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
Clarissa was being courted which seemed destined to head to the alter. Kenneth approved the match. For a while there, he had been worried she might run off with some muggleborn or worse. She was off with her beau so Kenneth had some time to himself to breathe. Perhaps he would find a debutante or two to dance with. For now, he went on a hunt for these delicate desserts that he had been hearing about through small talk with some acquaintances.
Reaching the table, he saw that he was far from the first to have this idea. Another attendee had not been shy about helping themselves to a plateful of them and had just bit into one. This unfortunately caused some of the cream within to erupt from the other end and onto Kenneths trousers and shoes. "Well, this is unfortunate," Kenneth said with a chuckle, he was not all that fussed since it seemed to have been an understandable mishap.
Callista ordinarily had a fear of eating at balls and the like, never being certain of what had gone into the food and drink. But Victoire had assured her nothing unusual had touched them, that they were perfectly safe, and Callista could trust that enough to try them.
And the cream puffs were as delicious as they looked. That said, Callista might have turned her attentions rather overzealously to the dessert table so as to avoid thinking about the fact that Mr. Echelon-Arnost (easily marked out by his cane and his sandy hair, even at a masquerade) had spent much of his evening talking to the Malfoy girls. She supposed this was a good thing. She had once thought to herself that Torie Malfoy would be a good match for him, even – though now the thought had gone a little sour.
And she knew plenty of people whom she had spoken to this evening and who knew her also knew that she had just rejected a courtship, so probably thought her haughty and vain, which was never going to endear her to anyone. So, since it seemed the only safe course of action left to her – she was stuffing her face.
Another mistake. She had bit too hard, and the cream dribbled down a gentleman instead. Perfect, Callista considered, utterly mortified. “Oh!” she fretted, flustered. “I’m so – so very sorry! What a mess!” She didn’t have her wand on her, and was nothing like her brothers with their wandless magic, so she snatched up a wad of napkins from the dessert table, offering them to him in shame.
Kenneth took the offered napkins and set about cleaning himself up. He would have to do a more thorough job by retiring the mens rooms, probably. She seemed utterly mortified though and his more gentlemanly instincts had him wanting to reassure her first.
"No harm done. Such is the danger of cream puffs, delicious as they are," Kenneth said with a smile once he was a little more presentable."Did any get on you?"
She wanted to be of more help, but she had handed him all the napkins in lieu of daring to pat down his trousers or polish his shoes instead. He would have been well within his rights to be short with her, given the unfortunate projectile aim of her cream-puff-biting and the darkened spots where he had been stained – but he was being forgiving and cheerful instead. (Callista was in a spiralling mood, so – this really only made her feel worse.)
“I don’t believe so,” Callista murmured, glancing down at her gown and her hands to see, and finding nothing... although she was unaware of the dollop of cream that was now smeared at the corner of her mouth and onto her cheek.
Kenneth took a look at her before chuckling as he noticed something rather out of place on her otherwise pristine appearance. Finding a couple of unused napkins, he held them out to her. "Your cheek seems to have other thoughts on that," he teased lightly. Were they more familiar with one another, he might have wiped it off for her.
He was taking the mess of this in his stride, but Callista felt no less humiliated when he mentioned her cheek. Merlin; she accepted the napkin and began to dab hastily at her mouth, though she seemed to have missed the spot, or gotten the wrong side, because nothing had been daubed onto the napkin. (She had removed her mask to eat; and that seemed like a wise decision in retrospect, if she were this indelicate.) “Does it?” she asked, with a beseeching gaze at the other man, hoping he would discreetly guide her to the offending area. “I don’t –”
It was hard to be certain, his masquerade mask covering part of his face, precisely whom she was speaking to, but Callista was sure they had met before, because she had been in society enough that few people were new. Somehow it made everything worse, that she was too worked up to recognise him by his eyes or his stature: was he as relaxed as he sounded, or just preparing himself to laugh?
The young woman dabbed hastily but did not get the dollop of cream taking residence on the side of her face. Her eyes seemed to be pleading with him to assist her further in this so he picked up one of the napkins and wiped off the cream for her. Sometimes things were easier to deal with when it was someone elses eyes. Though she seemed a little high strung so he was curious as to how she would react to him having done so. "There we go, now none would be the wiser. Could you perhaps use a drink?"
He had put her out of her (messy) misery; Callista was simultaneously grateful for him and fighting the urge to cry. She didn’t cry in public, of course – no Adebayo would be so embarrassing as that – but this evening just about everything she did or said or felt seemed like an inevitable disaster.
Pull yourself together, for Merlin’s sake, Callista thought to herself, and brushed her hand over her cheek where he had touched her, as if she could force the warmth out of her face. He was having to pander to her now, stuck in her company as a gentleman when he probably only wanted to be rid of her. She didn’t want a drink at all – she would probably only spill it on him for his troubles now – but she had to salvage this interaction somehow, and push past her own embarrassment.
So – she smiled at him, her best impression of serene. “Thank you. Yes. I suppose I could risk it.”
If Kenneth noticed any of the debutantes thoughts that might have been at all readable in her expressions, he had the good grace to at least not call attention to it. There was a time and place for light teasing, he had always felt. She did still strike him as a particularly high strung sort of young woman.
Risk it? He found her choice of words a bit amusing. At least they were near the drinks table so he simply had to reach over to take two champagne flutes and hand her one. "For you, Miss... " he paused a moment, realizing they had not even given each other their names. "Forgive me, I have been remiss and not even introduced myself. My name is Kenneth Cosgrove."
