The Bear and Barnacle

Tricks Gone Bad!

From The Kent Chronicle

Margate residents got some extra frights last night when several executive members of the Thanet District Council were seen in situations that can only be described as shocking. William Severs, eight and his older sister Mary, eleven, were accosted on their way home from a Halloween party by a man they identified as Norman Francis. Francis grabbed young William and tried to force him into a car. The boy’s struggles and his sister’s screams attracted a passer-by who wrestled briefly with the man before Francis ran off. The Good Samaritan, Roger Miller, as well as Mary Severs, recognised Francis, a ten-year member of the council. “I voted for the b*****d,” Miller told this reporter in disgust. Miss Severs said she recognised Miller from a talk he gave at her school. “He tried to grab my brother,” the young lady said indignantly. “He’s a bad man.” Little William Severs was distraught, both by the attempted abduction and the fact that all of his Halloween candy ended up in the gutter. Vicky Severs, mother of the two children, says she plans to pursue criminal charges against Francis. “He should rot in jail! Who knows what else he’s done?”
( Read more... )

From the Kent Chronicle

In a not entirely unexpected development, the Thanet District Council today announced the resignation of the three member rubbish removal committee in the wake of the disastrous ‘rain of fish’ that has plagued the city since summer. Herschel Daulton, Mary Worth, and Charles Warren all cited exhaustion as the main reason for their leaving. “It was a bloody nightmare,” Daulton told this reporter. “Not just the fish you know, but the cats and rats and bugs that came along in the aftermath. And the squabbling over the money didn’t help. My Gran was on the Council during the war and I’d be hard pressed to say who had the worst of it. I don’t think any of us will be able to eat fish and chips again.” No special election is planned to fill the vacancies; the executive committee will assume the duties of the rubbish removal committee, pending naming other council members to the seats. Final tallies are not yet available, but it is estimated that the total cost of the clean-up will run in excess of £ 20,000.

Minerva's memory has yet to fail her, but she's been prepared for it to do so since about eighteen. The habit of keeping extensive, diaristic notes on her research and activities came from her mother, an apothecary renowned for the efficacy of her precisely-prepared remedies. In compact black books Minerva logs her research activities, notes down interesting page numbers from the books she's using, jots questions for later consideration. She also tends to mark things like visits, and interesting weather patterns, and her time of the month back when it mattered, and any interesting newspaper headlines.

Lately the books have been all about Zelgadis Grayweir. There are notes of other things, mind -- "Explosion in Severus' lab, am assured was to be expected," and "Unnaturally hot," and "Rain of fish -- for God's sake," and "Am being haunted by the ghost of Ginny Weasley, with passenger. Am assured of current sanity, but not of its continuance."

( But rarely do three days pass ... )

Lucius sat at his desk, glancing through the owl post and muggle mail, reading glasses perched on his nose. He's noticed that he needs them more and more, as people seem to insist on writing smaller and smaller.

As he reads one letter from a local solicitor, he pulls his quill from the inkstand to make a corresponding note in his desk ledger. He writes the figure from the letter down, but pauses as he begins to write the date. He looks at the book, over to the calendar, and back.

August 17.

He'd completely forgotten. Well, it's not as if anyone else had reminded him. Narcissa's ghost had distressingly vanished as swiftly as it had appeared, only two days prior. She probably would have remembered. He himself had really, truth be told, purposely ignored the date for at least 5 years now, depsite her protests.

August 17. His own birthday. But really, with no one likely to remember, what reason did he have to celebrate another year of age?

He pulled himself out of what felt like the best, most restful nap he’d ever had. In fact, he was a bit reluctant to wake, but something told his brain his work was done, and that the dream he was in could conclude itself. The boy…no, the man, had already succeeded. The world would be righted at last.

He blinked a few times, eyes adjusting to the sunlight streaking through the clouds overhead, and looked around. A beach. Well, there were certainly worse places to find oneself than the shore of England.

He knew very well he ought to be dead. Remembered dying quite clearly – a face, a flash of green light. And yet here he was, and quite sure he was living despite it all. He felt better than he had in years, in fact, as if a great burden had been lifted. Well, it had, he reasoned with himself. And his nose itched. He idly reached up with his right hand and then paused, eyes crinkling in amusement as a perfectly whole, un-cursed hand presented itself.

On a beach, seemingly whole and healthy, and with not a care in the world for once. He looked around again, and seeing buildings in the distance, began walking toward them. Being not-dead and waking from a long nap left one exceedingly thirsty. He looked at the signs above windows as he walked, finally seeing what was unmistakably a pub. Adjusting his hat and lifting the hem of his robes slightly, he stepped up and in the door.

"I don't think I can handle this."

"I don't think you have much choice, darling."

Lucius was on his second cup of tea, and about to reach for something stronger. When he'd woken up this morning, there she'd been, standing at the edge of the bed, watching him with a soft smile. He reached for her hungrily, desperately, only to have his hands go through her. She walked toward the window, and in the morning sunlight she was translucent, almost transparent.

"You don't look like a normal ghost. Please don't be dead." he had said, pleadingly, as if begging could change anything.

"I don't think I am...I think I'm more like a memory."

She looked like Narcissa, talked like Narcissa. It was sweet torture, to be able to be sitting in the kitchen, conversing with his own dear wife, but not touch her, know she wasn't really there. She went from loving and kind to hurt and reminding him of his failures and her pain. The emotions running through Lucius were threatening to break him apart.

It was hell, but he would take it.

from the Kent Messenger

Margate- Residents and tourists in the seaside resort town got a bit of unexpected weather yesterday when a rain of fish suddenly dropped on a quiet block near the beach. The rain began at approximately 8:05AM GMT and ended some ten minutes later. Professor Fred Windbright of the Royal Meteorological Society theorised that the fish (which were mostly deep-sea dwellers) might have been the result of a water spout in the Atlantic. “They’re like Hoovers you know, waterspouts,” he commented. “Suck up anything in their path and then when the wind goes, it just drops. Not an unheard of phenomenon. Rare though, certainly. There was a rain of frogs in Essex a couple of years ago.” Naturally, this has caused some consternation for the town council, who will be meeting in emergency session to try to decide what to do about the mess. Local homeless advocates are chivying for saving the fish to feed the needy. The local animal shelter has been overwhelmed with calls to come and remove various cats, dogs, birds and other animals that are helping themselves to the bounty. The waste removal force is already complaining about the extra work this means for them, busy as they are with the increased rubbish of the season. “My lads will be clocking up the overtime,” said R P Taylor, supervisor of the local union. “I just want to know who’s going to pay for it all.” Residents of the house where the majority of the fish landed refused to speak to reporters.

He’d been on the run for so long it seemed he could scarcely recall a time when he wasn’t. After being left for dead at the Battle of Hogwarts, he’d escaped and managed to stay hidden until his wounds had healed. Then, he’d just wandered. Anywhere and everywhere it seemed. He’d fallen in with smugglers soon after he’d healed. Working just outside of Perth, he’d been an enforcer for a gang, a task he was eminently suited for. That had ended when a dispute over territory left key members of two gangs the victims of a group entrail-expelling curse. The dock warehouse had gotten rather messily redecorated and he’d gotten two suitcases full of money. So all in all, it hadn’t been too bad, even if he did have to work with muggles. Muggles! Merlin how he hated them! It was ironic that he was safer with them then with his own kind. And so he just…drifted. Glasgow, Edinburgh, Cardiff, Liverpool, Swansea. All the bigger cities where a stranger wouldn’t get a second glance. He avoided London though. No sense begging for trouble. He’d let his hair grow out and grown a beard and mustache as a disguise of sorts. But he had no purpose any more. All he’d held dear was gone. Revenge, of course he wanted revenge. That could wait though. Wait until they didn’t expect it. And it would be all the sweeter for the waiting. But there was something, some niggling something that seemed to be calling to him. Not all the time. Sometimes months would pass and he’d feel nothing. Then, out of the blue, there it would be and he’d be off again. He had no idea what it might be. He didn’t dare hope, he just went. Finally, finally, he came to Margate. Here, whatever it was that had been calling him seemed to tell him. It’s here. He walked down the streets, noticing the shops and inns that were being readied for the summer tourists. He saw nothing and no one familiar. He ended up on a lonely stretch of beach, with only the distant cry of seagulls for company. “Show me,” he murmured to the air. “SHOW ME!” he bellowed, his face reddening. The only answer was the pounding of the waves. He picked up a rock and heaved it angrily out into the ocean. Then, Rodolphus Lestrange turned and stalked off toward the town.

It's not that she needs it. There's nothing indicating it's a necessity. No driving reason to make her way to the glass-fronted office that smells alarmingly of nothing rather than the warm smells of bubbling potions and drying herbs of the last specialist she sought out. Nothing other than simple curiosity. And Victoire was never curious for very long.

So she sits and waits... and waits. Then is finally led down a empty hallway into a windowless room where she takes a seat on something that looks like a failed transfiguration, not quite a chair and not quite a bed. A man wheels up next to her, looking at his machine rather than her as he asks her to lift her shirt and pull her skirt and knickers down. She stares a moment at him then tartly asserts that she'd rather know the name of the man telling her to undress. He starts and blushes satisfactorily and mutters that his name is David. She smiles, wickedly, as she lays back and does as he asks, pleased when he blushes and nearly drops the plastic-looking wand in his hand.

A heavy glop of lube momentarily distracts her but then Victoire watches entranced as the images begin resolving into clarity and into recognizable forms. Her breath catches in those first moments and it's not until she leaves the office, a small folder in her hand, that she really catches it again.

While she's waiting for a street light to change she opens the folder up, delicately touching the image inside.



"Bonjour, ma petite..."

“An owl, an owl, my kingdom for an owl,” Q muttered to himself as he headed for the pub. He wondered how many different ways that particular quote had been paraphrased since Shakespeare wrote it. He shook his head. Off on another tangent again. He needed an owl and he’d been told that Lucius Malfoy might have one available. So, he was going to go see if he could get one. And maybe have a drink while he waited. Q walked into the pub, waiting a moment for his eyes to adjust, though it was scarcely darker inside than out. He didn’t see Malfoy so he headed for the bar and ordered a Guinness. He didn’t really care for the stuff, but no one could drink it quickly and it wouldn’t seem strange if he was there for a while. He perched on a stool where he could see everyone and settled in to wait.

She accepts the bit of cake with thanks when Ivonka pokes it onto her table, only looking up to be polite, then dives back into her reading. She's surrounded by three painful-looing books, a half-drunk cup of tea, and a thick diary of notes, heavily scrawled with marginal cross-references and thickly drawn arrows, abloom with question marks. Occasionally she turns a page or two; less frequently, she inks her quill and makes an abbreviated entry.

As she nibbles the brownie, however, the page-turns grow less frequent, and she goes from book to notes more often, as though she's having trouble focusing.

After about ten minutes, she reaches up and pulls a couple of bobby pins from her hair, shaking it out so it falls down her back. It's still thick and heavy and surprisingly long, though the black has been heavily ribboned with grey for fifteen years now. She also appears to have been reading the same paragraph for quite a while now.

Soon she gives up and sits back in her chair, taking a sip from her teacup and grimacing to find it stone cold, finding herself a little more able, at the moment, to focus on people-watching than her endless frustrating research.

Victoire has done a lot of things in her 18 years. Not all of them legal and many of them worthy of her curse-breaking, prisoner-releasing, drug-toking, brother-shagging father... though he's presumably not done any of those things since marrying Victoire's Maman. At least, not that Victoire's caught him at and she most certainly has been watching for any and all of it.

There was the very profitable underground business at Hogwarts, selling her (and Teddy's) undergarments. And her talent at Charms and Potions which were not always used as Professors Flitwick and Snape intended when they taught them to a class of eager students and one very creative part-Veela. And then there was the very naked night in the barn behind Shell Cottage with Teddy, two of her cousins, and her cousin's girlfriend. Not to mention the myriad ways she'd arranged, maneuvered, convinced, guided, bribed, coerced, encouraged, persuaded, threatened, enticed anyone she could to get just what she wanted and more or less when she wanted it. She was a Slytherin after all, and very proud to be one.

But she's never actually attacked anyone with the intent to reduce them into nothingness.

Until now. Until she eats one of Ivonka's brownies and realised that it is the cause of the sudden mellowness she feels, the easy smile which curves her lips, and her overall lack of concern about the free flashes of pale blue lace she is giving the pub.

But when she puts these things together and realises what was happening and who is behind it, she snaps. Eyes flashing with an unnatural blue fire, she storms into the kitchen and corners the smirking cook who after a moment has the grace to look moderately surprised by the rage she is facing just before Victoire throws herself at the woman and starts clawing at her, fingertips stuttering over the skin as they stick and release and stick again, while the pots start to rattle ominously.

Eight Things Severus Snape Has Learned This Week

1. Having one's own voice back is a decided advantage in persuading Margate to let one apparate out for the day; with a voice that sounds like one's spent one's life sucking coffin-nails, a person had best not attempt to leave for more than a few hours, and certainly not two days in a row.

2. ( The potioneer's association's clerks lead sad, pathetic lives. )

On one of the benches overlooking the beach, black-clad arm fallen and long, white fingers brushing the sand, a man lies comatose. Gaunt, framed by nearly eighteenth-century clothes and sea-salted black hair, his face would look twenties-young (and his style the gothic of an over-meticulous modern histrionic) if it weren’t so haggardly drawn, the shadows under the eyes so deep and dark. It’s a striking incongruity, although, when he first appeared, he looked a seventy with little strange about it. The forbidding, heavy-clothed, over-buttoned outfit hangs on him rather, although it isn’t cut for a heavy man.

He has a nearly foot-long piece of pale wood holstered to one thigh--smoothly carved, well-worn, and just slightly rosy, with a few remaining flecks of walnut-stain lingering in its few deep groves--and a collection of intriguing little textured vials to the other. A few men with more respect for value and their own curiosity than dignity or possession have, since his unceremonious appearance on the bench, tried to handle or even make off with one or the other. All ran away quickly in pain and astonishment, clutching hideously blistered hands. One tried gloves, to no avail, and one paused to land a retributive backhanded blow.

The only relief of blackness on him are the odd and varied stains on his bony hands, and the spectacularly attractive mess of blood, bruised swelling, and bone-white cravat at his throat. He looks like a vampire victim, were the vampire diseased and the body stirred to a froth of outraged rejection. From the twin wounds, rather large to have been from a human mouth, emerge a slow, exhausted trickle of almost clear fluid. His skin is cold, his heart beats, perhaps, once a minute, and his breath, while regular and continuous, is so slowly even as to be invisible too all but the most interested observer. Peeking from under the cravat is the edge of a note, its handwriting crabbed, annoyed, and painstakingly legible.

( To_you_who_have_chosen_to_concern_yourself )

And, upside down at the bottom of the paper, in a quite different hand, less irritated than morose,

“Riddle
Though in theory I’m always behind you,
Your shadow, to prop and remind you,
And you may, as you roam,
Wish to make me your home,
Do not dwell on me much: I may blind you.”

And, folded into a hidden pocket, just showing since the departure of the disgruntled tough, is a sheet of heavy paper, so full of linen fiber as to feel nearly cloth, much and madly scribbled on.

---

“Leave me alone,” he says. “Sod off, I’m dead,” he says. “Reports of my demise have been grievously understated,” he says. “Of course I’m sure, stop wittering,” he snaps. Unreliable bratstard. Wait till he realizes he started waking up on his birthday =.=

The candlelights had long since been blown out, the house silent. Even the house-elves, having finished their nights work, were dozing off in the depths of the kitchens and cellars.

However, despite the late hour, one member of the family was not sleeping.
( Waiting )

Pardon our dust, gentle sirs and good ladies, new friends and old, but we assure you that the sounds of your voices are more welcome than your boot-prints.

To begin with, let each of you order up his drink and meal! Tonight, the chef takes requests, and your fancy is limited only by what we find in our pantry. However, all who have recipes must bring them to him, and so we shall set our menu when the time comes.

Come, then, have a seat! Here by the bar I shall keep you amused with talk and good drink, and there by the fire the room is warm, and at every table you shall find good company, and should you choose a place by the half-height walls of the kitchen you may speak with Xellos as he cooks. Come, your order?

For this very simple first topic, everyone can comment to this post with their food and drink choice. Thread-crashing is highly encouraged as otherwise there's not much in the way of interesting conversation to be had. Although Iago can and has discoursed at extreme length on polenta, but whether or not that qualifies for interesting depends on the listener's profession.

Welcome to the Bear and Barnacle!

Oh, and he means it about the recipes.