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
It was incredible what one could do with dark magic, even when one could not find the ritual one actually wanted, or when one was not using a ritual at all. Some of the uses were rather petty — sending a bout of bad luck to a former classmate, or heightening the effects of a party potion. With a few drops of blood and a muttered Québecois incantation, one could even shove some malice into a brick, malice that would continue if the spell was fed some more blood periodically. And if one had found the right brick, that malice could take out a family's floo, often enough to ensure repeat visits, strange enough to ensure that it would likely not be tied back to her. (The malice's other habits — increasing the temperature of the drainage pipe in the scullery, and snuffing out the fire early. Morrigan only hoped there would not be unforeseen consequences.)
The first time the floo broke, their visitor had not been The Woman. This was frustrating, but not a major setback. It would break again, Morrigan was sure. A few weeks passed and she was right, because there was the woman, looking at her floo. Morrigan had born intentions of using her Monday off to leave the house — they were gearing up for an extended visit from Cousin Edgar, and some of the preparation was irritating — but swiftly aborted the scheme, despite keeping her coat on. It would be helpful if The Woman thought she was leaving soon.
She stepped into the parlor and leaned against the doorframe. "This is the second time, you know," Morrigan said, raising an eyebrow. It would not be the last, either.
Selden. She had seen the name on the incoming outage report, marked as owner of the residence of said private fireplace – and she had wondered whether it was also hers.
But she had repressed that avenue of thought, and started on the problem. Or would have, if she could figure it out – but she hadn’t figured it out from the office, and now that she was here, she was still having trouble.
She was combing her wand through the fireplace, scanning for the source of the fault for the third time. Her brow was already furrowed before the voice, and Effie glanced over her shoulder from where she was kneeling on the hearth. She felt her chest tighten – irrationally, but. Not just a Selden: Miss Selden herself.
She didn’t know Morrigan Selden personally, though after unsuspectingly meeting a friend of hers earlier in the month, Effie had resolved to better avoid Miss Selden’s circles if she could. Not from fear or any such thing – Miss Selden was still a Miss by her own choice, after all, and at Brooks’ expense and particular humiliation – but just because it seemed sensible not to engage.
But she supposed this could not be helped. “Yes,” Effie said, polite – but she was not prepared to apologise when her colleague had evidently fixed it and closed the case before. She had looked over the logs before coming, of course. Miss Selden seemed to have been on her way somewhere – and she assumed not the one to report the fault – but since she was here, Effie felt compelled to make inquiries. “And it’s only this fireplace having problems? The only Floo that seems blocked in the house?”
"The bedroom fireplaces aren't on the network," Morrigan said. She suspected this was for everyone's safety, and that when they had been teenagers it had been an attempt to keep her and Lear from getting into trouble — not that it had stopped either of them.
"I think the one in the kitchen is fine," she added, with a shrug. That floo was mostly used by their handful of servants, so even if she was in the mood to be helpful she would not have been.
She had considered doing the same spell on both, but the malice could spread if it felt well-fed, and she was not sure that two malices conjoining would have been very good for her house. She did have to keep living here, after all.
Effie was already struggling for ideas of how to fix it, and thus already frustrated. And this was nothing new: her job could be frustrating, and there was nothing to make that frustration worse than having an audience loitering in the room with her.
That it was Miss Selden did not make the experience any more enjoyable. And perhaps Miss Selden was not all bad in character, but – Effie knew that she had abandoned Brooks on their wedding day, so her expectations were rather in the gutter to start with.
But she was here for work, so she ought not be judging her. “It just doesn’t make sense,” she had muttered to herself, about her fruitless tests for the flaw in the fireplace. She pushed herself to her feet, under pretence of looking at the mantelpiece, but turned so that she had a better view of the notorious Miss Selden.
“There haven’t been any interruptions to the network connection,” Effie declared to her, so that it at least seemed like she had made some progress here (she didn’t care what Miss Selden thought of her, but she didn’t want to seem stupid). And it had to be a fault on this end, she was certain of that. She pushed some escaping hair behind her ear. “Has anything else – unusual happened to this fireplace lately, that you recall? Or in this room?”
No interruptions to the network connection. It was probably good that Morrigan had not managed to do damage to the floo network itself; that was the sort of thing the Ministry would investigate, and she did not want anyone outside of the Floo Authority coming here. Because look at Miss Clarke with that hair escaping, how delightful.
For the first time, it occurred to Mor that they looked similar. Oh, Morrigan's hair color was far better, and she didn't have that horde of freckles — but the texture of their hair was the same, they both had large eyes, they were both mixed-race, and there was something about the way they wore their expressions. Brooks had a type. Delightful.
"How do you define 'unusual?'" Mor asked, tone almost blithe.
She was supposed to be the one doing the assessing, here – but really it felt more like she was the one being assessed. Or she was just – self-conscious about the situation. It was bad luck indeed, to have been on shift for this call. If Effie let the discomfort grow, she was not entirely certain she wouldn’t call this a failure, and send backup out on another day instead.
Only she was here now, and not prepared to give up when Miss Selden was there watching her. If Effie was anything, she – didn’t have to be the better looking, nor the wealthier, not the wittiest or the most pleasant. But she did want to be competent, at the very least, if that was all she could be counted upon to be.
But it was hard to think about the fireplace problem when Miss Selden was standing there. “Have any uncommon spells been cast in this room, for instance – or any rare artifacts been brought in?” Effie posited, scrounging for possibilities – something that had potentially affected the Floo that was not the fireplace itself. Because it should be working, was the thing. And it had been working, had already been fixed once. “You mustn’t let me keep you, if you were on your way, Miss Selden,” Effie added – politely, though she might privately have preferred if Miss Selden left her alone. She did not seem inclined to be particularly helpful.
"Again, I shall have to ask what an uncommon spell would be," Morrigan said. She loved specifics — it was important to be specific, in the types of magic she dabbled in — and it also felt like a surefire way to annoy Miss Clarke. "My cousin is a curse breaker. I suppose he could have brought something," she added.
As to the offer to leave — Mor shrugged, a sly smile on her face. She would stay here for as long as she found it interesting. And unfortunately for Miss Clarke, right now, Morrigan was interested.
Was Miss Selden trying to frustrate her, or was she just always this frustrating, generally? (And if so, what did that say about Brooks’ previous taste in engagements?)
And – joy – she had made no move to leave yet. Effie tried to hide her grimace. “Some magic that is not a cleaning spell or a charm to pour tea or – any magic that is not regularly cast in your parlour, Miss Selden,” she explained, in a clipped, exasperated tone, though Merlin knew what Miss Selden was predisposed to do in the comfort of her own home. The cursebreaker comment was at least an idea to grasp at, and something she scribbled down keenly in her notes – though of course the possibility was much too vague to be helpful without confirmation from the cursebreaker.
“Well, it would be useful to know if he did,” Effie answered, and then – and maybe a small percentage of this was spitefulness, but she tried not to acknowledge she was stooping so low – “but in the meantime we may need to close up this room, in case the Floo connection has reacted badly to something and become unstable.” Which would be dangerous, if Effie actually thought it likely to blow. (Really, if she did not fix the issue, she could take the location off the network entirely... but two could be play at being unhelpful.) “I hope you are not expecting any important callers in the next few days?”
If Miss Clarke sealed off the sitting room, then other members of the household would be more disturbed by the inconvenience, and likely take more notice of or interest in the situation. Then they might actually send Edgar after it, and — well. Mor couldn't have that. She raised her eyebrows at Miss Clarke, an affected expression of surprise — her more severe expressions were always affected.
"My father's in business, Miss Clarke," Mor said, "He's always having important callers — he's in a meeting at the moment, but I'm certain he would request an alternative solution."
Always having important callers; Effie suspected Miss Selden was affecting hyperbole here, but sadly it wasn’t in her professional remit to argue about it. Effie did not have a solution yet, but her eyes narrowed thoughtfully, because she thought she might have a temporary workaround to keep it running, until she could do some more sustained observations back at the office and pin down the fault.
“Could you show me to another fireplace in the house, please?” Effie asked; not the kitchen Floo, but one not yet connected. “I may be able to reroute this Floo connection by feeding it through another place in the house first, through a temporary additional connection point.” If there was nothing external blocking this Floo, the parlour exit point might still work if the visitors were channelled through from an alternate direction on the network.
“I apologise – I neglected to introduce myself,” Effie added politely, although she had not missed the casually-dropped Miss Clarke. Miss Selden knew very well who she was, then. That was interesting, or unfortunate; being here, at her house, suddenly felt almost worse than bad luck.
Another fireplace; Morrigan was intrigued as to what this would do to her malice. Would it colonize the house, or otherwise misbehave in another floo connection? As long as their floo network could remain up overall, the thought was thrilling — that little magical seed of her hostility, growing in the house.
"As did I," Morrigan said, gesturing with one hand for the other woman to follow her. "But it feels as if we know each other already, doesn't it?"
She opened the door to the library, which was stocked primarily with books related to ships and curses, and sat down in one of the armchairs. A fireplace sat next to it.
Effie did her best to keep her expression neutral as the other woman sat down nearby to the new fireplace – she was going to keep supervising her, wasn’t she?
“I’m afraid that I know very little about you, Miss Selden,” Effie answered with clipped politeness, if not any real apology. She knew some bare facts about her, of course (she was a few years older than Effie; she worked as a librarian; her family was American); and certainly what she had done to Brooks... but her demurral of the question may as well have meant Mr. Watson doesn’t talk about you at all, in fact.“But I’m glad to make your acquaintance.”
In so far as this was actually making her acquaintance, with Effie on call here, and in the less-dignified position of having to repair their Floo. She shot a lingering glance at the bookshelves before lowering herself to the fireplace to begin work on the rerouting. If she was enduring this arrangement, she may as well learn as much about Miss Selden as she could while she was here.
