

He got a raven this summer which he named Odin. A little friend all his own.

1986 to 1993 - Merseburg Academy of Magical Arts.

So many things to tell... so many things I saw and learned. I got in trouble often and I for sure wasn’t Merseburg´s best student. But I loved being there, I loved the school and everything at it. Its breathtaking surroundings, the incredible things I learned and tried there. With Merseburg life really started....even if this school was built on a solid rock of strict rules and discipline. The strictest ones of whole Europe maybe.....Discipline and diligence, that’s Merseburg, and every single student there has to remember it well.

However, Merseburg was my freedom, everything I ever wished for. I played a lot of Quidditch in my house team - Beater of course - and was team captain for years. I had many friends and with my main subjects Defence against the Dark Arts and Magical Creatures I always had interesting things to learn. Not to mention the huge library with all its books...

I wanted to become a professional Quidditch player and my best friend was called Patrick. A Muggle until the day his letter arrived, knowing as much about the wizard word as I knew about the Muggle-world. We taught each other just as much as the school taught us both.... we were connected by our curiosity and our sense of humour. It was the same as it is today and we still are good friends.

Even if Merseburg is far behind us now....we both got our grades with full marks. Pat because he always learned and worked hard, and me because he helped me and forced me to work hard as well. Now, with all this learning and all the exams behind me, Merseburg seems like a never-ending big party to me (and I guess this is why we are doing this project here.....)

1993 to 2001 - After Merseburg life began again.

"Merseburg Graduate with Full Marks" is an exam paper opening you many doors, but I hardly ever made use of it. I never went for any other academical grades, and I took on jobs as I wanted and as I liked them. I was free and I could do whatever I felt like doing. I travelled wherever I wanted and whenever I wanted and I decided what I wanted to learn. My one big passion are magical creatures and I will never get tired of studying them - or discovering new ones. Sometimes it gets me into trouble with the Ministry - private wizards are not allowed in Restricted Areas even if they were there and researched before the area became restricted. I’ve been captioned four times, one time arrested and they took all my notes twice to keep me from publishing them. They published them themselves later on... but behind the names of these two newly discovered species it says "n. Pascquil", for I was the one who discovered and named them. At least a bit of honesty... even if they stole my notes. If they had simply asked for them, I would have handed them over. I don’t have much interest in writing books or essays and get them published. Too much office work, and I don’t like office work.

Most of the time I was on my own in forests, swamps, mountains, by the sea... wherever. Free. There were two fairies called Rosalinda and Morgenwind following me. I got them in France during a job for the Quartier Général Lutin... or should I say they got me? Anyway, they were the only ones travelling with me all the time and I liked it this way.

I still like living in the open, not locked up between walls with little windows and narrow doors. Being locked up makes me sick.

2001 to 2004 – HOL, Teacher of Magical Creatures

Patrick had been invited to teach MC at HOL and contacted me to find out whether I would like to assist him. I wasn’t really interested in teaching, no, but I liked the idea of working with him a lot, so I did it.

One year became three in which we have taught students of all ages. Surprisingly I really liked the job, despite all the office work coming with it. My parents were really happy about it, too. They never said anything against the way I lived, but always have whished for something “better” for me than a vagabond’s life.

In spring 2002 Rosalinda died. The Head of the Quartier Général Lutin, Hippolyte, brought me another fairy to accompany Morgenwind. Eisstern wasn’t able to fly and a fairy who can’t fly has no chance to survive. So in a way, I was her last chance.

Since this year I have an owl of my own, too. She’s called Lady Ragnell, limps a bit and likes snatching letters back from the people I sent her to and returning them to me.

Since 2004 – Quartier Général Lutin, Paris

Since fall 2004 I am back to France, at the Ministry’s Little People Department. Hippolyte Souricá, head of the department, is a friend of mine and had asked me to help out for a few months. Well, I’m still there.

In spring 2005 I lost Morgenwind and “stole” Regenmond and Liliac from the fairy research labs to live with Eisstern. Eisstern started flying again around the same time. Just did it as if she never forgot how to do it.

In fall 2005 I finally signed a contract, officially making me Hippolyte´s personal assistant. I substitute around the department wherever they need someone, help him preparing congresses or seminars, with public relations or with his book.

February 2006 I got a sub-department of my own, officially called “Additional Practical Training for postgraduates, Young Research Fellows and Trainees to take-over”. Its internal name is “One-X-Team”, shortened to “XT”.

So I’m sort of back to a teacher’s job – and I’m back to playing Quidditch, too.

Patrick Chaotica

Date of Birth: March 21th 1975
Place of Birth: Small city near Cologne/Germany
Height: 5´6´´
Color of Hair: black
Color of Eyes: green / glasses

Wand: Beech with Phoenix feather, 13,7 inches
Broom: Bluebottle (a broom for all the familiy - safe, reliable and with In-built Anti-Burglar Buzzer)

Interests: Books, Discussions, Magical Creatures, Muggle movies and theatre

Academical Grades: Merseburg Graduate with full marks

Since I am from a Muggle family there is not much to tell about my family. My father was a civil servant at the telephone company, my mother was working in a bank. I have two younger brothers, both no wizards. We were a perfectly normal Muggle family. I went to the kindergarten and the Muggle elementary school.

On my 11th birthday there was a raven sitting in the garden when I came home from school. Later in the afternoon when I went out to play the raven was still sitting on the same bush. It seemed to have something in its claws and because I was curious what it was (a dead rat maybe) I went over and had a look. When I approached the raven it dropped an envelope onto the grass. I took it and saw my name written on it in golden ink. I opened it and read it: it was the invitation to join Merseburg Academy of Magical Arts, Germany´s oldest school for Witches and Wizards. I was thrilled by the idea of becoming a real wizard. My parents were shocked. It took them several weeks and several more letters from the school to persuade them to send me to MA.

Finally they agreed and at the end of August 1986 they took me to a bus that collected all the students from Muggle families in our region and brought them to Merseburg. When we arrived there we were sorted into our houses by the House ghosts (a frightening experience) and after that school life started.

Luckily I soon found a very good friend: Jirka T. Pascquil, a boy from a wizard family who helped me much during these years. He knew nothing of the Muggle world so I showed it to him. We went to see Merseburg nearly every week and even became friends with a Muggle boy there: Mario, son of the owner of the local restaurant. On special occasions his father used to make Pizza in the back of his restaurant...the best Pizza I have ever tasted. Mario now owns his own Muggle/Wizard restaurant in London. Just mention Pat and Jirka and you are in for a special treatment :)

After we graduated from MA I got a job at the Department for Magical Creatures at the German Ministry of Magic in the Black Forest and worked there for several years. I´ll never forget the day when I had to put a memory charm on nearly a hundred Muggles who had been attacked by a swarm of Erklings in the Black Forest. One day I met Prof. Emerald Dybendahl at a wizard conference and after listening to my fabulous lecture entitled:" Little People and how to get rid of them - 88 new methods" he offered me the job as a teacher at HOL. I accepted at once and left the Ministry two weeks later. I asked Jirka if he would like to join me and much to my delight he accepted.

So we taught "Magical Creatures 2" in HOL and enjoyed it a lot. At some point I became Deputy Headmaster and editor of "Quill & Ink", the HOL magazine. As for our class: I mostly did the paperwork (which Jirka loathed) and he did the creature work. In my first year I also aquired my phoenix, Xerxes, and he has been with me ever since. Jirka left the school after our third year and I continued for a fourth, teaching "Teutonic Mythology", before I got the offer to work at the German Ministry again. Although I am technically Deputy Head of the Department for Magical Creatures in the Black Forest I am at the moment working on a secret project at the Ministry Headquarters in Cologne. More about that soon.

What else to say? My magical bear Bernward is on vacation in his homeland Sweden but will surely return at some point, magical bears are quite individual and headstrong.  The most annoying creatures on the planet though are Jirka´s fairies (always hiding my quills and changing the homework-questions and sparkling everything with fairy-dust). I just love these creatures ;)