After finishing four years at Hogwarts—all his family could afford for him—Horace Grimshawe knew that he would never be able to see the world without some sort of radical change. As a result, he became a ship's boy in a small magical shipping company, then later a full-blown sailor. In his years at sea, he became quite the tinkerer, messing about with all sorts of items found in ports around the world. He also found love in Australia in the same week he shattered his knee, the combination sending him into early retirement. The pair took one last sea voyage, this time together: to Portsmouth, where Horace would set up a small curiosity-cum-pawn-cum-repair shop and Charity worked as a midwife. They would go on to have five children of thier own, including young Win.

It was a typical life, a boring life, until the summer of her tenth year. Winsome, called “Winnie” by her parents and siblings, did the typical things done by the daughter of a shop owner and a midwife: she learned her letters and numbers, tidied the family’s Portsmouth shop, and minded her younger sister to the best of her ability. Indeed, the only thing that was, in retrospect, actually of note was the fallout with her brother after he left school—but having been five at the time, Win would not remember much about it in adulthood. If things had gone a different way, young Winnie likely would have followed in her mother’s footsteps.

They did not.

A broken nail is an inconvenience. A broken bone is a temporary pain. A broken magical artefact? That can be devastating. The vanishing cabinet was broken. That was all her father said about it, likely all he knew about it, and he brought it to his workroom—part of the family residence—in the building behind the shop. Later, Win will learn that it had been deliberately tampered with, but that the matter had nothing to do with the family. That will make it worse.

The Vanishing took her father and his workroom first, then her mother where she worked with Patient on sums on the other side of the shared wall, then to Valiant and Hopeful where they played exploding snap on the floor. Winnie had just enough time to get out before it spread fully to her, but lost her right arm in the process.

Given the nature of the incident, Winnie and her family became topics of interest to the Ministry of Magic and, ultimately, she underwent a series of interviews with the Department of Mysteries. With no family left to speak of, she was taken from Portsmouth and the fragmented remains of her family home and sponsored by the Ministry to reside at St Mungo’s Home for Inconvenient Children in Hogsmeade.

A little more than a year later, and with one fewer arm than most of her classmates, Winnie departed for Hogwarts, where she was sorted into Ravenclaw. Poor, orphaned, quiet, and down a limb, making friends did not come immediately to the young girl, but learning did. She was, on occasion, bullied for the fact that she had to pin up the sleeves on her right side, for the fact that her spells didn’t go quite right (she had previously been right-handed). She did, however, make a couple of friends within her year, and her late brother’s friend, “Geoffrey”, took it upon himself to look out for her.

As her time at Hogwarts wore on—Winnie garnered a full scholarship—she continued annual interviews with the Department of Mysteries, both in case she remembered anything about what happened and in case her condition changed. It didn’t, and she went through her schooling with a relatively normal rhythm.

After her last year at school, Winnie—now preferring the ‘less childish’ Win—had her regular interview with the Department. It was not, however, “Eidyia” who she met with, but an Archivist. Win did not even know what an archivist was, but the picture that was painted for her, and the job offer it accompanied, was tempting. “Eidyia” tried to talk her out of it, but after weighing what she perceived to be the pros and the cons for the better part of a week, Win accepted the offer and became the youngest Archivist in fifty years.

Winsome Grimshawe has lived two lives in the years since.

As Win, she earns enough for a tidy room—and private bath!—in the Pennyworth district of Hogsmeade. By now, she views “Eidyia” and her partner, “Dove”, as family of a sort, but having lost her actual family so young, is not entirely sure what to do with that. She would keep to herself outside of work altogether, but maintains friendships from school that keep her out ‘in the world’, as it were. She is happy with the life she has carved out for herself.

As Miss Grimm, she is a keen and hardworking Archivist, accomplished occulmens, and devoted employee of the Department of Mysteries. Unshakably loyal. Probably.