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
October 23rd, 1894 — The Augurey Beak Cafe, after this
Kieran pushed the door to the Augurey open with all the air of a returning conquerer, with copies of the day's Daily Prophet folded under his arm. "Hello!" he announced to the bar, as if he owned the place — he was so confident that his friends would be here that he didn't mind catching some strangers' attention in the meantime.
"Who's ready to vote?" Kieran called, heading up to the bar. He was half as excited about the voting for women as he was to be in such a prominent place in the Prophet's pages.
open to 2-4 others / 2 posts/2 days rule if multiple people
Eileen was nothing if not quick on her feet. She had a little series of crates behind the bar that she could hop up and down from to reach what she needed to and she had gotten pretty good at the summoning charm as well. She had been fortunate enough to at least have her OWLs, which helped immensely, even if she didn't use magic as often as she thought she would.
She was pouring some pints when she heard the unmistakable sound of an exuberant Kieran hooting and hollering as he walked through the door. She served the ale and hopped between crates, wiping down the bar top with a rag near where he approached. "Nách mór an diabhal thú*, what are you going on about?" Wasn't the election all said and done? Who was voting on what now?
Jude looked up from the breakfast and the pamphlet he was picking through, the latter more intently than the former, at Kieran’s entrance. He heard Eileen’s grousing before he had entirely digested the words, but once he had, he caught on faster –
“Is it the bill? Has it passed?” Jude exclaimed, wide-eyed, lurching from his chair to meet the pair of them at the bar, much too keen to wait for Kieran to make it even a few steps further into the pub. “The suffrage bill,” he told Leeny, presuming Kieran would correct him if he was wrong, and itching to get his hands on one of the copies of the Prophet. “Voting reform.” Kieran’s tone had sounded cheerful, celebratory – was Eileen going to be able to vote by the next election?
Kieran beamed winningly at Eileen. "Get me a pint," he requested, and was gearing up to be somewhat difficult — when Jude found him out. Kieran offered him one of the copies of the paper, because he knew that Jude was going to be unable to settle down for longer than twenty seconds until he had an answer.
"He's right," Kieran said brightly, "It's passed."
Eileen mumbled something unkind under her breath at Key's less-than-polite pint request, but she obliged anyway. He was in a good mood and Jude seemed to perk up about the news, so she returned to pass over the drink.
She hopped up onto the bar, one of her favorite places to perch, to look over their shoulders at the newspaper. "Well that's exciting." They were of course going to be more excited about anything political than she was, but this was good news, for her, specifically.
Jude ignored their banter about the pint in favour of poring over the front page, scanning the print for confirmation that Kieran was right about its passing, and then more closely for any changes or as-yet-unpublicised details about the bill. Without the latter qualification on the list, it would have been more questionable – certainly it would have left the working classes in the dust – but this meant Eileen actually stood a chance of being able to. “It is,” he agreed, grinning at Leeny. “How does it feel? You’ll be able to vote.”
Hopefully, at any rate. He did not like the employer’s recommendation much, for the potential ways that might be abused or used to close certain employees out; married women had also been largely thrown over in this (but that, Jude considered, might be another mark against marriage, the eroding qualities of an old institution) – but, in any case, before he picked it apart, he could allow himself to buoyed by this good news and Kieran’s celebratory mood. Jude’s gaze fell on the end of the article again, trying to digest it all, and his eyes widened as they snapped back up to Kieran suddenly. “You wrote this?” There it was, Kieran Abernathy, printed on the front page.
Kieran took a sip of his pint, watching Eileen and hoping she'd be appropriately excited. He'd been half-exasperated when he got the vote, mostly because it had meant that he had to make a decision — but underneath that had been excitement, because he finally had a choice. He hoped it was the same for Eileen.
But he got distracted by his optimism by Jude finally, finally, noticing. Kieran grinned over his pint at Jude. "I did," he said, pride clearly leaking into his voice. "Ainsworth put a good word in for me." He'd indulged them with the thing with the brother, and now he had this — and he was dreadfully proud of it.
Leeny could only shrug. She knew she ought to be more excited. Right now it just felt like some intangible thing; it hung in the air between them, but she couldn't actually touch it and so it was difficult to truly grasp, physically or metaphorically. "I'll let you know when I actually get to do it." Given a new minister had been elected, she had no idea when the next election would even be and given the tumultuous nature of these sorts of politics the chance might be snatched away before she actually got a chance to exercise the right. She would need her employer's recommendation as well, so that could be put a full stop to it even if she found herself able to next time; her expectations were appropriately tempered.
That Key got the write the article was much more exciting to her at the moment because it was much more real. "That's great Kieran, congratulations."
“Congratulations,” Jude echoed Eileen, peering hard down at the page again, still digesting all of it, both successes. And of all the articles to have his name on... “That’s – historic.”
Kieran was grinning, and Jude smiled back, happy for him. His smile grew a little tight, though, along with a tightening in his chest he was trying to ignore, only because – it had come out of nowhere, this news. “You didn’t say.”
Jude seemed — less than thrilled, about something. There was a flat effect at the edges of his smile, and his last sentence pointed to a hurt that Kieran hadn't foreseen. "It was a secret," he said, which was true — a secret, and Kieran had known well that sometimes when things weren't perfect Jude wouldn't get on board. But how did he say that, without upsetting Jude? He swallowed, looked back at Eileen.
"You know if you have any trouble, Jude will burn something down," Kieran joked, taking a large sip of his pint. Although now that he said it out loud, it actually sounded like it could happen. Hopefully it wouldn't be the Augurey.
Eileen was far too used to Kieran's expressions to miss his deflection, but she had to study Jude to see it. She should probably spend more time doing that. Not that they probably wanted her to, but if he was going to insist on being their third wheel (Leeny was perfectly aware she was actually the third wheel here, but wasn't going to give it up yet), she ought to get better at reading him too.
She hadn't known about the article either, but she didn't often pretend to ever know what Kieran was up to at work. "I do approve of arson." Choosing to follow Key's lead, her nod was decisive and quick, but she grinned to say she was kidding&mdash: mostly.
“We’ll make sure you vote, one way or another,” Jude agreed, tone much less inclined toward joking than either of theirs – and neither confirming nor denying the potential recourse to arson, if it came to it. And if Leeny couldn’t vote at the next election, they would make sure there were riots...
And the news was better than he might’ve hoped for, and he wasn’t planning on inciting a riot today, but it would have been nice to have some warning of it, just enough to start thinking through a response to have ready. A pamphlet, or a plan, their next play... and he wouldn’t have wanted to do anything to endanger Kieran’s job at the Prophet, obviously he wouldn’t. But – after losing the election, after being so close to it all, and caring about this outcome for so long – it felt a little like being left out in the cold, that Kieran hadn’t cared to tell him.
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