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
But it's crucial to blot out any
Signs that I might have feelings
This way you don't ask me how am I
This way you won't force me to proceed
With actually having to tell you my worries
With actually having you give a damn about me
Noble didn't particularly want to be here, because if he could get an invitation through Ford then he was sure that Grimstone could, too. And he was not particularly in the mood to see anyone, even months after the original incident with Daff. The only person he could actually imagine being happy to see was Tilda MacFusty.
He still cared too much to go on a bender at a Ministry party, which was a bit unfortunate. He was slowly and politely drinking his wine, and then he saw someone who he hadn't even realized he should be scared to see — Rosalie Hunniford. Noble felt bad about everything, but didn't know how he could have handled it better, and put his hands in his pockets and walked to find a hot chocolate or something that would get Miss Hunniford out of his eyeshot.
Except after several yards, his traitorous feet would no longer move. He looked up. Ah, fuck.
Rosalie had been counting down the minutes until she could leave since donning her gown earlier in the evening. There had been no arguing with Wilmer over her attendance, not with his hopeful promotion dangling over her parents like a noose. Everything thing season, between events attended to the very way the decorated their house for Christmas, had been done in light of his upward success. Historically, Rosalie was a dutiful daughter in situations like this, preferring to see her parents delighted than not. However, this year, Rosalie would have preferred nothing more than to sit in the corner and sulk.
She spotted both Noble and Ezra within an hour of arriving and had gone out of her way to avoid both. It wasn't that she was afraid of an interaction with them (she was, mildly) but she simply had no patience left for either. Ezra loved her but would never forgive her. Noble would never love her and refused to use her like she wanted to be. They were cowards, the two of them, pitiful and depressing cowards.
(Or, was she the coward?)
She was on her third glass of wine when she was suddenly stuck within an arms' reach of Noble. A quick glance up at the mistletoe told her all she needed to know, at which point she just stared at him as if to say well?
Noble hoped he would be stuck with someone he didn't know, but the person trapped in this with him was Miss Rosalie Hunniford. He met her eyes, and felt certain that she was irritated with him — and he couldn't blame her. He'd been a coward, and he didn't blame her for not writing him back.
But Noble was very aware that they were in public, and that he could not kiss her like he meant it, nor could he kiss her like it was an apology. He shrugged his shoulders, looked upwards, and then looked at his glass of wine.
"Give me a minute," he said, with a sheepish smile, "A little awkward, isn't it?"
His tone and expression were all performance, potioneer-and-client, but the words weren't really out of place.
It wasn't enough to end things like she hadn't mattered at all (a letter! she thought furiously for the umpteenth time) but now he was acting as though a simple kiss was an uncomfortable prospect. It took considerable effort to keep her expression resembling something akin to neutral, though her stare had turned hard. They weren't alone here and the longer they stayed stuck the more attention they would attract. Rosalie might've been forward with him but she refused to be seen as loose. A recluse, sure. A workaholic, okay. A harlot, absolutely not.
"Uncomfortably so." She muttered. None of the tables were near enough for her to snag a fourth glass of wine to sip on while they waited. "I'm surprised the minister's wife would allow for this sort of mischief at her party."
She was pissed at him, and it was obvious. Noble swallowed. He ought to go ahead and get it together and kiss her, because he was not sure how long she would tolerate him otherwise. He hadn't ended things well — but what was he supposed to go, go over to her house to tell her that their tryst was making him depressed?
"Yeah, well, gives people something to talk about," Noble said, tone snarky. He focused on her. His gaze was apologetic, and he couldn't mask it. "Are you ready?" he asked.
"No," Rosalie answered honestly, her gaze softening some despite her best efforts to remain hard. He was going to leave her again after this, and while she didn't particularly want him to stay she also didn't want to be left alone again. It was an effort not to fold her arms tight against her chest, but this wasn't his workshop or her bedroom and Rosalie had to help maintain appearances. Instead, she scratched at her cuticles and hoped no one would notice how torn up they were.
She wasn't ready. And they were in public, so Noble couldn't do anything to try to stop her from picking at her cuticles. He glanced at her hands, saw how torn-up they were, and glanced back up at her. He swallowed. "How can I help?" he whispered. They were catching some attention, stuck as they were — but he could try to help her, regardless.
There was plenty Noble could have done to help months ago, like being honest about his feelings before she tried to take him to her bed. She would have understood (maybe) and allowed a clean break, and at least then she wouldn't have felt used in the end. At least then she could have pretended to have not cared.
She wasn't looking at him anymore — couldn't for fear of either viciously lashing out or worse. Her nail bed would be bleeding by the end of the night at this rate but she couldn’t stop the picking either. A few more people were glancing in their direction now. They had to kiss soon if only to escape the attention.
"Make it a last kiss." She finally decided to whisper back, her eyes returning to his. Maybe it would give her closure, maybe it would help her not hate him so much for leaving her with a letter. At the very least, it would feel finished in a way things with Ezra would never. "Pretend that you like me and are saying farewell."
It was going to be hard, to kiss her like he meant it, in front of all of these people. Noble pressed his lips together for a brief second, suppressing a frown, and then gave her the slightest nod. He swallowed. "I do like you," Noble whispered to her. That was why he had to end it, after all — because it felt impossible to keep seeing her like that and avoid eventually falling in love with her.
He leaned in to press his lips to hers in a chaste, but not entirely short, kiss. He pulled back and looked at her, carefully watching the expression on her face.
His statement, while likely intended as a kindness towards her, was a lie. Both of them had agreed to keep their feelings out of their arrangement, and she had failed her end of the bargain by proposing more. Rosalie could barely maintain eye contact with him in the seconds that passed between him speaking and their kiss.
The kiss was far less passionate than what they were used to, though anything more than a chaste one would've caused immediate outrage. Still, it took considerable focus to keep her hands fisted at her sides rather than gently cupping his cheek or wrapping her arms around his neck as she liked to do. It was even harder not to chase the warmth of his mouth as they pulled apart only seconds later.
A beat passed before she said softly, "If you liked me, you would have felt I deserved more than a letter." Rosalie stepped back then, her watery gaze moving from his to quickly scan the room around them. They had gathered too much attention in the time it took them to act. She glanced at him one last time before adding, "goodbye, Noble."
Her eyes looked watery. Noble swallowed, keeping down the words that could have come up. Because even if the letter had been a bad call — a cowardly call, and he knew it — this was, perhaps, the fundamental difference between them. Rosalie thought that the bad calls that Noble made were about her, and instead they were — about the fucked up brain that he couldn't get to cooperate.
Ignoring the flush on his face, he turned to find a drink.
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