Phineas Goshawk

**Phineas Goshawk** (6 August, 1890 - 20 January, 1969) was an English pure-blood wizard who attended Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry from 1 September, 1901 to June 1908. He was born in Hadleigh Heath, Suffolk, England, and was the youngest child and third son overall of Tiberius Goshawk and Myrtle Goshawk (née Bulstrode).

He married Rowina Shepley in late 1908, and they had a total of nine children together, all daughters. He was the father of Keziah Pettigrew (née Goshawk), Sabina Fenwick (née Goshawk), Tabitha Liddell (née Goshawk), Gertrude Hornby (née Goshawk), Augusta Evermonde (née Goshawk), Dulcibella Edgecombe (née Goshawk), Rosanna Goshawk, Selena Goshawk, and Miranda Goshawk, the celebrated author of *The Standard Book of Spells* series.

Phineas Goshawk passed away at the age of 78 in Hadleigh Heath, Suffolk, England. He was the grandfather to eight, and the great-grandfather to five.

## Biography

### Early life

Phineas Goshawk was born on 6 August, 1890, in Hadleigh Heath, Suffolk, England. He was the youngest child of nine born to Tiberius Goshawk and his wife Myrtle Goshawk (née Bulstrode). He had two brothers, Gresham and Elias, as well as six sisters. They were Letitia, Hannah, Gretchen, Phillis, Greta, and Nellie. Both Elias and Phillis died young, when dragon pox came to Hadleigh, within the first few months of Phineas's life.

Hadleigh Heath, the town in which Phineas was born, is an ancient market town and civil parish in South Suffolk, East Anglia, situated, next to the River Brett, between the larger towns of Sudbury and Ipswich. It is also one of the many villages throughout Britain where witches and wizards settled in numbers after the International Statute of Secrecy to rely on each other for mutual support, living alongside a Muggle population.

Phineas's family, the Goshawks, have had magic since about the 14th century. But by the early 20th century, the Goshawks were relatively impoverished, and had gained a reputation for being one of the largest wizarding families despite a lack of money to feed every child. Today, the Goshawk family is known for being one of the largest wizarding families, consisting of many descendants, just like the Gamps and the Weasleys.

#### Hogwarts years

When it came time for the last of Tiberius Goshawk's children to attend Hogwarts, in 1901, Phineas was given his brother Gresham's robes to wear, his sister Nellie's old books. His mother, Myrtle, bought him a second-hand wand made of pine and unicorn hair, and baked him biscuits for the journey to school. He boarded the Hogwarts Express on 1 September, 1901, and was sorted into Slytherin House later that night, like his older sister Nellie had been a few years prior.

Phineas Goshawk was a hard-working and well-spoken student. He was a member of the Debating Society after having joined in his second year of school. The Debating Society was a recreational club at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. The intention of the society was to provide a forum for young speakers to develop their skills. The main focus of the club was the annual, year-long inter-House junior and senior-level competitions. Motions would be generally drawn from current affairs but the finals were always abstract and more challenging.

He left the school upon completing his seventh year in June of 1908. He had passed six N.E.W.T. classes, and was offered a position in the Ministry of Magic's Portkey Office, located in the Department of Magical Transportation. Part of his job was approving Portkey permits and determining who was allowed to have them.

#### Marriage

Phineas Goshawk married the longtime object of his affections, Rowina Shepley, on 24 September, 1908, at the age of 18. Shepley's parents did not approve of the relationship and her mother, Dulcibella Shepley (née Prince) was particularly cruel and stubborn regarding Phineas, who did not come from much money. He felt cold-shouldered by his in-laws, but Rowina told him that they were not important. Rowina followed him to Hadleigh Heath, Suffolk, where the Goshawks lived in East Anglia. Their first child, Keziah, was born about thirteen months after their marriage, in November 1909.

Rowina and Phineas's second child arrived in August of 1911, and they named her Sabina. Rowina was not so much disappointed at the birth of a second daughter, and rather, she embraced it: she gave birth to a third daughter the following year, in 1912: Tabitha. Phineas, on the other hand, would have liked a son.

Rowina and Phineas would have a successive four more children, all within separate years of eachother: Gertrude, born in June 1913, Augusta, born in August 1914, Dulcibella, born in July 1915, and finally Rosanna, born in September 1916, before they decided that they would not be blessed with a son as Phineas had hoped.

Despite this, Rowina and Phineas would have two more children, who also turned out to be girls: Selena, born in October 1919, and Miranda, born in January 1921. Their eldest daughter, Keziah, was due to begin Hogwarts in September of 1921.

### Later life

Phineas's eldest daughter, Keziah, was sorted into Ravenclaw House on 1 September, 1921. The next year, in 1922, his daughter, Sabina, would follow Keziah into Ravenclaw. This continued in 1923 when Tabitha was also sorted there. However, Phineas and Rowina's fourth daughter, Gertrude, was sorted into Slytherin on 1 September, 1924. Their fifth daughter, Augusta, followed Gertrude into Slytherin the next year, in 1925.

Dulcibella, the sixth-oldest, was sorted into Ravenclaw on 1 September, 1926, and in 1927, Rosanna, the seventh of nine daughters, was sorted into Gryffindor. Rosanna Goshawk became the only daughter of Phineas and Rowina to be sorted into Gryffindor. Selena and Miranda both went to Ravenclaw.

#### As a Grandfather

Rowina and Phineas's oldest daughter, Keziah, married her longtime sweetheart, Wilfrid Pettigrew, on 29 March, 1929. They were both nineteen years old at the time. Wilfrid was an employee of the Knight Bus and Phineas Goshawk approved, although it is unlikely that the rest of Rowina's family did.

Rowina's daughter, Gertrude, was just sixteen when she met a muggle her age who lived in the village, Albert Hornby. Gertrude was a Slytherin, but not a great student, and decided to drop out of Hogwarts at the end of her fifth year in 1929 to marry Albert when she found out that she had become pregnant. At first, she attempted to hide the fact that she was expecting a child from her parents, but when they found out, Phineas Goshawk allowed the marriage, even though it was a stressful time for the family. Gertrude married Albert on 18 July, 1929, and gave birth to their daughter on 31 August, 1929. She named her baby Olive, and the couple moved in with Albert's parents. Neither Albert Hornby nor his parents were told about magic, and were convinced that Gertrude had formally been a student of some faraway boarding school. They believed it, for the time being, and remembered her from the time she had been around in Christmas of 1928. The Hornbys were reliant on social welfare and required that Gertrude get a job, and she did.

The next year, on 2 August, 1930, Phineas's second oldest, Sabina Goshawk, married Jeremy Fenwick, who was of similar prospects: he was a shop cashier for Quality Quidditch Supplies, and was not a high-flyer, but Phineas liked him. Phineas became a grandfather for the second time on 18 August, 1931, when their daughter, Lucia Fenwick, was born. The following year, on 19 September, 1932, Keziah Pettigrew gave birth to a son, Stefan.

On 22 August, 1934, Phineas's daughter, Dulcibella, got married to Philander Edgecombe, from the Edgecombe family of Derby, at the age of 19. The couple had a daughter, Enid Edgecombe, on 28 April, 1935.

On 22 May, 1937, Phineas's third oldest daughter, Tabitha, married Horace Liddell, of the Liddell family of Somerset, at the age of 24. They had a daughter together, Mary Liddell, on 14 April, 1938, followed by a son on 28 June, 1940, Andrew Liddell.

#### Global Wizarding War

During the Global Wizarding War, Phineas's daughter, Rosanna, was caught up in a duel in Southgate, Greater London, and died on 18 February, 1943. She was only 27 years old, and it was a tragedy for the closely-knit Goshawk family. Rosanna had been unmarried and so most of her things, including her London flat, went back to her parents to be sold. Rosanna's old school things had originally been Phineas's eldest daughter, Keziah's in the first place, and so she got many of her schoolbooks back after her sister's death.

On 10 May, 1943, Phineas's daughter, Tabitha Liddell (née Goshawk), gave birth to a daughter, Anne Liddell, and Phineas and his wife Rowina became grandparents for the seventh time.

#### Peacetime

On 16 August, 1950, Phineas's daughter, Augusta Goshawk, married Gaius Evermonde, of the influential Evermonde family. The union was particularly special because Archer Evermonde had defeated Phineas's father-in-law, Baldo Shepley, in the election of 1912, and now Evermonde and Shepley's grandchildren were getting married.

Their union was childless until 19 December, 1958, when Augusta gave birth to a baby boy, named Euan.

#### As a Great-Grandfather

Phinas's granddaughter, Enid Edgecombe, married Clement Fawley on 19 September, 1954 in Derby, Derbyshire, England, at the age of 19. Phineas became a great-grandfather when Enid gave birth to a baby girl, Evaline Fawley, on 20 October, 1955.

Phineas's granddaughter, Anne Liddell, married Ivan Fortescue on 21 July, 1959. Phineas became a great-grandfather for the second time when Anne gave birth to a baby girl, Alice Fortescue, on 14 August, 1960.

Around the same time, Phineas's grandson, Stefan Pettigrew, had married a witch named Joan Soley on 27 July, 1959. He became a great-grandfather for the third time on 30 August, 1960, when Joan gave birth to a baby boy named Peter Pettigrew. His granddaughter, Enid, gave birth a second time on 15 November, 1960, to a baby boy named Geoffrey Fawley.

#### Death

Phineas Goshawk passed away on 20 January, 1969, at the age of 78 in Hadleigh Heath, Suffolk, England. He was the grandfather to eight, and the great grandfather to five. After his death, he would become the maternal second great-grandfather to both Daphne and Astoria Greengrass, when his great-granddaughter, Evaline Fawley, married Ignatius Greengrass in 1979.

## Etymology

The name Phineas derives from the Hebrew Pinchas, meaning "the mouth of a snake, mouth of brass." It may also mean "dark one".