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
"Now really, I think we all ought to just calm down," he stressed from his unenviable position, a hand outstretched to each man in a stop position. Privately, he was cursing himself: Cyrus Westerman knew better than to get in the middle of a fight.
It should have just been a quiet meal and drink after a physically and emotionally draining afternoon of amputating a limb (he was ashamed to admit he had emptied his stomach entirely afterwards) before returning home to his empty flat after another holiday season spent largely alone. True, he had Miss Scott to accompany him whilst they worked, but she was not his wife, nor his daughter, nor his sister—it was a poor substitute for Christmases at the Belby house.
This quiet, though, had been interrupted by escalating argument from the two men now stood to either side of him, one bearing a knife and the other with his wand now trained on Cyrus and why in Merlin's name had he not just minded his own business?!
He knew that answer, too: the healer in him prompted him to intervene, to dispel violence, even as his very nature would ordinarily keep him far from the limelight.
Plainly, calming down did not see to be in wand-man's vocabulary. Instead, the fellow settled for dropping the wand, punching Cyrus square in the jaw, and attempting to bolt from the pub.
Cyrus' everything was ringing, though he clung faintly to consciousness, as he landed hard on the grimy stone floor.
Open to 1-3 characters who would be present!
— MJ is pretty nifty @ graphics, if I do say so myself! —
He was not on call; he had had a terrible day at work; he technically had no responsibility to intervene with public drunkenness when he was not at work. Of course, once fists were flying, he no longer had that excuse. Benji finished his pint, put down the glass, and pushed himself out of his seat in a series of swift motions - and ran to grab the running violence-doer.
Benji jumped over the fallen man on his way, and grabbed onto the end of the drunkard's coat. "A hand?" he asked the pub at large.
So far, 1891 was proving to very much not be his year. He had almost died only days ago but been saved though he did not yet grasp the severity of what his continued status as a living person would mean for him. He was being kept after by the person who had found him but the wretched Samaritan would not give him a good, strong drink.
And so, he had slipped out of the place to go to the Hogs Head despite almost every joint in his body telling him he was a fool for it. Endy didn't care. He needed a drink after all he had been through and he had managed to steal a couple of sickles. He watched, green-grey eyes widening in curious interest, as a fight broke out. Somewhat long red curls falling across his eyes, he moved forward despite himself. He did not think much of his chances of helping restrain the perpetrator but he could at least assist the fallen man. Hopefully someone else would step up to help the man restraining the violent drunk.
"Sir, are you all right? Can you hear me?" He asked as he tried helping the taller man to at least a sitting position.
"Fuck," Cyrus groaned, blinking in an effort to rid his eyes of the stars that had taken up residence. He allowed himself to be helped into a sitting position, and from this new vantage point he could see the clientele was now decidedly more riled up. Turning to his helper, Cyrus was able to reply wryly, "Nothing a good whiskey can't fix."
— MJ is pretty nifty @ graphics, if I do say so myself! —
Because the Hog's Head was a place where nothing good happened, and because everyone was busy watching him instead of helping him, the drunk man was able to escape Benji's grip and wheel around to punch him, hard, in the face. Benji stumbled backwards into the redheaded man.
Thankfully, the man seemed to be all right. He was about to help the man up to his feet when the man who had been restraining the drunk stumbled into him. And Merlins balls, every nerve ending in his body seemed to scream in pain. Because apparently it was not a good idea to be out in rowdy bars when your body was recovering from having been near-death. "Holy sh...," he grunted as he pushed the man who had just been punched to his own feet. The one who had caused all this seemed smug in his doings but once again made haste to leave.
The lanky healer was able to bring himself into a standing position with a loud groan, his bones creaking in protest—plainly, he was getting old. At some point, his wand had found itself in his hand, but it was only when Cyrus attempted to fire a stunning spell at his assailant that he realized he had landed on it.
And with that, he was stunned by his own damn wand and back on the floor once again.
— MJ is pretty nifty @ graphics, if I do say so myself! —
Ugh, Benji could feel his eye swelling, and with the redhead's push he swayed on his feet and tried to hold steady. The man on the ground had failed at it, but he had the right idea - Benji pulled out his wand, aimed it at the drunkard, and said: "Stupefy!"
Of course, he was squinting from the punch, so hopefully his aim would be fine?
The oldest among the three somehow managed to stun himself with his own wand. And all Endy could do was stare in disbelief for a moment. And next the other mans stunning spell missed the mark and hit a bystander. Oh merlin. He hoped neither one had important magic-based jobs. Though he thought that one guy was vaguely familiar in the sense that he was from that constable place that he typically kept away from.
Endy took out his own wand with a bit of a 'damn, I gotta do everything around here' sort of attitude. "Stupefy," he cast, hoping the wand would work. Sometimes it just didn't. This time it did but he hit something in the rafters instead which fell on the drunk and knocked him out.
endy's gender is hard to discern from voice and appearance alone
goes by multiple aliases - but mostly by Nico set by mj!
Cyrus came to, feeling bruised physically and bruises upon his dignity. The good news was that the drunkard was now on the ground. That was it. That was the good news.
"Not how I wished my year to begin," Cyrus said to himself, groaning as he rose to his feet.
— MJ is pretty nifty @ graphics, if I do say so myself! —
Benji swore under his breath; it was one thing to randomly stun someone, and another to be outshone by a little wisp of a man. Was he bad at his job? Maybe. "I can take him to the constabulary," Benji said, because he technically really ought to. He did not want to admit to being a constable, though, because that would involve more paperwork re: the bystander his spell hit than Benji really wanted to engage with. "But I think we should all have a drink first?"
Cyrus could not help but wonder at the wisdom of waiting to take a violent man to the constables, but as he had no desire to volunteer for the task himself, he shrugged, and gave a nod of agreement. However he had expected his evening to go, this had not been it—and after the events of the last few minutes, a drink sounded very good indeed.
— MJ is pretty nifty @ graphics, if I do say so myself! —
