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
Apparently St. Valentine's was the time for all of the fun events. He was set to attend the Love at First Sight event in a couple of days and tonight he just had a feeling it would worth the energy of attending. It had been a while since he had smelled the love potion, likely back at school. Potions hadn't been one of his stronger subjects and thankfully he'd stayed out of trouble with this particular brew, but he was curious to know if it had changed or if it was still the same; good bourbon, lilacs and something smokey, a peat fire perhaps? Over a decade later, after his travels and a world's worth of experiences, it certainly had to have changed.
Hopefully he could stay out of trouble tonight too. Well, bad trouble anyway, good trouble was always welcome. He was in the mood for some company this evening, any company, so he was feeling loose and adventurous. It would hard to seduce a lovely little debutante, but surely there were some married ladies looking to spice up their evening. If he was lucky he might be able to catch a gent in the mood too. Dean knew the last was the most unlikely, given the ardent denial of men these days. It didn't stop him from sporting a crisp suit in a blue that almost looked black, tailored to perfection, just to see whose eye he could catch.
The mistress of the evening was quite busy with the young ladies and gentlemen brave enough to venture near the love potion to catch a whiff, but Dean was a patient man, he could wait his turn. Instead he had folded himself into a table across the room from the dance floor, long limbs relaxed, one leg across the opposite knee, as he leaned back in the chair with a glass of bourbon dangling loosely from his fingertips. Dean looked the epitome of comfortable in his space as he surveyed the room for amusement. He caught the eye of a fellow co-worker from the ministry nearby, Lestrange the younger, and gave him a nod of acknowledgement. "Lost your pretty wife already?" Dean teased casually.
Cash was nervous to try smelling amortentia. He thought he knew what it would smell like; something he couldn't place, Theo's cologne, broom oil. He was sure there would be notes that surprised him, but he knew himself well enough to be sure of how amortentia would remind him of everything he'd lost. Valentine's Day had him feeling morose. He'd first kissed Theo in February.
He'd come here with Adrienne, but lost her rather quickly — her unmarried friends were, Cash assumed, particularly interested in this sort of thing. Maybe this was a good opportunity for Cash to play cards — and to avoid the amortentia. He was beelining towards the tables when one of his colleagues nodded at him — Cash smiled at Hudson.
He walked over to the table and dropped into the chair across from Hudson; there was a comfortability to the other man that Cash immediately respected. He was graceful, but he never looked that comfortable. "Her friends want to try their amortentia," Cash explained with a smile. "She owes them her company. Have you tried it yet?"
Dean took a lazy sip of his bourbon as Lestrange took a seat opposite him. "Understandable, it's quite the twitter." He cast a look toward where the evening's entertainment was in full swing. There was a flutter of giggles and some whispering that had him smiling behind his glass.
"I do wonder what it smells like to a debutante who has never so much as stolen a kiss in the garden," Dean mused with a chuckle. "Surely it can't have the intoxicating scent of a man's cologne," something Dean himself enjoyed and his flippant comment was no accident. His own was a mix of cedarwood with a hint of peach and something smokey underneath he couldn't remember. He'd been told on several occasions just how lovely it was.
Mulling over Lestrange's question, he pursed his lips, rolling his tongue over the bourbon. "Not sure I will. It's probably changed since school." It would make sense, as one matured and tastes changed. "Leave it to the ladies and their imaginations tonight." He smirked, taking another long sip of his bourbon.
Hudson's comment caught Cash's attention; it was rare that men called their own cologne intoxicating. Cash was sure he meant something else by it, but he had noticed Hudson's smell — there was an after-note of peach that was particularly appealing. Cash's cologne that evening smelled like lemon and sandalwood; no cigarette smoke today.
Cash took a sip of his own bourbon to give himself time to compose a response. "What do you think it smells like to a debutante, then?" Cash asked. "If they haven't developed a taste in cologne." His lips curled up into a self-amused smile.
"Excellent question," Dean mused after taking a swig of his bourbon. "I would assume something floral, roses, lavender, lilac." Common scents in ladies perfumes, at least in his experience. "Or citrusy, lemon," Dean hadn't missed Lestrange's cologne either. "Oranges, might be more specific pending their hobbies, books, something of the outdoors." Dean particularly liked the petrichor of a rainstorm himself.
Swirling his bourbon idly, Dean supposed he was being a little harsh. "I'm sure it'll change as they mature," he had never quite developed the patience for the fresh debs, though he supposed his mother would soon be pushing them in his direction from all sides. "No doubt the amortentia holds something exotic for me these days," he'd done far too much traveling for there not to be something spicy or herbaceous scent to his.
"What do you think?" Dean had done a lot of the talking so far, which was not uncommon for him, but he was aware of this fact.
Hudson was more thoughtful than Cash would have expected, but it was a pleasant surprise. He didn't have very many friends at the Ministry. He often kept to himself, and he did not like the work he was doing. That made it hard to try to forge new social connections — but maybe he should try?
It was a silly thing to be won over by, speculation on the scent of amortentia. He was going to have to come off as intelligent in his answer. Cash's lips curled up in a smile before he answered. "A Quidditch pitch," he admitted, "The air gets a specific smell to it when you're a few hundred feet up. And — good whiskey." Theo's whiskey, the flavor they drank when they had been in his office — but he ought not think about Theo tonight.
"Mm, close to home then." He'd known Lestrange had played professional quidditch, he thought, so it made sense. It was amusing how opposite they proposed the scent to be. Now he was curious. "Nothing wrong with that, you like what you like." And who. Dean hadn't flown in a long time, but he did remember a certain crispness to the air when there was nothing else around you.
Good whiskey though, that was an easy one and likely something he would guess was in his own even now. "Nothing like a good whiskey though, cures all that ails." He laughed, thinking it took the pain out of quite a bit, heartache, dulled anything that might plague the body too.
The bourbon he was currently drinking was mid-tier at best, and at events like this he wasn't particular, but the bottles he kept at home were expensive and only for special occasions. Dean wasn't exactly a lush, but he appreciated the time and place of a good liquor. "I'm loyal to a brand out of Cork, deep flavor, a little smokey." Just a tad sweet with a subtle finish of cherries, but it slid down the throat just a little too easily.
"I don't have much brand loyalty," Cash said with a crooked smile. He let the staff do his shopping — or Adrienne did — and while he would tell them if he didn't like a whiskey bottle, he usually would not have much in the way of feedback. The only brand he was really loyal to was the cheap bottles of imported bourbon that he and Angie would drink — but he kept those at Angie's, and the staff didn't participate in buying them.
"That sounds like an excellent flavor, though," Cash added, "I'd love to try it sometime."
Grinning, Dean leaned toward Lestrange a little bit. He liked that little crooked smile of Lestrange's. "I can probably arrange that." This conversation had been surprisingly enjoyable; frankly he was never quite sure how the upper echelons of society would view somebody like him, and so to find that Lestrange wasn't so uptight was a delightful revelation.
"Can't do scotch, burns a little too much." He added with a laugh, leaning back to keep himself in check, before he went reading too much into the situation. "The Tullamore is perfection though." It was a muggle distillery, but he couldn't complain about that when the product was exactly what he wanted after a long day at work, or a long night of fun. It was easy for him to get his hands on it in London, too.
Cash was starting to suspect that he was making a friend, which was thrilling — he was trying to be eager, but not too eager, in his responses to Hudson. Still, he liked the way that Hudson responded to him, leaning forwards in his seat, as if this conversation was the most thrilling thing at the party.
(It may well have been, given some of the parties Cash had gone to.)
He settled on a response and had not taken too much time to do it, just a casual beat where he was sipping his drink. "Oh, I enjoy scotch," Cash answered, with a casual shrug of his shoulders. "But maybe Tullamore will win me over. If it's smoother."
"Perhaps we should trade," Dean mused. He took a long sip of his drink and let the glass dangle precariously in his fingertips as he thought it through. "We'll each bring a bottle," he spoke as if they were already better acquainted and this was a normal request. "See if we can't turn the other." Dean's double entendre wasn't that obvious, but he was amused by himself at the very least.
He motioned loosely with his hand, raising an eyebrow as if to coax Lestrange into agreeing. Dean was always open to trying new things, at least once, maybe twice just to be sure. If Lestrange had a brand of scotch he liked, perhaps Dean could be persuaded to agree.
There was something layered about Hudson's words, but Cash couldn't be sure. "You have a deal," he said, and raised his glass in Hudson's direction as if to cheers him.
Whether he was reading into things or not, Hudson had at least given him an excuse to avoid checking out his amortentia.
![[Image: Dean-Sig-New.png]](https://i.ibb.co/b12dTvC/Dean-Sig-New.png)
