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 1894. It’s time to join us and immerse yourself in scandal and drama interlaced with magic both light and dark.
Show a pattern of selfish behaviour with your character. You should have at least three threads (ten posts, three+ yours) of your character doing cruel things. Character accounts cannot be combined.
Did You Know?
Queen Victoria was known for putting jackets and dresses on her pups, causing clothing for dogs to become so popular that fashion houses for just dog clothes started popping up all over Paris. — Fox
It would be easy to assume that Evangeline came to the Lady Morgana only to pick fights. That wasn't true at all. They also had very good biscuits. — Evangeline RowleinCheck Your Privilege
December 28th, 1891 — The Sandow Livingroom Ivy Sandow
“Alright, I’ll see you around you drunkards!” Laughter filled the air as Barbie pushed his way out onto the streets of Hogmeade, stumbling as he turned back to wave a final goodbye to that night's set of drinking buddies. It had been a good day. They’d finally landed what was needed to wrap up the cheating husband scandal and with a hefty payout it had become customary to use some of the earnings on a celebratory good time. A custom that perhaps Barbie took a drink or two too far most of the time. Or in that night's case about six drinks too far.
The walk back to the house wasn’t nearly as horrible as Barbie had thought it would have been given how utterly disappointed he was when he realized it was probably best to not apparate in his current state. Who knew that being responsible wasn’t quite as awful as Rhys made it out to seem? Ecstatic to be home since even alcohol was having a hard time taking the edge off of that nights cold, Barbie hurriedly ran up the steps only to fumble on the last step. Slamming into the front door with a undignified thud, Barbie tried his best to slyly peak over his shoulder as nonchalantly as possible so that he could check if anyone had actually just seen him do that. The sight of an empty street perked up Barbie's face into a smile as he chuckled at himself under his breath before fumbling for the house key.
“What the…” Barbie's calmed state quickly dissolved into a state of panicked flailing as he quickly skimmed the bottom of every pocket on his person. Gone. The bloody house key was gone! Great. Pulling out his wand, Barbie pouted as he knew there was no way in hell Rhys would have actually left the door unlocked so that it would even be possible for him to get in through the front door. Some sloppy wand flicks led into a final tap on the doorknob when suddenly Barbie realized he had more problems. “Uh…” The trailed off word quickly shifted into a groan as he was too drunk to remember the spell since he’d normally just apparate home. “Are you kidding me?!” Barbie seethed at himself in disbelief when his wand suddenly spit out red sparks at its shared disappointment in the failed spell. “Ow!”
Dramatically standing up, Barbie gave a cool brush off to his coat as if it were going to help regain his composure. He was better than this. So what if he couldn’t come in through the front door? Sparing a seconds worth of time to glance down the street again, Barbie slinked down the side of the house into the shadows. If there was one thing he knew how to do; this was it. A fact that was reaffirmed as it barely took much time at all for him to pop the window open and begin sliding himself through. A victorious smile had Barbie beaming from ear to ear when suddenly his landing was met by a sharp piece of furniture to the shin. The shooting pain caused him to drop to the ground immediately and let out a loud, almost feminine yelp.
What had just happened?? It wasn’t Barbie’s first time having to come home through the window so he knew the entry point pretty well. Had Rhys randomly decided to rearrange the house?? “That absolute fucking moro-” Raising himself up from the ground in the pitch-black, Barbie’s head managed to catch the corner of a table. Groaning at the pain now radiating down through his face, Barbie swiftly grabbed the side of his head for comfort. The lack of blood gave him some assurance but any sense of comfort was quickly lost as the sound of footsteps started to fill the houses silence. He’d woken up Rhys. Shit.
The sudden illumination of the hallway had Barbie’s eyes tearing up as he tried to squint away through the darkness. As the light approached and got brighter and brighter, Barbie raised his hands almost playfully at his step-brother for having caught him needing to break in to get home. “Alright, alright, alright!” He rambled still blinded by the light. “So look, did I lose my key? Yes. Did I have to use the window again even though I know you hate it? Also yes. BUT!” Barbie dramatically wagged a pointed nagging finger at his brother. “Who was the bloke that decided to go all housekeeper and rearrange everything in the middle of the day!? I mean come on mate, do you really not have anything better…,” The drunken ramble trailed off as Barbie’s eyes started to adjust to the darkness and he realized it wasn’t just that the furniture had been moved… It was also not even their furniture. “...to do?” The words were barely mumbled out as Barbie turned back to the figure that was blinding him only to notice that his step-brother's looming frame was nowhere to be seen.
Ivy had been sleeping, for once, when she heard a thump to her door. She stayed in that half-sleep place for a few more moments, convinced the thump was part of her dream — and then she heard another thump, like someone landing, and a yelp. She reached for her wand at her nightstand, slipped out from under her thick comforter. The man — and it was a man, from his voice — was talking to himself, so she had time to pull a wool sweater over her nightgown.
She stepped out from her bedroom and, with careful steps, down the hallway until she was in the doorway of the sitting room. The man was tall, he was still talking, and then he said Rhys? and she knew she was caught.
Her wand was in her hand. She'd wanted to get close enough to him to press it to his throat, but he'd seen her before she could close the gap. Ivy's breath hissed out; she kept her wand aimed at him, grip loose, light on her feet. "Who the fuck are you?" Ivy said. He was drunk, obviously; that was the only reason she had not hexed him yet, and she was not committed to refraining for much longer.
She didn't want to hex him; she wanted to punch him.
Surprise etched into Barbies face at the sudden introduction of a female voice. Now he knew something was wrong because he doubted Rhys would be bringing harlots home for the night. “Who the fuck am I?” The question stirred some annoyance as he’d just been innocently trying to break into his own home. “Who the fuck are you??” His eyes had adjusted to the darkness now and the voice’s petite frame was far more visible. He didn’t think he’d ever seen her a day in his life… so why was today the day he had to meet her?
With the room far more visible now, Barbie took in the fact that while the layout was quite similar, it was very much not Rhys and his house that he stood in at that moment. Unless of couse she’d murdered Rhys and seamlessly moved in in a matter of hours. It felt like a silly thought until he realized she had her wand raised at him. “Oi! What the hell woman!” Barbie drunkenly fell down to use the couch he was next to as a makeshift shield, only childishly peeking out once he’d gotten his wand into his hand. “Look, there is clearly a misunderstanding happening here!” He kept an eye peeked out from behind the couch and his wand pointed towards the crazed woman. “Obviously I just went in through the wrong window!” A statement that as a drunk man with a penchant for breaking into places who just wanted to go home made sense, but for anyone else could easily be taken the wrong way.
[Please feel free to punch, cut, maim, etc. Barbie at your leisure! Death is the only thing off the table. <3]
And now this stranger was aiming a wand at her? Ivy edged close to the wall, keeping her wand and her eyes carefully trained on him. "So you were trying to break in somewhere?" she spat. Breaking in here was a crime in the first place, but if she'd caught a criminal, that would make this whole exchange much more passable, if she had to report him anywhere.
She had not decided what she was going to do with her wand yet; she was just sure that she was going to use it. Her entire body thrummed with anger.
"This is my house," Ivy said. (Technically it was the landlord's house, but that wasn't the point.)
January 4, 2022 – 1:04 AM
Last modified: January 4, 2022 – 1:11 AM by Barnabas Beck.
What was this woman not seeming to understand? Drunk logic had Barbie's face scrunching up in confusion as his floating brain tried to reprocess what was happening since clearly something didn't quite add up. “Yes.” Barbie replied sternly, his annoyance clear from his tone. “I was trying to get into my house.” A scoff was added at the end of the statement as if to fully display his disbelief at her inability to grasp what he was trying to communicate to her. “Look I-” Frustration was starting to take over when a sudden realization hit Barbie, and with his wand still trained on the woman despite his drunkenly crouched swaying, he slowly peered more of his face around the edge of his protection. “Wait, this is Pennyworth right?” Just how turned around on the walk home had he gotten?
[Please feel free to punch, cut, maim, etc. Barbie at your leisure! Death is the only thing off the table. <3]
He was poking out more, now — Ivy was nearly confident she could hit him with a hex. She just wanted a slightly better target.
Or she could aim for the couch.
"Of course it's fucking Pennyworth!" Ivy said, the words exploding from her mouth; without her bidding, her wand shot off red sparks in all directions.
Barbie’s peering eye widened as red sparks suddenly began to zip around the room before one flew past his head and he quickly ducked down for safety. “Oh fuck off! It was an honest question!” Clearly this woman had never woken up down an alley on the other side of town before.
The grip on his wand tightened as the surge of adrenaline mixed with the last few bourbons had him frantically trying to assemble even the mere semblance of a plan. He had to do something or this lunatic was going to kill him! Should he hex her? It was a fleeting thought though as the savior to all of his problems suddenly caught his attention. There, across the not so hard to see anymore room, was the window he’d first entered from. He’d never closed it!
Barely glancing out from behind the couch, Barbie took note of the girl's position in the room before concealing himself again. Well, if she was going to kill him anyways, right? Making a sudden mad dash towards the other side of the room, Barbie slid in with an ungraceful roll behind his new furniture cover. “This is all just a horrible mistake!” He yelled out to the woman. “You must just live near me!” Unfortunately.
[Please feel free to punch, cut, maim, etc. Barbie at your leisure! Death is the only thing off the table. <3]
He was running. Ivy darted forwards, and ducked in front of her own couch. The man was now crouched behind an armchair. What did she do now? She decided quickly. With a silent flick of her wand, she sent the armchair he was crouched behind flying across the room — it hit her wall with a crash.
He was clearly more drunk than he realized. Why else would the words coming out of his mouth sound like English to him when they clearly weren’t forming coherent words for the rest of the world? As the armchair rose it knocked Barbie over and he stared wide eyed at the sight of it being smashed into the wall until the debris started to fall onto him and he rolled over. He’d pissed off a lot of women over the years but even this level of rage was new for him. Sloppily flicking his wand as bits of armchair rained down upon him, Barbie had meant to push the couch into the woman so he could escape, when his drunken wandwork failed him and he instead tossed a nearby table across the room; the sounds of its decor smashing as they slid off to the floor.
[Please feel free to punch, cut, maim, etc. Barbie at your leisure! Death is the only thing off the table. <3]
Never mind that she had just smashed her own armchair; the sound of her candlesticks shattering as they collided with the table and wall brought Ivy's fury to a boiling point again. She somersaulted out from behind the couch and launched herself at the man, physically; she intended to scratch him with her nails on his neck like a feral cat.
Rhys wasn't exactly sure what time it happened to be, late, he knew that, but it had been a long, long shift and he simply couldn't be at the office anymore. He'd left it in the capable hands of a couple of patrolmen and headed home.
Of course, it wasn't that easy.
Exhaustion filled every fiber of his being and he was ready to just collapse into bed and as he walked home, he was trying to figure out if he should eat something or just flop into his bed without even stopping to wash up. He was torn, certainly, and as he made his way up the street to the house, he realized there was something going on in Miss Sandow's house.
Awake immediately, Rhys passed his own home and headed toward his neighbor's. He approached the front door cautiously, wand held high. He knocked sharply on the door. "Is everything alright in there?" He called loudly, authority evident in his tone. "It's Constable Gallagher from next door."
“What the bloody-” While the sight of a tiny enraged woman preparing to maul him wasn’t a relatively new one, it sure as hell was when it was coming from one he hadn’t slept with. “What are you doing?!” He hastily questioned as the feeling of nails dragging deeply across his neck made him wince in pain. Why he even bothered with words at this point was beyond him.
Clutching the fresh scratches on his neck, Barbie snapped his wand quickly onto the woman in frustration. “Bitch.” He scoffed in disbelief as he withdrew his hand from his neck to see dots of blood freckling across his fingers. Despite having a rather unsteady hand, Barbie kept his wand raised as a warning as he began to debate what spell he was probably going to have to use to get out of this one. That is until the sound of a sudden knock at the door gave him hope that this nightmare was over.
It was a short lived hope however, as the sound of Rhys' voice bellowing through the door dropped his heart straight into the pit of his stomach. Even more so when his brain registered the words and he realized that this crazed woman's house he was in was apparently their neighbor. Glancing feverishly between the small sociopath before him and the door frame hiding his brother's mountainous frame, Barbie panicked as he suddenly tried to decide which death was going to be the least painful. There was a chance his own stepbrother wouldn’t murder him right? “Rhys! HELP! She’s trying to KILL me!”
She'd drawn blood, and Ivy found a spark of satisfaction in the violence of it. She had her wand held loosely in her hand because she was trying to decide what hex to aim at him when she heard the voice of the constable next door. Ivy's teeth were bared; it took her a second to remember that she was not some sort of feral creature, and that she needed to respond.
Rhys pinched the bridge of his nose as he inhaled, trying not to get too annoyed right off the cuff. What in the name of Merlin's beard was Barbie doing in there? If he had to make a guess, the drunkard probably came into the wrong house and scared Miss Sandow half to death. From what he remembered of their neighbor though, she was probably giving Barbie a run for his money. Rhys sincerely hoped she was giving him hell.
"Barnabas stay put! Miss Sandow let me in!" He would have tried to unlock it himself, but he hoped his neighbor was smarter than that. Not to mention he was pretty sure she'd had enough men barge into her home tonight uninvited.
The longer she kept the constable out, the more she could do to this man. The thought occurred to her in an impulse, and was just as quickly — if reluctantly — discarded. Ivy aimed her wand at the front door and unlocked it with a silent flick. Almost annoyed at the interruption, she shoved her palm against the stranger's chest, hoping to knock him off balance. (This was an unrealistic hope, given her stature.)
Barbie’s jaw slacked agape at the indignity of being called Barnabas and commanded to stay put. Had Rhys confused him for one of his constable pups that nipped at his heels? However, this annoyance was successful in keeping Barbie still as he glared at the doorway as it unlatched, awaiting for the unveiling of the walking mountain. That was until tiny hands were suddenly shoved against him.
Stumbling backwards as he brought his attention back to Ms. Sandow, Barbie regained his footing as he shot the small woman a confused look. Unable to contain the sputtering at the hilarity of what she’d just attempted, Barbie burst into laughter. Had she honestly just tried to knock him over?! The woman was one Hogwarts uniform away from being mistaken for a 2nd year!
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