Oh yes, Arcturus in Magical Menagerie. He was somewhat self-aware of this - some of the people who knew him would be questioning why he wasn't staying at home like they'd expected.

Not that he quite minded. He was off work today, and while the weather was not exactly the warmest he was not inclined to stay in the house on an off-day. Besides, he'd missed Diagon Alley; it had been a while since he walked up the long, cobbled street enjoying the energy of the crowd.

He strolled along the alley, taking his sweet time and gazing through the windows of the shops at the colourful displays or standing to the side and watching all manner of wizards and witches pass by. A few gave him a glance, probably because he was wearing jeans and his old olive green jacket, and stood out against the robes of the crowd; otherwise, no one even so much as gave him a second look.

As he passed Magical Menagerie, he stopped and looked into the window of the shop, the animal sounds muted through the thick glass. He smiled at the memories of him entering the shop to look for that one furry companion, and stepped into the shop. Immediately, the various noises of the animals crowded in the store rose to greet him in one chaotic medley. His smile widened; he waved at the shopkeeper on her way to clean out the raven cage and made his way along the narrow passages bordered with cages.

He did intend to make his way to the cats and Kneazles area, but first he amused himself with all the other pets available in the store. Usually Rustle alone could make him smile; in the presence of so many animals, he was now considerably more cheerful than when he had entered the shop.

A cloud of warm air greeted him when he opened the door, heavy with the smells of caged animals in close confines.  He breathed deeply and grinned brightly at the shop keeper.  He loved the pet shop, with all of its rare and unusual pets.  If his apartment was bigger, he'd have another.  But that probably wouldn't work out so well.  Aphrodite, his cat, was the queen of the apartment and she'd have to have words with him if he brought home an animal to compete with his attention.  She would never accept it and make his life a living hell until he conceded.  It was just as well, he didn't have enough money to support more than just himself and Aphrodite.

He had just enough to spoil her rotten though and it was worth every penny.  He eyed a few salamanders hiccuping smoke  on his way to the cat and kneazle section and nodded at the man with two-toned hair politely.  The Menagerie had a small selection of costumes for them.  They were charms that made the animal literally look like something else for a few hours.  Last year he'd bought one that made Aphrodite look like a cat-sized ogre and the year before that she looked like a cat-shaped pumpkin with a smiling face on her side.  She had been thoroughly irritated by the humiliation.  So this year he owed it to her to buy her something nice. 

Arcturus noticed the other customer and gave him a cursory nod in response to his acknowledgement. Odd to find someone so stylishly (in Arcturus' opinion; his fashion sense worked for everyone but himself) dressed wandering around the Menagerie. But, well, this was Diagon Alley, and he'd seen stranger things.

He extended his hand to the mewing cats and Kneazles, letting them sniff his fingers and then proceed to rub their cheeks on his hand fervently. Arcturus chuckled quietly as the purring and meowing sounds around him intensified.

As he straightened up, he noticed the other customer was checking out...cat costume charms? Arcturus suppressed an abrupt giggle of amusement; he had never exactly thought highly of that section since he respected Rustle far too much to do that to him. He'd always wondered what in the world exactly were the kind of people who made the demand for such charms in the first place.

He wasn't sure if the other customer had heard him, and he was hoping the other customer hadn't.

The other guy was laughing at him.  Granted it was a short, self conscious sort of giggle but it was most certainly aimed at him.  At first he glanced down at his clothes, wondering if he'd spilled lunch on himself or accidentally tucked his coat in his belt or something. He almost patted himself down to make sure everything was in order but thankfully stayed his hands at the last minute.  There was nothing wrong with your clothes, he told himself exasperatedly.

 That's when he realized he'd been caught out standing and regarding the cat costume charms.  Oh... right.  He was used to the people that knew him teasing him mercilessly about his relationship with his cat.  He tried telling them it was like living with a woman, with the fights and the clothing and everything but they never took him seriously.  But that was ok, he rarely took himself seriously.

He grinned at the man and adopted a grin of good-natured embarrassment.  "I like to think it's not as pathetic as it seems," he said in mock confidentiality.  "But I guess not, huh?"

He did get heard. Bollocks.

Arcturus gave him an apologetic grin, although only in terms for the other man hearing him; he still didn't think highly of the section. "You must have a very interesting cat to have any business over there," he said, raising an eyebrow in amusement. "That, or you're buying the charms for someone else. If it's the latter, I apologise."

...but I still find it funny nonetheless, he finished the sentence internally.

"If it's the former...that must be some cat. I assume you're a cat owner, seeing from how you know your way around the section. Am I right?"

"My cat..." Chaz began with a laugh.  "Interesting would probably be an understatement but I find it usually is when dealing with cats in general."   He didn't care one knut what this stranger thought of him and his habit of dressing his cat up every Halloween.  He did it because Aphrodite let him and because it made him laugh.

"I think she rather enjoys it," Chaz added, passing over a charm he'd been fingering.  The package had an image of a black leopard on the front, prowling dangerously.  "She's a bit of ham when it comes to that kind of thing.  Acts like she's bigger and badder than she really is."  He chuckled and picked up a charm with a Chimera on it.  Part lion, part goat, part snake, fun.  But probably Aphrodite wouldn't like it any more than she'd liked the ogre costume.  Perhaps something elegant or cute like the fairy?

"Aah. Your cat has attitude. Not necessarily in a bad way, mind you, but I can see where this is going." Arcturus looked down at the mewing cats; he had just so happened to absently dangle his hand over a Kneazle who was now enthusiastically batting at his fingers with a paw. He withdrew his hand before the feline went overboard.

"Still, she sounds like a rather unique cat in her own right." He looked around the shop and gestured at the cages. "I assume you got her from here? All the cats here have their own personalities...I wouldn't be surprised if you did buy her."

He noticed the selection of cat toys nearby and picked out a stuffed mouse with an animation spell. It sat on its haunches and looked up at him with its shiny bead eyes. Maybe this could work for Rustle.

Attitude was a mild way of putting it, he thought, grinning to himself.  He glanced  at his new pet shop friend.  He seemed like a bit of an odd duck.  The hair, for example, was half black and half white but he certainly didn't seem like the kind of guy to dye his hair.  In fact, he was a bit uptight.  But he seemed to genuinely enjoy feline companionship which was something he could certainly relate to.

  "Actually, I bought her in Southern France my first year at school.  That probably explains her passion for fashion," he joked. 

He held out his hand with his eyes twinkling and said, "My name's Chaz, by the way.  Owned by Aphrodite."

Arcturus returned the mouse to the shelf, stepped forward and grasped his hand firmly, shaking it once as he smiled warmly. "Arcturus, but I go by Hollingbury. Likewise, by Rustle."

He raised his eyebrows. "Southern France? Did you study in Beauxbatons? I assumed you were from England, I must be far too used to seeing my countrymen in Diagon Alley." Arcturus waved a hand. "And your cat sounds like a fine lady indeed, I'm not surprised she has a taste in fashion."

Arcturus looked at the costume charms. "Although...I'm thinking she doesn't approve of the more extreme options offered on that stand, but that's not really up to her, is it?"

"I'm actually from Germany, originally," Chaz informed him conversationally.  He shoved his hands in his trouser pockets and grinned.  "I did study at Beauxbaton though.  Appearance was very important to my parents so I learned French and English at quite a young age.  I certainly don't blame you for not guessing.  It's certainly not the most common of  journeys." 

Chaz looked back to the costume charms and winced inwardly.  He was certainly guilty of picking charms based on his own personal preferences with little care to Aphrodite's thoughts on the matter.  But not every time, he reasoned with himself.  He plucked the one that resembled a panther and waved it to Hollingbury with cocked eyebrow.  "She lets me know when enough is enough," he assured him.

As much as Arcturus didn't show his emotions, the feline atmosphere had relaxed him quite a bit...and he sucked at facial expression anyway. So at this point it wasn't surprising, not even for him, to make vague gestures in bewilderment with his hands at Chaz's revelation of his origin.

"You don't sound German." He was so confused. "But it sounds like you've been well-travelled...I don't even know why I'm making a big deal out of this. Moving on."

He took a deep breath and exhaled, before looking up and watching Chaz pick up a charm, and then smiled. "I might not think so highly of this sort of thing, but whatever you want to do is entirely up to you. I'd love to meet your fine lady; she sounds a lovely cat despite the fuss about what you dress her up in."

Arcturus looked back at the shelf of toys; he reached out a hand towards the little animated mouse, fated to only serve as entertainment fodder for felines, and watched it as it leapt onto his hand and ran along his arm onto his shoulder.

"While I contemplate the philosophy of life and death just by watching my own companion play a game of cat and mouse with a toy." It was a joke - Arcturus was more than familiar with life and death thanks to his job and his past - but he wasn't too good in expressing that sort of tone.

Chaz smiled but it was brief and stilted.  His eye contact with Hollingbury was also brief.  His face was  with the effort of maintaining a look of polite enjoyment.  All of sudden he felt like he was being attacked or judged.  His heritage, instead of being a pleasant or unique surprise as well as a fall back coversation topic, was processed and dismissed as if it was unimportant and Chaz didn't quite know how to react to that.  The man hadn't really given him much to work with. 

On top of that, he constantly belittled Chaz's enthusiasm for cat costumes.  He was used to that sort of thing, of course, but it felt a bit more confrontational in this situation and Chaz didn't appreciate it at all.  Maintaining any semblance of his natural charm had gotten quite difficult in the past couple of seconds.  Chaz grinned tightly and held up the panther charm.  "I think I've found the one."

He moved towards the cash register without commenting on the possibility of Hollingbury meeting Aphrodite or Chaz meeting Rustle.  He didn't mind the idea, it was just that he didn't want to put himself through the torture of maintaining some kind of polite small talk with the abrasive man.  He was good but, really, no one could be that good. 

Arcturus' smile faded slightly. He had an ear for tone, even if he was somewhat "body language blind" (as his father tended to describe it with lack of amusement on his part); at this point, Chaz's manner of speech seemed to be reacting negatively to his response. Not good.

There was a bit of a flaw with Arcturus in that regard - when people scuttled away from him, there was only one way he knew how to react. And he'd stuck to that way like a limpet stubbornly sticks to its rock - because it stopped him from making things go any worse. It was pretty much what he preferred. Whether it did any amount of good to his sociability or not, however, was pretty much debatable. Not many wanted to debate that in front of him, though.

So, he'd react in the only way he knew how. At least he could feel less guarded about it, and everyone to whom he'd reacted in that manner had at least accepted it for what it genuinely was.

"Going off already? Oh, well. I won't keep you from whatever's got your attention." He sincerely meant this. "Especially if it's your cat, I'm sure she's waiting for you whether you have a costume for her or not." Arcturus kept up his smile as he inwardly channelled some of his sincerity in his words with some effort, partially because he felt as if his emotions were desperately trying not to exit.

The animated stuffed mouse watched Arcturus intently with its beady eyes from his shoulder before diving under his collar in a spirited attempt to get him to buy it. Arcturus involuntarily yelped and scrabbled to get it out before it started tickling him, thinking, Story of my life.

Chaz stopped in his tracks and heaved a big but quiet sigh.  He'd been caught like a rat by those self-conscious but polite words of dismisal.  He couldn't just leave now or he'd feel bad about it for the rest of the night.  But what on earth was he supposed to do now?  He still didn't have any better of an idea about how to interact with this man.  Didn't especially want to except to save himself the guilt.

Luckily for him, when he turned around, the animated mouse Hollingbury had been playing with had suddenly dived down the collar of his shirt, causing the man to yelp .  There was a hilarious moment when the enchanted mouse surged towards him, tenting out the other man's shirt in its efforts to answer the summons.  Then it slipped back out the collar and zoomed into his hand.  He clutched it, feeling it wiggle and squirm in his fingers.  No way the blighted thing be doing the same to him.  The he held out his hand, with his fingers pinched around the wiggling tail and held the mouse out dangling from it.

"I think he likes you," Chaz joked.  "I wouldn't take him home though, wouldn't want to wake up in the middle of the night with him down my sleeping trousers."

Arcturus was caught completely off-guard by Chaz's response. He was used to people going "Yeah, sure, sametoyouseeyoulater!" Then again, he was fairly sure that a few words of farewell were not accompanied by a cat toy running through your clothes, and thus was probably a fair exception in the rules of life.

Still, for a moment he froze in surprise at this response. After a minute of silence and a blink, he composed himself and took the mouse from Chaz in relief - mostly at the mouse. It struggled in his hand, and then settled down in a disgruntled manner as if to say "okay, I'll behave now".

"Heh...well, this little guy will sure be a great source of entertainment for the house, as long as Rustle keeps it to himself." He gave Chaz a lopsided anxious smile; this was completely him. "But you know what? I'll take your word and find a mouse that's less...energetic. Someone must have given this fellow a bloody good dose of magic."

The mouse struggled again in his hand as he put it back into the box with its fellow animated mice, clearly not pleased with this development. Arcturus stood back and watched it disappear into the little crowd of scurrying toys, probably to sulk or something on those lines, before remembering that Chaz was still there. He turned his attention back to the fellow and then realised Chaz had seen him freak out.

"I...uh, well." Big apologetic and embarrassed smile, on. Arcturus had absolutely no intermediate stage in facial expressions when it came to looking apologetic. "I don't usually act like that in public, heh. Sorry you had to see that, it wasn't great." May the ground open up and swallow me now, he thought.