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.
With the same account, complete eight different threads where your character interacts with eight different usergroups. At least one must be a non-human, and one a student.
Did You Know?
Braces, or suspenders, were almost universally worn due to the high cut of men's trousers. Belts did not become common until the 1920s. — MJ
He let out a slow breath. It was enlightening to hear all this, but it didn’t feel – well, it didn’t feel good. If anything, Theo felt a little numb from the newfound understanding. There were people Cash had lost whom he had loved, with whom he would have traded places; he felt guilty for living, and trapped just being tethered here to people, so the lure of leaving was clearly strong. As if that would rectify anything, balance fate out. As if he could be with them again.
He took up Cash’s hand in his and absently threaded their fingers together, as much for his own comfort as anything. “Hey,” Theo said softly. “You deserve to live too. Don’t you think he would want that for you?” He suddenly felt a little like an impostor here too: ill-equipped to convince Cash of anything; not Eli Swan, not knowing what he would say. But if they had been together at the time, if Eli had loved him then, what else could he have wanted? “It’s not your fault.”
Eli would want him to live. Cash knew that. He often felt like he owed Eli his life, like he couldn't give up because someone had died for him. Guilt wasn't enough to stave off the numbness or the panic that so often creeped in.
Guilt also was not enough of a reason for him to give up. He swallowed, looked at Theo again.
He looked back at Cash in consternation. No, that couldn’t be true: he might have convinced himself of that in the aftermath, but it wasn’t, Theo felt sure of that. It was – just survivor’s guilt gnawing away at him, a cross to bear or cling to.
And Theo didn’t know what had happened to Eli Swan to properly argue the fact, but after having to face the thought of losing him he was committed, now, to keeping Cash here. Here with him. “Cash,” he contested gently, pressing his other hand to Cash’s cheek, to say it determinedly in his look, if he couldn’t in words: it’s not.“How could it have been?”
He could not tell Theo the whole truth. For one thing, the vow might kill him outright if he did — for another, he was half-worried that Theo would do something stupid if Cash told him. Theo already hated Lucius Lestrange; Cash had not seen Theo be particularly rash, but he had not ruled it out. He could not tell him.
He wanted to tell him.
He swallowed. He felt the warmth of Theo's hand on his face. He blinked.
"Someone killed him for being an — invert," Cash said, using the only word he had for how they both were. The word didn't feel adequate; it felt like an insult, and deep down Cash did believe that the way they were was normal. "It felt like — it feels like — that was my fault."
Theo’s face blanched, and something lurched in his stomach. Worse than he had imagined, again – he hadn’t realised that was something to be afraid of, something that could happen. Social ruin was one thing, and the unbreakable vow another, but – “That’s not right,” Theo breathed. He felt fierce with anger at it, the outrage written on his face, but for a minute no other words would come. How... who would have...? But the answers would not lessen the horror, so he wasn’t sure he could bring himself to ask.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered finally, his hand still pressed to Cash’s face, half to keep himself steady too. “I wish it hadn’t happened to you. But that’s on them. Not on you.”
Eli Swan hadn’t deserved that. Someone had murdered him: no one had leave to do something like that. But of course Cash – wasn’t to blame. Cash hadn’t killed anyone. And, for that matter, Cash hadn’t made Eli Swan the way he was, any more than he had made Theo this way, or chosen it himself.
Invert. Theo hadn’t heard anyone use the word before. He wasn’t sure how he felt about it or what it implied, or if that was what he was. But he knew how he felt about Cash – and he was more sure of it than ever, today. He had only known some of the dangers – the vow, his father, the marriage – but he had tried to stay away to keep him safe, hadn’t he? To keep Cash alive because he loved him.
He'd spent so long convinced it was his fault, sure that he could have prevented it, going back over things that were twisted in his mind — but Theo sounded so sure that it wasn't Cash's fault. And maybe blaming himself was not worth it, anymore — it had not made him any straighter, had not made him feel any better, had not made Eli any less dead.
Maybe killing Eli had been Lucius' choice. Maybe Cash needed to stop trying to shoulder it, because if he kept going on this way, it was going to kill him.
He wished, with sudden ferocity, that they'd spent more time talking to each other when they were together. Actually talking, not just talking about Quidditch or avoiding difficult conversations.
Hastily, Theo brushed a hand across his own cheeks to make sure he wasn’t crying again. He felt somewhere close to it still, at everything Cash had told him – but at that next question, he almost could have laughed in relief. In answer, he settled his hand on Cash’s shoulder and brought their mouths together.
The kiss was gentle at first, steady and measured, as if the guilt might creep in. Except the guilt didn’t come. Cash’s wife could be somewhere in the house, his wife and his newborn son; his father still had him trapped under an unbreakable vow, and other people in the world would rather see them dead. Cash had made it clear how badly things could go if they were together. He knew it, and Theo had known it, but Theo was also desperately aware of how much he had missed him. And maybe the past two years of being alone had done neither of them much good. And – the rest of it didn’t seem to matter right now. None of it did. Nothing mattered right now in the world but this: trying to prove to Cash that he ought to be here, that he was loved, that he deserved to live and to be happy.
He pulled back just far enough to take a breath and look at him again. How did he make it clear that Cash could do anything he wanted? “Yeah,” Theo said, a small, helpless smile forming at the corner of his mouth. “You can kiss me.”
This kiss was solid, real, in a way that none of the spiritus sancti fumblings of the previous year had been. Because now there was this — the steady pressure of Theo’s lips, the weight of Theo’s hand on his shoulder, the feeling of relief in his chest. Kissing Theo didn’t fix everything, maybe it didn’t even fix anything, but fuck, Cash had missed him.
His smile mirrored Theo’s. ”Oh,” Cash said, unable to resist the impulse to be a tiny bit sarcastic, ”Good.”
He closed the tiny gap between them and pressed a deep kiss to Theo’s mouth, and reached forward to rest his hands, gentle, on the other man’s hips. Cash’s kiss was unhurried, exploratory, as if he wanted to see if anything had changed — as if they had all the time in the world.
