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
Dean had half of the puzzle figured out, now he had to figure out if there was another half to put together, or if he was shit out of luck. It felt like maybe he was being unrealistic, greedy, selfish, in trying to keep two things going at once, especially since his relationship with Don Juan had so much history. Dempsey had said he was alright with Dean continuing things with Hanna, but Dean didn't even know if she even wanted to. He'd really screwed up last week and she would be well within her rights to tell him to piss off.
She had agreed to come tonight and Dean had steeled himself for a tough conversation. Dean wasn't making any assumptions; he wasn't even sure how he would answer any questions. He'd seen the nightstand drawer open after he'd come home later that night and he had no idea if it was Don Juan or Hanna or both of them who had been in it. If he had to guess, it was probably Don Juan looking for his cigarettes, but they hadn't been there. They were now, but Dean couldn't be sure who had opened the drawer first. If she'd seen the notes he kept in there, well he had a lot to answer for, he was sure.
He had her favorite wine breathing on the side table, he'd already had a glass of whiskey and he had poured a second without touching it. Maybe he ought to switch to wine himself. Maybe he ought to have done something more, but he didn't know what. Dean didn't have time to think further on that idea as the floo lit up green and Hanna stepped out. He smiled uncertainly, taking a step toward her before stopping himself. Instead he pushed his sleeves back up his forearms for something to do with his hands and said, "I'm glad you came."
Five days of stewing had not actually helped her solve this, and her conversation about same-sex attraction with Effie had not been particularly enlightening, either. She'd liked the flowers, but they made her feel conflicted, because this was supposed to be casual. If it was casual, couldn't he just let her go as he pleased, and she could do the same? (Although it was not as if she ever had any alternate plans.)
But she'd agreed to plans. She was wearing more than her nightgown, this time — a simple yellow day dress that she mostly just wore around the house, and her hair was up in a simple bun. Both would be easier to get back on if Hudson took her to bed; both were less exposed than she'd been when she wore her nightgown and her hair down.
This was getting risky. Someone was bound to notice sometime. She was sure that Ezra, at least, had noticed the flowers — and maybe someone had noticed the way she'd kept quiet at home, and at the zoo's daytime anniversary celebration. She'd been doing several puzzles, but it hadn't quite helped — she couldn't get the shakes out of her hands, because she was anticipating rejection.
Hanna stepped out of the floo, and looked down at his hands when he didn't immediately embrace her. She looked back at his face. "Of course I came," she said, feeling a bit pathetic — he had to know things weren't working out for her on the marriage mart, didn't he? She swallowed. "I'm glad you wrote."
She said it like it had been a given, but Dean hadn't been so sure. He'd thought about her on and off in the time that she'd been here last, worried about what she might currently think of him. He'd had to sit himself down and figure out what he wanted here. The problem was that he didn't exactly know. It was different now with Don Juan back in the picture. Though Dean always harbored some hope that things weren't over between them, he'd never known if that was naïve optimism or absolute idiocy, keeping the possibility in the back of his head. He didn't want it to change anything with Hanna, though.
This was already awkward and it was his fault, he was treading carefully and he knew it, but he still hadn't quite figured out why he felt the need. "I want to apologize again for the other night, it wasn't fair to you." He took a couple more steps toward her, unsure if she wanted to talk about it or forget about it, but he had to get that off his chest. He wanted to say more, but wasn't exactly sure how he wanted to say it. For someone who made his living speaking, he was certainly having a hard time with it lately.
Hanna didn't know how to respond to that, and it showed on her face — her eyebrows drew together as she looked at him. She wavered on her feet, because she was worried that if she spoke using her traitorous mouth, she would just end up spinning herself faster towards that inevitably rejection. "I don't know how we define fair, here," she allowed, taking a half-step closer to him to close some of the gap.
They were casual. Hudson had made it abundantly clear that they were casual. Didn't that mean that, technically speaking, he didn't owe her anything? Didn't he not want to owe her anything?
Dean supposed that was fair. Maybe it wasn't as big of a deal as he thought it was? He was all discombobulated after the last week or so, trying to readjust to Don Juan's presence again. It was a good thing, something he wanted, but in the past there hadn't been the addition of Hanna and at it felt more complicated, even if maybe it wasn't.
"I invited you over and then had to essentially send you right back out," he hadn't wanted to, wouldn't have if it had been anyone else in the house that night, but he was always a little more idiotic and impulsive when Don Juan was around. "I'd say that was pretty unfair," right? "I feel bad about it, at any rate." Maybe that was at the root of it.
Hanna tilted her head when she listened to him. "It did hurt my feelings a bit," she said quietly. She had not wanted to admit as much, and shook her wrist slightly, feeling her bracelets hit the skin there. She swallowed. "Your drawer was open. When I was in the room. But we — don't have to talk about it."
Maybe he would know what she meant; maybe he wouldn't. Hanna was not entirely sure how it would feel to keep doing this without knowing where she stood, but she didn't want to force Hudson into giving up information he had not freely offered her.
Even her admission about the drawer didn't stop him from apologizing again. "I'm sorry, if I'd had any other option or more time, I would have tried to figure something else out." Chasing Don Juan to Ireland had jumped to the forefront of his issues that night and he was just relieved Hanna had decided to at least come back tonight.
Dean didn't even have it in him to be annoyed about the drawer. His first reaction had been Don Juan anyway, who was normally very at ease in his house. It hadn't clicked until later that Hanna might have taken a peek while she was waiting, because his brain was a little bit like scrambled eggs this week. The way she brought it up made him assume she read the notes that were in there. He felt like he should probably be more embarrassed about it, but he honestly wasn't even sure what the feeling was that was occupying his chest.
"It's up to you, I think I owe you an explanation, if you want it." They could talk about it, forget about it and pretend it didn't happen or she could decide she wanted nothing to do with him any more because of it, Dean really didn't know what to expect. He wasn't ashamed of anything. He knew he wasn't normal and by most standards could go to jail for his personal life, but it wasn't like he was out there with anyone who didn't want his company.
Hanna swallowed. She shook her wrist again, making her bracelets jangle together. It was hard to keep looking at him while she was thinking about this, and harder still to think through things — the curse was worse for her when she was stressed, because many of its affects mimicked the way Hanna felt when she was upset. And she was stressed right now, with that impending sense of doom thrumming like a rush in her ears.
"If you're — if you're done with me you don't have to explain," Hanna managed, looking down at his floor. She was still rotating her wrist back and forth, although she no longer had the speed required to cause the bracelets to make sound. "But if you're not done with me then I would like to understand."
There was an unpleasant twisting of his insides at the look on her face. At one point it had been an option that he would have to end things with her. Dean was in far too deep with Don Juan to consider anything that would put their relationship at odds, especially now. It would have gutted him though. Thankfully, for now, he was able to find a balance, if she still wanted.
"I am very much not done with you." He assured her, catching the wrist she kept fidgeting with gently, finally closing the gap between them for a soft kiss. There, perhaps, went the casualness he had started this with.
After he leaned back, he motioned for her to have a seat on the sofa while he poured them each a glass. Once he'd handed over the wine and settled in next to her with his whiskey, Dean wondered where to start. "Not that I think you will say anything," Merlin he hoped, he felt like he was about to explain something incredibly deep and personal. The catch was the story wasn't just his and if it got out everything would be ruined. "But this has to stay between us." He pleaded quietly. "And I'll answer any questions you have." Which if she'd read those notes, she must have a a lot. He almost felt bad for the very quick education she was getting, but he reminded himself that the idea had been hers originally, even if he was the one leading the charge.
Hanna felt a rush of relief at Hudson's hand on her wrist, and leaned into his kiss. This was still increasingly ill-advised — eventually she would have to get married, or she would actually go mad and he would want nothing more to do with her. But she folded her legs underneath herself on the couch, sitting casually, and sipped the wine he'd gotten ready for her in the decanter — the wine that he knew was her favorite.
She nodded. "I'll never tell," she said. She'd floated the concept to Effie, but she'd tried to keep things without detail — as if she'd heard a simple rumor. "But — are you two together?" Or was this something that all men did? Hanna certainly didn't think so, because she knew she was oblivious about some things, but certainly she was not so unaware of everything.
Her immediate agreement had him relaxing into the cushions a little more fully. Apparently she'd figured out quite a bit just from the one awkward encounter and the letters in his nightstand. "Yes, it's been..." Dean wasn't exactly sure how to qualify their on-again, mostly-off-again relationship, but now he was hoping it was on-again permanently. "We met when we were much younger and it didn't work out for a long while, even though we wanted it to." They had both overestimated just how much they could handle and at the time, it turned out to be not enough to make things work.
"But things are different now, better." It had only been a little under a week, but Dean felt better about it this time. If the sobriety was going to stick, Dean didn't think there was anything else that could throw them far enough off course for them to have to end things again. "But, even in the past, and still now, we haven't been monogamous." Every other dalliance had been casual for him in the past, brief flings, mostly when he was traveling, but he knew Don Juan had the same and it had never bothered either one of them. This was different and now he was wondering just how much this conversation was changing his dynamic with Hanna.
"Does that bother you?" He'd asked Don Juan the same and the answer had been no, otherwise he wouldn't be here, but this was all new to Hanna, went against everything she'd been raised with, so he couldn't hold it against her if it did.
She listened carefully, sipping her wine while Dean explained — Hanna really wanted to understand. Because if Dean wasn't done with her — and if Hanna acknowledged that she was pretty clearly not done with him — then it seemed potentially important for her to try and understand this. And she was glad that things were better for them, for Dean — even if she was a bit jealous that she'd been struggling with her own confusion while Dean had been getting happy.
She could put that aside for now, though — she had questions.
"What does that mean?" Hanna asked, clear confusion leaking into her voice. "Both things, I suppose — being with a man, and not being monogamous." She knew what monogamy was, in the context of a marriage — but she was confused by the details here. DJD had written letters about fucking, and about Dean's cock — but Hanna didn't understand how that was possible, even though Dean had shown her some of the other ways to be intimate over the past few months. did they rub their cocks together
Dean should have known she'd pull no punches with her questions. She had managed to ask quite a few during their encounters even when his tongue was very much otherwise occupied. The second was easier to explain and he was going to really have to think about how best to interpret and answer the first. "When I say we aren't monogamous, it's not like in a marriage where you aren't supposed to sleep with other people, we have an agreement that we can see other people, even though we are serious about one another." They had never discussed too many specifics, but had also always been respectful enough of that aspect of their relationship that they hadn't needed to. Dean was into some things Don Juan wasn't so he did that with other people. Don Juan liked to have company when Dean travelled and then they would make time for one another after. That had always worked just fine.
He took a sip of his whiskey to let her digest that part before starting in on her other curiosity. He wasn't sure if she knew exactly what she was asking so he fished around for more information. "What exactly do you want to know about 'being with a man'? Like specifics?" Dean wasn't so sure he wanted to walk Hanna through that right now. Not to mention she still hadn't answered his question.
Hanna could not figure out how to explain what she thought about being with a man without lewd hand gestures, so she supposed that she ought to engage with him on monogamous relationships first. "So he's not mad that I exist?" she asked, as if Dean had not asked the later question at all. They could get there when they got there. "I don't think I have a problem with not being monogamous as long as it's not upsetting anyone. I mean — I'm supposed to marry someone eventually."
(The implication was that she would like to continue to see Dean once she was married, but Hanna only realized that once the words spilled out of her mouth. Her expression turned bashful. Surely he had to know already? And it was not as if she was particularly close to marriage — the only person who'd danced with her twice in a night since she left mourning was Dean.)
Relieved she let the second matter drop, Dean tried to read between the lines of what she said. Once she was married, he would have to let her go, he knew that underneath it all, even if he didn't like it. Dean had learned his lesson the hard way about getting involved with married women. Don Juan didn't count, his marriage had been estranged before Dean met him and he felt men were different for some reason. Still, Don Juan continued to be the only exception to a lot of Dean's moral dilemmas.
"He's not concerned," or at least he hadn't expressed any beyond the tattoo joke. He'd agreed to tell Dean if someone was bothering him, too. "Don't you think, once you marry, your husband may have a problem with this? Almost everyone else out there expects monogamy in a marriage." If he was hearing her correctly, he wanted to understand where she was coming from better before getting into it. His mind was buzzing with different scenarios and how to play them out, but he could never quite make heads nor tails of anything completely.
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