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
A flicker of hurt passed through her eyes as his question landed like the worst kind of preamble. She was glad she'd already summoned her escape route; There was comfort in knowing her house elf was there waiting to take her home but she wouldnt break her gaze at him to confirm the creature was still there.
"Yes." she answered firmly. Lips pursed and jaw set, she would be an active party in his rebuke.
Elliot took a breath. He had not expected her to say no — avoiding such a direct ask would have been unlike her — but he'd almost hoped that she would.
And — how to explain himself? They'd spent years slowly becoming peers, becoming friends, in orbit of each other in a strange relationship. Elliot was not sure that their friendship would exist were it not for their mutual curse. But neither of them knew what life was like without the Sight, so this was the option he had — rapidly planning a confession in the parlor of his father's estate.
A beat passed.
"I would propose to you if I thought you would have me," he admitted, aware of the house elf in the corner of his eye as a witness. But she'd told him to be honest. And she had come here — that had to mean something. "It was never just the potion."
The distance between what she'd been expecting and what he said could not have been greater. She swayed in the aftershocks of it, still fiercely holding his gaze as she fought through the hazy dissonance until her expression slackened with realization.
"That's not funny." she said with a cold timber and turned on her heel to walk away from him, forgetting that there was nothing behind her but a fireplace and that her actual way out was a house elf that was lurking somewhere near by. Before she managed to remember, she'd made another wobbling turn and was marching right back at him, hands balled into fists at her sides.
"And why wouldn't I have you?" she demanded. "Its me that's -" she gave an impatient wave of her hand.
Elliot pressed his hands against his trouser pockets; his palms were sweating from his nerves. He had not anticipated that he would tell Temerita Reid of his feelings ever, and certainly not under these circumstances — he blanched, and took a half step back, when she turned with her hands balled into fists.
She was angry with him.
There were, he was sure, a multitude of reasons why she would be angry with them — but his mouth was dry and he was not sure how to respond to her.
He shrugged. "And I'm the one who's —" another gesture, a hand wave to himself. Everything that she was, Elliot was sure he was doubly so.
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November 27, 2024 – 12:31 AM
Last modified: November 27, 2024 – 2:44 PM by Temerita Reid.
She matched his step backward, barely registering his expression and recoil over the surge of frustration.
"The one who's what?" she demanded again. "Endlessly eligible? Above my station in every way?" she threw her hands up and turned away from him again, oscillating the same small circle. "It's been years, I know it was foolish, and you needn't tease me about it."
She was the drunk one, but Elliot felt so disoriented that he may as well have been — he blinked at her. "I'm the one who's haunted," Elliot said. His Sight hung over everything he did, over every relationship he had — and it had forced him to retreat to Wales, safely away from anyone to alarm.
"But — I'm not teasing," Elliot added, plaintive. He wasn't teasing — but why on earth did she think he was?
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December 23, 2024 – 11:14 PM
Last modified: December 23, 2024 – 11:16 PM by Temerita Reid.
"Aren't we all?" she asked incredulously, not wasting a beat to think over any of it. A distant voice in the back of her mind suggested she was being hasty and ridiculous but she didn't have the patience or inhibitions to reign in just then. Not when indulging frustration felt so right.
His voice seemed earnest but wherever she was in her oscillations she hadn't quite caught his expression. "Then what - ?" she began and planted her feet to face him squarely but after so many turns the room seemed to have other ideas and continued to spin around her. She swayed where she stood before moving to drop ungracefully into the nearest seat.
With a grumble of frustration she sat there, waiting for the world around her to right itself until she noticed her ash-covered gloves laying piteously in her lap. She wrinkled her nose and began to yank them off, plucking at the fingers like each had individually offended her.
She wasn't leaving. She was spinning around and sitting down with a flourish, and clearly irritated with him, but she had not yet disapparated with her house elf. Elliot was relieved, and dropped himself into an armchair. With the two of them sitting, this almost — not quite, but almost — felt normal.
"Miss Reid," Elliot said carefully. That didn't sound right. "Temerita."
He swallowed. "What do you mean?"
He had hoped, he had thoughts — but he did not quite understand her.
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December 26, 2024 – 7:18 PM
Last modified: December 26, 2024 – 11:13 PM by Temerita Reid.
As she sat there wringing her gloves she could feel the potency of her temper slip away with every twist, taking with it the shelter and relief she'd so quickly embraced. By the time she heard him take a seat near by she was left with nothing but growing self awareness and bafflement over just how many wrong turns she'd taken since dinner to get to this point.
It was the third time he'd said her name that night and to her ears it might have rang so similar to the last when she had braced for admonishment if it weren't for his gentle tone. She swallowed heavily and finally brought herself to look at him again. When she spoke it was with a deep, wobbling breath.
"You never asked." She may be the fool after tonight, she may never be able to face him again, but she would defend herself until then. "It's not fair to blame me when you didn't ask... you didn't come calling..." Once she began to put words to those thoughts they spilled out, one after the other, gathering speed like a train down hill. "For so long I thought you might - if I could just get past having been your student - if we could just talk and not about visions - but I realized it was foolish to hope. And accepted it was unrealistic. But then you tell me you love me. And then you say we are friends. And now tonight..." She shook her head. She couldn't even begin to think what tonight was when she was still in the thick of it. "If we are to be friends or colleagues or strangers now just say it and mean it and we will. I am too old to keep letting that old foolishness hang over my head."
Elliot sat down in one of the other armchairs, because she still hadn't left and this was starting to seem as if it would be a longer conversation. He watched her, and sighed, because this certainly would have been easier if he had paid calls on her. But when she'd debuted, he'd been busy — thinking of her in terms of his recently having been her professor, and by the time they had both aged significantly past that, he'd been busy going to war with his Sight, she'd been in Italy, or he'd been hiding bodies with his siblings. The timing had never worked in a way that left pursuing courtship attainable, and now he was here — being scolded.
"Miss Reid," Elliot said, after a beat, "I suppose the question is — would you like for me to pursue a romantic relationship with you, or not?"
