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
"Hmm..." the witch mused, more to herself than to her companion, passing her eyes down the length of the supply list she had liberated from her young niece as the two stood in the alley that would connect them to the Alley. "A telescope? Goodness no—I am certain I have one you can use, save your parents a sickle or two."
Absently, Dido wondered if her sister (or her sister's husband) even knew what a sickle was. Likely not: they had long maintained a polite but firm distance from the magical world, a natural state for muggles, if a bit vexing given Dido had told them young Bet was to be a witch. Alas, no one had listened to her until the truth was staring them in the face. Ah well—at least with Dido in the family, the witchling would not be half so adrift as most muggleborn children!
Her left hand returned the parchment to the girl (who was, mercifully, still shorter than the diminutive Dido, at least for now) and her right drew her wand from a pocket sewn into her skirts. If one did not know it was there, one would never notice it—one of the many blessings of the world Bet was to be inducted into. With practiced hand, the witch tapped the prescribed bricks.
"It may seem overwhelming," she said warmly as the wall opened itself to them, "but it is a world that will welcome you with open arms."
They’d gone through a pub called the Leaky Cauldron; a proper name for a pub if Rorie had ever hear of one, but now they were faced with a brick wall whilst her aunt contemplated the supply list she’d taken from Rorie’s hands. The sound of a second hand telescope didn’t make Rorie blink but the word ‘sickle’ did, and she cast Aunt Dido a perplexed look. But before she could ask what a sickle was (it sounded unpleasant), her guardian for the day took out her wand and tapped aimlessly at the bricks.
Apparently it wasn’t so aimlessly, because whatever rhythm she’d tapped on the stone in front of them was the key to getting the wall to reveal what it had been hiding. Having not witnessed such a magical display in ages (if ever), Rorie’s mouth dropped open and her eyes went wide as there was suddenly a street before them that was teeming with people young and old. Compared to the plain brick wall that was in front of Rorie before, this sight was rather an assault on her senses, and she took a step back just as Aunt Dido sought to reassure her. “Open arms?” She parroted skeptically as she peered around her aunt’s person. “Aunt Dido, my introduction was in the form of a tree falling on me…” The list in her hand had been crinkled now, as Rorie clutched it as if her life depended upon it.
Dido made a tisking sound as she set out determinedly into Diagon Alley, trusting her niece to follow.
"That, my dove, was your parents' doing. I told them—told them!—they had a witch on their hands, but did they believe me? So sil—a wand, of course, should be our first order of buisness," the witch concluded, as though having two altogehter different convertations at once, neither, it seemed, required Bet's participation.
