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
He may be no potioneer, but Evander Darrow was a man who would leap at the chance to work on a weekend, and he couldn’t possibly conceive of what else he would have been doing at the Harvest Festival. No, no. Thankfully this saved him from being sociable.
Besides, Potions was a perfect place for pedantry, and Evander did so enjoy judging things. Fairly, of course. Though how those in the novice category would fare was rather under question.
Once the rules had been laid out at length, he announced the first potion that would be required of them. “It will be a Cure for Boils, please. Good luck.” He nodded to instruct them to begin, and to signal him when they had completed the task. (Luck, of course, had nothing to do with potion-brewing.)
Peer pressure was always a good motivation to join in on a potions competition. Though, it really wasn't pressure so much as he felt left out that all his friends were participating that he belatedly signed himself up. While he had done well at potions in school, his retention of how to properly brew certain concoctions had started to fade. He was more into experimenting now. Sometimes, with disastrous results.
When Mr. Darrow announced their first potion, Gilbert racked his brain and set to work gathering the needed materials and crushing snake fangs. He practically danced while he worked, unable to keep the rest of his body idle while his hands diligently dropped ingredients into his cauldron.
Once his task was complete, Gilbert signaled by waving his arm.
Without Idris in the house to worry about—or rather, worry at—Roslyn had found herself with some time to spare. This was not her first potion brewing competition (though she favoured flower shows and their ilk), but the witch doubted she would have thought of it had Ari and Dionisia not mentioned it in passing.
She was not bad at potions, but had minimal call for them outside of the greenhouse in her day to day life. As such, the witch thrice read the directions and ingredients for her cure for boils before setting about actually brewing it. The process was one Roslyn found methodical—a good thing—and soothing, and she worked carefully until satisfied with her results.
Unlike some people competing, it was not for the love of potions or even a competitive urge that brought Spryly out of his way, but the prize. If all he had to do was follow some instructions and outbrew some other people to get some free stuff then count him in! He didn't fancy his odds but his chances of winning were significantly higher than if he didn't participate at all. And really he had nowhere better to be.
Spryly got to brewing and was immediately reminded of why he had disliked potions class. It was so easy to mess them up, a stir in the wrong direction, slicing this or that instead of crushing or chopping... Hopefully he hadn't done anything wrong this time. Was the potion supposed to be that color?
""
Eyeing up this magnificent set eh? MJ sold her soul to Satan's graphic designer. I wish he'd take mine too.
Finnian was slightly (no, that was an understatement) disappointed that there was only one woman in their bracket, as he was certain that the others had far more. Mrs. Bones was even in one of them, though she was a professional, and although Finnian had one his bracket of the competition last year, he was not so cocky as to put himself through humiliation just to be in the same bracket as her.
Instead, he returned to the novice bracket, where he would be brewing a... cure for boils. Exciting. He rolled his eyes as the simplicity of it all; perhaps he should have joined the hobbyists after all.
He brewed his potion with diligence (which was more than could be said about the work he did in other areas of his life) and stepped back upon completion.
Evander had been dubious of the first young man's ability to brew even a simple potion so fast - and with such... liveliness - but when he stepped up to examine it, he found the perfect shade of pink smoke rising from it. Two of the others had done admirably well, too, with their potions the correct colour and texture - it took him a second survey to decide the better between the two, though eventually settled on the gentleman's - and might have announced this without fanfare if the blond fellow's cauldron had not at that moment begun to melt onto the floor with a terrible smell.
"Excuse me, sir -" Evander began, about to ask what on earth the youth had done, but at that point some of the liquid spat upwards and caught its creator in the face, where boils started erupting. Ah. So much for a cure.
There was a brief pause of necessity as the mess was cleared and Mr. Spryly escorted off to undo his badly misjudged backfire, before Evander could resume the competition where they had left off. "Mr. Whitechapel and Mr. Byrne, then," he said, clearing his throat. "If you could now brew an Antidote to Common Poisons, please."
Of course he'd made it through the first test. A winner didn't lose first the second time around! Finnian flashed a smile at his opponent—not a taunting one, but not quite an encouraging one, either—before he began to diligently work on his next task: the antidote to common poisons.
At the very least, he hoped he made it further in the competition than Lorcan.
Gilbert seemed slightly surprised he had made it through the first round, but he took it in stride and beamed at his opponent in return.
He began brewing their second potion with just as much enthusiasm as the first. He started with a bezoar and continued on with the rest of the ingredients, humming.
There were no mishaps this time around as there had been in the last; both of the remaining men (mercifully) seemed competent. Decently so, at least. Even the worse of the two did not look entirely off-colour. But Mr. Byrne had well and truly found his stride, and it was he that Evander declared the winner, set to head into the final.
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