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 wasn't late. Well maybe he was, just a few minutes though! This was, unfortunately, not unusual for Noah, but not one of his better qualities. He owned a pocket watch, in fact he owned several (he liked to tinker with them in his spare time), but for some reason he just didn't have the forethought to plan ahead better. It was a good thing he was good at his job, otherwise Darrow might have fired him as soon as she had taken the position. It was ten past when he was due in and he flew into his seat at his desk in a whirlwind, sending papers flying. His desk was not typically all that organized to begin with, so this was no great loss, but he supposed it wasn't helping either.
He was at his seat for all of four minutes when he heard his name hollered from the boss' office. Shit.
Noah at least had the decency to look sheepish as he poked his head into Darrow's office, hair a little wild and cheeks still a little flushed from sprinting through the hallways to get to his desk. "Yes?" Hopefully this was not the day she did decide to fire him.
Merlin, she had inherited a tribe of misfits, hadn't she? "Silas" would have liked to see her head on a spike, "Agatha" kept trying to get Zelda to join her for tea every night, and Farley — Farley was all over the place. He knew more about muggle artifacts than she did, but struggled with his time more than Zelda had thought possible, and sometimes she thought that if he didn't work here he would have been one of the criminals they arrested.
She had things on her lists for all the investigators today, and thought that she may as well start with him, because at least Farley meant well. Zelda summoned him at a bellow from her desk, and smiled at him when he came in. Her desk was neat, well-organized — the opposite, she knew, of his.
"Farley," Zelda said, trying to sound upbeat and not stern, even though this was likely going to be a stern conversation. "How's your morning so far?"
There was no use in pretending that he was put together at any point in his day. Noah could get lost in his work with the best of them, spending hours upon hours investigating, reading and writing, forgetting to eat. He went from rushing around like a diricawl with its head cut off to not moving for hours on end. He was all or nothing, apparently.
Hovering by the door to Mrs. Darrow's office, he looked down at his shoes. "Harried, Ma'am, as usual." Noah ran a hand through his hair in a lame attempt to tame the curls, but probably only made it worse. "Yourself?" Hopefully she was in a good mood? That would certainly help him retain his position here.
Harried. Farley was always harried, and his glasses were already sitting askew on top of his curls, and he'd set them even further askew with his hand. Sometimes — often — Zelda was not sure what to do with him. How had the office head before her handled the Farley situation? If she were not so proud, she would ask Evander.
"Busy," Zelda said, because between the children and Alfred underway and her new job here, she was always busy. "But good. Close the door, sit down."
So much for good mood. Noah replaced his glasses onto his face and sat where indicated. He highly doubted this was going to be anything positive, so he may as well follow directions and not rock the boat any further.
"Busy isn't always bad." Noah liked to be busy.. He rarely sat still, even when he was concentrating. He did his best work pacing. A desk job really wasn't the most conducive for him, but what else was he supposed to do? He wasn't in the mood to be impertinent, so he waited to see what it was she wanted to talk to him about.
"Routine, Ma'am?" As in... what he did before he got to work? There was no routine. He supposed he did the same things, but rarely in the same order, whatever it was that needed to come first before work.
Noah had always just sort of thrived on chaos, there was no rhyme nor reason and it suited him in most respects. He'd gotten through Hogwarts alright, was on time for work most of the time. He could work on it.
"Ah, get up, get dressed, eat." It seemed pretty straightforward, but he often did it in different orders pending how hungry he was, or if he was running late (often). Food was almost always an afterthought when he got caught up and he liked sleep a lot, so it was a little inconsistent, he supposed. "The usual?" Isn't that what everybody did in the morning if they had to leave for work?
The lack of details secured it for Zelda: Farley didn't have a routine, or at least not a real one. This was abhorrent to Zelda, who had been fairly routine-oriented even before she had children — at least in the mornings. Her nighttime routines varied wildly, especially because she wasn't always on top of her sleep schedule. She sighed.
"I'm not sure you're setting yourself up for success," Zelda said, trying not to sound exasperated and coming out flat. "And that it's contributing to your lateness and — organizational issues."
Setting himself up for success? It was work. He wasn't like... doing anything groundbreaking. Was he supposed to take this more seriously? "I can ah, try and come up with something?" Maybe he could start trying to do things in the same order, not get distracted? Wake up a few minutes earlier. It wasn't great that Darrow had noticed enough of a pattern that she needed to speak to him. He did want to keep his job, despite his nonchalance.
Farley's promise wasn't groundbreaking, but it also was apparently more than he'd been doing so far. Zelda nodded sagely, and tucked a stray strand of hair behind her ear. "I also have some questions about your filing system," Zelda said, because this was the real problem (other than the lateness.) "How do you organize your desk?"
"Piles," despite the fact that his desk looked a mess, Noah did, in fact, have a loose organization system. "Newest on the far left, then progressively more urgent toward the middle." He was good at his job, despite his obvious flaws. His knowledge of muggle artifacts extended beyond that of some of his colleagues, having grown up with parents and siblings who were obsessed with muggles. He tinkered on his own a lot too, really took things apart and put them back together. His workshop at home in the basement was fairly organized. "I do know where everything is." He promised her.
Farley's promise wasn't groundbreaking, but it also was apparently more than he'd been doing so far. Zelda loathed the concept of piles as a system, but was half-relieved that Farley could describe something. After the routine debacle, she had started to expect the worst. "I believe you," she said, even though she was not entirely sure that she did. It wouldn't do to crush his spirit. "But the piles give the impression to those who see your desk that you're not nearly as organized."
Mrs. Darrow had a fair point. It did look like a disheveled mess, even if he knew what it all meant and as a gesture of good will, because he did like his job, Noah asked, "Do you have a suggestion, or is there a department standard I should try?" Noah didn't exactly pay much attention to what his coworkers did and nobody had mentioned it before. Had he missed a memo? Regardless, he was open to try something if it got him back in the boss' good graces.
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