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
She was heading for the window. Don Juan could appreciate her tenacity; she probably wanted the picturesque location before she got too into things. She was starved for romance, after all, not just for sex. Why loiter in a disused room when they could be getting disrobed in the moonlight?
He took a quick step to ensure he reached the window before her, so that he could climb out first and then reach down to offer her a hand up. "This way," he said as he reached for her hand, leading her around the nearest small gable to a section of the roof that was only lightly sloped, and situated as something of a valley between mountains of steeper roof. They wouldn't be visible from the party, or from anywhere except the grounds space directly in front of them, which was mostly untended trees. Not a choice location for anyone to wander, unless they were doing so on a misty morning in an attempt to be gothic.
He had another trick for her, before they settled in. He drew his wand and cast a spell, pointing it in a wide arc around them. As he did, the noise of the party below muffled; the music was still audible, but distant. They were in their own little world now; the spell dampened outgoing noise even better than incoming. He offered her a mischievous smile. He thought this degree of thoughtfulness deserved at least another kiss.
Seraphina was not sure that she had ever been on a roof before. At the very least, she did not remember it — which heightened the appeal of the lightly sloped shingles that Dempsey led her to. She carefully stepped onto them and sat down — having a low center of gravity seemed as if it would help her avoid falling off the roof. As he waved his wand and the sound of the party dimmed, she could not help but grin back to him — this was romantic, exactly what she'd wanted. It was the most romantic thing anyone had ever done for her.
"Come down here so I can kiss you," Sera requested from her spot seated on the roof, still beaming.
She didn't have to tell him twice. He pocketed his wand and went down to his knees in front of her pooled skirts and leaned over towards her. It started with allowing himself to be kissed, hovering expectantly for her to initiate, but once she had the situation transitioned gradually to him kissing her. He'd continued to lean in and now she was semi-reclined on the roof, with one of Don Juan's hands behind her neck.
This was so wholly different from the last intimate encounter he'd had — if one could even call it intimacy. There had been no attempt at seduction and no gentleness there. He had been thinking of everything he'd done tonight as something for her benefit, designed to give her what her marriage lacked, but as he kissed her it occurred to him that maybe he needed this as much as she did. He was starved for romance and affection, too. That was a dangerous position to find himself in; he wasn't supposed to need anything back. This was supposed to be entirely one-sided, so that it made no difference to him whatsoever if it dissolved. The last time he'd needed something from a married woman he'd ended up ruining her.
But he was older and wiser this time, and certainly he wasn't going to ruin her tonight. No one would be looking for her here, and he'd charmed the noise not to escape.
"And what else?" he asked, bright eyed as he eventually pulled back. His tone was playful but he wanted this, wanted to be audibly invited to the next threshold. Another sharp departure from his recent experiences. "Command me, my lady, I'm yours."
Seraphina was starting to remember what she'd liked about her dalliances as a debutante — it wasn't just that flirting was fun, or that she was satisfied by knowing that someone was attracted to her. She liked the end-game, the physicality. Perhaps her father was right about her in the end, because perhaps she would have ruined them anyways — but they would never know, would they? All Sera knew was that she was enjoying her lengthy kiss with Don Juan Dempsey, and that she was better at it than she'd been last time; her hands had settled onto her shoulders without Sera having to think overmuch about where to place them.
She leaned up to press a kiss to the corner of his jaw, partially because she was charmed by the look in Dempsey's eyes and partially because she wanted to think. Undoing her hair again was a risk — she was not sure she could get it back on her own, and she would have been moderately surprised if Dempsey could help her redo something this complicated. So — something else. A new threshold, maybe.
"Would you like to undo my bodice laces?" Sera asked, pulling away from his neck. Her expression matched his in brightness, with something playful around the edges — because she'd noted, when she put this gown on, that it would be easier for someone to undo the top layer of her dress than it was in some of her other ballgowns.
There was such gentleness in this. No rush to disrobe and no urgent pawing at each other's bodies. He tried to avoid that anyway, but it stood out to him now that she had asked about the bodice laces. The question gave such an importance, such attention, to a moment that could have passed without a thought.
"I would," he agreed, with a surge of unexpected affection. They barely knew each other, practically speaking; he shouldn't be feeling anything particularly about loosening a single layer of her wardrobe which wouldn't even leave her skin exposed. But she had offered it like it was precious, and now he was feeling precious about it. He shifted so that he was leaning next to her on the roof — he could have straddled her lap just as easily, but that was a threshold she hadn't yet invited him to cross — and gave her laces his full attention. Undoing them had little effect at first on her silhouette as a whole, but once he'd worked his way down to her waist the dress as a whole was loose enough that he could slide the neckline off the edge of her shoulder. He brushed his fingers over her collarbone, looking her over appreciatively, then leaned in to kiss her there.
"Let me touch you," he breathed. He was already touching her, technically, but he thought she would know what he was asking for.
While he focused on her laces, Sera gently ran her hand down Dempsey's side. She was not in any particular rush, and touched him without any substantial aims — she wanted to be close to him, and to touch him with the same tenderness that he was offering her. With the distant music, and the moonlight shining on them both, it felt like a night for tenderness.
A gasp escaped her mouth when Dempsey's lips touched her collarbone; not because it was particularly arousing, but because no one had kissed her there before. "Yes, touch me," she echoed, moving one of her hands under his jacket and resting her fingers on his side. She could feel the heat of his skin through his shirt, and rolled her body just slightly so that she could face him better.
He leaned in to kiss her lips in acknowledgement of her answer. He ought to undo the buttons on his doublet for her, because he liked where her hand was wandering and wanted to encourage her to press in closer to him if she was inclined... but this was competing with three or four other things he wanted to do, and he certainly didn't want to ruin the moment by rushing. They would have been within their rights to rush, given that she'd snuck away from an active party and oughtn't to be gone too long. In theory they had less time available to them then the last time they'd been alone together, in the study late at night. But the not-rushing seemed like an integral part of this; if he was going to muck that up, they may as well have not snuck away at all.
The top of her corset was a different cut that he was used to and left the tops of her breasts freer. Possibly it was appropriate for the time period, but he didn't have enough experience undressing women in renaissance costumes to know. Her undershirt was still keeping them from being exposed to the open air, but with her dress loosened the silhouette of her corset was easy to make out. He moved his hand down to gently lift it out of the confines of the corset, then circled her nipple through the soft fabric of her undershirt.
This was different than anything she'd done before — different from a teenage Fitzroy Prewett fumbling with her breast, different than the way that Dempsey had touched her clothed breasts at the Echelon-Arnost estate. Dempsey was touching her nipple like he knew exactly what his touch would do to her, and his expertise was intoxicating. Sera gasped into the night air, and moved to kiss Dempsey deeply again to express her approval.
"Can I undo your doublet?" Sera asked, because the asking seemed like an important part of this dalliance. She liked this; she liked the feeling that they both had a large measure of control.
He was charmed by the question. "You can undo anything," he replied, and of course this was the answer he would have given to anyone, but he liked that she'd bothered to ask. Her situation, being coaxed out of a dull but so far faithfully monogamous relationship, required gentleness; there had been no expectation of his receiving it in return. She was treating him like he mattered. Not everyone he slept with did.
Don Juan shifted slightly so that she could get to his buttons better, and this had the advantage of putting him at a better angle to move his hand down. He slipped it under the edge of her skirt and found her calf, then moved gradually up her stocking-covered leg. "Alright?" he asked, watching her expression for any sign that it wasn't. This was what he'd meant by touching her, though her breast hadn't been a wasted stop along the way judging by her reaction.
Seraphina focused on his buttons, not wanting to embarrass herself by fumbling with them. Maybe it would be attractive that she was being slow, and careful, and swiping her thumb appreciatively over the layer of his shirt with every button that she undid. She could only hope, because she was going slow — they were doing everything slowly, tonight. It was starting to feel as if anticipation was building in the air of their little isolated bubble, and it seemed to Sera that illicit encounters were half about the anticipation.
It was a good thing that she'd been reading so much pornography since Waking Up, or his hand on her thigh may have surprised her, because it wasn't the sort of thing that her husband did with much deliberation. "Yes," Sera said, with a crooked, close-mouthed smile. Inspired by the books she read, she spread her thighs slightly, trying to ease his access.
Did she know what to expect? She'd opened her legs farther, but she had acted innocent about a good many other things — the first time he kissed her it had been clumsy, like she wasn't used to kissing for its own sake. He didn't think her husband was the sort who did much for her pleasure, but maybe she thought he'd been asking about something else — maybe she was opening her legs to make room for him to sit between them. That was a thrilling notion, that she might want him to finally sleep with her... but he wasn't sure that was where tonight was headed, even if she was amenable to it. He certainly felt no desire to rush to the finale, despite knowing he would have to get her back to the party sooner or later. This was nice — he didn't want to skip it.
She was still working at his buttons, but he made it his goal to halt her progress by driving her entirely to distraction. He touched her first gently, exploring, but once he heard her gasp and confirmed he'd found the right way to touch her he shifted again, leaning in and applying more pressure — then lowered his mouth to her breast, angling for her nipple through the thin layer of her chemise.
He did succeed in distracting her completely, especially once his mouth was on her breast — Sera's fingers tightened around the button she'd been about to undo, and she did not let go. She tangled the fingers on her other hand in his hair. Her hips rocked up into his hand, seeking more, and her gasps punctuated the night air. When she touched herself, it was quick, mercenary — it took her longer to unspool at his hand, but when she did she gasped and said, "Kiss me kiss me kiss me," eager for more physical contact in the moments after her release.
Don Juan didn't need to be told twice — or thrice — but he was gratified that she seemed so enthusiastic about the prospect. He moved his hand down to her thigh, feeling unwilling to entirely release her yet although his work between her legs was clearly finished. He leaned up and kissed her as deeply as the angle would allow, then shifted his position slightly to kiss her deeper still.
Sera drank his kisses down hungrily. She feeling feral, or maybe undone — she ran her hands up and down Dempsey's back as if to verify that she had not imagined this whole thing while she was reading a romance novel. When their kiss ended, Sera admitted, "I've never," in a whisper, a flush on her face. She had never expected a man would actually bother to get her off, no matter what the books said.
Don Juan's eyebrows raised, not necessarily in surprise but in sympathy. She didn't clarify precisely what she'd meant, but he could fill in the gaps well enough. He had presumed before now that this was her first time dabbling with anyone other than her husband, and that her husband was probably a thoughtless oaf when it came to sex or romance or both, but it was still disheartening to hear her admit it. "Oh, we can't have that," he said. His voice was gentle but his tone was almost chiding. He instinctively veered towards levity in the hopes of avoiding any overt sentimentality — he was in no fit position to go falling for anyone, so he ought to avoid even the facsimiles of it. "Perhaps we should make a habit of it."
Sera smiled at him. "I'd like that," she said, tone mirroring his own — light and airy, like this was all a joke. She liked Dempsey, she found him charming — but it wouldn't do to get too attached, not when her life was still such a mess.
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