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
Content Warningdrug mentions, probably some significant drunkenness
You're black ice on the road on a drunken summer night, but
I got your number, your name, and your will to fight
Will you be coming over? Will you be coming? Reckon you might
December, 1889 — Brooks' Flat
Six weeks. Mor had left Brooks alone for six weeks, when she was a verifiable shut-in, leaving only to see some of her friends or to go to a private room of the library, or occasionally to acquire laudanum, which would at least numb out some of the hours while she waited for the scandal to ebb. She may have managed to leave him alone for longer, but the previous night she spent time kissing Orion, and the experience mostly left her missing Brooks.
She had, actually, broken into his flat once before. They'd been courting, and she left him a flirtatious note. This time, she left the house near midnight and broke in with nothing to offer but the engagement ring she had in the pocket of her jacket. The smell of liquor assaulted her nose as soon as she made it in through the front door and closed it behind her.
She followed the smell to Brooks' parlor, where he was looking particularly disheveled. "Hmm," Mor hummed, considering the wreckage she had left.
Without being responsible for going to work tomorrow, the drink had truly overcome him. In the last six weeks were a bit of a blur; work, which was dicey and home to get drunk. Sometimes he ventured out on the weekends to an opium den or some other salacious vice, but tonight he was in the mood to be alone and not to deal with the looks or worry about his mouth. The booze always brought out the bitter in him and he had a lot to be bitter about lately.
He was laid out on the sofa, shirt halfway unbuttoned, untucked, sleeves rolled up and a bottle of whiskey that was three-quarters of the way gone after getting home from the ministry earlier. It wasn't a good look. He knew it wasn't a good look, but it hadn't interfered with his work yet and so he was going to keep pushing the boundary until it pushed back.
A noise in another part of the house registered in his head, but he didn't give it much thought. If somebody was breaking in to kill him, well they best get it over with. Instead, the noise that greeted him, much closer than expected, was a familiar voice and mannerism he'd heard a thousand times before. "Ah fuck I can't even get drunk without you haunting me." He put his hand dramatically to his head and covered his eyes hoping she would disappear.
February 1, 2025 – 5:30 AM
Last modified: February 1, 2025 – 5:30 AM by Morrigan Selden.
He was covering his eyes. He smelled of liquor. Morrigan had never, actually, seen someone this drunk — she had certainly never been this drunk. She considered Brooks with an interest that was both sympathetic and scientific. Would he even remember that she had been here? The engagement ring felt like a lead weight in her pocket.
"It's only haunting if you don't want to see me," Morrigan said. It would have been a jest if she did not believe it to be true. It was a shame, she thought — he would never entirely understand that this was better for him. "Are you going to vomit?" People who were this drunk vomited, didn't they? She would prefer to avoid that.
Did he want to see her? He supposed not. He probably shouldn't want to see her, but since she was a figment of his imagination, what was the harm? "No." The nausea wouldn't kick in until later, once he'd stopped. If he stopped. Maybe tonight would be the night he drank himself to death. It was an option. That was an exaggeration. He would survive this, didn't particularly want to end his life, he just needed more time and more numbness to get through it. "Whatever you've come to say, just get it over with." Brooks was much more in the mood to wallow in his misery in solitude.
God, this was bleak. Was this how she looked, when people came in on her? "I've been trying laudanum," Mor said, like it was a helpful suggestion. "Slows you down just as much, but I think it's faster." She did not want to become one of those people who relied on it, so she was trying to only use it sometimes — and sometimes she wanted party potions. Or Orion, apparently.
She was not sure that he would remember this. Maybe this was why she still hadn't brought up the ring.
Why, why was her ghost here telling him the methods she was using to what? Dull the pain? Fill the void? She'd left him, did she not remember that? "Good for you." He spat, taking a swig of the liquor bottle in his hand. His head was swimming and he'd lost his filter. Laudanum was tempting though. He'd tried it a few times in the past, hadn't liked the feeling too much then, but he hadn't been trying to escape reality then, just dabbling. Maybe he ought to see if he could corral some friends into going to the opium den. Now there was something he hadn't considered in a while. It was easy to forget things while that high.
He wasn't engaging with her. Mor huffed out a breath. She had not anticipated this — had not anticipated how successfully she would ruin him. It was good, then, that she hadn't gone to the wedding — things would have been even worse if her curse took her. She had been kind. She could not quite make herself feel like she was being kind, not yet, but she was confident that she would get there.
At the mention of the ring, Brooks finally sat up, looking at the spectral-Morrigan with renewed interest. Maybe she wasn't a ghost after all. He pulled a face. "No." What the fuck was he going to do with it? He would just have to sell it, take the time to have it reappraised and find a jeweler or an estate sale to put it in. No, that was more effort than he was willing to put in.
"Keep it, sell it, throw it in the Black Lake, I don't care what you do with it." He was morbidly curious to know what she thought to do with it, but wasn't stupid enough to ask.
Well that was a frustrating answer. Giving the ring back was supposed to free them both, but he didn't want it. She knew that it was sentimental — she certainly felt sentimental about it — but surely he wanted to sell it, or something.
Morrigan leaned over him, their breaths mingling in the air above his sofa. "I care what I do with it," she said quietly.
Brooks was caught between starting to feel nauseous from the overindulgence and uneasy about the fact that Mor was in his space. He didn't exactly want her here, but she had thrust her company upon him regardless and so he didn't know what to do. It felt like a slap to the face, asking him what to do with the ring after she'd left him and he could now feel that rolling boil brimming under his skin.
"Well then figure it out if you care more than I do." He really didn't care. Sure, he'd saved up for it, had meticulously cut back on his spending and tightened the purse strings to live frugally enough to afford something nice. Then it had been all but thrown back in his face and he couldn't care less now what she did with it. Brooks didn't dare look at her, though he could feel her proximity, knowing he was being purposefully callous and trying not to care about it.
It was becoming very clear fairly quickly that she was not going to get what she wanted from this, so maybe she ought to just leave him alone. Mor reached out and ran one hand, gentle, through his hair. "I think you do care," Morrigan said, stubborn. She had done this all for him, and he was allowed to be mad at her for what she'd done because she had not bothered to tell him, but if he was going to up and stop caring about her then she may as well have married him anyways.
She was too close, touching him, running a hand through his hair and his stomach lurched for an entirely different reason. The voices in his head seemed to calm for a moment and he dared to look up at her.
"Of course I care, but I shouldn't." He whispered. She'd broken his heart, shattered him, possibly irrevocably and he didn't know what to do about it. Hence the drunken stupor that at least allowed him to stop feeling, to stop caring.
Mor bit her lip when he admitted it. She leaned down to press a deep kiss to Brooks' mouth. "I did it for you," she whispered, "You'll understand some day." Well. Maybe he would understand. But every day, she was starting to become more worried for her ability to find a ritual — because even if she extended her life a bit, how much would she actually get?
The kiss startled him and he nearly lost the rest of the feeling in his limbs. He was too drunk for this. Surely she was still a figment of his imagination. What she said barely registered and would be forgotten in the haze of the hangover tomorrow, but Merlin the ache in his chest she left.
"I can't," he admitted slowly. "I can't do this." He groaned. Brooks had no idea what she wanted from, what she was doing here, but he just wasn't able to deal with it any better than he had when she'd left him originally. Now it was worse.
"Neither can I," Mor said, tone impassive despite the real emotion behind it. She shouldn't be doing this to him — it was horrible for both of them. She leaned in to kiss him again, with tongue this time, as if she was drinking him in.
![[Image: Brooks-Sig-copy.png]](https://i.ibb.co/wgKvz3f/Brooks-Sig-copy.png)