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 1894. It’s time to join us and immerse yourself in scandal and drama interlaced with magic both light and dark.
Well, Phin had officially survived more than a week at Hogwarts, and he thought he was settling in pretty well, all things considered. He was starting to feel more relaxed, at any rate, and he thought he was going to enjoy at least some of his classes--all of them was too much to hope for. But Phin had spent enough time at home with his family to be a professional at suffering his way through unpleasant things, so he'd probably be fine.
(He felt bad just thinking it, but it was true.)
So he'd started off his day in a pretty decent mood on this, the second day of his second week of school, having already gone through all of this routine before. And then the morning mail had arrived, and with it his mother's letter and now Phin was just feeling... confused. He didn't know Jameson Potter very well, having only just meant him in the boats when they came to Hogwarts, but Phin thought he liked him. And he wanted friends. He wanted friends very badly, actually, if he let himself think too hard about it. So he didn't know what to do now.
He was still thinking about this later in the day, when he was leaving Potions and making his way toward the staircase that would take him up out of the dungeons, when he saw his brother coming from the other direction. He crossed the corridor and turned around so he could fall into step with Sirius. He wasn't with any of his friends, so Phin thought it was as good a time to talk to him as any. "Do you know anything about the Potter family?"
Phineas had done a fairly good job of leaving Sirius alone here, so Sirius only raised an eyebrow at him when his brother appeared next to him. "Pureblood," he answered, "Minister thing, obviously. The eldest is your year." Sirius had never played with any Potters, because the family had been small — they had never been in the same little groups of pureblood children.
"Developing rumors?" he asked mildly, keeping up his pace and expecting Phineas to match him.
Phin had to walk faster to keep up with his brother, but he didn't complain aloud--it wasn't the time. At Sirius' question, Phin could feel his ears warm with embarrassment. "No," he said. "I just thought--I wanted to figure out if he's the right sort of person to be friends with." Phin didn't really want a repeat of his encounter with Maggie during the summer--he still felt bad every time he'd seen her since they arrived at school. And he didn't really want to tell Sirius what their mother had said, which was a probably a bad sign for his intentions and his continued status as a dutiful son.
Sirius reached out to gently pinch Phineas' red ear between his fingers; a classic tease, but not one with any real force behind it. "Has he said anything about particularly liking half-breeds?" Sirius asked, "Flirting with girls? Taking his shirt off in the Great Hall?"
"No," Phin said. "At least, not that I've heard." Which was the problem. Sometimes the things his mother said didn't make much sense to Phin, but he kept trying to make some sense of it anyway. But he couldn't figure it out this time. There had to be something, surely. The other option was that his mother went around eleven year olds she wasn't related to enough to have strong opinions about them, which was the most absurd thought Phin had ever had.
Sirius frowned at his younger brother. "Then what are you worried about?" he asked, a small degree of irritation leaking into his voice. He was not going to be able to vet all of Phin's brothers for him — he had other things to do!
Phin shifted uncomfortably. "Nothing, I guess." It would hardly be the first time his mother had said something that Phin thought was wrong or stupid. There was a lot he didn't know, but one thing he was pretty sure of was that he and his mother didn't agree on much at all.
Sirius gave his younger brother an affectionate pat on the shoulder. "You're on the right track if you're becoming friends with Potter," he said, uncharacteristically affirming. "We were taught well, after all."
"Yeah," he said, trying not to feel dejected. This really hadn't helped at all, but Phin supposed it at least hadn't made things worse. That was... well, very nearly nothing, but still something, he supposed. "All right. Thanks, Sirius."
"That's what I'm here for," Sirius said, sure he'd helped his brother out even though he was baffled by the conversation generally. He took the stairs to his next class.
