Grim Fawley

In2015, his wife and three of their co-workers went mysteriously missing in London along with a reporter from theDaily Prophet. Following the Ministry's decision to close the investigation into their disappearance, he resolved to do whatever he could to find his wife. He eventually fell under suspicion for having caused theCalamity.^[8]

Biography[]

Early life[]

Grim Fawley was born somewhere in theBritish Isles during the mid-1980s^[2] into the wizardingFawley family. The Fawleys were one of the "Sacred Twenty-Eight", a number of families that were judged to be still "truly pure-blood" by the anonymous author of thePure-Blood Directory in the1930s.^[9] His parents,Marshall andLucretia Fawley, were loving and took good care of him.^[10]

At the age of eleven, Grim received anacceptance letter fromHogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. At some point before he boarded theHogwarts Express, he travelled toDiagon Alley to buy school supplies: he was able to recall this in vivid detail even as an adult, suggesting he thought it a very good day.^[11]

Hogwarts years(1996–2003)[]

Grim Fawley started atHogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry on1 September1996, and wasSorted intoHufflepuff House.^[12] His early years at Hogwarts coincided with the height of theSecond Wizarding War: the end ofhis first year was marked by theinfiltration of the school by a group ofDeath Eaters and the killing of theHeadmaster,Albus Dumbledore; duringhis second year, following thefall of the British Ministry of Magic, the school headed bySeverus Snape, and the students were left largely at the mercy of his sadisticdeputies, Death EatersAmycus andAlecto Carrow. TheBattle of Hogwarts, which put an end to the war, broke out at the end of that school year: Grim was evacuated with the rest of the students who were not of age through a secret passage toHogsmeade.^[10]

Grim lost both of his parents toDeath Eaters at some point during his first or second year at Hogwarts; their remains were cremated and their ashes kept in aporcelainurn that he held onto until adulthood.^[10] From that point on, Grim spent the rest of his childhood in the care of orphanages, and rarely spoke about it in later years.^[13]

Grim returned to Hogwarts to complete his education; in spite of the great personal tragedy, Grim remained an outstanding student andHeadmistressMinerva McGonagall would later go on to describe him as "AHufflepuff through and through",^[12] meaning he embodied all of the qualities that marked his House, such as hard work, dedication and loyalty. With no family to go home to, however, he would often stay at the school over theChristmas holidays, and spent many a bittersweet yule-day inHogwarts Castle with just the portraits and ghosts for company. Even so, he still visibly retained some of the Christmas spirit, and always made sure a present was waiting under the tree for the often neglectedcaretaker,Argus Filch, and his catMrs Norris.^[14]

Grim finished his education in2003 with an impressive academic record, having earned fiveOutstandings and oneExceeds Expectations on his sixN.E.W.T.s, and a "glowing recommendation" fromMinerva McGonagall herself.^[12] His student records remained stored in the HogwartsRecords Room.^[15]

Working for Ministry[]

Early career[]

An accomplished wizard, Grim Fawley joined theMinistry of Magic following hisgraduation from Hogwarts, having been hired by the Ministry'sresearch wing, he was assigned to theDepartment of Magical Law Enforcement.^[12] Landing a desk job as aresearch assistant at theBritish Auror Office, Grim was tasked with compiling and fact-checking evidence for theInvestigation Department; a difficult job, but nevertheless one at which he was rather good.^[16]

While generally quiet and shy around many of his new peers to begin with, Grim was soon recognised for having both "a wit about him",^[17] as well as for displaying "a wicked sense of humour" around those he was friendly with,^[18] A gifted employee, Grim would go on to work alongside many notableAurors over the course of his career, such asBattle of Hogwarts veteranRonald Weasley, with whom he was partnered for some time when he first joined the department,^[13] andMordecai Berrycloth. In time, Grim would go on to get along very well with most of his co-workers, earning the respect and gaining the friendship of many of his fellow Ministry officials.

Ultimately recognised for having played an important role in the apprehension and capture of a number of dangerousDark wizards,^[19] he was eventually promoted toHead research assistant.^[20] It was in this capacity that Grim found himself in frequent contact with his future wife,Penelope Padgett. A highly gifted witch and an efficient employee, she had accomplished much in her work at theDepartment of Magical Law Enforcement, which ultimately led no less a person thanHarry Potter himself, the Head of theBritish Auror Office, to offer her a job in his department, which she accepted.^[21] As the daughter of two staunch followers of Lord Voldemort,^[22] there were those, such asGethsemane Prickle, that remained suspicious of her, and thought that she might have had ulterior motives for agreeing to the transfer.^[23] Nevertheless judged to be fully qualified for the job, she impressed her new colleagues byqualifying as a fully-fledged Auror a full year earlier than most of her new colleagues had. Subsequently deemed byHarry Potter to be one of the best and brightest Aurors in the Ministry's employ,^[24] she was eventually put in charge of one of their ongoing investigations, and it was during this instance that Grim and Penelope first began working together.^[25]

More open-minded than many of his associates, Grim did not judge Penelope based on the chosen allegiance of her parents; and instead dutifully accepted the task of helping her to work a case she had been put in charge of.^[20] Over the course of the investigation, the two of them eventually grew close, with the pair eventually falling in love while solving crimes together. Worried that their superiors would find their newfound infatuation inappropriate and transfer him to another department, the couple was initially very private about their relationship until Grim finally admitted the truth during aChristmas party to a friend and co-worker by the name ofConstance Pickering.^[26] While the revelation of their workplace romance was later described as "a bit scandalous", rather than taking an issue with two colleagues dating, the reactions they received from their associates turned out to be one of surprise, as many of them thought the couple to be an odd fit.^[26] Now free to continue seeing each other openly, Grim and Penelope eventuallymarried one another, their wedding taking place in West Bromwich inJune of2006.^[27] At some point not too long after, the had a pair of fraternal twins,^[27] naming themMelody andAddison.^[17]

Promotion[]

Grim eventually grew weary of always being sidelined and having to look in on the adventures of those around him, not to mention being stuck with a job that was, whilst described by, among others,Harry Potter as being very difficult,^[28] still far below his level of ability and thus left him increasingly unsatisfied. Despite his initial beliefs to the contrary, it did not take long for his wife to finally convince him that he was indeed cut out for bigger things.^[29] Around the same time, Grim got hold of an ancient tome; the content of which no one thus far had been up to the task of elucidating. Not only did Grim succeeded where others had failed, he even made it seem easy, leaving several handwritten notes detailing his process tucked into the book. Upon learning this,Sage Bragnam, theHead Curator of theDepartment of Magical Artefacts, tried to have him transferred to his department, only to learn that Grim's wife had already successfully persuaded him to try his hand as anUnspeakable in theDepartment of Mysteries.^[25] AlthoughGareth Greengrass, a high-ranking researcher of said department with whom his wife was friendly, was initially dumbfounded at the prospect of having Grim as a colleague when Penelope first told him that he was considering applying for a job there, he quickly warmed up to to the idea when it occurred to him that the man was not only fully qualified but also undeniably a very accomplished wizard, to the point where Greengrass himself would later remark that Grim had "more magical talent in his little finger than most of us do in our whole bodies."^[25]

When Grim finally applied for the job, Greengrass was completely on board with it.^[30] His colleague,Albert Sallow, on the other hand, was against the appointment, judging him to be too young, too inexperienced, and lacking the passion necessary to be an asset to the team.^[31] In the end, it took a letter of recommendation from Greengrass himself, co-signed by the well-respectedAurorMordecai Berrycloth, to get Grim approved for a trial period within the department. While there were some rumours going around that Gareth Greengrass were showing favouritism to Grim because of his friendship with Grim's wife, Grim put his full effort into proving his salt, which included an excellent aptitude for secrecy and considerable amount of magical acumen. Within a year, even Sallow had to admit, despite of his previous doubts about his commitment to the role, that Grim had surpassed all expectations during his trial period; which ultimately lead Greengrass to dispatch ainterdepartmental memo announcing Grim's promotion.^[32] Following this, Grim Fawley received a newMinistry Identification Card, featuring a photograph and credentials listing as an Unspeakable, with clearance for theDepartment of Mysteries, and akey to access it.^[32]

Around the same time, the department would have a "breakthrough",^[33] though whether the breakthrough was responsible for his promotion is unknown.

At some point during his tenure, Grim rescuedEric Munch in theBrain Room of the Department of Mysteries.^[34]

The "London Five" incident[]

Some time later, Grim was horrified to learn that his wife was counted among a group of five people who gone mysteriously missing in London, along with Riya Patel, Timothy Hale, Kit Gerrard, and Genevieve Bladt - a case that would be referred to as "The London Five".^[35] Soon after,Gareth Greengrass, a high-ranking official in theDepartment of Magical Law Enforcement, assured Grim that he would "do everything in [his]power" and "save no expense" to find his wife. Considering one of the missing individuals were one of his own subordinates, Harry Potter became in charge of the investigation. Despite their best efforts, however, the Aurors met a dead end in the London Five investigation,^[36] and thus, the council on which Gareth Greengrass and his colleagues presided over the investigation decided to close the case, leaving the families of the missing distraught. Worse still, part of the reason given for the decision was that the costs of the investigation exceeded the amount that theAurors could afford to spend.

Soon thereafter, Grim sent a memo to Greengrass, pleading with him to convince the council to re-open the investigation. To make matters worse, not only had Greengrass dismissed it as a bad job, he also implied that he was convinced that Penelope was most likely dead, throwing Grim further into a state of despair. Although Greengrass advised him to take time off work "to grieve and look after his children", having gone so far as to even admit that he had already gone over Grim's head and proposed it to Grim's superiors behind his back, Grim refused to take the alleged demise of his beloved Nel on face value and resolved to take matters into his own hands.^[37] Not long afterwards, he turned to Harry Potter instead, imploring him to "bend the rules",^[38] and continue the search off the records, for Penelope's sake. Soon thereafter, he tried to retrieve his wife's file in order to learn exactly what she had been doing at the time of her disappearance, only to be denied access to it due to the confidentiality of much of its information. This lead him to write an angry message to Mr Potter, insisting that he had a right to access to it, accusing him of showing blatant disregard for his own subordinates and tried to make him change his mind by claiming that he was actively "barring a grieving husband from the closure he deserves", implying he was pretending to have accepted Greengrass' conclusion as a way of appealing to Harry's emotion to try and convince him, once more, to bend the rules.^[39]

At some point later, he stole investigation files regarding the investigation into the disappearance of the London Five, where he discovered that the cited reason given for closing the case, namely the strain of the budget, did not correlate with the actual costs of the investigation, prompting him to issue a complaint to the Ministry'sAccounting Department and demand an explanation for the inaccuracy in their financial records. Around the same time, Grim received a letter from a witch by the name ofAmorette Deneuve, in which she expressed the belief thatlove was "the greatest and most dangerous magic in the world", describing it something that "imbues itself into our very bones, our very souls". This led Grim Fawely to believe that the power of love might just be the key to find his wife. At a later date, during the investigation into theCalamity, of which Grim was eventually strongly suspected of having caused^[38][40] and whose whereabouts became unknown to the Ministry around the same time, it was revealed by the log documenting the time of her entry and exit of theLove Chamber that Grim had been coming and going at odd times.

The Calamity[]

Around the time shortly prior to outbreak of the aforementioned threat to theInternational Confederation of Wizards'Statute of Secrecy, Grim was known to have begun acting rather suspiciously. This was shown when the British Ministry suddenly received an unexpected, written objection complaint from theirJapanese counterpart, asking for an explanation as to why one of their employees had written to them and requested classified documents from their archives without going through the proper channels, demanding that they have Grim provide them with a "detailed and polite explanation".^[40] At some point later on, awizarding library in Prague reported that several ancient spell books had gone missing, with its librarian suspecting a recent visitor of being the culprit.^[41] This was presumably tied to Fawley's search for his wife.

In an attempt to determine whyConfoundables departed, aCalamity Investigator working for theStatute of Secrecy Task Force read through Grim'sarcane notes and theorised that Confoundables might exist as a test to protect theFoundables they guarded, helping them better prevent Confoundables from fleeing from them. As ofJuly 13,2020, theHeadmistress of the day,Minerva McGonagall, gave the same Calamity Investigator permission to visit theRecords Room to look over the student file on Grim Fawley. Once there, they found that whilst the material was not very useful, curiously enough, the part of Fawley's records that had not been magically secured with theAnti-Cheating Spell had been altered, prompting them to restore them.^[15]

Rowena Rowle later let the same Calamity Investigator into theDepartment of Mysteries to share theories with them about Grim Fawley. As she monologued, the Calamity Investigator stared into theTank of Brains, accidentally inspiring one to leap onto them. Rowena managed to save the Calamity Investigator, but this experience still enabled the Calamity Investigator to reduce the time they spent brewingBaruffio's Brain Elixir.Gareth Greengrass later met with the same Calamity Investigator overtea and provided them a documented list of 700 instances ofspells cast in anger, including Grim Fawley'sCalamity Spell as example 628, explaining that all of them were more powerful than the caster imagined possible. The same Calamity Investigator also came across a treasure trove of Grim's personal artefacts, including notes, scribbles, and diary entries. Although the material was disjointed, the investigator found that the material made clear that the Calamity Spell focused on "channeling"love.^[15]

The same Calamity Investigator later travelled toPrague to volunteer for a Ministry assignment, where they surreptitiously examined a series of tomes that Grim was alleged to have read, dramatically enhancing their magical perception. Later, the same Calamity Investigator overheardRegina Rowle loudly claiming that Grim's relentless nature led to his downfall, with her claim leading the investigator to think deeply about the relationship between determination and the Foundables Spell. The same Calamity Investigator also revisited Grim's notes, reference texts, and literature from the days before he cast the Calamity Spell, finding that, despite rumours of his use of theDark Arts, Grim's spell wasn't "hostile" at all.^[15]

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Appearances[]

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• Harry Potter: Wizards Unite(First appearance)

Notes and references[]