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
It wasn't as if Alina hadn't seen some of the negative bits of the worlds. She had never been raised in privilege. Being ignorant of the hard times in the world was a luxury. But it was still a bit shocking to find out when one's boss was dead. Outright dead. Hit by a carriage of all things. While Alina O'Malley was far from delicate, it was quite the news to handle. A few days back and it was still on her mind every now and then. Nagging at her.
At this moment, she had a distant look to her as she thought of this. One might even say there was even a bit of a haunted feel to her eyes. Stirring her soup that she had been sipping at every so often, she set the spoon down while forgetting that there was still soup having yet to be sipped. Hearing a yelp, she turned to see that some had splashed on the person sitting next to her. "Sorry." She mumbled.
Magic by Lady!
January 18, 2020 – 7:25 PM
Last modified: January 18, 2020 – 7:28 PM by Saxon Goshawk.
Still not over the scathing telling off Saxon had received for using magic at home on Maxima, Saxon had thus far managed to somehow completely avoid his siblings. He didn’t think Valeria would do anything so much as he was confident Maxima would probably hit him with an unforgivable curse given the chance.
So as his luck would have it, the moment he entered the great hall he saw his sister and instead of engaging with her, he elected to be the bigger person and rise above it all so he stuck his tongue out at her and walked toward some of his friends. About half way down the hall he heard a loud clang and some apologetic sounding girl saying sorry for someone. Looking over, he saw something rather humorous; someone covered in soup!
He had to know more. His friends could wait. Moving to sit opposite the girl who had just apologised – just as the soup-laden person decided to leave to clean up – Saxon grabbed a bowl, picked up a spoon, and ate some.
“You know you’re meant to eat it and not throw it over people, right? That’s Peeve’s job. He’s a poltergeist,” Saxon pointed toward Nearly Headless Nick - who was floating around arguing with the Fat Friar – before taking another spoonful of soup, “Kind of like the Hogwarts House ghosts but not really. I don’t really know what he is but he’s mischievous and,” Saxon arched his brow, “he likes bullying students – mostly first years, I think. He pranked me a few times last year but hasn’t yet, and doesn’t pick on the older children, so I think it’s first years.”
Merlin knew that deep down, Alina was glad she had no siblings. Another mouth to feed, someone to compete with to get an education. At least as an only chilf she could do everything she could to make a convincing case that she should remain in school for as long as possible.
At least the student hadn't made a fuss. Choosing to leave and clean up instead. What more could Alina ask for? Perhaps some peace and quiet, which was something that she desperately wished for when a Gryffindor sat in front of her and started yapping between mouthfuls of soup.
Rather than make some sort of remark to make him shoo, she decided that it wouldn't do any harm for her to at least listen to him yap for a while. "I saw him prank a seventh year. Turned the girl purple. She could only speak backwards. At least, I think she was talking backwards." She decided to respond. Humor the boy before her. Who knows, perhaps he would turn out to be useful.
“Oh! I remember that!” Saxon said suddenly getting rather excited that someone wanted to engage in conversation about ghosts with him than simply either:
1) Call him weird
2) Change the subject
3) Walk off
4) All of the above
Most often, it was option four that people seemed to go for. Usually in that order, too. His friends didn’t usually do that though. Mostly.
“And did you know,” Saxon said between another spoonful of soup, “That he has been here since Hogwarts was built! I think he was buried here and his grave is underneath the castle and now he’s trying to make everyone leave! My father –” Saxon paused, glancing behind him momentarily toward his sister who seemed to have already forgotten he was here before, “—thinks he is just a troublemaker who has no reason to be here, but I think father just doesn’t know!”
Saxon then leaned over the table and grasped one of the bread rolls before ripping it in half and dunking half of it into his soup, “Anyway, who are you? What’s your name? I think I’ve seen you in some classes but we’ve never spoken and I don’t know who you are,” He continued and took a big bite out of his now soup-soaked piece of bread, “I’m Saxon Goshawk. Gryffindor. Second year. And Ghost… er… Entrepreneur!”
That meant specialist, as in knew-everything-about-it, right?
Honestly, Alina was tempted to do the same as most. But making connections might just help her future. Who knew? Perhaps this one came from a family with connections. That would certainly help things. Maybe his father was a Ministry man who would remember the girl that was nice to his odd son.
"Really? Who do you think he was before he died?" Honestly, she was sure one of her older friends had mentioned that poltergeists were never alive at all, but why bother correcting him? She saw no point in it. A professor would be able to do some teaching. That, thankfully, was not her job.
Raising an eyebrow slightly, she looked at him with curiousity. "Entrepreneur? How does one sell ghosts?" She was pretty sure that was what the word meant. How did one sell a ghost? Was that a special field for selling to really rich people? Something to look into.
What an interesting question. Who was Peeves before he died? He could have been anything, truthfully. Wild ideas of Peeves life when he was living ran through Saxon’s head and to the outside world, it would have probably appeared as though someone had used the body-bind curse on him but really, his head was just spinning wild fantasies of Peeves being a pirate, no – a treasure hunter… no! A murderer on the run! NO! A king!! NO!!!!! That was it.
His eyes lighting up like a thousand figurative candles, Saxon slammed his hands on the table, “He was an elephant!”
Wait no that’s not what he was trying to say. Sometimes Saxon wished he thought before he spoke. But this could be fixed easily.
“No, wait, hang on. He was an elephant person in the circus!” You know, those people Saxon had read about in the papers where they trained elephants to do tricks and stuff. What were they called? “A circus person… that trained elephants… erm… an elephant man. I think.”
He was so caught up in answering her first question he completely forgot about her second.
What had she gotten herself into? First he was yelling about elephants, now about people training them. She looked around briefly. No, this wasn't worth it. "I'd lovr and stay so I could help you figure this out, but I need to get started on some homework." She said as she casually got up, making sure to not be too fast about it.
No sooner had he begun to talk had she decided to get up and leave, blabbering about something to do with homework or something. Saxon had no interest in that but he sat there momentarily before he realised she asked how he sold ghosts. Wait, what?
Rising from his seat, Saxon had a very brief run before catching up with her and walking alongside her, “What do you mean how does one sell ghosts? I was saying I know a lot about them.”
Oh Lord above, he followed her. Making sure her feelings weren't being presented clear as day on her face, she looked at him and raised an eyebrow. "You called yourself an entrepreneur, which means you sell things." Oh well, no selling ghosts after all.
"It's not rude. I didn't want to interrupt you. By the time you finished speaking, I remembered my homework. The only rude thing is how much homework the professors give us." It took attention off of both of them and towards a common enemy. Students loved to be mad at professors.
"My name is Alina O'Malley. First year Hufflepuff."
"I think it's because Headmaster Black hates us. I think he forces them to pretend to hate us to make everyone miserable." A good theory, but unlikely. Humoring him, however, did bring her some entertainment.
Nodding at her words, Saxon couldn’t help but agree with her. Headmaster Black was always grumpy and hated literally everyone who was not himself and Saxon thought he probably hated himself too. I mean, why have a job that is literally to go to school? Boring!
“Why do you think he is the headmaster if he hates everyone?”
