French Quarter Coven

**The French Quarter Coven** are a group of witches based in New Orleans. They are first seen to convene in *The Vampire Diaries* episode *The Originals*.

The Coven is one of several covens residing in New Orleans but it is the only one who lives inside the French Quarter. Other covens of witches live in the other parts of New Orleans and all are submitted to the regency of a powerful witch who acts as the voice of the consecrated dead of New Orleans. The latest Regent was Davina Claire, the last of the Harvest witches, and a former member of the French Quarter Coven, who succeeded Josephine LaRue after her death. However, she lost this position in *Out of the Easy* when she was shunned.

## History

Previously, the coven was known to practice Ancestral Magic, by which they drew power from their consecrated dead ancestors who are buried at Lafayette Cemetery in the French Quarter of New Orleans. Since their ancestors' remains are the source of their power, the coven cannot leave the city, or they would be abandoning their legacy. If a French Quarter witch did leave the city, it would result in the witch being cut off from his or her connection to the ancestral magic. The coven is also one of nine covens present in the city.

The Coven was one of the supernatural forces present in the city when the Original Family arrived to New Orleans from Europe in the 18th century. The growing vampire presence became a recurring problem for the witches. However, in the early days, some witches seemed to have no problem with the Originals and one of them, Céleste Dubois, formed a romantic relationship with Elijah Mikaelson. However, the growing brutality of Elijah's brother, Niklaus Mikaelson, eventually led him to blame the witches for his crimes. This led to a witch hunt in which many witches, including Céleste, were killed.

Tensions between the witches and the growing number of vampires continued throughout the 19th century and eventually came to a head in the early 20th. While many witches from various covens had aligned with Klaus and the Originals, a faction of witches had chosen to oppose them, among them were Mary-Alice Claire and Astrid Malchance. The covens waged war on each other and on themselves, and illness and catastrophes hit the city because of the witches' conflict. Eventually, the rebel witches allied with Klaus' brother, Kol Mikaelson, who taught them a new form of magic called Kemiya which allowed a witch to create a dark object by changing it's core element. Kol's plan was to create a golden dagger so that he could use on his brother, just as he had done several times in the past. In the process of learning Kemiya, several dark objects were created by the witches, such as the Devil's Star. However, the dagger's power proved to be too great to change it as easily as the others. Needing a perfect and large paragon diamond, Kol and his witches tried to steal one from the Dowager Fauline. However, Kol's killing of the Dowager and a whole crowd at St. Anne's Church had drawn the attention of his brother. As Kol and his witches searched the Dowager's house, Klaus and Marcel, accompanied by one of their witches, caught Kol and took the diamond. The witch sealed Mary-Alice and Astrid in the house which would then become a prison for witches who had gone mad. Eventually, Kol was staked by his brother again and his witches were apparently defeated.

After the First World War, as Prohibition was being set into motion, the Original brothers came up with a plan to unite the city's supernatural elements to oppose Prohibition. However, the coven had fallen under the control of a dangerous and powerful witch, Papa Tunde. Desiring to find a place for the witches in the Originals' plan and wanting both money and territory for himself, he begun to wage war on the city's other elements, including the humans and the werewolves. He even killed those witches who opposed him. Eventually, Klaus and Elijah decided Papa Tunde needed to die: Klaus killed his sons who acted as a channel for his power before killing him. With Tunde's death, the witches apparently fell in line with the Originals and their plans.

After the Originals were forced to flee the city in 1919 when their father, Mikael, found them, the balance of power in New Orleans begun to change once again as the Mikaelsons' plans to create unity in the face of Prohibition fell through. Eventually, Klaus' protegee, Marcel, returned to the city and, during the 1920s, he waged a guerilla war against the Guerrera werewolves. Marcel's return saw a rise of the vampire population as he gradually rebuilt his community. The werewolves also fought against the vampires but their infighting did not make them a good fighting force. It is unknown who the witches fought for during these troubles but they did form an alliance with the Human Faction in the later years of the 20th century and early years of the 21st.

Eventually, at the beginning of the 21st century, the werewolves had been more or less defeated and Marcel's vampires became the superior force of New Orleans. Although the French Quarter witches opposed this, they did not engage in open warfare against the vampires. The covens were also divided over how to treat the vampires: several covens joined them while others opposed them, and others simply ignored them. In addition, the French Quarter's ancestral power source had been growing more tenuous as their link to the Ancestors and their magic weakened over time. Determined to preserve their power, the coven's Elders decided to perform the Harvest ritual which would see four witches sacrificed and resurrected to strengthen the link with the Ancestors and make their magic even more potent. The four witches would then return more powerful than ever as they would have learnt the secrets of the Ancestors. However, their plans were soon derailed when Sophie Deveraux learnt of their plans: a witch who had renounced her heritage due to the witches' strict rules, she believed that the Harvest was a myth and would only lead to the death of four witches. Among those chosen was Sophie's niece, Monique Deveraux. The three other girls were Abigail, Cassie and Davina Claire.

Sophie tried to stop the Harvest by warning Father Kieran O'Connell, the leader of the Faction, so that he could stop the massacre. An ally of the witches, Kieran was nevertheless repulsed by their plans and tried to stop them, threatening to enter into an alliance with Marcel if they defied him and proceeded with the Harvest. In order to distract Kieran, the Elder Agnes placed a hex on his nephew, Sean O'Connell, which made him loose his mind and eventually made him kill himself and nine seminary students before Kieran's eyes. Distracted by his nephew's madness, Kieran was unable to stop the witches. However, Sophie had also confided in her secret lover, Marcel. After Sean's death, Kieran left New Orleans but also encouraged Marcel to stop the Harvest to save the four sacrifices. As the witches killed the witches, Marcel and his vampires attacked. Three of the girl were already dead by the Elder Bastianna Natale and only Davina still lived. The vampires killed the Elders with the exception of Agnes and saved Davina.

The Harvest however was not a myth as Sophie had believed: as each girl died, she released her power onto the next with the final death supposed to release the full power into the earth. Since Davina still lived, she had the entire power of the four sacrifices. Among her new powers, she could sense when a witch was using magic. Partly to protect her and partly to control the witches, Marcel hid Davina in St. Anne's Church's attic. He then banned the use of magic in New Orleans, using Davina's ability and her new resentment of the witches to kill any witch who broke the rule. Unable to use magic, the witches were forced to submit to Marcel's rule and the vampires finally ruled the city without opposition from either the witches, the werewolves or even the humans.

However, the witches were not happy with this development and both Sophie Deveraux and her sister Jane-Anne were devastated over the loss of Monique. Determined to get their niece and daughter back, they planned to find and kill Davina to complete the Harvest. However, due to their inability to perform magic, they needed allies who could bring down Marcel in their stead.

## Season One

* Alliance with the Mikaelsons
* Completing the Harvest
* The rise of the NOLA witches
* War in New Orleans

When Sophie learns that Hayley Marshall, a werewolf, is pregnant with the child of the Original Vampire Niklaus Mikaelson, the witches plan to use this to their advantage. Realizing that they had the chance to use the Originals to help in their plans, the coven kidnapped Hayley before luring Klaus back to New Orleans. In order to ensure that the Originals would help them, Jane-Anne performed a spell which not only confirmed the pregnancy but also linked Hayley to Sophie. Approached by Elijah Mikaelson, the witches revealed that their plans were to simply overthrow Marcel and that they wanted him to undermine his empire from within. Elijah, determined to help Hayley convinced she was the key to his family's redemption, convinced Klaus to follow the plan. The Originals made an alliance with the witches in order to accomplish their objectives. Although the coven overruled her and followed Sophie's lead, Agnes, the coven's only living Elder, opposed the alliance with the Originals.

After Rebekah Mikaelson learnt of Davina's existence and discovered that a witch named Katie was engaged in a romantic relationship with Thierry Vanchure, one of Marcel's lieutenants, Klaus and Rebekah made a plan to sow dissent in Marcel's ranks and find Davina by having Katie launch an attack on Marcel and his vampires when they sentenced Thierry to the Garden for killing a vampire (a move orchestrated by Klaus). In the meantime, while Katie's magic acted as a shield, Sophie would cast a locator spell to find Davina. However, Klaus killed Katie before Sophie could complete the spell so as to gain more of Marcel's favour and to ensure the witches did not find Davina. Klaus wanted to ensure that Davina's power would be used by him once he took over New Orleans and that the witches would be forced to submit to him. Meanwhile, while the Originals conducted their plans, Sophie sent a witch named Sabine Laurent to watch over Hayley. While helping Hayley discover her child's sex, Sabine had a vision about the child. Upon returning to the Coven, she revealed to Agnes what she had seen: that the child would bring death to all witches.

Agnes, determined to protect the coven from danger, tried to have the child killed. Under the guise of arranging a medical checkup for Hayley with a friend of hers in the Bayou, she ordered several of her witches to kill Hayley. However, she realized what was happening and he ran away before killing most of them. When both she and Rebekah were neutralized by the witches, those that remained were killed by a wolf trailing Hayley.

After the attempt on Hayley's life, Klaus demanded answers from Sophie Deveraux who finally revealed the truth behind Davina's power and the Harvest. Meanwhile, Elijah made a deal with Davina to allow her to gain control over her powers by using the spells contained in his mother's grimoire. He also nullified the deal between the Originals and the witches because they had not be completely honest with them when they made their agreement. However, Agnes was determined to see the baby killed: her witches captured Sophie who was still magically linked to Hayley, using the link and a dark object called the Needle of Sorrows to induce a miscarriage. Thanks to Davina, the linking was broken and Hayley and the baby were saved. At the same time, Klaus enlisted the help of the Human Faction to apprehend Agnes, using Agnes' murder of Sean to convince Father Kieran to help him. Sophie tried to convince Elijah to prevent Klaus from killing Agnes, as she was the coven's last living Elder and the only one with the power to perform important spells such as the Harvest. Elijah swore that Agnes would not die by Klaus' hand before killing her himself for endangering his family.

With Agnes' death, it appeared that all hopes to complete the Harvest were doomed and that the witches would eventually lose access to the source of power created by the consecration of their Ancestors. However, hope was renewed when Sabine learnt that Davina had escaped from Marcel's control after learning of Agnes' death. While every single vampire in town searched for Davina, the witches also made their move, no longer bound to Marcel's rule of not using magic. While Sabine and a group of witches sought out the last Harvest girl, Sophie called Hayley and revealed that she knew of a way to complete the Harvest and, as the key ingredient, how she could become an Elder. She needed to consecrate the remains of a powerful witch whose power she could then use to connect with their Ancestors. The only witch Sophie had any knowledge of was Céleste Dubois, Elijah's old lover in the 18th century. After her death, Elijah had honored a promise he had made to her: that he would bury her away from her witches so that she wouldn't be consecrated and could remain in peace. Sophie asked Hayley to tell her where Elijah had buried Céleste so that she could use her power in the Harvest ritual. Hayley complied when Sophie promised that she would lift the curse placed on the Crescent wolves by her ancestor, Brynn Deveraux.

Meanwhile, Sabine and her witches cornered Davina and her friend, Camille O'Connell, in St. Anne's Church but Davina proved too powerful: she killed the four witches and incapacitated Sabine before fleeing to the Mikaelson compound to save her friend, Timothy, from Klaus. After she easily defeated Klaus, Elijah and Marcel, she was tricked into drinking poison by a compelled Timothy. However, Elijah and Marcel had predicted Klaus' treachery and made sure that Davina was protected: Marcel coerced Sabine into performing the same protection spell she had cast on herself on Davina so that Klaus would be unable to kill her. Therefore, Davina returned to life although Timothy died from the poison.

The next day brought a bad surprise however: Davina started inexplicably throwing up dirt and her magic begun to shake the entire French Quarter. Sophie, who had recovered Céleste's bones, realized that the power of the four Harvest witches within Davina was starting to tear her apart. Since the four elements had been bound to the Harvest ritual and each witch represented an element, each element would be influenced by Davina's hemorrhaging magic: the earth would shake, the winds would blow hard enough to tear the roof off of a building, violent storms and floods would wreak havoc in the Quarter, and fire would eventually burn the entire city to the ground. The only way to prevent this from happening and to possibly save Davina's life was to complete the Harvest. The Mikaelsons eventually came to accept this possibility and plans were made for Davina to be sacrificed.

However, several problems emerge: the first was when Sophie discovered that there was no magic left in Céleste's bones, preventing them from using her magic to complete the Harvest. However, Elijah overcame the proposal by offering up another witch, one far more powerful than Céleste had ever been: Esther, the mother of the Originals. After she attempted to kill them, Klaus had carried her body in a coffin with them. The Originals eventually decided that consecrating their mother was the only option and made plans for her burial: as a witch needed to remain on land owned by her descendants to be consecrated, the Originals turned over the property of their plantation to Hayley, who owned the land as a caretaker for her unborn daughter, Esther's descendant. Father Kieran buried Esther on the plantation land and the Originals became conduits for Esther's power. As such, they could channel their mother's power to Sophie, allowing her to perform the ritual.

But this was without counting on Marcel: fearful for Davina's life, he took her from the compound and hid her in the docks. As the weather grew worse, Rebekah, with help from Thierry Vanchure, found Marcel and convinced him that Davina's only chance was with the Harvest. Marcel brought Davina to the cemetery and the fourth Harvest girl willing sacrificed her to the Harvest: Sophie killed Davina, thus finally completing the Harvest and the power was apparently released back into the earth, ending the storm. However, despite the completion of the Harvest, the four Harvest girls did not return and all assumed the Harvest had failed. However, Rebekah suspected foul play as such power could not simply disappear.

Rebekah's suspicion proved true: Sabine had secretly hijacked the power and redirected it to resurrect other witches: Papa Tunde, Bastianna Natale and Genevieve. She kept the last part of the power for herself, becoming the most powerful witch in New Orleans as a result. When the three resurrected witches assembled before Sabine, she revealed that she was in fact Céleste Dubois, who had successfully escaped death in the 18th century by jumping into another body and she had remained alive, in hiding, for centuries in this manner. Now, she planned to use the Harvest magic and the three witches (all of whom would have a grudge against the Originals or the New Orleans vampires to help her in her quest).

Since Davina had been sacrificed and was currently dead/in limbo, Marcel had no way of monitoring and restricting the use of magic in the Quarter, and the witches took advantage of this by beginning to rebuild their coven and establish the New Orleans witches as a force to be reckoned with.

heir first order of business was punishing Father Kieran for his part in interfering with the Harvest, which Bastianna accomplished by hexing him with the same hex that caused his nephew Sean to lose his mind and commit mass murder-suicide. Then, the newly-resurrected Papa Tunde began using his sacrificial magic to desiccate vampires with his touch, killing them and absorbing their magic to make him even stronger. He was able to use this method on Rebekah as well, although it did not kill her; instead, it just desiccated her and allowed her to become a limitless source of power for Papa Tunde, which he intended to use to take down Klaus, in revenge for him killing him and his sons in 1919. Unfortunately for him, Klaus was able to overpower him once Papa Tunde's connection to Rebekah's power was broken by Elijah and Hayley, and Papa Tunde fled to avoid death at his hands once again. Instead, he went to the Garden, where he sacrificed the dozens of vampires entombed there who had broken Marcel's rules. All of the magical power that Papa Tunde had harvested from the many vampires he killed was channeled into his bone blade, which he gave to Céleste to sacrifice him as the "final offering" in their plan. Once he was killed, his power was also channeled into the blade, creating a weapon that would cause untold pain and torment to anyone stabbed with it, even an Original.

Meanwhile, after Papa Tunde's death, the power that kept him alive returned to the witch it had originally belonged to: Monique Deveraux. Monique's resurrection was seen as a miracle by the witches but Monique's aunt, Sophie, did not want her niece to live in New Orleans now that war was declared between the witches and the vampires. However, during her death, Monique had been trained by the Ancestors and she was now fanatically devoted to the witches. She killed her aunt for no longer having faith in their Ancestors before consecrating her power to fuel the community.

The next phase of Céleste's plan was to punish Elijah for always choosing Klaus and his family over everyone else, including herself—in 1821, Klaus told the authorities that the witches were sacrificing humans to fuel their magic, which resulted in Céleste being killed. While Céleste's death hurt Elijah deeply, she did not truly die, and instead began using her dark magic to inhabit the bodies of various female witches in the New Orleans coven over the centuries, including Clara Summerlin, Annie La Fleur, Sabine Laurent, and Brynne Deveraux. While still in Sabine's body, Céleste orchestrated the capture of Klaus (who was stabbed with Papa Tunde's blade by Sophie) and Rebekah (who was viciously attacked by werewolves on the full moon) to torture them in an effort to hurt Elijah. She sent Monique to cast a Devinette spell on Elijah, which tattooed the names of every female witch that Céleste had possessed since her first death in a riddle that Elijah needed to solve to save his siblings. He eventually figured out, with Marcel's help, that Rebekah and Klaus were being held at the Fleur-de-Lis Sanitorium, where Genevieve enacted her part of the plan. Genevieve sought to get revenge on Rebekah for pretending to be her friend and killing her in 1919, and did so by linking Rebekah's memories to Klaus' mind. By doing so, Klaus was finally informed that it was Rebekah and Marcel who had summoned Mikael to New Orleans, in hopes that Mikael would chase Klaus out of town and leave Rebekah and Marcel to live happily ever after. Klaus became so enraged by this revelation that he attempted to stab Rebekah with Papa Tunde's blade, which was eventually turned onto himself by Elijah to protect her.

That night, Hayley snuck up on Céleste and knocked her out before bringing her back to the bayou and forcing her to undo the curse she cast on the Crescent wolves while she was inhabiting Brynne Deveraux. Céleste showed uncharacteristic kindness by helping Hayley by making a potion to undo the curse, and took pleasure in taunting Elijah about how Hayley leaving him and Klaus, and living with the wolves would be the best thing that happened to her. Knowing that her cover was fully blown, Céleste slit Sabine's throat so she could die and Céleste could jump into another body. However, Elijah had predicted her treachery and he had made an alliance with Monique Deveraux, who was convinced that Sabine would eventually kill herself to release her Harvest magic back into the earth so the witches could thrive. However, overhearing her conversation with Elijah, Monique learnt the truth: that Céleste had no intention to help the witches and that she would flee with the Harvest magic, leaving the New Orleans witches powerless. Using a spell from Esther's grimoire that Elijah had given her, she forced Céleste's essence to return to her own bones, returning her to her original body. As such, when Céleste awoke, Elijah killed her despite her protests, ending her threat and allowing her magic to return to the earth.

Meanwhile, Rebekah and Marcel planned to leave New Orleans to flee from Klaus' rage but Marcel would not leave Davina behind. They also needed her help to cast a cloaking spell on themselves to prevent Klaus from finding them. To bring Davina back, they planned to kill the remaining resurrected witches: with Thierry's help, they ambushed Genevieve and Bastianne. Marcel killed Bastianna but Genevieve escaped. The death of both Céleste and Bastianna resurrected two more Harvest girls: Davina and Abigail. Meanwhile however, Céleste's plan for the Originals came to fruition: all trapped in the cemetery together by a boundary spell and Klaus intending to kill Rebekah for her treachery. Marcel tried to get Rebekah out by asking for Genevieve's help: the witch agreed in exchange for an end to the vampires' attacks on the witches and a guarantee that they would leave their territory alone. She also demanded that Davina be returned to them which would allow her to be trained as a Harvest girl. Marcel agreed and Genevieve lift the spell from the cemetery. By that time, Klaus and Rebekah had come to terms: Rebekah would leave New Orleans and not return and Klaus would let her. This foiled Céleste's plans of revenge but the witches had emerged stronger than ever while the vampires were weak and in chaos.
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## Leaders

* Papa Tunde †
* Bastianna Natale †
* Agnes †
* Céleste Dubois †
* Genevieve †
* Esther †
* Finn Mikaelson † (Formerly)

## Members

* Elders
	+ Agnes †
	+ Bastianna Natale †
	+ Céleste Dubois †
	+ Genevieve †
	+ Sophie Deveraux †
* Harvest Girls
	+ Abigail †
	+ Cassie † (Left)
	+ Davina Claire (Left)
	+ Monique Deveraux †
	+ Jessica
	+ Amy
	+ Steph
	+ One Unnamed Harvest Girl
* Clara Summerlin †
* Jane-Anne Deveraux †
* Kaleb Westphall †
* Katie †
* Mrs. Claire †
* Papa Tunde †
* Sabine Laurent †
* Unnamed Members

\*† indicates deceased

## Former Members

* Davina Claire (Shunned)
* Cassie † (Kindred)
* Annie La Fleur † (Shunned)
* Kol Mikaelson

## Trivia

* The French Quarter Coven is the largest coven seen so far, with dozens of members of various ages and from various families and bloodlines.
* There appear to be different factions within the coven, each with their own differing views and agendas, as evidenced by Sophie and several other witches believing that the Harvest was nothing more than a legend, such as Noah's Ark.
* Witches who were broken by magic are sent to the Dowager Fauline Cottage it strongly implies that the coven doesn't want to deal with them.
* According to Céleste Dubois, possessing Sabine Laurent, Elders are the only witches in their coven who can complete certain spells, including the the Harvest, which they needed to access the additional power their ancestors could provide. When Agnes died, they were sure that they would not be able to complete the Harvest, until Sophie learned that there was another way—whichever witch could consecrate the remains of the most powerful witch would be bestowed the powers of an Elder. When Sophie consecrated the remains of Esther, a powerful dark witch, she became an Elder of the coven.
* Davina defected from the coven after the first attempt at the Harvest. She then returned to the coven before *Moon Over Bourbon Street*, but then left for good before the events of *Rebirth*.
* Esther is now a New Orleans witch, since her remains were buried and consecrated on New Orleans soil, and her powers were absorbed by Esther's only living offspring (Hayley and Klaus' unborn daughter) and channeled by Sophie to give herself the powers of an Elder.
	+ Hope Mikaelson is now also a part of the New Orleans witch community.
* The consequences of not completing the Harvest corresponded with the four stages elements used in performing the Harvest. The first element is earth, which is also the first and weakest stage, by manifesting in two ways: first, the remaining Harvest girl (Davina) began throwing up dirt, and second, the city began experiencing powerful earthquakes. The next element is air, which is stronger, by manifesting as extremely strong gusts of winds that can become as destructive as a tornado. The third element is water, which is even stronger still, by manifesting as a torrential downpour of rain that can flood the entire city. The remaining witch also begins to throw up water. The final and most powerful element is fire, which manifests as flames that begin near the remaining witch, and that eventually begin to consume anything around it, unless it is stopped by the completion of the Harvest ritual.
* It was revealed that Céleste Dubois, while in Brynne Deveraux's body, was the witch responsible for cursing the Crescent werewolves. Brynne is a member of the Deveraux Family, and it was mentioned by Sophie that it was her bloodline that originally cursed the Crescent wolves. It is possible that Sophie had no idea that Céleste was inhabiting her relative's body, nor did she know that Céleste had been possessing Sabine, as well.
* Genevieve named herself as leader of the coven after the deaths of Céleste, Bastianna, and Papa Tunde, and told Marcel that it was because she felt that the witches of this coven lacked direction. She also voiced displeasure to her coven about how, when she was dead, she was forced to watch as witches slowly gave up all of their power to the vampires, and insisted that their coven needed to empower themselves to give their community the power to choose their own fate.
* There was a group of these witches called the Voodoo Queens whom the human faction fought many years ago.