<-- back to characters page

Osbert Blacker-Dashwood- Professor of Muggle Studies and Cyan Group Advisor, Scattergood School for the Magical Arts
Scattergood MOO [connect]

Description:

Osbert is not a large man. In fact, as it is, he is rather diminutive, certainly no more than 5’3” in stature. Since he is nearing the end of his middle years, his grey hair and wrinkles are impossible to hide. He has a tanned and lined face, thin, with visible cheekbones and dimples when he smiles. His eyes are a light hazel behind a pair of small, round, silver-rimmed lenses which sit upon a nose a small pointed nose. The man wears his grey hair longish, tied back in a short ponytail. 

He wears a dark faculty robe with the school’s insignia, but underneath this he wears muggle clothing: faded blue jeans and a black t-shirt, bits of which are visible in gaps in the rob. He also wears, for whatever reason, a tie-dyed sarong as a shawl over his robe. On his head he wears a striped knitted beanie, concealing most of his hair.

History (warning: long):

Osbert A. Blacker-Dashwood has a long and rather colorful history, but to understand him we must delve into his roots. Born in the midst of the Depression to Delilah Blacker, a displaced native of California, and Alfred Dashwood. The Dashwood family could trace their background in Colorado several generations back to a miner who had come there--Richard Dashwood of Scotland, at first a coal miner but one who later made his fortune using gold-finding charms. He earned the nickname 'Lucky Rich' from his friends and moved to Denver to start a family--and fade into the background, out of the public eye, for his luck may have seemed to some a bit too good--marrying a native to Colorado at the time, a lass named Esmeralda Jimenez, daughter of a rancher. 

Though the fortune was substantially less when it reached Richard's grandson Alfred, Al himself was no dummy when it came to saving money. Though his job at the Ministry ran out, Delilah had a talent for breeding animals, specifically rare types of cats. Many of her customers were fortunate enough to have spare cash during this time, so they continued to go to her when they wanted Fluffy to sire kittens. In addition to picking pairs of felines, Delilah was a matchmaker. She had enough connections through her own parents, another pair of well-to-do wizards, that she could travel in the upper circles of the wizarding world and with her social grace and charm, introduce the best of magical folk to one another. 

It was these same social circles that Osbert was born into. He met many of Colorado’s wizards, especially the pureblooded ones (since both of his parents were purebloods.) Although neither of his parents had completed their education, they wanted their son to have the best possible, so he began with a tutor at age 5 and then was sent to Scattergood. His parents had completed the application to Schiller, but although he was accepted, he did not attend for lack of funding. This was the first turning point in the boy’s life. Learning dark magic would have led him down a completely different track. To this day, Osbert claims he would be dead if it weren’t for Scattergood. Perhaps this is the reason why. 

During his first few years at the school, the boy changed little from the quiet child who had been led around to dinner and cocktail parties, dragged by his socialite parents. Although he preferred to speak to adults and very young kids as opposed to his peers, he had a few close friends in his underclass years, two boys by the names of Herman Smith and Eugene Murray. They delighted in playing pranks—one went down in Scattergood history for a few decades as “the infamous mice incident”. (Osbert will admit little about it beside the fact that it involved the Upperclass Social, several pieces of cheese, and a penny whistle.) He wasn’t particularly good at the academics, earning mediocre grades in all but Defense Against the Dark Arts, his favorite class at the time. 

At the onset of (late) puberty, Ozzy began to change. He became more outgoing and developed a new skill, much to his confusion. After some consultation with his counselor, it was determined that the strange dreams he was having were side-effects of the Sight. Osbert began to take classes in Divination, which he enjoyed immensely because he excelled in it without much thought. He focused a little more on his other studies as well, but Defense and Divination continued to be his favorite subjects until he graduated. He used his skill, much to the delight of others, to predict which girls liked the members of his growing group of friends. In ninth grade, he even got his first kiss, from a girl named Dorothy Helen, at the dance that year. His involvement in the Mouse Incident had been glazed over. 

By the time his days at Scattergood were nearly over, Osbert was one of the most popular boys in his class. Though seen by some as a playboy--Dotty was merely one in a string of girls who would kiss him and then fade away--he remained good-natured and fun-loving. He had one slight ambition during those years, and that was to be an Auror. Sadly, his grades and test scores weren’t high enough to please the Ministry. That didn’t seem to bother him much. He decided to make decisions later, to live in the now. 

Osbert graduated from Scattergood in 1950. His youthful and somewhat naive goals, at the time were to travel to Bulgaria and Greece, visiting some of the more interesting historical sights and, of course, meeting foreign girls. His parents, however, had more sense than he did, and through a friend, set up a job for Ozzy to work at the Ministry of Magic branch in Los Angeles, California as a clerk. Though he was disappointed at his parents' relative lack of enthusiasm to let him travel overseas-especially in an area with some political tension with the United States--Ozzy was also excited to at least move to a new state. California it would be, land of movie stars. 

Movie stars. The concept had begun to fascinate young Mr. Blacker-Dashwood. On his time off from his job (a job which bored the boy to death, no less) he would lurk around Hollywood trying to catch a glimpse of one. In doing so, he learned more of the Muggle world and began to be taken in by its charms. Many of his friends were Muggles--he met them in such well-reknowned locations as bars and beaches. He kept his nature secret from them, of course, but managed to learn a great deal: how to drive a car, what the best card tricks were, and, some years later, how to surf when this became a popular pasttime. 

Osbert was in his mid-thirties, but still quite youthful, when he was swept up in a fantasy of the 1960s. After quitting his day job--the Ministry had never failed to lull him to sleep at his desk--the man took a road trip to San Francisco with two of his friends. That was the summer when, amidst the smoky haze in the park, he met Susan. 

Susan Rae Scott--or, as she preferred to be called at that time, "Sunshine Ray"--was the first girl that had ever really interested Osbert seriously. He was 36; she 25, but the two hit it off. She had the sort of wiles that would convince a rather gawky wizard to legally add the first name "Moonbeam" before his stuffy-sounding Osbert. (He carries the name to this day, but does not mention it except on those few required legal forms.) And he convinced her to come back with him to Los Angeles. A few months later, the two were married, Sunshine and Moonbeam. 

Ozzy never did go back to his job at the ministry. Instead, in their small house, he set up a business as a professional psychic--one of the best to be found, of course, since he could utilize his not-forgotten skills in Divination. Susan was never told exactly why he wanted to do this as a living, and attributed it more to certain illicit substances than innate talent, but was content for the time being. 

The better part of a decade passed before Susan decided it was time to take life seriously. This never happened for Osbert--he thoroughly enjoyed his life at the time and was too oblivious and hopelessly in love with his wife to see that Susan was maturing more than he ever would. Thus he found it a shock when Susan announced that she wanted a divorce. Right after the papers were signed, she moved back to where they had first met and began to attend business school, forsaking any claims to a previous marriage. They have spoken once since then and it was as two strangers meeting. 

Heartbroken, Ozzy continued with his business, still fascinated by the intricacies of the Muggle psyche. Perhaps in reading fortunes for lonely housewives he sought to understand why Susan had left, but this never happened. He did, however, inherit a house from his mother's brother Daniel in San Marino, California--near to where he had been living at the time. He packed up his belongings and business and moved there. It was an overgrown lot for the area, considered by most to be an eyesore. Children were warned not to venture too close to the fence. The only ones who passed through the gate into the jungle-like yard were Osbert's clients. 

It so happened that on a bet, a young local geologist wandered into the house and asked for a tarot card reading. Part of his fortune was to stand on steady ground for precisely the next 23 hours and 5 minutes. Though he took that advice with a grain of salt, the young man, Julian Devine, could not help but remember the scruffy 'psychic's words the next day when a minor earthquake hit. Ignoring the warning bells ringing in his head, Julian went back to Ozzy. Soon the two had a friendship going, for although Osbert Blacker-Dashwood had never been particularly good at predicting large events such as assassinations, he had a deep enough tie to the rocks that he could predict small earthquakes with great accuracy--this was the talent passed on through generations of Dashwoods from his great-grandfather Richard come to fruition once more in Osbert. 

The two did this for many years. Unfortunately, it was the prediction of a major earthquake that led this hobby to an end. When Julian refused to speak to anyone else about a large predicted tremor that would hit San Francisco in 1989, Osbert tried to warn another official who also happened to work for the Ministry of Magic and was undercover. When the Ministry found out about his use of magic they considered him too much of a threat to wizarding secrecy to be out in the world. They shut down his business. 

With no life or hope left in California, Osbert moved back home. For a few years he continued his earthquake-predicting for the Ministry in Colorado, which they considered a useful skill to have, and he also wrote a weekly column in the Windshook laying out very carefully the weather for the next seven days. But after a few years, Ozzy remembered why he had retired from the Ministry years earlier: it was horribly boring. He also didn't like his boss. He did enjoy writing "Weatherwizard Weekly" under the pen name of Alejandro Moonbeam, but sought more. When the position of Professor of Muggle Studies opened up at Scattergood, Osbert applied and surprisingly was accepted. With his love and delight for all things Muggle Ozzy took the job. 

(It should be noted that Osbert applied for and was accepted for the position of Divination instructor at Madame Milnitt's academy in California. However, after some thought, Ozzy decided to stay in Colorado near his family.)

Osbert began his work at Scattergood in 1992. At the time, he had a cousin once-removed at Scattergood, Patricia ("Pat") Dashwood, who has for the most part avoided him by command of her parents, Peter and Philomena. Peter, Osbert's cousin, would be the heir to any remaining family fortune were it not for Osbert's existence. Despite the fact that he is rich enough in his own right, the man has harbored a lifelong dislike of the professor which has passed, in less potent form, to his daughter. Ignoring his family's bickering and occasional superiority complexes (they are one of the state's few full-blooded families), Osbert has enjoyed his time at the school, leading classes of a light, fun nature, and surviving incidents such as accepting candy from a strange student and temporarily turning into a non-speaking gryphon. Recently asked to take over the position of advisor for the Cyan group, he accepted.

Persona:

Osbert is a rather talkative man. He will, if given the opportunity, go on for hours with personal anecdotes and tidbits of advice gleaned from his life experiences. One should beware his advice, for it has a tendency to grow from reasonably-sized bits to extended stories, many of which have a lesson too deeply buried to be figured out upon first listen. Otherwise, this man is full of good humor that comes from a deep enjoyment of life. He is slow to anger, much quicker to start a good, rich chuckle. 

Of course, everyone has their likes and dislikes. For Osbert, “interesting experiences”, stories, and fruit salad fall into the first category—the first especially, as he is prone to doing strange things simply to try them out. As for the latter category, well, everyone has their pet peeves. Ozzy has never liked having to sit still for a long time. He loathes bureaucracy—one of the many reasons why he no longer works for the Ministry. And he does not tolerate intolerance and prejudices, especially toward those who believe that Muggles are inferior. 

He has a few talents. One is his ability to predict small natural occurences--that is, tomorrow's weather or a small tremor. The other is to read minds. Before you go wrapping your head in tinfoil, note that he is really bad at this second thing. He only rarely picks up a thought and it tends to be the most mundane ponderings. That is, if you're simultaneously plotting to kill your enemy and take over the world and whether you should wear blue socks or brown today, he'd pick up the second one.

About the name:
Moonbeam- I simply wanted to think of something to match 'Sunshine Ray' (Susan Rae) that sounded like it could have been out of the 1960s. Osbert mainly keeps this name for legal purposes because he changed it once and doesn't want to go through the process of removing it.
Osbert- Traditional English name meaning 'divinely brilliant'. I have an ego, you know. It is in no danger of wasting away.
Alejandro- I picked this out of the blue to reflect part of his heritage.
Blacker- In order to give Osbert some ties to Southern California, I picked the name of a well-to-do family which dates back to the early 1900s. It's a personal favorite of mine for certain reasons.
Dashwood- After some very brief research into Colorado genealogy, I found reference to a Richard Dashwood in the 1880 census of Carbonateville, CO. His heritage is real; his history made up.

Logs:

Classes:
Muggle Studies 1
Muggle Studies 2
Muggle Studies 3
Muggle Studies 4


Other:
Osbert accidentally changes into a griffin
Meeting Zek Piper
Attack of the cookies!