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
He let her in through the garden gate, as he had a few times this summer — it was a good thing that he was often brewing her potions, and that sometimes she brewed them with him, or someone would have said something by now. The sun still set late at this point in the summer, and the sky was orange tonight — Noble had had the door of the workshop wide open to get some of the breeze flowing in. Now that she was here, Noble closed the door behind them.
"I'm working on a batch of pain potions tonight," Noble said. The pit had been good for business, which felt shitty to think but was also true. He expected that some of its victims would continue ordering from him for a few months now — once they were off the pain potions, they'd want a scar salve. He leaned in to press an introductory kiss to her mouth, warm. They had been continually ramping their level of physical contact over the summer. The last time she'd been by, Noble had touched her under her skirt, and he was fairly thrilled about it.
"But once I add the unicorn tail hairs, I don't have to stare at it — you weren't in town for the pit, right?"
Rosalie hadn't slept for longer than a two hour stretch since before falling into the pit. When she wasn't at the hospital attending in whatever capacity she could to the continued influx of patients, she was at home restless and paranoid about another hole suddenly opening beneath her feet. When she was home, she was thinking of Delphine and how close she'd come to losing her sister. She was thinking of Ezra and his dead sister.
Rosalie couldn't spend another moment thinking.
Which was how she wound up in the increasingly familiar workshop, already kissed once and pulsing with the desire to forget everything for a short while.
"I was," Rosalie answered quietly, not entirely looking at him. "My sister and I were out for a walk in the park. She will be alright, thankfully. And you - were you in it?" Admittedly, Rosalie hadn't even thought of Noble until they had been rescued and Delphine's injuries were assessed by a healer. And, by the time she had thought of him there was too much to do at the hospital to see if he was alright.
She wasn't looking at him. Sometimes when she was here it was clear that she was trying to forget something — Noble usually took that as a sign that he would have to perform intimacy a bit more than he would have otherwise. It didn't particularly bother him. They were both trying to forget.
"I fell in," he admitted. "But I made it — mostly alright." Mostly. He hadn't broken anything, and other than his scrapes and bruises and the rips in his clothes — he could almost pretend it hadn't happened. He walked back over to the cauldron. He still couldn't drop the unicorn hairs in.
"I only need a few minutes first," he added. After that, he could focus fully on distracting them both.
Those who survived would all be mostly alright in the end. They would have to live with the trauma, remembering the terror in waves, but ultimately even those memories would fade. Rosalie looked over at him then, her healer's eye doing an obvious assessment for any obvious physical injuries, and nodded once when she didn't find any. "I'm glad you're alright." Rosalie ought to have commented over the state of the park or asked whether he knew when it would reopen, but she didn't have it in her. In truth, she didn't know if she would ever visit the park again.
A pause and then - "Is there anything you would like help with in the meantime?"
Noble was relieved that they were talking about something else; it was easier to talk about potions than it was to talk about feelings. "Could you grind one of the bitterroots down into a powder?" he asked, with a gesture to where he kept the ingredient. "I'll need to add it later."
Some beats passed when they worked; her grinding down the bitterroot, him periodically stirring. Finally, he dropped the unicorn hairs into the potion and watched them sink in after giving them a stir. "Well," he said, leaning back on his heels and grinning at her, "Now I'm ready for anything."
Rosalie was grateful for the distraction as she easily set about grinding his requested roots down. Preparing the ingredients for her various potions was amongst Rosalie's favorite aspects of her job, and she sometimes wondered why she hadn't gone into strictly potioneering herself. (The answer was always glaringly obvious in that there wasn't enough strict discipline to adhere to at a time when she needed something to follow.)
She had gotten several roots prepared when he finally finished adding the hairs, and she returned his grin with a smile of her own. "Anything is a dangerous proposition." Rosalie answered with her brow raised. The last time she was here he'd had his hand up her skirt, and she was keen on exploring those same sensations without her skirts.
Noble grinned back at her, cheerful, and closed the distance between them. Carefully, he moved the powder and stone she had been using to the side. Noble leaned in to press a kiss to her neck, more intimate than he'd been before, and laid a hand on her hip over her skirts. "Hop up on the counter?" Noble asked into the side of her neck.
Rosalie expected to be kissed and touched, but still her breath hitched as he leaned in to kiss her neck. She leaned her head to the side, allowing him better access, and pressed a (gentler, almost a peck) to his still clothed shoulder. One day she'd touch him beneath his many buttoned up layers. One day she'd give him the sort of pleasure she always envisioned giving -
She was grateful for his direction, for the forced change of thoughts, as she listened without complaint. Rosalie moved to rest her arms around his shoulders as she drew him between her knees as much as her skirts would allow. Then, before he kissed her again, she asked softly, "does your family notice if you're late coming in some nights?"
He liked when she was on the counter; standing between her skirts like this was starting to feel natural. With one thumb, Noble rubbed affectionate circles against her hip. He lost the rhythm with her question. "No," he answered, without thinking hard about it. He was not sure they had all always been so self-centered, but they certainly were now — and Noble was the least important component of the Greengrass household.
"No one cares what I do," he added. That was sort of a bleak thought — there would have been a time that it was reassuring to him, but now it made him feel largely hollow. To distract himself, he continued his line of kisses down her neck and into the narrow window of skin visible above her bodice.
I care what you do. The thought was instinctual, a surging wave she could just barely restrain. To care meant there were more than casual feelings involved, feelings that, unfortunately for them, could be resolved only through marriage or parting ways. They had both been clear at the start of the summer where their interests were, what this meant to them. Rosalie couldn't be the person to care for him.
Even if instinct screamed at her that she ought to. That he was another broken soul that she could perhaps help heal.
She forced herself to focus instead on the sensations he was providing her. His hands on her hips, his breath on her neck and over the top of her breasts. "My aunt is traveling at the end of the month, visiting some relatives in France." Rosalie breathily explained. "We could - " her train of thought derailed momentarily as he reached a particularly sensitive spot. Her fingers tangled in his hair and tugged upwards, forcing him to look at her. "You could come over."
Noble liked the sensation of her hands in his hair, the way she gave his head a tug up — there was a rush of blood accompanying the motion. His face was flushed when he smiled at her. "I'd like that," he said, earnest despite his inherent desire to be relaxed, and effortlessly interesting, whenever she was here with him.
"Would you? Like that?"
He wasn't dense; he knew what coming over would mean.
His flushed smile helped to further distract her. Easy. This was easy with him, simple in a way nothing else in her life was. Rosalie ran her fingers over his scalp, soothing the spots where she'd just tugged, and returned his smile with one of her own.
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