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
Mila made Kaatjie and Arie come to Hogsmeade Station so she could meet her London friends from Hogwarts — just to immediately abandon them when she saw another Hogsmeade friend who was doing the same thing. And then, to make matters worse, Arie left Kaatjie in order to talk to one of the neighbor boys that Kaat did not like. So Kaatjie was left sitting on a bench, arms folded over her chest, alone with her suitcase.
As the train started off boarding, she came up with an idea. She would have to find another new friend. She just had to identify the right target — and the dark-haired boy with large ears quickly identified himself as the ideal option.
Kaat watched the boy's older brother abandon him, flouncing off to go talk to other tall teenagers — much as Kaatjie had been abandoned by her older cousin. She flounced up from her bench and rushed over to him — if she got to him first, he was going to have to be her friend.
"Hello!" she chirped, enthusiastic — she waved her hand in front of him in order to ensure she had his full attention. "What year are you going into? I'm going to be a first year." (She hoped he was also going to be a first year! Then they were guaranteed friends.)
They were finally here. As Phin stepped off the train in Hogsmeade, he was filled with expected mixture of excitement and anxiety. Hogsmeade was a place he'd been a thousand times, but even it felt different somehow in the face of his anticipation. Sirius quickly abandoned him to go join his friends, and Phin watched him go. Being abandoned didn't really make him feel worse, so at least there was that, he supposed.
Whatever else he might have thought was interrupted by a girl appearing before him--and her hand waving in his face. "Oh. Hello." He turned his attention to her. "I'm a first year, too. I'm Phineas."
He was another first year. Kaat was thrilled; this meant that they could be more likely to become great friends. "I'm Kaatjie," she said, cheerful. "How was the train?" (She was rather jealous that she had not gotten to ride it.)
"Long, but all right," Phin said honestly. Personally, he thought magical transportation should be faster, but the train had it's upsides, he supposed. "The scenery's nice. Are you from here in Hogsmeade?"
Kaatjie shook her head. "I'm from Oostvert, in the Netherlands," she said. (She was starting to suspect that she would be asked this many times as she was meeting many new people.) "But I live in North Bartonburg now. Where do you live?"
That would explain the accent, Phin supposed. "I live in London," he said. "Though I guess if we're talking about where we were born, I was born in Wellingtonshire, technically." You know, before fire and plague and all that.
"That's exciting!" Kaatjie said, as though Hogsmeade to London was nearly as interesting as Oostvert to Bartonburg. Sometimes you had to call things exciting for the sake of making friends. "Are you excited to go to Hogwarts? I am."
"Yeah," Phin said, though the twisting in his stomach might have said otherwise. "Nervous, too. Do you know what house you hope to be in?" He didn't know where he'd end up himself, except for a deep certainty that it probably wouldn't be Slytherin like his family.
Kaat shrugged her shoulders at Phineas. "Anywhere where I know someone is good enough for me," she said. (She was rather hoping to be in the same house as Miss Ramona Pendergast.) "Do you have a favorite?"
"Not really," Phin said. "My family's been mostly been Slytherin, but I don't really mind." He didn't think he'd make a very good Slytherin, anyway. "Are you nervous about classes at all?"
Kaat nodded. "I'm worried that some of them will be really hard,'' she admitted frankly. She wanted her professors and classmates to think well of her, after all — it wouldn't do well to start off on a bad foot, or the reputation could spread.
"Me too," Phin admitted, grateful to hear he wasn't the only one. "It'll be years before we can drop anything, so I hope I'm at least not hopeless at anything before then." Failure would be embarrassing enough, never mind having to deal with his family's disappointment.
Kaat nodded at Phineas again, more fervently this time. "I think I'm going to try art and music too," Kaatjie said, "Because those I can drop." And, privately, she thought she'd be good at both — she just didn't want to risk being a preemptive braggart.
"That'll probably be nice," Phin said, mostly to be agreeable. He didn't have any particular skill or interest in the arts, personally. "There's clubs, too, I think. And quidditch, if you're interested in it." Phin already knew he was going to try out for quidditch, though the chances of actually making it on a team his first year weren't very high.
Clubs! There really were about to be so many options at Hogwarts — although she wrinkled her nose at the suggestion of Quidditch."I've never flown," Kaatjie admitted. "Have you?"
Phin nodded. "A bit," he said. Though he didn't know if it'd be enough to make the quidditch team this year. At least if he didn't make the team, there'd still be plenty of time to practice before next year. "First years get flying lessons, though, so you'll get a chance to learn, too." He shrugged. "Even if quidditch isn't your thing, flying is kind of fun."
