Mary Ann Prewett

## Mary Ann Prewett (née Macmillan)

**Mary Ann Prewett** (née **Macmillan**) (14 February, 1912 - 18 January, 2007) was an English pure-blood witch who attended Hogwarts from 1 September 1923 to June 1930. She was a member of the Macmillan family, an old wizarding family that has been around for several hundreds of years.

She was the daughter of Caius Macmillan, a younger brother of the wider known Ambrose Macmillan, and his wife Juliet Macmillan (née Abbott), a pure-blood witch. She had two older brothers, Edmund and Joseph Macmillan. She was the paternal granddaughter of Hiram Macmillan, an English wizard, and Dolly Macmillan (née Spindle), an American society witch from a prominent American banking family.

She was the mother to three children, Gideon, Fabian, and Molly Weasley (née Prewett), and the grandmother of Maud Prewett, as well as William, Charles, Percival, Frederick, George, Ron, and Ginny Weasley. She was the wife of Alfred Prewett but she became a widow in 1969.

She lived through the First and Second Wizarding Wars and died in St. Denis's Home for Old Witches and Wizards in Chudley, Devon, after have lived in Oxfordshire for several years previous.

## Biography

### Early life (1912-1923)

From birth, Mary was a member of the House of Macmillan. Her father, Caius, was the second oldest of five children, and the youngest son, second to his brother Ambrose Macmillan. Her mother, Juliet, was a member of the House of Abbott, and was the youngest of three children, and the only daughter.

Mary had two brothers, Edmund and Joseph. She was born on 14 February, 1912, in Barnstaple, Devon. Edmund was aged six, and Joseph was aged four when she was born. She had two uncles, Phineas and Cornelius Abbott, on her mother's side, but they disliked her father's family, the Macmillans, because they were considered "dark wizards".

She was the paternal granddaughter of Hiram Macmillan, an English wizard, who, although slightly conservative and thought that wizards should keep within their traditions, was not a dark wizard, and Dolly Macmillan (née Spindle), an American society witch from a prominent American banking family. Neither of these individuals practised dark magic, and were about as far away from the likes of the Lestranges, the Blacks, the Averys, as one could get.

However, they did have a tendency to be sorted into Slytherin. Her father had been a Slytherin, in fact, which was why her mother's brothers did not like him. They were also wealthier than the Abbotts, who had an inherited seat on the Wizenagmot, but could barely be considered the epitome of "proper pure-bloods" themselves.

This led to conflict between her family members, as she recalled to her grand-daughter Ginny once. Furthermore, Mary's uncle, Ambrose Macmillan, was a member of the International Confederation of Wizards, and had inherited the largest share of her grandparents' money. Her father, Caius Macmillan, was slightly bitter about not receiving more money from their mother, Dolly Spindle, a sum of more than 53 million galleons, which had been divided amongst the five Macmillans, with preference to Ambrose, who was Head of the House.

Mary Macmillan and her family moved into a large house within the county of Oxfordshire when she was eight years old, her father having used his inheritance to buy the property. Her father also did not work, and had not wanted to even when his brother Ambrose suggested it. Ambrose himself began a political career at the age of twenty-one, and had climbed the ranks for his own appointment to the International Confederation of Wizards, which brought far more money to the Ambrosian Macmillans than it did to Caius and his family.

It was announced in 1922 that Mary's first cousin, Melania Macmillan, who had been Head Girl and also a Slytherin, had become engaged to Arcturus Black III, son of Sirius Black II, Head of the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black. The Black family was the richest family in Wizarding England, Arcturus, as Sirius Black's eldest son and heir, was poised to become the wealthiest man in Britain upon the death of his father, which actually occurred in 1952.

Mary, then aged eleven, was present at the wedding of Melania Macmillan to Arcturus Black in the summer of 1923. The ceremony was so incredibly lavish that it made the front page of *The Daily Prophet*. Featuring over two hundred invited guests, the ceremony took place in Tisbury, Wiltshire, at Black Manor, the ancestral seat of the House of Black.

#### Hogwarts years (1923-1930)

Mary received her Hogwarts letter in the summer of 1923. She visited Diagon Alley sometime before beginning school and while there, purchased a wand made of yew and dragon heartstring. She boarded the Hogwarts Express on 1 September 1923 and was sorted into Gryffindor House that night. This disappointed her uncle Ambrose so much that he did not send her a birthday present that year in February. Her other two brothers had both been Hufflepuffs, which disappointed him even more.

Caius Macmillan had also been a Hufflepuff, which hadn't disappointed his mother, Dolly, but probably had disappointed his father, at some point. Mary was the family's only Gryffindor.

#### Marriage (1940)

Mary Ann Macmillan married Alfred Prewett, the heir to the House of Prewett, on 29 July, 1940, in Oxford. Being her father's only daughter, Caius Macmillan was extremely hopeful that she might marry into a more wealthy family so that his bloodline would flourish and be more successful than his brother, Ambrose's.

However, Alfred Prewett was not so wealthy as Macmillan had hoped, and the Prewetts' estate, which sat on a large piece of land in Ottery St. Catchpole, Devon, had accidentally been burned down the day before the wedding. Mary was horrified and felt extreme anxiety that the wedding would not be allowed to occur.

Caius Macmillan had originally wanted to postpone the wedding, but the Prewetts refused to do so, and it took place as planned on 29 July, 1940, and upon Ambrose Macmillan's generous bequest, at his estate in Castle Cary, Somerset, England. The Prewetts were all invited, but they felt out of place and awkward at Ambrose Macmillan's stately mansion, leading Mary to come close to "bursting into tears," as she would later say.

### Later life (1940-2007)

Alfred and Mary were given the plot of land where the former home of the Prewetts once stood by Alfred's father, Clarence, and together they were the ones to build the Burrow, the house that is now the home of the Weasleys. Alfred Prewett additionally built the Lovegood's home across the way from Ottery St. Catchpole, intending for his brother Bilius to live in it.

Alfred and Mary's first child, Gideon, was born with his twin brother, Fabian, on 31 March, 1945. Their only daughter, named Molly (for a great-grandmother of her husband Alfred's), was born three years later, on 30 October, 1949.

Her sons, Fabian and Gideon, started school in 1956. Both of them were sorted into Gryffindor, like their parents. They wrote letters home to her about life at school. When it came time for Molly to start in 1961, she was sorted into Gryffindor as well.

On 18 July, 1969, after being married for 29 years, Mary was widowed upon the death of her husband, Alfred. He died of natural causes and he was 56. Her three children were 24, 24, and 19, respectively. Molly was heartbroken because she had longed for her father to give her away (as she had just recently become engaged to Arthur Weasley, of Salcombe, Devon). Nevertheless, the marriage took place in October, later that year, and Mary moved out of the Burrow to live in a smaller house in Oxford, which the money left behind from her husband would pay for, and the newly-wed Weasleys moved into the Burrow, Arthur not yet having enough funds to buy a house of his own.

#### First Wizarding War (1970-1981)

She became a grandmother for the first time in November of 1970, when her grandson, William Weasley (also known as Bill) was born. She positively adored the baby Bill, and talked about him as a baby, according to Ginny, "a lot more than Charlie," which embarrassed Bill. However, this could have been just because Bill was her first grandchild and not out of any particular favouritism.

Her son, Gideon Prewett, married a witch called Dahlia Fowler in early 1972, the same year that her second grandson, Charles (also known as Charlie) was born. Charlie was born in December of 1972.

In April of 1973, Mary's first granddaughter, Maud Prewett, was born. Around the summer of 1975, the year before the birth of her grandson Percy Weasley, both of Mary's sons joined the original Order of the Phoenix, a special organisation designed to combat Voldemort and his Death Eaters. Mary was not told that Gideon and Fabian were apart of this vigilante group at first, as they hadn't wanted to scare her or let her argue her way out of them doing it.

Mary's daughter, Molly, gave birth to a third son, Percy, in 1976, and a set of twins, Fred and George, in 1978. In 1980, she gave birth to another son, Ron. And in 1981, during what was considered the height of the First Wizarding War, Molly and Arthur finally had a girl they were wishing for, Ginny, who was the first girl to be born in the Weasley family for several generations.

However, not all was well in the Weasley family: Mary's two sons, Fabian and Gideon, had been killed in early February, 1981, fighting a total of five Death Eaters all on their own, including Antonin Dolohov, in Rattlesden, Suffolk, responding to a call about the Dark Mark being spotted in the sky. The Death Eaters had reportedly lured them there to murder members of the Order.

Mary was heartbroken by the deaths of her sons, and buried Fabian, who had been unmarried, with her husband, Alfred, in Barnstaple, Devon. Her daughter-in-law, Dahlia Prewett (née Fowler), was blindsided by the loss of her own husband and was not prepared to support or protect her daughter on her own. This was why Dahlia and eight-year-old Maud moved in with the Weasley family in Ottery St. Catchpole, that spring.

#### Between the Wars (1981-1994)

In 1982, her grandson Bill started school at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. He was sorted into Gryffindor, which made Mary very proud.

By 1983, by which point Mary's oldest granddaughter, Maud, had turned ten years old, Dahlia and Maud moved to the nearby wizarding village of Chudley, in Devon. Dahlia had become employed by the Ministry of Magic, working for Magical Maintenance.

In 1984, two of Mary's grandchildren, Charlie and Maud, started school at Hogwarts. Both were, predictably, sorted into Gryffindor and Mary sent Maud a charm bracelet and a box of candy, while Charlie apparently got nothing, even though they were "supposed to share."

In 1986, at the end of his second year of school, Charlie was made Seeker of the Gryffindor Quidditch Team, and Mary knitted him a sweater in congratulations.

In the summer of 1988, when Hogwarts letters were sent out, Mary's grandson Bill was made Head Boy. She was undoubtedly proud of him and shared photographs of him with his Head Boy's badge on "*to anyone who would listen*", "*even if they were muggles*," which caused a bit of trouble for Arthur Weasley down at the Ministry of Magic, because his mother-in-law was constantly creating the need for Obliviators to deploy to Oxfordshire (she was fined fifty galleons for this offence).

In 1990, Mary's brother-in-law, Bilius Prewett, saw a Grim and then died 24 hours later. The house that he had lived in (which had been built by Mary's late husband, Alfred Prewett, in the shape of a rook) was sold to Xenophilius Lovegood, who moved in with his wife, Pandora, and daughter, Luna, aged nine.

## Etymology

*Mary* is a feminine given name, the English form of the name *Maria*, which was in turn a Latin form of the Greek names *Mariam*, found in the New Testament. Both New Testament names were forms of the Hebrew name *Miryam*. The usual meaning given by various sources for the name is the Hebrew "bitterness."

*Macmillan* was originally a name for a bald person; the name may refer to a member of a religious order. The Gaelic forms of the name are *Mac Mhaolain* or *Mac Ghille Mhaoil,* both of which mean "son of the bald" or "tonsured one."