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.
With the same account, complete eight different threads where your character interacts with eight different usergroups. At least one must be a non-human, and one a student.
Did You Know?
Braces, or suspenders, were almost universally worn due to the high cut of men's trousers. Belts did not become common until the 1920s. — MJ
Anything. Kieran had thought of this moment a hundred times, a thousand — and here, in reality, he did not know what to ask Jude for. He wanted every bit of intimacy he could get; physical, emotional, anything.
"You love me," Kieran echoed. His tone was full of wonder. It was an impossible thing, that Jude should love him. Jude knew all of Kieran; all of his secrets, the ugliest things he said when he was drunk, the bite he had given to Topaz Urquart.
"I thought I was too hopeful," Kieran said; he slid his hands down to Jude's hips, wanting to touch all the secret places he had not been able to before tonight.
“Of course I love you,” Jude agreed: and now that he had said it once, it felt inexplicably like the simplest string of words in the world. “Who else?”
He had to smile at the absurdity of that, marvel at how easy it was. And, somehow, he was so newly awake from it – as if the last few weeks had been nothing to him, as if he had travelled right past exhaustion and everything had turned again to sheer exhilaration, as if he might never be tired again.
“You’re never hopeful enough,” Jude contested, lips just grazing Kieran’s jaw; his breath hitched as Kieran’s hands moved down. And Jude knew he was probably too hopeful, as a rule – and most of his hopes might prove themselves unfounded come morning – but he rolled his hips forwards experimentally, pressing himself better against Kieran up against the door to express exactly what else was encompassed in the everything he wanted.
Kieran gasped; his fingers tightened where they were grasping Jude's hips. He rocked his hips up towards Jude's. Kieran was far from a virgin, but this level of touch with Jude had him feeling as if he was inexperienced. Jude wanted everything. Kieran did too, but anything felt like too much to ask for, like he could not believe it.
"Come to bed with me," Kieran pleaded. He didn't have the will to slip out from under Jude to lead him there. Maybe he could believe that this was actually happening once they were skin-to-skin.
Kieran had asked him what he wanted, but maybe all he’d wanted was permission. Jude smiled, a wordless yes. (Probably for the best that they moved away from the door, anyway – out of the corner of his eye he’d spotted a stray pair of Eileen’s boots and remembered she lived here too.)
He didn’t want Kieran to let go of him in the meantime – even the distance across the flat was too far now, with Kieran grasping his hips and his mouth still in reach – so, with his hands on Kieran’s shoulders to steer them, he turned them around and started guiding them across the flat in some strange slowdance. He had to stop to kiss him again when the temptation became too much, and paused again in the hallway to figure out which bedroom was Kieran’s. (Fortunately, there was enough mess to know at once which was his –) He tugged off Kieran’s jacket as they came in, backing him keenly up against the bed.
This wasn’t entirely unfamiliar, because Kieran had gotten hurriedly undressed and dressed again in the attic plenty of times before – although he was usually covered in new bruises and Jude was deliberately trying not to pay enough attention to wince – but it was the first time Jude had aided him in it and found any gratification, a thrill in undoing the buttons of his waistcoat and shirt, briefly kneeling to tug at his bootlaces, sliding his shirt and suspenders off in one motion by brushing his fingers over skin. (He knew the scars there already, the angry canvas of his body: the bite and bruises and faded burn mark.)
Still looking, he left Kieran to his trousers in order to catch up with his own clothes, fingers a little less deft now that his heartbeat had pitched to a new, erratic pace and there was a hot, heady feeling coursing through him. “I haven’t done this before,” Jude admitted, now shirtless and shoeless and working on his trouser buttons. He wasn’t embarrassed or even self-conscious, exactly – he assumed Kieran had known as much – but he was nervous, all the same, that Kieran might be disappointed.
Kieran was somewhere between turned-on and embarrassed during their waltz to his bedroom. There were dirty clothes on the ground that he needed to have laundered, the bed was unmade, there were half-painted canvasses in the corner and paint tubes on every surface; and Jude's hands were on Kieran's shirt-buttons and his skin and Kieran was hard and he pushed one hand through Jude's hair when Jude kneeled in front of him. He kept the passive feeling from being up against the door up until Kieran's hands were tugging down his own trousers and Jude admitted that he hadn't done this before.
Kieran's first reaction was a flash of embarrassment. In the top drawer of his nightstand he had a small and dusty bottle of lubricating oil; what would Jude think of him when he saw that? His second thought was to brush his own embarrassment aside entirely; he stepped out of his trousers and boots and pressed a kiss to Jude's collarbone.
"We'll go slow," Kieran whispered into Jude's skin. He darted his tongue out to lick the hollow between Jude's collarbone and shoulder. They would go slow, because Jude had not done this before, but Kieran had, and more important than Kieran's sheepishness about the mess was Jude enjoying this.
Kieran pressed more slow kisses to Jude's collarbone; once he had reached the base of his neck, he said, "Do you want to fuck me, or do you want me to —?"
He had tilted his head and hummed in pleasure, but Kieran mouthing against his collarbone was too distracting, because before Jude had even realised there was a second part of that question he had already choked out a “Yes.” Not that the second option didn’t sound equally compelling, but he could spend hours cataloguing the years’ worth of fantasies he had harboured about this before they acted on anything, and Jude wasn’t certain that he wanted to go that slowly tonight. Any slower now might be the death of him. He was half-convinced that if he let Kieran keep kissing him like this for much longer that he would just come apart here.
So as soon as he had gotten the rest of his clothes off, he ran his hands over Kieran’s shoulders and down his arms, clasping his wrists and pushing them both gently onto the unmade bed. “Let me fuck you,” Jude asked, suggested, entreated; because Kieran was warm against him and he was achingly hard already and it was steadily becoming less of a want and more of a need. Still, to give Kieran time to protest – or to convince him – or at least to see how he reacted to the idea, Jude trailed an intent path of open-mouthed kisses down Kieran’s body, sinking back on his heels to drag his tongue up the length of him and then pressing his mouth briefly to the inside of his thigh. As he moved upwards again, shifting better on top of him, he felt another rush of pleasure at the friction of it, a wild consciousness of everywhere they touched.
And he was aware that Kieran had more experience, would not be so overwhelmed. But Jude was at least familiar enough with the theory – he had read enough banned pamphlets on the subject – and had wanted this for so long, and after the last arduous month of campaigning for Minister of Magic, he couldn’t help but think having sex with Kieran would be the most effortless thing he had done in some time. So he smiled at him – teasing now, a little coy: “I imagine you’ll tell me if I go wrong.” Kieran had always made it damningly clear when he disagreed with anything Jude was doing, after all: if he could count on anyone for helpful criticism, it was undoubtedly him.
A desperate exhale came out of Kieran's mouth. He'd fantasized about Jude's tongue on him for so long that there was a part of him that was still convinced this was a fantasy. But if it was a fantasy he would be less aware of the pile of his dirty clothes on the floor, and no dream could actually compare to the texture of Jude's tongue, or the feeling of the other man's pleasant weight on top of him.
"Oh," Kieran said, arching his hips upwards to bring back that delightful friction between them, "I'm always happy to give feedback." He put his left hand in Jude's hair, tangling his fingers in it, the way he'd wanted to for years. Kieran grasped outwards with his other hand to pull at the knob of the bedside table, and it took him a few tries to successfully pick up the dusty bottle.
"You have to open me up," Kieran said, flushing — either with anticipation or sheepishness, he was not sure. "With your fingers?" Kieran knew he could do it himself, but — fuck, he wanted Jude to.
Jude grinned at him, peculiarly unrestrained – maybe at that answer, or the friction, or at the feeling of Kieran’s hand in his hair.
And that made him almost wish he had asked for the reverse, because he had developed a particular fondness for Kieran’s hands, from far too much time spent observing them: an artist’s hands, smudged from his sketches or cramped from writing interviews or curled around a glass. But for now he focused on opening the bottle he’d been passed, and thinking about wanting to make this as good for Kieran as it could be.
“Like this?” Jude murmured, teasing still, as he slowly pushed in one slick finger. With his other hand, he hooked one of Kieran’s legs up around him to adjust the angle, glancing upwards for any signs of discomfort in his face or tension in his body. He had been too impatient to want to go slowly, before: but now he thought he wanted to be gentle, to do this well, to treat Kieran’s body with the veneration he deserved. Gradually, then, he inserted another, and kept on that way as Kieran relaxed around him and he grew more confident in reading Kieran’s responses in his reactions ‐ by his movements and breathing and expressions. Finally – when he seemed ready; when Jude’s patience had unravelled again – he pulled out of him completely and shifted position, asking him, now breathless with want: “Can I?”
Kieran let himself get lost in this — Jude's fingers inside him, his hands in Jude's hair, the rapid beat of his heart. He'd lost all thoughts of everything that was happening outside of his bedroom — (and hopefully his flatmate had not wandered home yet, as he had also stopped any attempts at being quiet with his want.)
Finally, he was ready and Jude asked.
Kieran curled his leg up further, to make more space for Jude. "Yes," he breathed. He moved his hands to pull gently on Jude's neck, urging him closer, and inside. Kieran wrapped his other hand around himself. He had romantic notions in mind of finishing at the same time as Jude, and was going to try to make that happen. Sex was never perfect, Kieran knew it was never perfect — but this was Jude and he wanted to try.
Jude obliged him and let himself be guided in the motion, pulled in closer, and... oh. He had never thought this would be particularly important to him – and maybe it still wouldn’t matter so much, if it weren’t Kieran – but he was beginning to understand the appeal. He hadn’t realised how impossibly good it would feel to have Kieran around him, to be so entirely tangled up with someone else.
And then he moved in him, and every thrust felt like a new challenge in self-control, trying to rein himself in as the feeling went deeper and more desperate. The world had narrowed just to this, one hand on Kieran, warm under him, and his other pressed into the bedsheets; the scrape of stubble of Kieran’s jaw against his whenever Jude gasped into his mouth, too breathless at the rhythm they had found to kiss him properly. There were still too many things he wanted to say – to tell him the list of things he loved him for – and Jude wished he could, but it had turned out too ambitious a thought: he was too far gone to achieve eloquence now.
“Kieran,” was about all Jude could manage as he moved a hand down to cover his, too close to the edge to do much else for him. A moment later, his body shuddered and relaxed; he buried his face in Kieran’s shoulder and finished with a moan.
He could tell that Jude was new to this, but it hardly mattered — Kieran had scarcely ever had sex with people who mattered to him before, and the intimacy he was feeling in this moment meant that the romantics he knew were right on some level. (Kieran made a mental note to apologize for many times he'd scoffed at them. He probably still wouldn't.)
Kieran finished a beat after Jude; his come spilled into both of their hands and over his abdomen. He left his other arm draped over Jude's back so he could hold the other man collapsed.
The first thing he managed was a plea, "Stay with me." They might wake up to Jude as the Minister; they might wake up to Jude in last place. But Kieran would only believe this had happened if he woke up next to Jude.
Jude extricated himself enough to flop onto the bed beside him, albeit without putting much distance between them; both because the bed was quite small and because he wasn’t ready to give up the closeness.
And because Kieran wanted him to stay. Jude hadn’t planned on leaving: he had lapsed into a blissfully relaxed calm, and felt no urge to move. Earlier he had been certain he wouldn’t sleep until the election results were in – but now, with Kieran warm beside him, he could feel the lure of it slowly creeping into his limbs. But there was a burst of fondness that came in hearing it asked of him, all the same.
“As long as I can,” he agreed, shifting onto his side to get more comfortable. He didn’t know what the morning would bring, and he wasn’t sure he wanted to think about it anymore – but he meant more than tomorrow by his answer. As long as you’ll let me, he could have said. Haven’t I always been here with you?
He wasn’t even sure how much this would really change between them.
So Jude offered him a smile, soft at the edges, and just drank in the sight of him for a minute – until something Kieran had suggested to him once came back to him, absurdly, and almost made him snort. “Eye contact,” he echoed, deadpan.
He'd wanted Jude to stay with him until they got the election results, but this was better than what Kieran had originally envisioned. Instead of drinking tea and coffee in the 'sitting room' of the flat, they were a little damp and blissfully naked, curled into the tangled blankets of Kieran's bed. Kieran curled his body against Jude's, and tucked one of his legs over Jude's, their thighs touching. He could have fallen asleep just like that, but then Jude spoke.
Kieran grinned, crooked. He was feeling cheeky. "I was worried when I said that you'd notice how much time I spend staring at you," Kieran said, meeting — predictably — Jude's eyes.
He let his arm settle against Kieran, with a huff of laughter at his grin. It was – difficult to be angry about this, considering.
“Well,” Jude protested – in his defence – “how was I supposed to know if you were staring in a good way or in an ‘are you serious?’ way?” In truth, he probably should have figured it out eventually that it couldn’t just be the latter. Kieran had known him long enough to be well aware that Jude was serious about everything.
(On the other hand – and, given how obvious this was, he didn’t point it out, except in a slight twitch at the corner of his mouth – the only way Jude could have noticed something like that was if he had been staring back at Kieran all those times, so. They were both at fault, perhaps.)
“I wish you’d just told me,” he added, sleepily. When he thought they could have had all this... “We’ve wasted so much time.”
Kieran pressed a kiss to Jude's jaw. He wished he'd told him, too — but how could he hold the choice to keep it secret against himself, when the potential consequences had been so dire? Besides, now they had this, whenever they wanted — whenever Jude wanted him. "We have time now," Kieran said, stretching languidly.
Kieran slept, or dozed, or went in and out of a light sleep and gazing at and chatting to Jude for the rest of the night. When he woke up, the sun still wasn't up, but he knew it was early morning — because an owl from the Daily Prophet was tapping on his bedroom window.
Somewhere in the last hour or two he had – forgotten. That it wasn’t just some ordinary night, that this moment would dawn – the future of the country knocking at the window. And Jude hadn’t expected in the least to meet it like this, waking up in Kieran’s bed, loose-limbed and dishevelled and still dazed by the memory of Kieran’s mouth on his.
He sensed Kieran awake as well beside him, but his mouth was too dry to know what to say – so he looked at the owl on the other side of the glass, and sat up and leaned over to unlatch the window, his heart in his throat. A breath of cold air came in with it, as Jude fumbled to untie the delivered paper; by the time he had closed the window again, he was entirely awake to the reality of this again.
He turned to face Kieran on the bed, the copy of the Prophet in his hand. He was surprised at himself; at his sudden, billowing hesitance.
He almost didn’t want it. Some small part of him was aware of this. That if the unthinkable happened, and it was his name on that page... then it would be too dangerous, going forwards, to keep Kieran too close. For Kieran. For them both. He had never hoped so badly, so seriously for anything before – there had never been such a profound chance to make a difference – but this morning he could see the cost of it, too. But there would be costs to the country, if the wrong candidate won.
“Will you do it?” Jude blurted out, and passed the newspaper to Kieran, still tightly rolled. His chest and his stomach were tight, face pale, head crowded with the possibilities, the best outcomes and the worst – he thought he might throw up. “I – can’t.”
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