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
Careful, careful, he smoothed himself out — changed the expression on his face to something neutral. He couldn't fix everything, his heart still thrummed traitorously fast in his chest, but he was trying to project something he wasn't. "I love you," he said, because he could say that and mean it.
He swallowed, and looked down at the ground. "I'll be alright," he added, muted. He was not sure if Theo would believe him. But this was what he would have to say, with Theo's hands on his forearms in the park, because there was nothing to do but pretend.
The I love you back softened him, because maybe it meant Cash would forgive him his anger; but I’ll be alright was less soothing. That was what he had wanted to hear, but it was no longer comforting – not in this case, when it was so clearly a lie.
Theo slid his hands down Cash’s arms, to clasp his hands in his instead and squeeze them, as if he could will him into believing it. He didn’t think it would help much: not now Cash had shut off, felt like he had to pretend.
This wasn’t like the time before when he had been noticeably off-kilter, skipping practice, showing up in the sponsor’s office, asking him to look out for him. Because they didn’t see each other every day any more, Theo barely had a glimpse into his life now: and it had been a coincidence at all that Theo had seen him like this tonight, off-guard, amidst the retching and the panic. So he was sure it would keep weighing on Cash’s shoulders, that there would be other times he sank under it, before the baby, and when the baby came – but what if no one was there to witness it? What then?
“Promise me something?” he asked, swallowing anxiously. He hadn’t let go of Cash’s hands yet. “If you do start to feel like that –”resenting people for keeping him here – “or like this again, will you – let me know? Or – tell someone. Please.” Angie Swan. Ford Greengrass. His wife.
Theo's hands on Cash's were warm, and solid, and he knew there was urgency behind the squeeze. His friends didn't want him to leave. And Cash mostly didn't, either — he just wanted things to be quiet, in his head.
He wished he had told Theo about Belphoebe, her meddling in his brain, but he didn't have the words available. It just felt as if she had broken something irreparable in his brain, and now he was here, and something in it moved — wrong.
He looked back up at Theo. Not at his eyes — that was too much — but at his chin, at the shape of his face.
"I'll tell someone," Cash said, hating the promise and hating himself for making it, "If I feel that way again."
Like this, though — that was harder. He was feeling like this almost all the time.
Cash couldn’t meet his gaze. Theo knew this because he was looking, looking and wishing that almost imperceptible distance would close. But he had come close, and well – close would have to be enough. “Okay,” Theo echoed when he promised, only then releasing his hands. “Alright.” There was no way to be sure he meant it, but what else could he do now but believe it?
Trying to unravel the knot of tension in his chest and in his brow, Theo exhaled slowly and fell back into step. It might have been wiser to change the subject entirely now, just to avoid Cash falling into the grip of panic again – but none of Cash’s fears felt remotely resolved. Still, he let their footsteps settle for a little while, turning over his thoughts with care before he spoke again, more hesitantly this time. “Have you talked much to –” (he felt bad saying your wife to Cash, sure that it always came out sounding bitter no matter how he tried –) “Adrienne, about...?” He trailed off there. The baby.
How Cash felt about it; and maybe how she did. Fears and plans for the future. Theo couldn’t guess if she felt the same dread as Cash did; and he didn’t know enough about her or how she had been raised, to imagine what kind of a mother she would be; didn’t know how much Cash had told her about himself, or vice versa. But she would be raising that child too; he hoped against hope that she might manage to temper Cash’ concerns somehow.
And – much as he hated to be the one to acknowledge it, given all their marriage had meant for him, maybe it was worth remembering that Cash wasn’t in this all alone.
Cash was not sure where they were going, but was content to half-follow Theo until they got to wherever the other man decided to leave him. He was nibbling on the inside of his lip when Theo spoke again.
"Her magic's gone weird," he answered, "She's excited. Not about the weird magic." She was excited about a baby, their baby, and Cash was terribly afraid — he swallowed. He knew why Theo was asking this. He also didn't know how to approach it, with his wife — he was keeping so many secrets from her. The emotional support had to go one way.
Cash's mouth twitched, an approximation of a wry smile. "We talked about names."
Theo huffed a faint laugh at the first remarks. Excited, he thought, was good – surely it meant that she cared, and would care, and keep caring. Find the bright sides in it. Though maybe that just made Cash feel lonelier with everything.
He attempted a smile back, wry too, but – Theo put some effort into meaning it, as if he had any possible way to actually cheer Cash up. Names. “Go on, then,” he said, with a small sidelong nudge, not actually sure if he was joking or not. “What’s it going to be? Roman – or French?”
The nudge came as a relief, something that made him feel grounded. "French middle name," Cash said, with a self-deprecating half-laugh. "I like Calypso. For a girl." He wasn't married to any of the names they'd discussed, but he really did like they sound of Calypso — and Nyx. He was much more comfortable with the idea of having a girl than having a boy, and had not faced himself enough to articulate why.
He managed a real grin for having been right, or partially right, about the French part. And if they were talking about this, baby names, and Cash had actual opinions, even vague ones, then it almost felt like Cash would be alright; but it was odd to think that this almost-hopeful lightness, pretence or not, could exist alongside those dark fears about the poison dripping through.
Theo tried to push it out of his mind, lest the concern creep back into his face again. “So you’re both guessing girl?” he asked, more to keep him talking than because he put any stock in feelings or guesses for these things. It was a coin flip of a future, and maybe it wouldn’t matter at all. But a girl might be easier to cope with – there were different pressures on a girl, he assumed (and maybe Cash’s sisters had had troubled times too) – but at least there might be more separation from what it would be with a boy, a constant reminder of father versus son.
"We have names for both," Cash said, obligatory. He expected that Adrienne was hoping for a boy — there was a sense of duty, to all of this, that meant that a boy would be an accomplishment and a girl would be fine. "But I'm — expecting a girl. All my sisters."
Until Cicero, the Lestrange brothers had been just-barely outnumbered. Why shouldn't it be the same for Cash's children?
“True,” Theo hummed. He had been going to say something else light, casual, unconcerned about this, but fell into silence again before he could help himself. He was worried how Cash would fare with a boy, but – at least then maybe that would be all. If it was a girl, there would probably have to be more children, wouldn’t there? Everyone was always hoping for an heir. God, and maybe it would be easier if the first birth went well, but if not – Cash might be here again and again, stuck in the same torturous spiral.
He shoved the thought down as best he could. They were coming through Bartonburg by now, on the way to Wellingtonshire; his feet taking him unthinkingly through the familiar routes of town. “I don’t know where we’re walking,” Theo admitted, with a shaky smile. “Do you want to go home?”
Cash wasn't sure that he wanted to go home, but it was inevitable, it may as well be what happened. And his house, as out-of-place as he sometimes felt there, still felt more his own than his father's had — it still provided breathing room. Or at least it had.
"Sure," he said, "Seems we're heading there anyways." He would have followed Theo anywhere, tonight — but they were almost to Cash's home in Wellingtonshire, and it was too late to turn around now.
“Alright,” Theo agreed. He didn’t much want to take Cash home either – he wanted to stay with him for another few hours, or the rest of the night, or until he was certain Cash was alright – but they probably shouldn’t. And besides, if he waited for Cash to be alright, he wasn’t sure there was an end in sight.
So he would have to settle for this as enough – Cash breathing steadily, talking almost normally, upright. “It’ll be different,” he said again, as if pure repetition could make it true. “You’ll be alright.”
