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
"Come on!" Annie had her arm through Effie's as they wandered Diagon Alley. New Year's Eve ought to be spent at a party or somewhere far more glamorous than this, but Annie rather thought having Effie with her was all she needed. Oh and her mother just behind them of course. They were not spinsters yet. Well, Effie would not be, with her handsome unspeakable fiancé now. Oh Merlin, Annie was going to figure this out if it killed her.
"I must get you a birthday present!" she exclaimed with a wide smile. She'd had a little too much mulled cider at dinner and was feeling an appropriate buzz through her veins. The cold air helped, though she couldn't exactly feel it. Mostly she was feeling nostalgic and hopeful and happy for her friend. "Your last unmarried birthday! Look at you!" She giggled now, looking at her friend meaningfully. "Does Mr. Watson have any desperate brothers?" She asked, only teasing. Mostly. Wouldn't that be something. This year was going to look very different and Annie wanted to start off on the right foot.
She'd been about to say something further when a booth off to the side of the Alley caught her eye, Changes read the sign, but little more information was offered along with it. "Let's go see what that is." She tugged Effie with her, her mother pausing to look at a shop front, though not out of sight.
“As far as I know birthdays happen about the same every year, whether you are married or not,” Effie interjected, rolling her eyes at Annie’s teasing or her good humour. How much of it was the cider and how much of it was just Annie being Annie was hard to say, but Effie indulged her enough to only shake her head and sigh at the question of desperate brothers. (That was a non-starter; Brooks spent less time talking about or to his muggle family than she did.)
And she couldn’t shake the sense that everything had happened in the wrong order, an odd mixed up way; the line about desperate brothers ought to have been hers, about one of the McKelveys. Reed McKelvey would be Hanna’s, and she would take Wyatt (because he was her favourite, not for any practical reason), and there would be plenty to go around.
“And you don’t need to...”get me anything, she had been about to chide, only they had veered down the street in a new direction. “Is that supposed to be selling something?” Effie muttered sidelong, glancing suspiciously at the tiny tent-and-table. It wasn’t any part of a street fair or market in view, and all it read was Changes. She grimaced slightly; if it were her choice, she would have thought it better avoided.
Annie returned the roll of Effie's eyes with an equally annoyed expression. Marriage was an entirely different life! Effie was lucky to have Mr. Watson and he seemed nice enough, if a bit quiet. What mattered was that Effie seemed happy, or at the very least content with the arrangement. That was the most important part.
She also waved off the half-comment about a birthday present too. That was a given. "I don't know, let's find out!" She squeaked, excited.
What would you like to change about yourself this year? The woman asked with a secretive sort of smile. Annie turned to Effie wide-eyed. "I don't know, do you?" It was a question most people asked themselves this time of year, but Annie hadn't actually given it serious thought. Aside from not being a spinster, she wasn't sure what she was going to do to get there.
Hanna was determined not to be jealous of Effie, and was largely succeeding today, if only because her blood was buzzing with something feral and so she was having a hard time focusing on anything her friends were saying. The Changes booth was appealing because it was different, and she bobbed in behind them, blinking wide-eyed at the question the woman at the booth posed.
Hanna tapped her ring finger, ready to make a joke about marriage. She couldn't find the words though, and what spilled out of her mouth instead was: "I think I'd focus more. That would be better, right?"
She dreaded to think what was passing through the other two’s minds at this – she suspected fears about another year of not-marrying would be plaguing them both. And Effie couldn’t judge them for that, not in the least, because – until recently – she had been there, and been through the countless stages of grief about it, that looming possibility of ending up alone.
So she imagined that was the change to their circumstances they were hoping for, whatever Hanna said about focus. Effie furrowed her brow. (She wouldn’t have minded this conversation half so much if they were not having it in front of the strange woman at the booth. It all felt oddly loaded, here.)
And there were plenty of things Effie would change about herself, but – “You don’t need to change anything about yourself. Neither of you do,” she insisted. She couldn’t hiss about the suspiciousness of the woman asking them in her earshot, but she gave her friends a wary look, trying to project I don’t like this.
Annie drifted closer to Hanna, looping her arm through her friends. She knew Effie would be cautious, but Hanna and Annie were more alike in the fact that they both had things they knew were holding them back. "Come now, nobody is without faults they'd like to fix," Annie tutted, but smiled, signaling she was teasing. "Whether they are of our on making or not." Annie knew she could take steps to make herself less of a human disaster, but every time she tried it didn't seem to matter much.
"I think I'd like to be a little less awkward, more charming." She announced thinking that might help in a lot of aspects of her life. If she was easier to talk to maybe she would finally meet someone who appreciated her sense of humor or her wit.
Johanna could have guessed that Effie would hate this, but smiled playfully when Annie backed her up. "Come on, Effie," she said, taking on the same teasing tone as Annie. "I know we're perfect just the way we are —" for some value of the word perfect "— but surely we could be slightly more perfect." Punctuating the sentence, Hanna winked.
She turned back to the woman. "Focus more in social situations. Not on — the news, or whatever."
She was less than comfortable with the turn of the conversation, them both having personal flaws so ready on their lips, and unconvinced by Hanna’s playful wink – but when the woman at the booth presented them each with a bonbon, Effie made a noise in her throat that sounded suspiciously like a little huffed snort.
If her friends supposed they had personal improvements to be made, she did not think a bonbon was the answer. She covered her mouth with her hand to disguise it as a cough. Surely they weren’t willing to pay for a sweet?
"Harmless enough," Annie decided, shooting Effie a look at her scoff. She reached into her spending money to pay for the chocolates and held hers aloft to Hanna in cheers. "Here's to a new year!" She laughed and popped the bonbon into her mouth. The middle was a luscious chocolate and she couldn't taste anything else, so maybe she had been swindled. If nothing else she'd gotten a tasty treat out of it. "What do you say Effie?" She teased lightly, passing Hanna a grin.
Hanna held the bonbon in her hand. "C'mon, Effie," she said, tone plaintive, "You have to cheers the New Year with us." Maybe Effie would feel better about this if she participated in it — and never mind that she was too sensible for wish-casting.
A happy new year to this witch, who would be going into it far richer thanks to all the fools in Diagon Alley today, Effie thought begrudgingly, as she rummaged for her pursestrings. “Alright, fine,” she sighed, sounding more put-upon than she actually was – because if she was beholden to anyone, it was certainly them.
Admittedly, it was less the peer pressure of it, and more the idea of being in the same boat with them both when this foolishness went awry and landed them in hospital (or more likely went nowhere). “I suppose I could try to be bolder,” she said to the woman, deadpan for their sakes’. “More spontaneous.”
Just like that, she received her bonbon, and peered at it critically for a moment before raising it in a wary toast. Before she consumed it, though, she asked her more spontaneous friends – “Do you feel any different yet?”
Annie grinned as Effie decided to join them. "To a more spontaneous, charming, focused new year." She didn't feel any different after already eating hers, but she supposed this was not the sort of situation in which she would need to be more charming. Annie was most comfortable around her friends and she wished she could exude such confidence around other people. Perhaps this would be her chance. Otherwise it was just a scheme and a tasty chocolate. Honestly, what was worst that could happen. "This will be our year ladies, I can tell." Or maybe she just wanted to be optimistic because the only other choice was to be a pessimist and that just wouldn't do. Nobody wanted somebody who could not see the bright side at least sometimes. Annie had to trust that perhaps this new year would bring new beginnings and new adventures. At least they had Effie's wedding to look forward to!
![[Image: Annie-Sig95.png]](https://i.ibb.co/DgTGY4nH/Annie-Sig95.png)
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