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.
After the astronomy tower, this was Holliday Fudge's least favourite place at Hogwarts. Unlike the creatures that inhabited the large room with its narrow stairs and utter lack of railings, the fourth year was not an owl, and was quite certain she would die if she fell even a step. Still, needs must, and she had promised Topaz that she would keep in touch whilst at Hogwarts. With so much having happened to her friend in the past few months, Holliday would not add broken promises to the list.
And so the Ravenclaw stood in the center of the room, addressed letter in hand, looking up as she mustered the courage to climb to one of the school's owls. She didn't hear the door open.
Since childhood Trixie had been able to make herself quiet enough that she didn’t need a spell to be undetectable and she had developed a keen sense of when somebody else was up-to-something. And when that person was somebody who usually had a broomstick wedged where the sun didn’t shine Trixie was especially suspicious.
The fact that she had also been waiting for just such an occasion to catch the other girl unawares was also fairly relevant to why she following in Holliday Fudge’s footsteps to the owlery. With a nod to Cora she quietly opened the door and slid inside, pulling her wand from her pocket silently.
“Flipendo, ” she barked, letting out a shout of laughter as the other girl flew to the ground. “Oh look, she slipped on the owl droppings!”
Sometimes the speed with which Trixie moved scared Cora – she knew that if her best friend ever applied for auror, she would pass her stealth and tracking with flying colors. When she saw the familiar glint in Trixie's eyes, she knew this was such an occasion, and prepped by slipping her wand out of her robes. She entered in quietly after Trixie, steeling herself for the smell that would surely be quite unpleasant to her.
Despite this, there was no mistaking how hilarious the sight of the Ravenclaw on the ground was, and she let out a most unladylike cackle. Her eyes caught the small slip of paper beside Fudge and she flicked her wand towards it. "Accio," she said almost lazily, relishing how the letter zoomed obediently towards her. Plucking it out of the air, she grinned at Trixie. "What have we here, Trixie?" she crooned, snapping open the letter with an air of efficiency.
As her eyes scanned over the page, her vision clouded over with something that was a mix between white-hot rage, dark green jealousy, and just plain annoyance. She made sure to arrange her features into a mockingly sweet expression. "What loyalty, Fudge, I'm impressed you had it in you." Cora tilted the letter so Trixie could see.
Holliday Fudge was not clumsy by nature, not accustomed to having her limbs act on their own accord. Yet, somehow, the girl found herself flat on her back, her legs having been pulled out from under her, the letter she had clutched moments before now a yard away. It took no time at all before the reason for all of this became clear—or rather, reasons: Beatrix Borgin and Cordelia Fawley.
Holliday had never liked either girl overmuch, but had never disliked them until this year, when Borgin had made a power play (accompanied by hurtful comments) in Topaz's absence, the Gryffindor ever Borgin's shadow. Now, Holliday's feelings towards her yearmates edged closer to hate, and it was only that the wind had been entirely knocked from her lungs that stopped her from striking back swiftly.
The Ravenclaw had no time to gather her bearings, never mind her letter, before it was in Fawley's hand.
"Give it back," Holliday insisted with cool defiance as she sat up, never once expecting her directions would be followed. "We aren't all cruel turncoats."
“Who’re you calling a turncoat?” Trixie retorted with a cold laugh, eying the letter with mirth. “I thought she was a mongrel before that wolf proved it to the rest of the world.”
The former Minister, from what Trixie had heard, came from proper money, the sort nobody could take from you and he had as good a blood heritage as anybody could ask for. What kind of fool would throw all of that away for an inadequate wife who birthed children stupid enough to get themselves bitten by a werewolf? People ought to stay in their places, no matter how miserable it made them.
How odd that with Cora's condition, Fudge's voice put the taste of her exact namesake in her mouth. As their animosity towards each other had grown throughout the years, it was a wonder that Cora had ever liked the taste of the chocolate treat before now.
Currently, it was the object of her disgust, and she didn't hesitate to make it known. Her nose crinkled primly as she scanned over the letter again. "Ah, how sweet." she crooned as she snapped the piece of parchment in a professional-like manner. She cleared her throat. "Fudge it seems that you might want to re-examine that relationship of yours with the beast lest your Father – a ghost father, if that counts for anything nowadays," she added, sotto voce to Trixie before continuing her affection of an admonishing superior. "get wind of anything lecherous between you two."
She glanced back over the edge of the paper, her coal eyes glittering with hostility while a twitch of a grin made itself known across her features.
It was one thing—an unforgivable thing—to speak so cruelly of Ruby, but at the mention of her father, Holliday found herself incapable of further restraint. Her own wand was now in her hand as she stared icily at the Gryffindor.
"My father gave his own life to keep me alive—more than anyone would ever do for you," she spat at Fawley.
Quick as a flash, and without the restraint that being well-behaved placed upon a person, Trixie slashed her own wand at Fudge to disarm the girl, however for all her speed Trixie lacked for precision and the wand flew awkwardly and rattled amongst the owl droppings before stopping at her feet. Trixie snorted cruelly and kicked it out the window.
"I'm sure he'll regret it eventually. When you're long dead and he's still floating about his stupid hotel."
Cora's face blanched at Fudge's retort. There was a jolt of unpleasantness around her stomach and she lost composure to control her features as her vision clouded red. She was glad that Trixie had immediately disarmed Fudge though; had the brunette had her wand with her, Cora might not have been above hexing the girl, though she was not as comfortable as her best friend at hexing people when they weren't aware of the fact.
"Your father died because of your foolishness, Fudge," She snapped as her scowl deepened and her voice climbed in decibel with every syllable. "Not because he wanted you to be alive, but because he didn't want to live with the fact that his own child in Ravenclaw didn't have the decency or intelligence to think for herself in a crisis!"
Her stomach twisted as Holliday watched her wand drop over the edge. She was now unarmed, and Merlin knew if the wand would survive the fall. She was no longer even trying to restrain her tears of frustration as an angry scream ripped out of her.
Her lip curled in satisfaction, the sweet sound of someone else's dismay drowning out the howling inside her own soul, if only for a moment. Underneath the scream she could hear another sound though – footsteps, approaching quickly too. Nudging Cora she nodded towards the door.
The words had been sweet relief as Cora spat them at Fudge, however the look on Fudge's face (in addition to the own look-over-the-edge-of-a-bottomless-pit feeling that was slowly sinking into her own stomach) after she'd said it did little to quell the tumult of anger, sadness and, frankly, self-loathing that overwhelmed her.
She clenched her jaw, her hands in fists as she stared down at the Ravenclaw. Her own tears threatened to give her feelings away, and she turned hastily away and followed Trixie out – not before casting a guilty glance back at the place where Fudge's wand had been kicked out.
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