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Welcome to Charming, the year is now 1895. It’s time to join us and immerse yourself in scandal and drama interlaced with magic both light and dark.

Where will you fall?

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Did you know? Jewelry of jet was the haute jewelry of the Victorian era. — Fallin
What she got was the opposite of what she wanted, also known as the subtitle to her marriage.
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zero hope of potions mastery
#1
October 21, 1894 — Potions Classroom
Connor Sinnet Elias Grimstone

Phin wonders how many people actually remember that his father once taught Potions before he was the Headmaster. Because if they did, it would be very embarrassing that Phin wasn't turning out to be a natural at the subject at all. He could tell himself all he liked that it had only been a couple of months, he still had loads of time to get the hang of things, but that didn't change the fact that he was here, staring at a cure for boils potion that did not look right.

"Can you make sense of this?" he asked Mr. Sinnet, gesturing at the potions recipe in their textbook. "I've definitely done something wrong."


#2
It wasn’t his favourite, but Connor took particular care with potions, very aware of all the things that could go wrong – and did go wrong, judging by his peers’ work sometimes – when one made the slightest error.

And he was glad he wasn’t absolutely useless at it, because he probably wouldn’t have swallowed his pride and asked anyone for help. Black had asked, though (well, sort of: he had phrased it as a puzzle to solve). And Black’s brother was Head Boy and his father was Headmaster, so... Connor thought he might be a good friend to have, maybe. He didn’t know how to make friends, exactly, or what to do when one had them, but being patient about this problem seemed like a good place to start.

“Well, there’s no pink smoke,” Connor began, then peering quizzically into the cauldron – careful not to touch it, in case the concoction gave him boils instead. “And it’s not really blue.” It was a longer recipe than most they had looked at so far, so there were various ways it could have gone off track. He was no expert, so this would have to be an investigation... “Did you stir it enough?”


#3
"I thought I did?" Phin frowned down at his potion. "Maybe not." He gave the potion a few experimental stirs, and he thought the color at least got a little better. "Thanks." He was grateful Sinnet didn't sound like he was judging him, at least. Phin didn't like failure, and he didn't like that he was learning this fact about himself this way. "I don't think 'potioneer' is going to be my future career," he said, a bit miserably.


#4
Connor pulled a face – something like a frown of sympathy. Potions was finicky, he supposed. It felt like a more exacting business than even the recipes made out: like the slightest addition of anything could throw the whole concoction out of whack. (He was pleased with himself that his suggestion had made it look better rather than worse, though. Over-stirring could have been just as bad.)

“It was that or missing an ingredient, or mixing them in the wrong order,” Connor considered, with a shrug; and those were harder mistakes to undo. He glanced down at the list of ingredients, to check whether there was anything still lying on the desk that Black had obviously forgotten or not... but he tilted his head in interest as to why the other boy sounded so depressed about it. “Did you want it to be?” Connor asked. “Or – is potioneer what your parents hoped you’d do?”


#5
"Not that they've mentioned," Phin said. Not that it mattered, he thought miserably. Failure wasn't an option. Not if he wanted peace in his life, anyway. Well. Some peace. "But they have, you know, expectations. About being successful." He made a face. "In general, I think, not just at Potions."


#6
“Oh,” Connor said, a little stumped by that idea. He – couldn’t relate. “Mine don’t – care so much, what I do. I don’t have any siblings, though.” His mother loved him, he thought, and Marius tolerated him – but he felt more like a pet to them than a person, sometimes. They had never talked about his future, never even alluded to who he might be. He couldn’t disappoint them, because they were satisfied as long as he was there... unless he did what his sister had done, and left for good?

“I mean, I want to do well,” he admitted, only because it felt like Black wanted the same. “But not for them.”


#7
Honestly, Phin thought that sounded nicer, at least on some level. On the one hand, Phin thought his family didn't care about him much if at all, but on the other, they certainly seemed to care when he did something wrong, and that wasn't much better. "I guess if no one else cares what we do, at least we can figure out what we like for ourselves," he said. He screwed up his face. He might have liked more direction than that, personally, but other people's expectations didn't actually make things easier most of the time, anyway.


#8
“There’s that,” Connor agreed, a little wry. “What’s your favourite subject so far, then?” he asked, more boldly. The subtext of this was not potions, I assume. But if Black was anything like him, he would have more fun talking about things he was good at than the things he wasn’t.


#9
"Transfiguration's interesting so far," Phin answered. He thought he might be more in his element with wandwork-heavy classes, which was a nice finding. "I've heard there are people who get good enough at it before graduation that they even manage the animagus transformation by then." Phin shrugged. "Don't know if I'd try it, but maybe." Having some kind of goal related to becoming skilled at a particular subject seemed like good motivation to him. "What about you?"


#10
“Transfiguration’s interesting.” But he wrinkled his nose at the animagus thing. There it was again – the Sorting Hat had even posed it as a question. Why was everyone so obsessed with turning into animals? (Did people actually want to be animals, or was it just to show off? Connor could get behind the latter, he supposed. Do it just to say he could.)

“I’m good at History of Magic,” Connor admitted, as offhand as he could manage. Finding it easy was much the same as liking it. And he was alright at Potions so far, as evidenced – but that was in spite of the overpowering smells and the general chaos of the classroom. He didn’t love Charms for that either; he didn’t love the Herbology classes for being out under bright sunlight. Never mind his skin, the glare gave him a headache. On the other hand – he liked being out on the towers at night. “And maybe Astronomy. Do you know when we get to take all the other subjects?”


#11
"Third year's when we pick electives," Phin said. "Up to three, I think." He hoped he'd have a better idea by then of what he'd even want to take. Though maybe he was being too hard on himself--eleven was probably too early to be worrying about his future. Probably. "If you like history, you might be interested in Ancient Studies," he said. At least, it sounded like the sort of connection that'd make sense.



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