Physical Description: Cricket is a wispy, waif-like girl with cloudy grey eyes and long blonde hair, which she braids to the side with a ribbon. She is of average height for her age.

Mental Description: As the oldest and most dependable of four siblings, Cricket exudes a quiet strength. She is fiercely protective of her adoptive brothers and sister, often standing up for her younger brothers Liam and Nathan when they encounter schoolyard bullies. She has an inclination towards the arts and can be quite serious, even somewhat brooding, at times, but she regards her friends very warmly. She is conscientious to a fault, often taking on more responsibility than she should. Questions about her past weigh heavily on her mind, and her deepest fear is that she will uncover a dark truth about her birth parents—and follow them down the same path. However, her love for her muggle family and her school friends keeps her grounded.

Biography: Born Cricket Mallory Morrigan, her biological parents Brigid and Ronan Morrigan were Unspeakables who worked for the Department of Mysteries. They disappeared under strange circumstances when Cricket was four months old. The couple was known to have been tried before the Wizengamot just prior to their disappearance, and although the records of the trial were destroyed due to the secretive nature of the Unspeakables’ work, it is widely believed that the Morrigans had been covertly selling highly classified Department of Mysteries information to dark wizards. Before they could receive their sentence, however, they mysteriously vanished, leaving young Cricket behind. Ministry officials saw to it that the infant was adopted by a loving Muggle family, away from the stigma of her parents’ betrayal. But word spread, and the name “Morrigan” has come to be synonymous with “traitor” in the wizarding world.

The O’Shea family loved and cared for Cricket as though she were their own. The girl grew up on their farm in County Kerry, surrounded by sheep, cows, and rolling green hills. In time, Cricket became an older sister to Liam, Nathan, and baby Chloe, the O’Shea’s biological children. Cricket doted on her siblings and kept them out of trouble, and in turn, they followed her almost everywhere. Cricket would lead them in games of pretend and make sure they finished their chores. Her adoptive parents, Patrick and Siobhán, were proud of the young woman she’d become; but it burdened their hearts to know that the day would come when Cricket would find out the truth about the world she had come from.

On her eleventh birthday, they presented her with the only two items her parents had left her; her father’s chestnut and dragon heartstring wand, and her mother’s silver compact mirror, inscribed with the words “Sequere Album Olor.” That summer, Cricket received her letter of acceptance to Hogwarts, and after giving it much thought, decided to go. Cricket knows she will always have the love and support of her muggle family, but she has a burning desire to know where she really came from.

First Instance of Magic:
“Liam, come down from there at once!”

Seven-year-old Cricket O’Shea placed her hands on her hips, craning her neck to catch a glimpse of her younger brother through the branches of a gnarled oak tree he had somehow managed to climb.

“I…I can’t,” the little boy replied. Cricket could see his tiny white hands gripping the trunk for dear life; his knees knocking together with cold and fear.

“If you can climb up, then you can climb down again,” the girl reasoned, “And Mom’s going to have a right fit if we’re not home in time for supper.”

Liam merely shook his head, the leaves around him swishing in defiance.

“You’ve the same feet and the same arms on you as you had when you climbed up. Come on,” Cricket said, her voice softening. “If you fall, I’ll jump up and catch you.”

“Will you really?”

“Cross my heart.”

Liam took a cautious step down to a lower part of the tree—then another, then another. His hand reached down for another branch, but missed its mark—Cricket’s breath caught in her throat at the thought of Liam falling. What if she couldn’t catch him…?

She closed her eyes and whispered. “Please…”

The palm of her hand brushed against the tree’s rough bark.

It was only for a moment—one strange, wonderful, dreamlike moment—but Cricket could’ve sworn the tree bent over, as if bowing to her, carrying Liam closer, and he stepped effortlessly off the tree branch and straight onto the ground.

Liam noticed it, too. His eyes went wide. “Did you see that, Cricket?! It was like…like magic!”

Cricket shook her head, still in shock. She looked up at the tree—it was standing upright again.

“Don’t be silly, Liam,” she said, taking the small boy by the hand. “There’s no such thing as magic.”

But as she left to take her brother home to get washed up for supper, she turned back to look at the oak one more time, moving her lips silently as if to speak.

“Thank you.”