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
August 8th, 1894 — Pennyworth, Alley near the Moony home
Came into this world
Daddy's little girl
And daddy made a soldier out of me
The rage was still hot, the sound of blood in her ears, Anne's constant companion. That, and the crushing grief. Anne was familiar with grief, with pain and loss, but that was supposed to over. This was her time, her platform, and it was stolen. There was no other word for it; Anne was robbed of what was rightly hers: her place as prefect. Her whole summer felt like a cosmic 'no,' a word Anne did not handle well. Her parents refused to let her go abroad; Ned was so busy being an auror trainee that he never had time for her now, and her friends...Anne couldn't think of her friends now.
She'd locked herself in her room after the owl came without her badge, the slight a personal one that Anne would never forgive. She'd spent days sobbing, refusing to eat, and threatening to hex anyone who dared enter her room. Somewhere around day three, teenage hunger had forced her to reconsider a hunger strike, but food only fed her seething anger. Her skin didn't fit her anymore; there wasn't enough room for her and her feelings, but without an outlet, the destruction turned inward. It was in the livid spiral that Anne's need for destruction turned resourceful. There was a way to harness this energy, to feel powerful, even without her wand. Anne sent her owl without a second thought, her complicated relationship with the recipient now insignificant in the face of the ticking timebomb in her chest called a heart. She could deal with the consequences later, but now, she needed her dad.
Waiting until the house fell asleep, Anne took the familiar path out her window to the street, the thrill of sneaking out dampened by her purpose. Tonight, no one would be stopping Anne. She waited just outside of the light of the gas lamps in the mouth of the alley, leaning against the bricks, trying to keep from imploding. When she finally heard footsteps, Anne pushed off the wall, ready for a fight. Confirming it was her father didn't relax her much. "I need your help. And you can't tell mum."
Six years later and Christopher Moony still did not trust himself to reside with his wife and children, didn't want them to hear or see his terrors in the night. Sleep came fleetingly to the auror, and he had learned to make due with little indeed, but it was one thing to flail about in the night in isolation. Family was another matter entirely.
That did not mean he had abandon them. Indeed, even when he had kept his distance he had written, kept appraised of the children. In the years since, he had taken more and more meals around the family dinner table (and once, Emilia), been more present, but still apart. On his patrols of Hogsmeade, he always made a point of walking past the Pennyworth house, as if needing to reassure himself that it—and the promised life it held—was still there regardless of his personal foibles.
And yet, in spite of this proximity, the last thing he expected was to stumble upon his daughter out of doors—at this hour!—especially given that he understood she had scarcely left her room of late.
"Are you mad?" he demanded, frowning. "Anyone could be out at this—help?"
Kit's initial reaction—defense of his child's well-being mixed with disappointment that she would be so reckless, bundled up into a spark of anger—ceded as her words belatedly registered.
Anne ground her teeth, expecting but not welcoming her father's lecture. He'd skipped out on too much of the 'father' part of fatherhood for him to be questioning her actions. And in this mood, Anne wouldn't mind a cutpurse trying their luck. "I'm not dense. And I dare anyone to try their luck with me." Anne raised her chin, rolling her shoulders back and standing as tall as she could. She didn't scare easily and she wasn't having her dad thinking her a coward. He was the sort that ran away, not her.
"I don't know what you know, so fine: a girl in my dorm asked me to visit her in France this summer, and mum said no. That was a stupid decision, but it doesn't matter anymore because Mum was right. She's supposed to be my friend, but she's a richy, French, pureblood and she gets given things that aren't bloody hers to have." Anne's tirad briefly halted, her chest heaving both in need of air and the existential terror that this squeezing in her chest wouldn't stop until it killed her.
She swallowed, her seizing heart caught in the back of her throat now. Choking around the bile and her own tongue's reluctance, Anne said the wounded part aloud. "They made that...princess into a prefect. She doesn't even know if she gets to stay at school, and she's already engaged to someone as ridiculous as her, and that's all she's ever wanted to be. Her goal is to be like every other empty-headed dress form, and that's what a Slytherin girl is meant to be? It's not right." And it wasn't a system designed for Anne to succeed.
The French girl, the prefects' badge—this both solved the mystery of Anne's recent seclusion and solidified that Emilia had been right to disallow Anne from travelling to France with her well-to-do "friend". Though Kit had not been consulted on the matter, he had been informed of it after the fact, had agreed vehemently with his wife's position. While he did not like to see his daughter hurting, it was better she learn these truths of the world now, while young enough to shift direction, than later, when the young medemoiselle dropped her altogether.
The auror took a beat before addressing his daughter: that she was heated was plain, and it had long been recognized in the Moony household that the pair could be very similar in that respect, requiring special handling at times. Not kid gloves on some glass bauble—no, dragonhide in a forge.
"I cannot steal a badge for you, Anne," he remarked dryly. She was too brittle, here in this ill-chosen moment, to come down harshly as Kit might have wished.
Face twisting into a grimace, Anne's rage was screaming for action. Because how dare he mock her when she needed him? How dare he stand there and mock her?
"Don't you talk all big to me." She seethed, her nails digging into her palms so tight she feared breaking the skin.
"And I'm not a thief. That badge should be mine, but I'm not going to beg for it either. I'll show them what they missed out on and outshine their little puppet. And I'm already more of a witch than Violetta is. What I need from you is a plan on what to bloody do with this feeling." Anne was past caring about cursing in front of her father; she was too focused on keeping angry tears from flowing.
"I need to know what to do with how angry I am. At everything. I'm scared to duel or use my wand. I might hurt somebody." Anne remembered her guilt at losing herself during the dueling tournament and setting fire to Yuri's robes. She'd felt horrible; she rethought her need to throw her everything into every spell every time. "I need to know how to get rid of this feeling the muggle way and don't you lie and tell me you don't know. I know you started your stupid boxing matches my first year." Anne crossed her arms and glared, the defiant little bad cop her father had a part in.
It ought to have been a question—it had come out of nowhere, seemed outlandish to Kit—but the wizard was too stunned for inflection. His immediate, gut reaction pulled itself from him almost instantaneously, before he could give it a second thought.
Anne’s eyes narrowed. She’d expected this, but it didn’t make it any more pleasant to hear. Her lip twisted in disgust, her rage and revulsion both radiating off her. Taking the few steps she needed to plant herself firmly in her father’s personal space, Anne snarled.
“I’m not asking for permission,” and without another thought to the soundness of her plan, Anne threw her weight into a punch aimed squarely at her father’s chest.
Anne's words were not a surprise but her action was—Kit, though, had decades of experience and quick reflexes, and the foolish girl was up against a wall, his forearm along her throat, before she could say boo.
Anger blazed like fire in his eyes as he stared down at her for a long moment, before the auror stepped back.
Anne wasn't suprised there was a consequence, she just didn't think it would be getting the air knocked out of her lungs. Anne's "Oy!" turned into a choked grunt as she hit the wall. For a moment, surprise widened her eyes, but as soon as daddy dearest mocked her, her eyes narrowed, teeth snarling.
"Not as stupid as underestimating me." Anne ground out aiming both hands at his chest and shoving. "Come on, auror, whatcha got?"
The words were weighty, his tone serious, even as he watched the defience shine in his daughter's eyes in the gaslight. She was, Kit realized, perhaps for the first time, him. His aptitudes, yes, but also his fires burning hot, threatening to consume everything—even herself. The thought was heartbreaking.
"I will not be responsible," the auror said definitively, resolute, "for destroying you." He had done enough to his family already; the wizard would not be responsible for this, too. "You are smart, Anne, and you are capable—capable of far more than following in your father's cursed footsteps."
"Big words from a coward." Anne snarled, the action easier than admitting how much it hurt to be disappointed by her father yet again. He'd been her hero when she was little, when she still thought he was brave. Anne missed that and the man who used to make her feel safe, who'd felt like home.
Anne loved her mother, treasured her, but she had been her father's daughter through and through. There was a time when she thought that mattered, but now there was only bile and disappointment in its place.
Eyes narrowing further, if that was possible, Anne sneered. "You don't much like being responsible for anything." She thought of the times she'd cried for her father, the nights that mum had cried and Anne pretended not to hear. She thought of Ned's attempt to fill the void in the house, to be the man for his family when he was only a boy. It was Kit Moony's fault that his family knew hurt, that their world was broken beyond repair. Maybe mum and Ned had moved on, Anne almost hoped they had, but that wasn't her. There was no moving on from what this poor excuse of a wizard had done. And he wasn't going to lecture her out of her purpose. "Bloody right I'm smart," Anne wouldn't swear in front of her mother on purpose, it would be rude. In front of her father, it just seemed like a good idea. She wasn't anyone's little girl anymore. "And I'm going to be more than you could ever be. I wouldn't abandon my family."
Kit's jaw tensed, teeth steadfastly holding back any words he might regret. His silence both codemened him and saved the wizard from digging himself an even deeper grave.
Finally, he said slowly and quietly, "I should hope you don't, Anne. Tell me—you hate me, fair enough, but then why so eager to become me?"
Would she see the sorrow in his eyes? Probably not.
After all, he was more like him than he would ever care to acknowledge.
The rage was still hot, the sound of blood in her ears, Anne's constant companion. That, and the crushing grief. Anne was familiar with grief, with pain and loss, but that was supposed to over. This was her time, her platform, and it was stolen. There was no other word for it; Anne was robbed of what was rightly hers: her place as prefect. Her whole summer felt like a cosmic 'no,' a word Anne did not handle well. Her parents refused to let her go abroad; Ned was so busy being an auror trainee that he never had time for her now, and her friends...Anne couldn't think of her friends now. ![[Image: rOjzpw3.png]](https://i.imgur.com/rOjzpw3.png)
Face twisting into a grimace, Anne's rage was screaming for action. Because how dare he mock her when she needed him? How dare he stand there and mock her?