Welcome to Charming, where swirling petticoats, the language of flowers, and old-fashioned duels are only the beginning of what is lying underneath…
After a magical attempt on her life in 1877, Queen Victoria launched a crusade against magic that, while tidied up by the Ministry of Magic, saw the Wizarding community exiled to Hogsmeade, previously little more than a crossroad near the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. In the years that have passed since, Hogsmeade has suffered plagues, fires, and Victorian hypocrisy but is still standing firm.
Thethe year is now 1895. It’s time to join us and immerse yourself in scandal and drama interlaced with magic both light and dark.
Complete a thread started and set every month for twelve consecutive months. Each thread must have at least ten posts, and at least three must be your own.
Did You Know?
Did you know? Jewelry of jet was the haute jewelry of the Victorian era. — Fallin
Desdemona stared at the spot where Miss Srimgeour had been only moments before, breathing deeply to steady herself—while her body was stationary, her mind raced at a hundred miles a minute. A woman had come to her home to retrieve a finger she had lost while in a tavern with Dezzie's husband. There were so many things wrong with that very picture that the witch did not know where to begin, but she knew she was not happy.
"Merlin's beard, Arthur!" she voiced after a long moment of silence, voice the quiet of rage as she tried to rein in her temper. Her husband had unsavory friends and questionable judgment, but she had known that before getting involved with him and loved him in spite of that fact. That these things had come into their home, though, was no longer something Dezzie felt equipped to handle.
First-String Chaser and Captain of the Hogsmeade Howlers
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Arthur flinched preemptively as soon as Irish left. Dezzie had practically radiated displeasure throughout the entire encounter, and true to form, when she spoke there was no pleasantry in her voice. He grimaced.
He could track exactly where he'd went wrong that night - it was in talking to Miss Scrimgeour at all. Then it had been in taking the finger when the bartender handed it to him. Then it had been in getting drunk enough that he kept it and put it in the jar. Then it had been in telling Irish to come here instead of just mailing the damn thing, non-tradeable substance be damned. There were a lot of mistakes involved, is what he was saying.
"It doesn't mater if you meant to do it or not, damnit!" she returned swiftly, exasperated and, embarrassingly, on the verge of tears. Unlike many women in her profession, Desdemona had not acquired the rougher tongue of some of her male colleagues, giving her words a harsher bite still. "Your decisions, your accidents, your whatever are one thing when wagging tongues are all that come of them, but how the hell am I to bring a child into this house when you insist upon bringing fingerless harlots and all manner of unsavoury trouble?!"
As soon as she said it, Desdemona wished she could claw back the words. The witch was not certain how she had intended on revealing this particular tidbit of information to Arthur, but in a shared sentence with 'fingerless harlots' had decidedly not been it.
First-String Chaser and Captain of the Hogsmeade Howlers
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It did not, particularly, matter that she'd revealed the information - Arthur, harried embarrassed and defensive, had lost the plot, and missed the reveal in the madness of everything else going on. Later, probably, he would feel very stupid, but now -
"You don't want to have children anyways," Arthur said, tone nearly equaling his wife's exasperation. He'd never said it, but he was sure it was true - Dezzie didn't want to have children, or she didn't want to have his children, and the difference didn't really matter.
That was enough to send her—and her welling tears—over the brink. Never a particularly attractive crier, Desdemona's face was a mess of wet, snot, and anger.
First-String Chaser and Captain of the Hogsmeade Howlers
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"Aw, no, Dez," Art said, taking a step closer to her. His hand hovered over her shoulder - Art had never been good with crying - and his face was stuck in somewhat of a grimace. "I didn't mean it."
"You don't mean anything!" Dezzie answered, jerking away from him. Didn't mean to...acquire a finger, didn't mean to get arrested, didn't mean to impregnate her. Dezzie was quite sure that the only thing Arthur Pettigrew had ever actually intended to do was marry her, and in her current state strongly wondered if that hadn't been a mistake.
"And yet, here we are!"
What stung most was his belief that she didn't want children. How could he possibly confuse "not now" with "not ever"? Had she not been clear that she merely wanted to maintain a quidditch career as long as possible? And besides, it hardly mattered now: what was done was done, and there was no getting around it.
First-String Chaser and Captain of the Hogsmeade Howlers
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Arthur flinched again. He didn't know what to do with Dez when she cried. He wasn't sure if he should stay, or bail, or - whatever. "I'm sorry," he said, quietly.
First-String Chaser and Captain of the Hogsmeade Howlers
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Arthur blinked. Then he grinned, as wide as he could, his eyes crinkling up around the corners. "You're pregnant!" he exclaimed, "We're having a baby!"
Desdemona stared at her husband as if he were the most idiotic man in the world. Ever. Frankly, in this moment, she was not convinced that he wasn’t, as if somehow his thick-headedness now was worse even than the time he had been arrested. And he was happy—the blind idiot was happy, completely going against the tone of the announcement. Did he really know her so little as to think that this was good news for her?
Arthur was not always easy to live with, but he was easy to love, and so Dezzie had never truly questioned whether she had made the right decision in marrying him—not after the vows, at any rate. That streak was now broken.
Dezzie simply stared at him, shaking her head, with a look that conveyed her feelings better than any selection of words could.
First-String Chaser and Captain of the Hogsmeade Howlers
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Arthur saw her look, and he knew that Dez wasn't happy, but he fundamentally did not understand what the problem was. He looked back at her, visibly deflating. She would leave Quidditch but - hadn't she already stayed for longer than either of them had expected? He knew he could not say that, but he felt it in his chest, and not for the first time he wondered why Dezzie was so opposed. She did not want children, or she did not want his children, and he didn't get it.
"It wasn't on purpose," he said, as if that would help. Really he wanted to go - to flee the house and leave - but that was a childish impulse that he would not give into. He was a grown-up. And he loved her, besides. (But maybe when this fight was over he'd go to find Ben.)
Of course it wasn’t on purpose. Husband and wife had done everything in their power to avoid this very situation, bar not behaving like husband and wife. That he ‘hadn’t meant it’, or something to that affect, did not change matters, though, for what was fundamentally tearing Desdemona up inside right now was his reaction to an eventuality she had made quite clear she wished to put off for at least a couple more years. She felt altogether uninvolved in this process, the eggshell whose life would be destroyed when the chick burst forth from it.
“Nothing you do is ever on purpose,” she said quietly at last, “but that does not change the fact that it is done.”
First-String Chaser and Captain of the Hogsmeade Howlers
35 year old Halfblood
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Maybe it was the continued blame, or maybe it was his continued desire to bolt from the front door and away from his angry wife, but Arthur couldn't help but wrinkle his nose at that. "Really, Dez, it's not as if I did it all by myself," he said, palpably exasperated. It took two to tango, after all.
“You don’t understand!” she shot back shrilly, now teetering on the edge of hysteria. Why couldn’t he see that it was no longer her condition but his reaction to it that was causing her such distress? How could he understand so little about her?
“I. Did. Not. Want. This,” Desdemona hissed by way of explanation, “and yet here you stand acting as though it’s the best thing to ever happen to you when it’s the worst thing to ever happen to me!”
She thought for a moment and then amended coolly, cruelly, “No, you are the worst thing to ever happen to me.”
First-String Chaser and Captain of the Hogsmeade Howlers
35 year old Halfblood
5 ft. 9 in.
❤ Married
Played by Beanie
758 Posts
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His heartrate kicked into a swift panic, and Arthur had no response. None, but to reach into his pocket, grasp his wand, and apparate out of the house with a crack!
He couldn't do this. He couldn't do this. Arthur arrived at the alley in back of the Three Broomsticks and backed up until he felt his spine press up against the wall of the building. He blew out the breath he had been holding.
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