Nicknames: —
Birthdate: 22nd August, 1569
Deathdate: 13th November, 1598
Current Age: Died at 29 | Born 321 years ago | Died 292 years ago
Race: Ghost
Occupation: Being Dead
Reputation: 7?
...well, he’s dead? And a little judgy.Residence: Floating around Hogsmeade.
Social Class: Upper
Family: None left living, you insensitive louse.
Appearance: He was in robustly good health at twenty-nine, and stood at an average 5’5” in life, although now he can float at whatever level he likes. He has a long face, a long nose and a little facial hair, and like any fashionable popinjay of the ‘90s, Barnaby kept his hair long and curled it fastidiously, though sadly it was left looking a little lanker than desired at the moment of his death. Fate is cruel. He also has a small gold earring because he was once fancy and rakish and rather devil-may-care. On the other hand, though once brown-haired, brown-eyed and creamy-skinned, death has left Barnaby pearly white and translucent all over, and so too is the rich embroidery of his clothes utterly wasted on the living.
So all they will see is the figure of a wizard of the late Elizabethan gentry: collared doublet and half-unbuttoned jerkin, breeches and hose, long boots, short cloak hanging off his shoulder, and a belt for his rapier. That said, the rapier (exquisitely made as it is) is not where it is supposed to be. Rather, it was snatched from him and plunged into his chest, and his murderers did not even have the decency to remove his sword again before he expired. As such, perhaps the most arresting aspect of Barnaby’s ghostly appearance is the hilt still sticking out of him near the base of his ribs, surrounded by a bloodstained patch; as it went right through him, the rest of the rapier is also visible protruding from his back. Barnaby’s favourite hat - which he was wearing on the day of his death - fell off in the chaos and did not, unfortunately, pass on with him. He still thinks about it sometimes.
{ft. a moodboard to give you his ghost outfit vibe}
History:
Barnaby Wye is the first son of Francis and Anne Wye, born in 1569, and soon followed by a brother Ambrose, and sisters Eleanor, Katherine and Jane. The Wye family is pureblooded, and well respected in wizarding England for their ancestry, family wealth, and lavish country manor and lands somewhere in Kent. Barnaby’s father and other former Wyes have held high positions in the Wizengamot and on the Wizards’ Council; that said, the family also maintains discreetly held connections with the muggle nobility and the Elizabethan royal court. So, great things have been expected of Barnaby since birth - and they start off well. He leads a charmed childhood, and is eventually sent to Hogwarts in Scotland to be educated. Sorted into Hufflepuff (a bit disappointing) and plainly of merely middling ability, Barnaby nevertheless enjoys his time there, learning Latin and dabbling in Alchemy and Astronomy, is never beaten too badly for his antics, even roughs it up a little playing quidditch. And, being of gentle birth, Barnaby gets more years of education than most boys. After that, at eighteen, his marriage is arranged to a Mildred Dearborn, of a like-minded old family. She’s fine. A little frail and pockmarked, but fine. By Barnaby’s death, he and Mildred have three living daughters - they’ve had some more children too, but the rest were stillborn or died young. Times are tough in the 1500s. (Does Barnaby actually remember any of their names now? Sure, maybe.)
Ah, yes. About that. In truth, perhaps Barnaby was never quite cut out for being his father’s eldest son, with all the duties and privileges it entails - although in the meantime he did always enjoy attending every masque and banquet in his social circles, learning new dances from Europe, rolling with his retinue, and promising funds in patronage of every hot new magical painter, musician, poet, playwright, et cetera. He’s really good at the spending money thing; even lavishes funds on his favourite mistress, a pretty harlot called Lettice. Barnaby is less adept when it comes to political acumen, social ambition, or - well, most other things, really, all of which brother Ambrose possesses in spades.
Is it any wonder then, that Barnaby’s carriage magically and mysteriously breaks down on the way to stay at a friend’s for a week of hunting and feasting? Though in the middle of nowhere, they are conveniently close to a muggle coaching inn, wherein Barnaby and his manservant stop to have a meal and a game of dice before he supposes he’ll apparate instead, and let his retinue catch him up later. The moment he steps outside to disapparate away from muggle eyes, he realises he’s missing his wand. Before Barnaby can so much as go look for it, he is set upon by a band of hired thugs - and how is he supposed to defend himself without his wand? The brawls and fencing practice he’s had are of no use: one of the rogues has already wrested his own rapier from his side, and stuck it right through him. Barnaby does the only thing he can think of to do: flees. He runs away from the men paid off by his brother before they can do worse to him, runs for help to staunch the blood, runs from the looming fear of pain and anguish and death - and soon enough, Barnaby realises his feet are not touching the ground - can’t touch the ground - for he’s left his body behind. Not the rapier, though. Merlin be damned.And thus begins ghosthood. Miserable and ashamed and alone in the middle of nowhere, Barnaby floats all the way home and decides his purpose in death will be to wreak revenge upon his brother, only when he starts ‘haunting’ him Ambrose only finds it amusing that Barnaby couldn’t even die right, and can now watch him go on and inherit everything. So that purpose fails quite promptly, and Barnaby’s next grand idea is that he will go on to be great in death, far greater than his brother could hope to be in life.
Not that Barnaby is exactly sure how to accomplish greatness, when the best thing he can now do is only float through walls. As it turns out, vengeance doesn’t much need his help either, as Ambrose, his wife and sons and eventually all of the extended Wye family are killed off in roughly the next fifty years by dragon pox and an assortment of plagues. Maybe this is greatness, indeed: Barnaby is, of a sort, the last surviving Wye.
For a while, he spends his time floating about in the empty manor house composing endless verses of a song for himself, the ‘Great Ballad of Barnaby Wye’, and also wishing he could still play the lute, or, you know, that he still had friends. Once he is comfortable enough in ghosthood to venture beyond the grounds, Barnaby floats along to most executions and witch-burnings he can find, hoping to welcome any magical victims into ghosthood with him. In - ahem - spite of this encouragement, few witches and wizards seem to choose his path.
Wizard-muggle relations reach an all time high of tension, which results in the International Statute of Wizarding Secrecy officially coming into effect in 1692, and the more formalised Ministry of Magic taking over the duties of the Wizards’ Council in 1707. The derelict old Wye manor has fallen into muggle hands, and Barnaby’s minor disturbances to their lives eventually attract the Ministry’s eye, who force him back to the place of his demise. Now harbouring an innate suspicion of any pub or coaching inn, Barnaby is particularly morose here, and goes roaming the countryside, only to get in a turf war with a gang of highwayman ghosts when he demands one of their ghost-horses. For some time, he and the highwaymen are in a state of all-out-war, which only ends when his enemies lay a trap for him. This sees Barnaby wandering into the house of an eccentric wizard and ending up trapped by a spell that has him haunting a mirror. For the next who-knows-how-long, but more than a century, Barnaby is trapped behind the looking-glass and moved between shops and magical households and left with nothing to do but make snarky comments about the people looking in the mirror.
When he is finally freed from this state, it is by a particular new ‘Spirit Division’ of the Ministry - oh yes, he’s a Spirit now, not a Being, hurrah - and although Barnaby finally has a non-corporeal body and the exciting ability to go roaming again, he has come out of the mirror newly jaded and bitter and slightly more unhinged than before. Also so, so, so, so bored and lonely. Maybe the Spirit Division can sense this, because when he refuses to be sent back to his place of death again and promises to harass muggles however he can for the rest of time, they eventually give him permission to relocate to the outskirts of Hogsmeade instead, which is apparently a proper place now, and full of wizards to harass instead. At least they can see him.
Personality: He was vain and cheerful and enjoyed most things whilst being fairly useless at everything... and has lost most of his cheerfulness since getting murdered nearly three hundred years ago. Talkative and self-assured, without either the servants he used to have or the capacity to do much for himself now, he probably comes across a little high-maintenance and demanding at first. This is probably mostly because deep down he is desperate for attention, and pretty much anyone’s will do. Likes watching the living, if only because he has nothing better to do, but has a hard time keeping his mouth shut in the process. Quite self-centered, all the same, and a little out of touch with the times. Unsurprisingly, talks about death a lot, although he is sensitive about his own. About as sane as a dead man can be.
Other:
— Likes to make up sarcastic songs about people and sing them at you. Apparently this is his idea of haunting.
— Still a big admirer of all the arts. Will become friends with anyone who can play music or who has the patience to turn pages of books for him so he can read new things.
— Gets uneasy around pubs, bars and inns.
— Has no sense of time or date any more. Doesn’t know when anything happened and doesn’t really care.
— Very intrigued by the invention of locomotives?
Sample Roleplay Post:
