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.
With the same account, complete eight different threads where your character interacts with eight different usergroups. At least one must be a non-human, and one a student.
Did You Know?
Braces, or suspenders, were almost universally worn due to the high cut of men's trousers. Belts did not become common until the 1920s. — MJ
After helping finish up anything that could be required before all of the students went back to Hogwarts, Tobias felt as though he had worked more in the last few weeks than he had in a long, long time. He wasn't used to being so stationary either, even though he hovered between the shop in London and the one in Hogsmeade, mostly behind the scenes, as he didn't want to step on anyone's toes. His cousins had things well in hand and Miss Reid was quite capable from what he could tell, he mostly seemed superfluous, but it never hurt to have another set of capable hands around.
In the London shop today, he'd worked most of the morning, familiarizing himself with what his cousin had already made and tinkered with a wand he'd been working on for weeks at this point. He was still trying to get the core to mesh with this particular wood and it was being quite stubborn. Whoever wound up with it would have to be equally as set in stone to get it to cooperate appropriately. He would like to see the day.
By lunchtime he needed a break and Rita was getting a little ornery from being cooped up inside, and getting on poor Miss Reid's nerves so he decided he would walk down to the Cauldron for something to eat and maybe a drink, tea at the very least. With his raccoon waddling beside him on the cobblestones, Tobias drew looks of from every which way. He knew they weren't native to here and that most people would have only seen them in books, but he hadn't had the heart to leave her behind when he'd left the States, so here she was, the only raccoon in thousands of miles. "Oy, stay out of the puddles, please." He laughed as she barely dodged one. The look she gave him clearly said not to tell her what to do. Who needed a wife when a sassy raccoon could give you just as good of a death stare?
Emilia was lonely, with Anne back at school — the only part that was difficult about admitting it was that it had been true every year since her children had gone to Hogwarts. Perhaps she would have gotten over it by now if Kit still lived with them, but as it was — she was lonely.
So she took long walks around London, when she was not at work, and sometimes during her lunch break. Today's wasn't doing any help for her mood, with the puddles and the the gray threat of more incoming rain.
And then she saw the man with a raccoon, and they were clearly familiar, because the raccoon looked rather ornery with him.
"That's a raccoon," Emilia commented, a statement of fact — the look she fixed the man with was largely quizzical. She had not seen a raccoon outside of a zoo or a book before, and was perhaps feeling mildly judgmental about it.
Tobias had to chuckle at the straightforward comment. "Aye, that she is." He nodded, as the woman had assumed correctly. "Her name is Rita and she's a stubborn pest." He cast the feisty creature a look as she stopped to fish for something in someone's abandoned basket near the curb.
"And a long story, but I picked her up in America a year or so ago when I was in the Northeast. Couldn't just leave her." Poor orphan had lost her mum to some predator and the Native tribe he had been living with at the time thought he might benefit from raising her. How, he had no idea, but he couldn't complain. She was sassy, but companionable and snuggly too. She always made him laugh, which was good for him, he supposed.
"Got a bit of an attitude, but she's harmless." Unless you were a snack of some kind. The she could be quite voracious.
She was right, it was a raccoon, and he'd picked her up in the States. Emilia adjusted her grip on her parasol. Emilia had several questions, and she knew they were rude to deploy without warning, but she was also interested, and there was an extent to which he'd invited the questions. He'd brought the raccoon out with him, after all.
"How would you say she's similar to a regular pet?" Emilia asked, direct and quizzical. She added, a half-smile on her face, "Does Rita know her name?"
Tobias was amused by the woman's curiosity. "Aye, she knows her name, whether she'll listen or not, is another story." Rita was as stubborn as they came, unless she was in a particularly good mood. "Rita, would you like a snack?" Her little ears perked up, but probably more at the mention of the word snack, than her name being called.
He held out the remaining piece of a carrot she'd been slowly working on all day. She loved them and he'd been cutting it up, piece by piece, trying to keep her entertained and out of Miss Reid's hair. "And I would say she's much more stubborn, hard to train. I got her as an orphaned kit, though, so she's better for me." Which he wasn't sure that was actually true, as he'd never spoken to anyone else who had one, but he supposed she was no worse than an ill-tempered cat. As Rita came in for her carrot, Tobias scooped her up, and held her like a baby while she chomped on the vegetable. "Mostly friendly, a little too smart for her own good. Mischievous to a fault." He could go on, but that was the general idea.
Emilia was impressed that the creature was smart enough to know her name, and charmed by the twitch in Rita's ears at the offering of a snack. The raccoon was obviously thrilled with her gift of carrot, and it struck Emilia that a man who would rescue an orphaned raccoon was probably a good one. She was always interested to get to know more good people; they were hard to find.
"I'm Emilia Moony," she said, because she had to introduce herself if she was going to ask more questions about his friend Rita. "Can I pet her?"
Introductions were always something of a thing for him. His surname was well-known, even if he wasn't and there was always the inevitable follow up explanation, but there was no avoiding it. "Tobias Ollivander, it's nice to mee you." He hadn't been back in London long, but he supposed he ought to get out of the shop more. He hadn't met too many people, outside of those that came to the shop so he was grateful for the conversation if nothing else.
"Sure, just avoid her head." Rita wasn't particularly snappy, in fact she generally enjoyed affection, but usually on her terms. Tobias just wasn't about to test the theory while she was snacking. He shifted the raccoon in his arms so she was up over his shoulder munching on her carrot. Her fur was soft and fluffy to the touch and she wasn't shy about getting attention when she wanted it.
Emilia wasn't one for big reactions, but her eyebrow bobbed up at his surname — another Ollivander? She thought she had at least a passing awareness of most of the family; she had gone to school alongside both Mssrs. Gervaise and Gerbold Ollivander. But no, this was another one, without a g name — and he'd been in America for some amount of time. A cousin, perhaps — or a younger brother she'd been unaware of.
"Will do," Emilia said. She reached out to gently stroke the raccoon's furry back, and smiled softly at the feeling of soft, fluffy fur under her fingers. "She's so soft!" Emilia whispered, enthused.
"Very fluffy," Tobias agreed with a chuckle. "Doesn't always match her attitude, but that's to be expected." Nobody around here really knew much about raccoons as they were native to the area. Which was why he wasn't surprised when people reacted the same way as his current company.
Rita had finished her carrot and turned around, using Tobias' face as her leverage, to search out more. He was used to it, but it was no less annoying. "Here," he reached out to Mrs. Moony to hand her a walnut from his pocket. He had snacks for Rita everywhere. "She's happy as long as she's fed." Wasn't that the life, though?
Deceptively soft for something with that much attitude — Emilia's lips quirked up into a private smile, because she could not help but imagine her daughter.
Emilia smiled at the walnut and offered it to Rita. "Oh, so am I," she said as the critter gobbled up her offering. "Do you keep your pockets full of snacks for her? She's like a toddler."
Tobias had to chuckle as Mrs. Moony compared herself to Rita. "She is exactly like a toddler, though I would not presume to say as much about you." He was not quite so brash as to tell a woman he'd just met such things. "And yes, I do keep pockets full of snacks. I attract all sorts of critters." Mostly stray dogs, which he did feed if he could find something in his pockets they could eat.
Emilia chuckled back at Mr. Ollivander, and then took a step back, settling her hands on her hips. In the excitement about Rita, she'd largely forgotten the rain, and did not particularly mind the damp settling in on her hair.
"Not just raccoons, then?" Emilia asked, intrigued.
"No, I have a small owl too. He's also pretty ornery." Puck was temperamental at best. Why was this a theme among his pets? "I lived in the States for a while, studying the wandlore of the Native tribes. Animals are so woven into their every day that it sort of became second nature." Tobias often preferred creatures to people and somehow, though he couldn't fathom why, they seemed drawn to him too.
The drizzle wasn't anything Tobias was unfamiliar with, but he didn't need Rita soaking wet, she tended to smell a little and took a while to dry out. "I was heading down to the Cauldron for something to eat, if you were heading that way?"
An owl was much less exotic than a raccoon, but wand lore of the Americas felt like something that made sense for him. Also, it explained how he was an Ollivander she had never heard of.
Emilia took a beat to answer his question. She had not really been heading anywhere in particular; just to whatever smelled good. "I'd go down to the Cauldron," she said, "I am on my lunch break."
"How fortuitous." Tobias chuckled, shoving Rita back up onto his shoulder a little better as she continued to munch on her walnut. She wasn't quite as large as most raccoons, and he was rather broad in the shoulders so it worked out alright. She wasn't a big fan of getting her feet wet anyway. Tobias motioned for Mrs. Moony to lead the way toward the cauldron. At least Rita was an easy way to meet people.
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