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 1894. It’s time to join us and immerse yourself in scandal and drama interlaced with magic both light and dark.
Unlike some of her siblings, Lycoris had no head for politics (though she did think women and all others of sound mind should be allowed to vote). Truth be told, as much as she loved Ozy, she also did not think he was likely to win Minister of Magic. She thought he was doing it just for the hell of it and not as a serious bid for office. And so, she had not been taking it seriously. It wasn't like she could vote.
One thing she did take seriously when it came to her elder brother was his career as an inventor. She loved his creations. Thus when she heard the next table over at The Painted Lady discussing how he was not even a good inventor, she had been incensed enough to discreetly hex their teacups to stick to their lips before leaving.
"Ozy, you will never believe what I heard at The Painted Lady today," she declared once she found him within the household. This declaration was likely not quite out of the norm to hear from her lips. "They had the gall to say you are not a good inventor. You might not make the worlds best Minister but you are the best inventor that I know." She was fuming, that much apparent as she paced around the room as she spoke. She really did think Ozy was a great inventor, and not only because she had sometimes helped him come up with a name or sometimes drew up ads for his creations.
Lycoris bursting in with something dramatic to say was nothing new, but the content was new. Oz was immediately stung that anyone was talking about him as a poor inventor, but did his best not to show it. Cool and collected. This was hardly the worst thing anyone would say about him during the course of his campaign, but it was the most personal so far. Prior to the beginning of August, he had never tried to convince anyone that he was a good Minister. He did fancy himself a decent inventor, though.
"How many inventors do you know?" he asked, tone dry (anything to not seem affected). He turned the page of the book he'd been reading (not that he was paying any attention to it now, but one could keep up appearances). "Most people don't understand what it means to be an inventor, anyway, so it's not as if their opinion is worth much."
MJ is the light of my life <3
September 5, 2023 – 4:53 AM
Last modified: September 10, 2023 – 10:57 PM by Lycoris Dempsey.
"Never you mind that," Lycoris said, as if she had a whole roster of inventors she could call upon. When in reality she could probably count on one hand those that she knew, including herself (with her spells inventions) and Ozy. But that was beside the point.
"But still. How could they spread such an untruth." She could allow herself to say all manners of things to the detriment of her siblings but Merlin forbid, anyone outside their family did.
Well, at least his baby sister believed in him. It was not exactly a panacea to the idea that the whole of wizarding Britain might be talking about how poor of an inventor he was at this very moment, but it was at least a bit of a salve for the moment. "The Prophet article didn't mention of my actual patents," he complained with a nod. "Though they're on record at the Ministry's Ludicrous Patents Office, so I imagine that's just laziness on Pengloss' part — or maybe disorganization from the patent office," he allowed. On his occasional visits to the office, they hadn't exactly seemed like the most organized division in the Ministry. Perhaps they'd gotten a request for a list of his patents and simply misplaced it and forgotten to reply before the article went to print? Or perhaps they'd misplaced the patents themselves? It wasn't as though Oz had any reason to go check if they were all being maintained well, and unless someone tried to claim credit for one of his inventions he would continue to have no reason to check on them.
"But even if I only had one patent on record, it would still be more than any of the other candidates have," he pointed out. "So it's a bit hypocritical of anyone to use that against me for the sake of the election."
"If you become Minister, maybe that can be one of your Big Moves - getting the department organized," Lycoris mused. Though she still didn't think he had much chance (and of course would later be proven wrong but she didn't know that yet) at becoming Minister. Almost everyone else were experienced in politics in the professional sense. Ozymandias had opinions on everything under the sun, moon and stars but before the election, he had never had much cause to apply those opinions in an actual, political sphere. Not that she was are of anyway.
"Not to mention, not all inventors file their patents. Some are very secretive about their inventive projects while they are refining them," Lycoris added on.
Oz chuckled. "I don't think anyone other than the patent clerks would consider that a big move," he pointed out. There was a reason the office had been allowed to get to its present state, after all; no one was much harmed by it being inefficient. It wasn't something the average citizen cared about, like crime or disaster relief. The only people who cared about patents at all were inventors and their lawyers.
"I certainly don't patent until I'm done tinkering," he agreed. "I don't know how the Prophet even knew about those abandoned projects. Rumor, I suppose. They're not much better than Witch Weekly, when it comes down to it."
"Well, if that is the case, do not underestimate the power of small moves," Lycoris advised, apolitical as she tended to be. Indeed, whenever her more politically opinionated friends mentioned "oh, your brother did this and we thought it grand" about his campaign, Lycoris tended to initially have an internal moment of 'oh, he did that? I had no idea'.
She nodded in agreement to his assessment about the paper. "It isn't about the quantity, it is about the quality for any invention anyway."
"Oh, certainly," he agreed easily. "That man who invented floo powder never did a single noteworthy thing in the rest of his life." For all that Oz had agreed that the quality was more important than quantity, this last was said with an undercurrent of derision. He invented things because he didn't know what to do with all his free time otherwise, so it struck him as singularly odd that someone might invent one thing and just — stop. Unless they had died immediately afterwards. "And his family is set for the rest of time, financially."
Oz had never patented anything that had brought in a noteworthy income, but at least a third of that was probably down to marketing; he simply didn't do any, and could barely be bothered to expend any effort at all into getting his inventions into the hands of other people. He did sometimes make money from the things he created, but never anything that made a significant difference compared to the wealth he already possessed as heir to the Dempsey estate.
Lycoris nodded in agreement as Ozy spoke of the person who had invented Floo powder. It was used by everyone, she imagined most people couldn't do without it. He just had one detail wrong. "It wasn't a man that invented Floo powder though - it was a woman named Ignatia Wildsmith."
"Was it?" Oz asked, then shrugged. It wasn't as though he had much personal experience with the Wildsmiths; he knew the name because he knew they owned the floo powder manufacturing company, and they were established in society. He certainly didn't know their family history. It seemed rather immaterial at this juncture whether the invention was the product of a man or a woman; the men in the family ran the business now, and it didn't diminish his point about that single invention having been enough to set the Wildsmiths up for generations.
Still, he didn't like to be wrong about anything, so he found a way to change the subject. "You're coming to the next campaign event, aren't you?"
Lycoris nodded in confirmation. She hid a smile as Ozy changed the subject. Oh yes, I bought the most lovely new dress for it." And as if to punish Ozy for being so swift to change the subject, she went into full detail of all its embellishments and tiny embroidery details that she liked about said new dress.
