The Bear and Barnacle

Lucius could feel Mr. Gibbons eyes on him as he moved quill over parchment. The irritating weasel of a man was a good campaign manager, but still a Muggle, and entirely too nosy of late. Finally, Lucius lowered the quill and glanced up. "Is there something you needed, Mr. Gibbons?"

The man shuffled slightly, eyes darting to the spot where Lucius' cane rested against the side of the desk, before darting back to Lucius face. However, he quickly lowered his eyes, faced with the steely gaze of the man behind the desk. "Well, sir, Mr. Malfoy...I mean...you're using a quill."

Lucius arched an elegant eyebrow. "Yes. I always do."

Mr. Gibbons continued. "An actual feather quill, and an inkwell."

Lucius sighed. "Yes. Your point?"

"It's a bit odd, isn't it, using a quill? There's not even a computer in here, I've noticed. You write all your correspondence." Lucius just continued staring at him, so he coughed and continued, "And you have an owl. I know rich people have exotic pets sometimes, but an owl seems an odd choice. And not many men your age still wear their hair long."

Lucius began to drum his fingers along the wood of the desk. "You've become quite observant, haven't you Mr. Gibbons? Do tell me, what is the point of all this?"

"People like you, and seem to trust you, but there's just something...that is...it's all a bit..." Mr. Gibbons eyes darted to the cane again, very quickly, but Lucius did not miss it, and reached for it.

"Do you like my walking stick, Mr. Gibbons? Or is that also one of the odd things you've suddenly taken notice of, when you've been blind to everything for months now, you narrow-minded fool..." He slowly pulled the snake head away from the cane, revealing the wand within. Mr. Gibbons started to open his mouth to make a comment, but Lucius continued, "It's a pity, really, that you didn't stay blind. Do your job, line your pockets with my generous supply of money. Now it will be that much more effort on my part...though it will save my accounts." Pointing the wand at the wide-eyed, open mouthed, and confused face of Mr. Gibbons, he said one word.

"Imperio!"

Jack is on very good terms with the neighbors … even after Val's thieving of their post, Val's inventive torment of the little dog belonging to the Fitzwilliams in the next house on the right, and the time they let Val give Moira Brown, the girl from the family that lives on the other side, the flu.

The Fitzwilliams are an older couple and Jack doesn't know if they've caught on, or if they, like some of his older customers, have somehow gotten the idea that he and Zel are brothers – but the Browns definitely know that Zel and Jack are … together (he's never quite sure what their shared adjective should be, though he's pretty much settled on “partner” for a noun). They don't seem to mind, as Jack still tends to half-expect. Zel is still tutoring Thomas in maths, anyway, though that might be less a matter of tolerance and more a matter of the difficulty of finding someone else who can do parabolic equations in his head.

More strange is the fact that none of the neighbors have ever asked which one of them Val belongs to, ( but today ... )

One of the conveniences of Margate – perhaps in order to balance out the minor inconveniences like being trapped in a random tourist city far from home and family for an indefinite period – is that the natives don't notice anything out of the ordinary. Let the imports walk down the street in period dress or flasher raincoats or drag, let them have horns and tails and a suspicious lack of birth certificate – somehow the ordinary townspeople just fail to realize that something massively strange is going on.

This month, someone's going to notice “something odd about you.”

Choose any one “normal” your character associates with and have them detect something odd about your character. The degree and kind of oddity they detect are entirely up to you, as is, naturally, your character's response thereto. Is thereto a word?

The tag is “noticing" and this brings us back to our regular posting schedule. Have fun!