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
"Why does a masquerade have to be macabre?" Ford returned with a quirk of his head, as though he still did not entirely believe that this was what Cash wanted to talk about and was waiting for the bait-and-switch to flip to something else. "I went to one once as a — squirrel, maybe. Weasel, chipmunk. I don't remember exactly. Something woodland-y. The kind of thing that gets eaten by bigger animals," he joked. Getting eaten by bigger animals was a bit macabre, granted, but it wasn't as though there had been anything gruesome about the costume — just the way he described it.
Cash grinned; at least now Ford was playing along. "It doesn't have to be macabre," he allowed, "But Halloween is sort of inherently spectral, don't you think?" Ford could dress up as a woodland creature all he wanted, but that wasn't going to remove the energy of the holiday from a masquerade. But maybe Cash was being dramatic. He bent down to grab a stone and held it carefully in his hand. "I was a pirate one year," Cash added. That was not very macabre or anti-social of him! (But he had been seventeen.)
Ford laughed. "My whole life is kind of inherently spectral," he pointed out. Maybe that wasn't strictly true, but he did spend a lot more time with ghosts than the average person did, and didn't tend to associate them only with a particular time of year. And there wasn't any proof that Muggle theories about spirits being closer to the world of the living, or the veil being thinner, or ghosts being stronger was true — interesting though all those theories were.
"It said the masks were provided for this masquerade," he continued. "I'm using that as an excuse not to have a costume this year." The event wasn't actually on Halloween, but Halloween was also a Tuesday, which meant he could get out of events that were scheduled that day and make Noble take them instead on the excuse that he needed to sleep so he could work early the next morning.
Cash hummed in response to Ford's comment. "I'll admit I haven't read the invitation very closely yet," he admitted, with a wry smile. He threw his stone at the Black Lake; it landed in the water with a ker-plunk."So you may have saved me some embarrassment."
Ford grinned. "It's what I'm here for. Though I don't know why you'd mind," he teased. "You don't have to impress debutantes, or anything, since you're already married." Presumably there had been some level of public appeal that had been necessary for his job as a Quidditch captain, too — at least to inspire a baseline level of confidence from his players so that they would listen to him — but it wasn't as though he had a staff as just a regular Games and Sports employee. And Minister Ross' anti-nepotism bill or no, Ford did not think it was actually possible for Cash to be fired, so.
Cash laughed. "Fair enough," he said, "But now I have to impress my wife's friends, and that's just as difficult." He didn't think he actually needed to impress Adrienne's friends, but it was good to save face nonetheless. Cash was aware enough of Ford's feelings on his marriage that he watched Ford carefully — he hoped that they'd be able to joke about her sooner or later, but he wasn't sure it was now. It was good to test the waters.
Did Cash actually care what his wife's friends thought of him, Ford wondered, or was that only something to say? It was good if he did, not because the opinions of Adrienne Lestrange's friends made any difference, but because caring what anyone thought was a good sign. There was a time when that hadn't been true. (That had been dangerous, but it had also maybe been useful — if Cash had cared at all what Ford had thought of him when they met, he might not have written him when the dementor showed up).
But it was also the sort of joke people might make just because it was a joke people sometimes made, with nothing of substance behind it at all. Ford decided to treat it like such and responded in kind, with a chuckle: "Sometimes I'm glad that I won't ever have to worry about that stuff." That stuff being marriage and everything that accompanied it. He'd been making jokes like this with Tycho often enough that he didn't think twice about making the same joke now — for all it was untrue.
There, nothing negative — maybe things were getting better. But Cash raised his eyebrows at Ford's next statement. "That can't be true," he pointed out, knowing it was a weird thing to point out and unable to stop himself. "You care tons what people think." And he definitely shouldn't have said that, and yet it had spilled out of his mouth.
The remark stung, and how quickly and thoughtlessly Cash had delivered it stung just as much. Ford looked hurt for half a second before he covered it with a more neutral expression (or tried to — it was probably still lingering around his eyes, as he'd never been the best at disguising how he felt).
"I meant the bit about the wife," he said. He still had a stone in his hand, which was rather stupid if he wasn't planning on skipping it. He tossed it at the lake where it immediately fell into the water, briefly leaving a plume behind it. Rotten throw.
Cash flushed. "Oh," he said, feeling instantly guilty. He should have been more thoughtful. He — usually should have been more thoughtful. "Well — never say never. What about Miss Chang?" Hadn't Ford been hanging around her? He kicked at the stones under his feet with the toe of one shoe.
"Oh," Ford said, feeling — something, what? Defensive? Embarrassed? Something — at the reference to Miss Chang. But he cared too much about what people thought, apparently, so maybe it didn't matter anyway.
"She's — different," Ford said after a pause, and wondered if Cash would read into that what Ford wanted to convey or not. It wasn't really his place to tell Cash any of Miss Chang's business, but — well, it wasn't as though Cash was in a position to be judgemental about her situation, and the arrangement suited them both.
Cash quirked an eyebrow at Ford. He bent to grab a stone from the ground. "Different?" he echoed — he could not decide if he was genuinely curious or if he wanted to be difficult.
Ford squinted slightly at Cash, trying to tell if it was a genuine question or if he was being made fun of. He didn't think he ought to be any more explicit than that, while they were in somewhat-public. Different could technically mean anything, but there was a very short list of things that it could mean in this context, and if Cash hadn't already figured it out then Ford wasn't sure it was worth it to explain. And what did it matter to Cash what the nature of his relationship with Miss Chang was? Cash had married someone he didn't care about; he could hardly throw stones from that glass house.
"We don't have to talk about it," he found himself saying. He tossed a stone lightly in his hand, feeling out the weight of it and the contours. There was something about skipping stones that felt familiar — was it just nostalgia for simpler days? "But we should talk about something."
"You keep saying that," Cash said, and maybe it was a bit of a snap — but if Ford actually wanted him to talk about it, then he ought to stop saying the same thing. Cash looked down at his hand and gripped it, closing and opening his fist repeatedly. Hadn't he had a rock a second ago?
He was visibly confused when he looked back at Ford. "So it seems like you really want to talk about it."
Ford looked startled by Cash's response. Did he keep saying it? He didn't think he had — but he didn't remember exactly what words he'd used in the letter, when he'd asked Cash if he wanted to meet up at the event, so maybe. Still, this was a little harsh for that context. Maybe Cash was a little more raw than Ford had thought. He'd seemed put together enough when they'd been up in the market, but appearances could be deceiving, especially with Cash.
"Sorry?" he said, tone caught halfway between an apology and an I beg your pardon? He looked at the stone in his hand and ran his tongue over the front of his upper teeth. He didn't really want to talk about it, but if Cash needed someone to talk to about it he wanted to be there — which made responding here a little difficult. "I just want to know how you are," he said after a beat.
Not for the first time in this conversation, Cash couldn’t understand how he was the weird one here. He frowned at Ford. Cash clenched and unclenched his empty hand again. He had just had a stone, hadn’t he?
Cash sighed. ”I’ve been better,” he allowed. ”But I’ve — been worse, too.”
He wasn’t sure how much Ford actually wanted to know about how he was doing — and how much Ford just wanted to make sure that Cash wasn’t going to generate a dementor again.
