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.
Was it better to wander Bartonburg and High Street drunk, or to apparate drunk? The answer was neither, and Noble didn't want to take the floo and to spill out into the sitting room of his family home an hour before dinner, but he didn't have a better option. He looked drunk. He'd pushed his hand through his hair too many times while talking to Tilda MacFusty, his eyes were still red-rimmed and now possibly bloodshot, and he was sure that he was not well-balanced. He didn't want rumors about looking drunk. He could not stay in the Hog's Head forever. It was going to have to be the floo.
So he walked, wobbly, from the bar to the fireplace and announced "Greengrass residence, Bartonburg, Hogsmeade."
He stumbled from the fireplace, nearly tripping over the grate on his way out so that it made a loud scraping noise against the brick.
Ford was only walking past the parlor when he heard the scrape of the fireplace grate falling over; a minute earlier or later and he wouldn't have heard it at all. He wasn't aware that anyone had been out, but they didn't tend to get unexpected visitors through the floo, so he was expecting perhaps Mama returning from some errand she hadn't mentioned... or maybe someone who had said their address by mistake and now needed a bit of floo powder to redirect themselves. He was not expecting Noble — he'd had no reason to suspect Noble was anywhere other than in his workshop, the way he normally was this time of the afternoon. He was certainly not expecting Noble looking like this.
"Noble?" he said, because this was the sort of situation that left one asking questions to which the answers were both obvious and improbable. "Have you been drinking?"
Noble put one hand against the top of the fireplace to steady himself, and blinked at Ford's question. He'd hoped, but had not expected, to be able to slip in without anyone noticing. But nothing was going the way he'd hoped it would, today, so of course he was going to have to talk to Ford.
Ford glanced conspicuously at the clock. He knew what time it was, but wasn't sure Noble did. Or perhaps he had entirely taken leave of his senses and made the conscious choice to get stumbling-drunk during the afternoon. The sun wasn't even down yet, and the days were getting shorter — this was egregious. "Why?"
Noble saw Ford look at the clock; he wanted to laugh. He didn't laugh, but his mouth twisted with the amusement he was trying to suppress. "Because I wanted to," he answered, and he could not keep the amusement out of his voice, either.
Noble was being so stupid, and maybe if he'd had some very good excuse Ford could have forgiven him for it (though he could not at the moment conjure up anything that might have been a suitably good excuse for behavior like this); instead he seemed to think this was funny. Ford was irritated by the twist of Noble's mouth and the tone of his voice, but he didn't know if it was worth saying anything. What was the point of arguing with someone while they were drunk? Nothing he said was going to get through to Noble if he thought this was funny; the only thing a conversation would do would be to make Ford more irate about it.
"Go sleep it off," he said, cool. "Then we'll talk about it."
That got him — he snorted. "No," Noble replied, "I don't think we will."
Ford hadn't talked to him about whatever man he was in love with, hadn't talked to him about his decision with Grace, hadn't explained why it was a problem that his friend's wife was having a baby. So Noble didn't want to talk about this. He didn't think his brother had earned it.
A hollow laugh came out of Noble's mouth before he could stop it. Frankly, what wasn't his problem? "We never talk about your shit," he said, tone sharp even as his eyes were bleary when he looked at Ford. "I'm not talking about mine."
Heat rose through his neck and spread out across his face. Ford held his brother's gaze and took a slow breath in and out. Noble was drunk, and trying to make him angry. He shouldn't let it work. There was nothing productive that could come of talking to Noble when he was like this, so the most reasonable thing to do was to step aside, whatever Noble said or however he said it. Let Noble stumble up the stairs to bed, bite his tongue, bring it up tomorrow. That was the reasonable thing to do, and Ford knew that, but — he was still angry.
He turned and shut the door. He didn't slam it — slow and deliberate movements. He leaned against the back of the armchair in front of him, facing Noble and tense as a coiled spring. "Okay," he said, cold. "Let's talk about my shit."
His brother was dangerous, like a potion left simmering too long — but Noble grinned savagely when Ford faced him with the closed door. He wanted to hurt someone. He wanted to hurt someone like he'd been hurting for months or years, and because their father was dead Ford was the closest approximation he had.
The way Noble smiled made Ford want to hit him. He tensed his arms against the back of the armchair and didn't move. The allegation was true, and undeniable, and Ford had no particular desire to deny it. He had clearly made the right decision, and he could have pointed that out. How was Noble supposed to be of any help at all if he was like this? Fucking liability. Ford had called him that before, once, but it hadn't been as true then. He still remembered the way that Noble had reacted that time — you're not my fucking father.
But they were talking about his shit now, weren't they? Ford's shit, not whatever had gotten Noble day-drinking. So here was something, said with venom but with an icy steadiness: "You read my letters and you stopped respecting me."
Noble swallowed. Ford would think it was about the letters, when that was certainly part of it, but not all — there was so much, years worth of sins, years worth of things that Noble had dutifully swallowed because Ford was his brother and was his best friend. "You have no self-control," Noble said, equally icy.
Noble was drunk. This would have been obvious even without his next gesture, which was sweeping and his fingertips hit the wall of the parlor. "I burned down my life for you," he protested, because maybe he'd thought he was doing it for all of them at the time, but really he was doing it for Ford. "I might as well be drunk."
This was another indisputable fact, and Ford knew it. Noble had a house, loved someone, was well on his way to getting his life started, and then he had stopped all of that because Ford had asked him to. He hadn't known how much he was asking at the time, but that didn't change the facts. But Ford had burned his life down, too — piece by piece, over and over. Verity didn't talk to him, Grace couldn't look at him, Tycho didn't see him.
"You don't get to stop trying because things didn't happen the way you wanted," he snapped. That wasn't how sacrifices worked. Making a choice and then wallowing in self-pity about it didn't count as being selfless. Ford kept having to pick the pieces up and move on, and if they were going to play who's life went further off the rails Ford thought he would give Noble a pretty significant run for his money. "It doesn't make it worth more because you won't get over it."
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