Jamesina Tickes IV

**"Point me!"**

This article is about **the magical watchmaker born 1977**. You may be looking for **somebody else named *Jamesina* and/or *Tickes***.

## Biographical information

### Also known as

* Jessie Tickes
* Jims (by Myron Tickes)
* The Fourth Herself (by the Redfern triplets)
* Madam Tickes (by the Diagon Alley Chamber of Commerce)
* 'tite soeur (by Paul Deroulede)

### Title(s)

* Prefect (1993-1996)
* Chairperson of the Diagon Alley Chamber of Commerce (1996-)
* Master watchmaker (1996-)

## Physical description

### Distinguishing marks

* Large hands
* Wears glasses
* Wears five watches on each arm

## Psychological profile

### Likes

* Violets
* ABBA
* Cinnamon ice cream
* Anything mechanical
* Being restrained

## Relationship information

### Relatives

* James Tickes X (father)
* †Siobhan Tickes, née McArran (mother)
* Sarah Tickes, née Whipkey (stepmother)
* Ian Tickes (brother)
* Robby and Davy Tickes (half-brothers)
* Myron Tickes (grandfather)
* Gardner Tickes (uncle)
* †Ian Gardner Tickes III (great-grandfather)
* †Jamesina Tickes III (née Switch) (great-grandmother)
* †James Tickes IX (great-uncle)
* Loren Price-Fortescue (foster son/nephew)

## Affiliation

### Occupation

Watchmaker; full partner in Jas. W. Tickes and Sons and owner of the Diagon Alley shop

### Loyalty

* Jas. W. Tickes and Sons
* Chronologie Mechanique

**Jamesina "Jessie" Worthing Tickes**, also known as **Jamesina Tickes IV** (as well as *Jamie* or *Jims* to her family, *the Fourth Herself* to her neighbours the Redferns and *Madam Tickes* to the *Diagon Alley Chamber of Commerce*), is a non-canonical witch and watchmaker and the central character of *The Family Clock* as well as its unofficial sidestory *Ghosts, Mermaids, Clocks and Loonies*. She runs her family's shop in Diagon Alley, just across the street from Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes, and is a close friend of Fred and George, who were in the same year as she in Hogwarts (although she was sorted into Ravenclaw); through them she meets Charlie Weasley whom she starts dating and eventually gets engaged to.

## Physical appearance

Jessie is 5'6", with medium brown hair and brown eyes. She has pale skin, which she claims is due to spending most day-light hours indoors but is in fact inherited from her mother, and tends to wear her hair in a ponytail tied with a piece of black scrap leather. Her stepmother notes that, compared to her "just a hair on the side of barrel-chested" mother, she has "something more along the lines of a Switch figure", meaning a larger bosom and a smaller ribcage.

She wears glasses, without which faces become blurs, and five watches on each arm (two of which are tie-on); on her left hand, the smallest is of gold, the second up has a red mark hand showing when she last woke up, and the top is a chronometer with a calendar function; the second up on the right has double faces, with the bottom one spelled to follow that of her brother. On a chain around her neck she has one more very small watch, about the size of a knut, that her great-grandmother made for her when she was a baby, the last watch she ever made. When at work or as normal everyday wear, she wears a collared shirt under a suede vest, and trousers with button-on suspenders (which go under the vest); she has shirts in most colours. When outdoors in cold weather, she often wears a coat of crushed velvet with wide cuffs, pointy lapels, a fuzzy collar and four inside pockets.

## Biography

The text is inconsistent, but Jessie Tickes was most likely born on 24 October 1977, or possibly around mid-July 1978 (three and a half month after Fred and George Weasley); what might be a reference to late April, "[not] too long after the Weasleys left", more likely refers to them leaving the party early, not leaving Hogwarts, since this is her seventeenth rather than her eighteenth birthday. She was the second child of James Tickes X and the Irish muggleborn Siobhan Tickes, née McArran, preceded by her seven years older brother Ian. Their mother was an auror, and in 1979 she was killed by death eaters who attacked the family. This pushed her father into a clinical depression where for nine years he had to be watched to keep him from killing himself, and his children were primarily raised by his father and his younger brother.

At six years old, Jessie passed the *apprentice test* of the International Guild of Timepiece Artificers, Magical; this was a year earlier than the family average but nowhere near the British record (Myron Tickes was four).

She started Hogwarts in 1989, and was sorted into Ravenclaw. She received mediocre grades in Transfiguration and Charms, decent in Potions and Herbology and occasionally better ones in History of Magic and Care of Magical Creatures. During the summers she worked at the Diagon Alley shop as an apprentice under her grandfather, getting her journeyman license at fifteen, and after graduation she moved there full-time, but when he had a mild heart attack followed by kidney problems (allegedly from the hospital food) he retired and let her manage the shop on her own.

When Percy Weasley proposed to Penelope Clearwater, Molly Weasley asked Jessie to add a hand for her to the Weasley family clock, and one for Harry as well while she was at it. This led to her meeting Charlie Weasley, home from Romania for a year due to budget cuts at the dragon reserve and planning on writing "another dragon book, fiction this time". They clicked immediately, although it took a while before Jessie – being quite unused to being the object of serious romantic interest, and feeling quite out of her league – felt certain it was mutual. Their first date ended with death eaters attacking shops in Knockturn Alley, including that of her friends the Redfern triplets, with no auror response until she and Charlie flooed Kingsley Shacklebolt personally.

Just a few days later she was attacked in her shop by death eaters (whom she identified as Draco Malfoy, Crabbe and Goyle), and defended herself with a beater bat before being stunned; luckily, Charlie and Bill noticed what happened and drove them off, but she still ended up in St Mungo's with a dislocated shoulder, a broken jaw and a non-standard hex burn on her arm. When she was released, she worried that her family would insist that she move to Hogsmeade, but instead she was made full partner; this allowed her to move from the lower to the upper floor of the Diagon Alley Chamber of Commerce, and thanks to a rousing speech at the ceremony (and some behind-the-scenes maneuvering from Florean Fortescue and Abigail Flourish) she was immediately elected chairperson. Among the first things she did was to set up the Knockturn Alley Chamber of Commerce as a sister organization to the Diagon one.

The day after the election was her birthday – it ought to have been her nineteenth, but the text keeps saying twentieth; see The Family Clock#Timeline inconsistencies for a further discussion – and a few days later she received a Guild summons to sit her masterpiece, something seldom done before twenty-five (although the Tickes family average admittedly is closer to twenty-two). Before leaving, however, she started investing in property, beginning with the building housing Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes since she had learned that their landlord was about to foreclose and evict the tenants in order to flee the coming war. In the evening she broke up Rabastan Lestrange's assault on Apollo Nooke and beat up Bellatrix when she came to his aid, then led the shopkeepers of Diagon in a wandlight parade through Knockturn Alley to "embrace our brothers, and bring light into every shadow, friendship through every door and healthy, capitalistic competition to drive out the unregulated and illicit elements". (This may be the moment the Knockturn Alley Chamber of Commerce was founded; there are several general references to the event, but it is never actually described.)

## Relationships

James Tickes X: Jessie's relationship with her father is strained. Her mother died in a death eater attack when she was but two years old, and she has no memory of her, but her father spent the next nine years in a state of clinical depression where he had to be watched to make sure he didn't kill himself, and Jessie looks so much like her mother that he had a hard time even looking at her. She was essentially raised by her grandfather and her uncle, who was a teenager himself when she was born.

Sarah Tickes: When she was eleven, her father remarried. Her stepmother, said to be in her early twenties, had been a friend of her mother and slowly brought her father back to something vaguely resembling his old self. She was widely considered something of a golddigger, and Jessie's relationship with her was more cordial than friendly while growing up. After meeting Charlie Weasley, however, she tried to be more open to her stepmother and after Sarah explained that a) she was a lot older than she looked, and b) she was a trained mind healer and her marriage to James had been necessary to allow her to treat him properly, they became much closer. It is worth noting that after starting her Hogwarts studies, Jessie probably didn't spend much more than her Christmas breaks with her parents, limiting the opportunities for the two to develop a sustained social contact.

Myron Tickes: Until she was eleven, Jessie's grandfather was the main adult presence in her life, and once she started Hogwarts she tended to spend the summers with him in the Diagon Alley shop as an apprentice. After graduating she moved there full time, and while he pressed her hard with work she seems to be genuinely fond of him. He occasionally floos her to ask her help with the crosswords in the Daily Prophet.

Gardner Tickes: Uncle Gard had to grow up fast to help take care of his nephew and niece, not to mention the Hogsmeade showplace, but there is no sign that this affected their relationship in a negative way.

Ian Tickes: She has a bit of a problem getting used to her brother's fame as a professional quidditch player and "the savior of England National", but luckily it hasn't made him put on airs. He taught her to fly a broom when she was ten, but she never got into Quidditch seriously herself and in fact seems almost actively disinterested in the spectator aspect of the sport. They do get on better than most siblings.

Samuel McArran: Until recently, Jessie was not even aware that her maternal grandfather was alive; her mother had broken contact with her family quite early after some kind of internal dispute (possibly having to do with her being a muggle-born witch, although no details have been given) and he had only received the standard letter from the Ministry on her death. However, in 1996 he somehow found details on the Internet(!) and contacted his son-in-law. Unfortunately, Jessie did not hear about this until she was on her way to Bern to take the test for her Mastery, which was closely followed by her engagement to Charlie and the addition of Loren to the household, so she has not really had much time to reflect on it.

Fred and George Weasley: While not in the same House, Jessie and the Weasley twins knew each other already during their school year, where she on at least one occasion helped them prank Dolores Umbridge. Their friendship deepened when they became neighbours in Diagon Alley and particularly after her grandfather's heart attack, when the three started eating dinner together daily (Jessie cooking and the twins washing up), to the point where Ginny asked which of them it was she fancied. However, choosing one would leave the other alone, so she was not willing to take it further than friendship; the twins, on their side, started referring to her as their "third twin".

Mrs Miniver: While buying an owl was a spur-of-the-moment decision, the two get along very well.

Moaning Myrtle: Jessie grew up with her brother's stories of life at Hogwarts, including Nearly-Headless Nick, and so when she first met Myrtle as a first-year, she asked if she too had been beheaded. Unfortunately, Myrtle was insulted by the question, and carried a grudge towards Jessie throughout the latter's stay in the school. In her seventh year, one of Myrtle's pranks left Jessie locked out of the Prefects' bathroom dressed in only a hand towel until she was saved by Luna Lovegood.

## Trivia

* When Jessie was twelve, she came in second in *Greenpage's* yearly under-21 Herbology contest with a bonsai Whomping Willow.

* Already from her first year at Hogwarts, Jessie repaired snitches while the quidditch teams trained (and three times during actual games), and later she adapted her great-grandmother's designs, creating a solar-powered one two thirds the size of a standard snitch.

* Jessie was asked by Charlie to make a set of thirty clocks for the Order of the Phoenix, each with a different look so as not to give the secret away, but synchronized to one another and with Dumbledore's master watch able to reset the others from afar. Snape's watch is also able to launch small crystals of copper ferrocyanide, able to kill a grown man within an hour of skin contact.

* Jessie likes violets, wp:ABBA and cinnamon ice cream.

* Jessie is "really quite bad" at apparating, especially long-distance. The first time she tried it – luckily in a supervised class – she splinched her right foot two feet away, and ever since she usually closes her eyes when she needs to do it.

* She suffers from vertigo and may actually pass out from heights unless she has something else she can focus on, such as a set of gears of pendulum ratchets.

* She has lower-than-normal natural resistance to the Stunning Spell and similar magic, with the result that she tends to stay unconscious for a day, rather than "the usual twenty-odd minutes of dizziness".

* Before meeting Charlie – "last Christmas", which, depending on the timeline, may be while she was still in Hogwarts – she made him a watch, commissioned by his brothers, that he has worn since. It is fireproof and does not conduct heat, both very useful when working with dragons, and the hands and marks can be made to glow in the dark by pressing a button. Her grandfather was twenty-five when he made his first fireproof watch.

* As a child, she had an imaginary friend whom she talked to in her own language: a unicorn which turned invisible whenever somebody else looked at him.

* Jessie collects wearable mechanical items, and among them is a fair number of handcuffs; she admits to enjoying handcuffing herself to "various fixed objects, in various states of dress".

* Jessie has been known to talk to watches while examining or repairing them: *"Poor thing, we'll get you replated."*

## References

1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 *Ghosts, Mermaids, Clocks and Loonies*, Chapter 1
2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 2.6 2.7 *The Family Clock*, Chapter 1
3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 *The Family Clock*, Chapter 19
4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 The Family Clock, Chapter 17
5. ↑ *The Family Clock*, Chapter 16
6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 *The Family Clock*, Chapter 27
7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 7.2 7.3 7.4 7.5 7.6 7.7 7.8 7.9 *The Family Clock*, Chapter 2
8. ↑ 8.0 8.1 *The Family Clock* Chapter 5
9. ↑ 9.0 9.1 The Family Clock, Chapter 25
10. ↑ 10.0 10.1 10.2 *The Family Clock*, Chapter 4
11. ↑ 11.0 11.1 11.2 *The Family Clock*, Chapter 26
12. ↑ 12.0 12.1 12.2 12.3 *The Family Clock*, Chapter 11
13. ↑ *The Family Clock*, Chapter 18
14. ↑ 14.0 14.1 14.2 *The Family Clock*, Chapter 9
15. ↑ 15.0 15.1 15.2 *The Family Clock*, Chapter 12
16. ↑ 16.0 16.1 16.2 *The Family Clock*, Chapter 3
17. ↑ The Family Clock#Timeline calculations
18. ↑ 18.0 18.1 18.2 *The Family Clock*, Chapter 8
19. ↑ *The Family Clock*, Chapter 10
20. ↑ 20.0 20.1 20.2 *The Family Clock*, Chapter 21
21. ↑ 21.0 21.1 *The Family Clock*, Chapter 6
22. ↑ *The Family Clock*, Chapter 7
23. ↑ 23.0 23.1 23.2 *The Family Clock*, Chapter 13
24. ↑ 24.0 24.1 *The Family Clock*, Chapter 23
25. ↑ 25.0 25.1 25.2 25.3 25.4 *The Family Clock*, Chapter 28
26. ↑ *The Family Clock*, Chapter 29