Cecil Lee

Cecil Lee
Biographical information
Born	Before 1967 (most likely)
Nationality	British or Irish
Physical information
Species	Human
Gender	Male
Hair colour	Reddish brown
Eye colour	Green
Skin colour	Light
Relationship information
Family members	Possible mother † Brother Sister-in-law Barnaby Lee (nephew) Lee family
Magical characteristics
Wand	Unknown length, wood and core
Affiliation
Occupation	Member of the Werewolf Capture Unit
Loyalty	Lee family Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry British Ministry of Magic Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures Beast Division Werewolf Capture Unit

"Werewolves are a scourge on wizardkind. We need to eliminate every last one of them before they do the same to us."

— Cecil Lee's strong hatred of werewolves

Cecil Lee was a wizard in the employment of the Ministry of Magic, where he worked in the Werewolf Capture Unit, part of the Beast Division of the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures, in the 1980s. He was the uncle of Barnaby Lee.

Biography

Early life and schooling

"I remember sitting in that very seat as a student in Charms. Unfortunately, that's about all I remember…"

— Cecil Lee in the Charms Classroom

Cecil Lee was born into the wizarding Lee family, and had at least one brother. He had a single nephew, Barnaby Lee.

During his formative years, he attended Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, where he did not seem to be a particularly gifted student: he remembered little of Charms class apart from where his seat was. According to himself, however, he "[did] well" on his N.E.W.T.s.

Cecil didn't share the pure-blood supremacist views of his brother and his brother's wife, supporting his nephew despite his parents asserting that he didn't have it in him to be a Death Eater like they were. Cecil also acquired and trained a Fire Dwelling Salamander he named Vulcan. Over several years of building trust between them, Cecil trained Vulcan to reheat drinks, particularly hot cocoa, on command upon seeing Cecil standing up and asking his guests if they were "up for a nice cosy cocoa." As part of the trick, Vulcan would approach the drink and curl up around it, re-heating the contents with his body heat.

Career in the Werewolf Capture Unit

Sometime after school, he joined the Ministry of Magic's Werewolf Capture Unit. During his career, he hunted werewolves with extreme prejudice, and reportedly fought and captured several werewolves: he claimed to have had several run-ins with Fenrir Greyback, who gained notoriety as the most savage werewolf of them all — though, by his own admission, he never managed to catch him.

According to his nephew Barnaby, work was Cecil Lee's "greatest passion" (closely followed by topiary and the sculpting of his prized rose bushes); for that reason, he reportedly spent a period of more than two years without taking a single day off. When Magical Maintenance was angling for a pay raise and had the Ministry's enchanted windows display nothing but hurricanes for two months, the Werewolf Capture Unit sent Cecil to talk to them.

Lee was an admirer of Gilderoy Lockhart, who he was convinced was the most gifted wizard in the world. He believed Lockhart's (later proven false) account of his victory over the Wagga Wagga Werewolf using the complex Homorphus Charm; Lee would himself supposedly use this charm to "stop werewolves in their tracks" during the course of his duties. Lee also at one point attended a special symposium with the celebrity author, in which he learned and took it as fact that clear skies are the perfect weather for hunting werewolves because bright sunlight makes them weaker (which is patently false).

Throughout his career, Lee frequently mistook packs of dogs for werewolves and attempted to arrest them, resulting in them attacking him and sending him to St Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries for recovery.

On one night before Barnaby started attending Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, Cecil took Barnaby, his parents, and his grandmother on a camping trip where he made a roaring campfire and served them some of his famous cocoa, complete with Vulcan performing his cocoa-warming trick. Barnaby later recalled that everyone loved seeing the trick, even his parents, claiming that the moment was one of the only happy memories he had of them.

Greyback's attack on Hogwarts

After a pack of werewolves led by Fenrir Greyback attacked Hogwarts on Hallowe'en during the 1980s, then Headmaster Albus Dumbledore sent an owl to the Ministry of Magic soliciting their assistance, who in response, sent Cecil to investigate. With the help of Jacob's sibling, he went to look for clues about the attack. They started by interviewing Chiara Lobosca and staff members Rolanda Hooch, Argus Filch, and Filius Flitwick.

The following full moon, when Greyback arrived for a second attack, Cecil Lee and Jacob's sibling successfully captured Greyback using an Incarcerous Spell, only for him to escape again not long after. Nevertheless, Lee thanked the student for their help, and presented them with honorary membership of the Werewolf Capture Unit, complete with their own uniform.

Career's day at Hogwarts

Cecil was rushed in to replace a Gringotts Wizarding Bank Curse-Breaker in giving a lecture on curse-breaking, as the other Curse-Breaker had fallen afoul of a nasty curse and been left hospitalised. He had been provided with a cursed sock and Curse-Breaking instructions, however, he made the mistake of putting the sock on, causing him to be hoisted up into the air by the Dangling Jinx. Jacob's sibling and Merula helped Cecil by casting the counter-spell Liberacorpus, which returned him to normal.

Trip to New Orleans

At some point after Greyback’s attack on Hogwarts, Cecil was sent to New Orleans by the Ministry of Magic to study rougarous, preventing Barnaby from inviting him to Jacob's sibling's planned family appreciation feast.

Visit to St Mungo's

After mistaking another pack of dogs for werewolves and attempting to arrest them, Cecil suffered a series of bites and was sent to St Mungo's to recover. While there, he sent Vulcan and an Enchanted heated rock to Barnaby at Hogwarts so that he could look after the salamander until he could return home.

Physical description

Cecil Lee: "Animals tend to have that reaction to me. I've been told I have a very masculine scent."

Argus Filch: "That's another way of saying you stink."

— Cecil Lee and Argus Filch

Cecil Lee had chocolate brown hair and emerald green eyes. He was tall and lean, and had a thick brown moustache. Animals, such as Mrs Norris, reacted in an hostile manner to him, which he attributed to his "very masculine scent".

Personality and traits

"Unfortunately, we didn't find any clues to the werewolves' whereabouts… I never noticed how well those words go together… From now on, I think I'll call a werewolves' whereabouts, werewolfabouts… Save more time for capturing werewolves by combining two words into one. It's ideas like that that make me the pride of the Werewolf Capture Unit."

— Cecil Lee

A rather bumptious, opinionated man, Cecil Lee was an immensely inflexible and intolerant individual who apparently subscribed strongly to the common view on werewolves in the magical community, as he frequently voiced the opinion that all werewolves should be eradicated because "there's nothing [good] left of a person once they're bitten." Even when faced with a werewolf-offspring in the form of a pup from the Forbidden Forest wolf pack, he refused to believe that it had werewolf blood in its veins, insisting that if it did, it would have gone for their throats. It would appear that his stance softened somewhat, however, when he saw a werewolf come to the defence of a student that was about to be attacked by Fenrir Greyback, after which he brought the unconscious body of Chiara Lobosca to the office of Albus Dumbledore rather than taking her back to the Ministry.

While unafraid to admit that he feared Fenrir Greyback for his savage villainy, he was nevertheless a man who was decisive in both thought and deed, and ultimately unflappable when it mattered and confronted him and his pack, and even placed himself in front of Jacob's sibling to protect them from the attackers.

Cecil Lee was not very intelligent, which appears to be a family trait: he once proudly remarked that his nephew Barnaby Lee (himself noted not to be the brightest student), was the sharpest person in the family "by a wide margin". He had a somewhat bumbling disposition (as demonstrated, for example, by the time he was investigating Greyback's attack on Hogwarts and he decided to interview Madam Hooch for the sole reason her surname rhymed with "pooch" which reminded him of werewolves) and was not very good with words, mixing up terms like "matriculate" and "meticulous", "euphonium" and "euphemism", or "symphony" and "symposium". When speaking about the usefulness of books, he remarked "they make excellent projectiles, and decent pillows." He was among the many to buy many of Gilderoy Lockhart's tall tales, believing in many of his dubious work that he in fact stole credit from more accomplished wizards.

Another trait he shared with his nephew Barnaby was a large appetite, having apparently raided the Hogwarts kitchens when he was supposed to be hunting werewolves.

Magical abilities and skills

Jacob's sibling: "I'm not sure I understand…"

Cecil Lee: "Worry not […]. I'm an expert at the Ministry, and I hardly understand anything."

— Cecil Lee and Jacob's sibling

Cecil Lee did not appear to be a very capable wizard, even though by his own account he did very well in his N.E.W.T.s and described himself as "highly trained".

• Tracking skills: A fully-fledged member of the Werewolf Capture Unit, Cecil was proficient in tracking werewolves, distinguishing werewolf saliva by its appearance and texture, and identifying werewolf hair at a glance.
• Charms: He claimed to be able to perform the "immensely complex" Homorphus Charm to temporarily return werewolves to their human form, although he failed to demonstrate this during his failed attempt at stopping Fenrir Greyback and his pack in their tracks during their attack on Hogwarts.
• Transfiguration: He was able to effectively use the Incarcerous Spell to restrain Fenrir Greyback with conjured ropes.

Possessions

• Wand: Cecil Lee owned a wand, which was of an unknown length, wood and core material.
• Lupine Lawlessness: Why Lycanthropes Don't Deserve to Live: Cecil owned a copy of this book on Werewolves, given his career.

Appearances

• Harry Potter: Hogwarts Mystery (First appearance)