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 1894. It’s time to join us and immerse yourself in scandal and drama interlaced with magic both light and dark.
See your character from sorting through graduation by completing at least one thread each year (10+ posts, 3+ yours) and participating in the initial sorting ceremony.
Did You Know?
Did you know? Before the 1920's, it was believed that the Milky Way Galaxy was the only galaxy in the universe. — Steph
Violetta led Leonard Blank into the detention room where the new Arithmancy professor sat fiddling with a small cube with one hand and making hurried notes with the other hand about it. Violetta gestured to a seat towards the back and waiting for Mr Blank to sit, she had tried to be pleasant to him for the rest of the day since his transgression and she hoped he realised that there was nothing personal, it wouldn't be kind of her to spoil his fun in welcoming the new first years entirely. But there was an expectation of respectable behaviour after all.
"Mr Blank, please be seated and gather yourself a sheet of paper and a quill Monsieur." she said sweetly but formally before spinning and walking to place a small note on the desk of the professor that he barely read before getting back to his note taking. It didn't have any details, just her name, and that Blank would be doing lines for "general misbehaviour". She returned to Leonard, hopefully he was ready and they could quite quickly return to their friends.
Leonard shuffled into the room as though he were a prisoner on the way to the gallows. He looked pale and miserable and carried his worn-out bag with school supplies. The new Professor for Arithmancy sat with them to keep watch, and the boy regarded him with a mixture of fear and disgust. Not only was he creeped out by Professor Knotwoods strange appearance, he saw in his eyes the keen intelligence of a trickster. And Leo was somewhat of a trickster himself and thus feared everyone who could see trough that.
This was bad. He sat down and took out paper. He hesitated; there were two quills in his bag. One was magical, the other ordinary. With a sinking feeling, he settled on the ordinary one and set it down on the table. "Alright," he said, barely audible. "I am ready. What do I need to write?"
Violetta sat at the desk next to Leonard after delivery her not and looked at him curiously, a little concerned just how downtrodden the boy now looked. She wasn't here to make him feel bad, nor was this even a particularly ardous punishment, it was simply about redefining a boundary.
She thought for a moment. "You can write the words. I accept that my decorum was inappropriate and it shall not happen again.." she smiled and nodded towards his paper for him to proceed. "And there is no need to feel so unhappy about this, it's just lines, non? You must have had detention before?" Violetta had had lines before herself. It had not been since her first year, but she had experienced this very situation due to her less than amiable attitude towards school when she first began. Oh how papa was furious, maybe this is way Leonard was concerned about too.
"Not really, no.", Leonard mumbled. In his past he had been either too anxious to please to do aything to earn a detention, or he had not been caught. With a nervous look towards Professor Knotwood, he took up the quill and started writing.
I aceqt that my decroum was inaqrqqr inaqroaite and it shal not haqen again
He wrote slowly and put his arm over his paper to block it from Violetta's view, smearing streaks along the lines when he moved it. Leonard had memorized the shorter words and knew what they were supposed to look like. Longer words were a guessing game. The first and last letters were easy, since they made the shape of what it was. But the spaces inbetween were another matter. His cheeks were flushed. This could not be right. With his magic feather, this sentence would have looked different, he knew it.
With a pained look to Professor Knotwood, he agonized over the possibility of switching the quills and crossing out everything he had written so far. Could he dare?
Violetta wasn't watching Leonard that closely to begin with as she pulled out her own class book and began to read a little, no sense wasting time. But his demeanor in general piqued her curiosity. She doubted she had ever seen anyone look so uncomfortable writing a few lines, and the punishment wasn't even supposed to be all that ardous, just something to inconvenience him enough to remember it. "Is everything ok Monsieur?" she asked glancing down at his page and stretching her neck a little to look over his barrier. She looked up at his eyes before raising her eyebrow to give him a chance to explain his rather remedial penmanship and spelling.
Leonard had known Violetta for a while and would know that she wasn't a mean person, in fact quite the contrary. It was her feeling of self worth and entitlement that made her a slytherin, not her spirit. But boys were never meant to show any kind of weakness so he might as well tell her to mind her own as actually confess his shortcomings.
The professor looked over to the pair with his human eye and watched them interact, it was her detention, she could talk to him as she saw fit.
Violetta came over just as Leonard decided to cross everything out and try again. He attempted to put his hand over the line he had written, but it was too late. He could see in her eyes that she had seen his writing. Heat rose through his neck into his face, and he was sure that he was turning red. "Everything is fine," he said, unconvincingly.
He glanced over to the professor. One of his mismatched eyes was watching them. "Miss DeCroix, may I go?" Leonard asked. He could not do it; The lines he would not be able to write without making a complete fool of himself; the magic quill he dared not to use. If he continued and turned the paper in, he would leave evidence for all to see his inadequacy. "Please," he entreated Violetta and looked up to her with all the desperation of a downtrodden little dog, cast out into the gutters and begging for a scrap of—what? Dignity?
"Please. I do not feel well."
The quiver of his voice could make you believe it. He was watching for a movement in her face, a sign of her taking pity on him. It vexed him terribly to be at her mercy, but he was ready to beg—was already doing that.
It was quite puzzling to Violetta to see the reaction from Leonard to the task at hand. His poor handwriting was not that suprising as the lower classes rarely prioritised that, but he was a fourth year, it should be better. What really bothered her was his pleading with her for clemency, she did not want that.
Violetta pulled out Rose de Minuit and with her back between Leonard and the professor placed its tip on the page. She muttered something and Leonard would feel the quill in his hand begin to fight his grip and pull itself into the curls that he may or may not recognise as a particularly French cursive style. "Monsieur, I believe that my point has been made and that you shall not repeat such a mean thing, oui?" she asked with softness. The professor was looking up, it was her punishment, he was just supervising and had no real qualms how she administered it unless she was inappropriate.
She was a prefect but she was still herself, she had no ill will towards the younger boy. And she had let her anger get the better of herself after all. "I didn't mean to make you feel bad, so I will let you leave... but... Monsieur..." assuming he had relaxed his hand and let the quill lead several lines of her chosen words would now be written and the quill scribbled away. "Don't make me regret it, oui?" She didn't believe it to be true, but there was a chance this was all a ruse to get one over on her, but she was comfortable with her decision.
![[Image: 0WVY2Kt.png]](https://i.imgur.com/0WVY2Kt.png)
![[Image: leo-b.png]](https://i.ibb.co/Qm9Zpcs/leo-b.png)