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
Vera wasn’t sure if coming into London was a mistake, especially after what had happened last week. But it was a change, and that’s what she needed; crying over her youngest son having gone off to Hogwarts wasn’t going to help anyone, and their housekeeper was all too grateful for her offer of fetching some of the more hard-to-find items in their stock. With Nanny taking care of Selene back at home and her grocery list in her handbag, Veronica was free to walk about the city by herself; a freeing feeling if there ever was one. With so many people bustling about, it was easy to let time slip by while she sat on a park bench in Magical London and watched as folks walked by.
As she did so, a fluttering caught her eye and she realized a woman had dropped something. Abandoning her post of observation, Veronica hurried over to the fallen item, quickly picking it up and hurrying to catch up with its owner. “Excuse me! Ma’am!” She called, her breath puffing out in front of her in soft plumed clouds. “Ma’am, you dropped this - oh.” She stopped dead in her tracks, arm outstretched in offering as the last person she expected to see turned around.
London was improving, although Seraphina could still see the scars of the damage left by the dragons. But she had no qualms about running errands today, and she'd had a new erotic book to pick up at Flourish & Blotts. She was on the way back from the bookstore, walking through Diagon Alley — which had been left unscathed by the dragons — when she heard an oddly familiar voice calling to her.
Sera turned, a grateful smile already plastered on her face, and froze. She had known that voice — and the person in front of her was unmistakably Veronica Scamander. "Vera?" Sera said, expression still unchanging. She could not remember anything of Vera's life since she had gone Under. It was not surprising that Algernon would have dropped the acquaintanceship, as Veronica was middle class even though she was, a pureblood — but being suddenly faced with her friend and knowing nothing of her life made Seraphina's heart hurt.
She had not even thought of the bookmark that had fallen out of her bag and which was now in Veronica's hand; that was nothing compared to the time that Sera had lost.
It was Sera. Vera stood there, blinking and her mouth slightly agape. Of all the people to see in London, it had to be her. Something unpleasant turned in Vera’s stomach and she pursed her lips, swallowing before nodding in confirmation. “Yes.” She replied quietly, eyes flicking down to the bookmark in her hand. “Erm - lovely to see you, I just wanted to return this to you.” She fluttered it slightly, wondering for one mad moment if she could perhaps scoot forwards and drop it in Sera’s bag before hurrying off. Once upon a time she could have done that, back at Hogwarts. Now, it would just look plain odd; even more unusual than Veronica’s own personal brand of peculiarity.
So she stood there, rocking slightly onto the balls of her feet and adjusting the brim of her hat with her free hand, trying not to stare too long while her memory brought her back to all those times when she wanted to reach out to Sera and just talk like they did back at school. Having thoroughly caught onto the message now, she knew better than to say more than was necessary. Best just keep it brief and to the point.
Vera was looking at her like Sera had betrayed her, with her lips pursed and the bookmark fluttering and her rocking a tiny bit on her feet. Sera knew how Vera looked at someone who she didn't want to deal with, because they had shared a girlhood — tittering in class and switching house tables for meals so they could talk together. Vera had graduated a year before Sera, and for her first season Seraphina had felt a smidge like Veronica was guiding her, even if Sera had been more easily-adaptable to The Season than Veronica had.
So she knew how Veronica looked at someone she didn't want to talk to, and that was the way Vera was looking at her now. Sera wanted so badly to remember what she had done to Veronica, or what had happened in Veronica's life since they had last known each other. But there was nothing, nothing in the blur, and Sera paused awkwardly looking at the bookmark. Her throat felt tight. She had to do something — reach across the years somehow, even if she could not remember them. She couldn't just let Veronica go away from her after seeing Vera look like that.
"Thank you," Sera said, subdued. "Would you — are you busy? Right now? Would you like to get tea?" She sounded a tiny bit desperate, and she knew it — but she would rather sound desperate than miss this moment.
She still hadn’t taken the bookmark, which could mean any number of things. All those years ago, Vera would have been able to at least decipher what it meant, but now she just felt even more ridiculous as the seconds dragged on. She expected Sera to eventually take the bookmark, give her a passive and somewhat blank stare that Vera had been so accustomed to and bid her goodbye.
But instead, Sera proceeded to…invite her to tea.
Veronica almost dropped the bookmark again. Her mouth popped open in surprise - only the tiniest bit - and she blinked. “Oh.” Biting her bottom lip, she looked around the park as if someone was going to appear in front of her and beckon her forward so she might have an excuse to reject Sera’s offer. No such apparition appeared and so Vera turned her attention back to the witch. “That, that sounds very fine, yes.” She couldn’t help but look from side to side, expecting Sera’s offer to disappear into thin air. “The Ivy Leaf in Diagon Alley perhaps?”
Vera looked so surprised, and for a moment Sera was sure she would say no. She knew Veronica too well to not be able to tell when Vera was clearly looking for an alternative plan. Seraphina almost offered to just let the other woman go, because she obviously did not want to get tea — but then Veronica was agreeing, and offering a location for their tea. She could have suggested anywhere, and Sera would have said yes. But the Ivy Leaf Tearoom actually sounded rather lovely, and Seraphina had not been there.
(Or — she did not remember having been there. As she was learning, it was hard for her to say until she got somewhere, and getting tea was a perfectly acceptable hobby for a boring socialite.)
Seraphina was worried that she would be overly-enthusiastic; she had so anticipated rejection that now she didn't know how to react. She smiled at Vera, and it was tinged with the same air of desperation that her tone had held when she asked. "That sounds lovely!" she said — knowing, again, that it was too much. She wished she could remember Veronica's last name; she still hadn't managed it, though, so instead Sera reached out and finally took her bookmark back. She tucked it into her coat pocket and looked back up.
"This way, right?" Sera said, starting down the street back in the direction of the Diagon Alley entrance. She knew it was the right way; she just didn't know what else to say to Vera. How did one bridge fifteen years, especially when one was not supposed to have been anywhere for that amount of time? She could only imagine what Veronica thought of her now. It was no wonder that she had seemed so baffled that Sera was even talking to her.
Dwelling on that wasn't going to help Seraphina at all. So she decided to try a little harder to get the conversation moving: "What brings you to London today?"
Something was…off. Veronica knew she was hardly the last person to be considered a sleuth, but perhaps it was just the air about Sera that seemed off. She hadn’t seen her in quite some time after all, at least not up close. She found herself blinking again in shock at how animated Sera was now. It was as if someone had cut the strings off a marionette and it had started dancing by itself. “Erm, yes that’s correct.” She responded, looking down to make sure she had her things. Of course she did, she’d hardly gotten anything out of her purse, and the hat she was wearing wasn’t the one that had a bad habit of shedding feathers.
She expected the walk to be rather silent and distant so she was caught off guard yet again when Seraphina asked her a question unprompted. “I’m running errands. With my youngest son at Hogwarts now, I find I have some free time on my hands and thought I might as well help out our housekeeper with tracking down some of the harder to find supplies.” She had long since dropped the expectation that Sera might be interested in her children. “And what about you? What book were you reading?”
If Vera's youngest child was in Hogwarts, that meant — "My oldest son started Hogwarts this year, too." Were they friends? Sera didn't know how much Algernon would socialize with middle class boys. She did not know her son nearly as well as she wanted to, so she was not sure how much he would flout his father's values. She hoped he would.
"I just picked it up, actually," Sera answered — she did not want to explain the genre in public, and was hoping to delay having to answer. "But I like the author, so I'm optimistic about it."
“Your - oh,” She’d been caught off guard at the mention of Sera’s children, but smiled nonetheless. Even with the distance between them, life seemed to have tied them together at certain points in life. But that also meant that they’d missed out on being pregnant alongside each other; pregnancy had hardly been at the forefront of Vera’s mind in school, but it hadn’t been completely out of the question.
Sera seemed hesitant to talk about her book aside from the fact that she liked it. Pressing her lips together, Vera averted her eyes again while they walked. “Congratulations to your oldest.” She said. “What house is he in?”
"He's in [HOUSE]," Sera answered. "But my eldest is my daughter — she's a Gryffindor. What about your children?" Small talk with someone who she had once considered to be one of her dearest friends was excruciating — but she had to believe that if she got through this conversation things would become easier again.
They’d gotten to the Diagon Alley entrance. Vera brought out her wand and tapped the appropriate bricks. As the wall shifted before them, she stowed her wand away. “Congratulations,” she said, genuinely delighted to hear about Sera’s children. She wondered if her own had unknowingly already interacted with them before. “My step children are already out of Hogwarts by now.” She responded in turn, finding it easier to carry on the conversation as they went. Unlike Theo, she could never stay angry for too long, even if some confusion lingered about what had happened between her and Sera.
“Theodore is the sponsor of the Chudley Cannons and Cecily is now out doing the season.” Though Cecily was far more involved with her brother’s career than she let on to the public. “And I have two children with my late husband. Nathaniel and Selene. Nate just got into Hufflepuff and Selene will be starting Hogwarts soon.” At that realization, she tried not to tear up too much. Time flew by too quickly.
The more they were talking about their children, the more it felt normal. Sera was spared her wondering about Vera's husband by the phrase that Vera used. "I'm sorry to hear about your husband," Sera said, soft and genuine. She paused her walking to lay a hand on Vera's arm.
She hoped that the expression on her face would make it obvious: Sera hadn't known. However famous Veronica's husband had been — and if her stepson was sponsoring the Chudley Cannons, then it was likely that her family was notable to society — but Sera had not heard of Veronica's husband. (She didn't even know what Vera's last name was.)
She hadn’t meant to bring up her husband, but it had happened naturally, which only brought up the memory of when she and Theo had discovered her husband’s letters. Would she have confided in Seraphina had they been close? The secret had been a burden to bear, and had - in her mind - damaged the fragile relationship between even her step-son and her for a time. A close friend would have been nice to have. Someone like Sera had been to her when they were at Hogwarts. Vera stayed quiet for a moment, offering only a small smile at Sera’s condolences. After a while she murmured, “Thank you.” but left it at that.
Instead she opted to engage Sera in topics of her own family: “Is your husband well? As well as the rest of your siblings?”
This was hard to answer, given that everyone's life had been completely overturned. "My husband and siblings are well," she said, with a thin smile, "Although our father's been ill." She didn't know if Vera would know — she was sure that people were aware of Algernon's illness, but they obviously didn't interact with one another much anymore. So how was Sera supposed to know?
She’d heard of an illness in the Rowle family; however for some reason it hadn’t fully connected that it was Sera’s immediate family affected. “I’m so sorry to hear about that.” She said, her voice not without sympathy. “Is he on his way to recovery, do you think?”
Vera's tone was sympathetic, which made it easy for Sera to pretend that the strain in her expression was due to grief over Algernon's illness. "We can only hope," she said, "But the nurse seems optimistic."
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