Chapter 2
WWW is not an Internet store
Before I begin, you should know something about me. My timing is not the best in the world (nor is my delivery of facts). This knack of mine has proven itself to get me out of dates, concerts, classes, and restaurants. But for once, my little problem may just help me.
Now, I have never won anything spectacular in my life (except for that trip to Black Mesa, but that doesn't count), so when I had won an all expense paid trip with a friend to London and a 5,000 VISA, I was pretty surprised (not to mention excited). I decide that the best choice of companionship would be my best friend Jeff Traw (warT). I chose him because my other choice had way too many plans to abduct J.K. Rowling.
Since I am my father's son, I am a bit cheap, so instead of using the VISA to stay at a fancy hotel, I decided that we would stay my fourth great aunt Susan Pevinsie's house (yes I said Susan Pevensie). Having recently been to the land of Narnia and finding Aunt Susan's long lost siblings, I thought it would be nice for her to hear how they were doing. But bringing back memories that a person has been neglecting for the past sixty years was not the best idea.
About an hour after arriving at my aunt's house, she shuffled us out of the door. Upon arriving, I presented Susan with her long lost dress, that her younger sister Lucy helped me steal. At first she looked delighted, but when she realized where it was from, she gave me one of those 'how do you know because you weren't there' looks. Then she looked at the dress, me, dress, me, dress, so on, and so on. After what seemed like an hour (ten minutes) she muttered "H-h-how?"
When I had finished explaining (throughout my explanation Susan kept getting closer to the wine cabinet) she looked like she might have fainted. I decided to change the subject (she looked very stressful) by asking, "How has your life been recently, Aunt Susan?"
When one finds himself being shuffled out of his temporary shelter for the next few days, I realized that certain people don't like remembering certain parts of their past.
So as Jeff and I watched the door slam behind us (not sure how that is possible), one of the great unanswered questions of man arrived. "So what now?" asked Jeff.
After thinking as hard as I could for about one point five seconds, coming up with nothing, and giving up, I concluded, "I don't know, what is there to do?"
"It's London, there has to be something to do."
"Plan 11C?"
"Where are we going to get a tank?"
"Good point."
After consulting my tourist map, which Jeff got from a cute girl from the airport, one of my best ideas came to me. "Why limit ourselves to London? We have a whole island-thingy to ourselves, kind of."
Three hours and five-hundred dollars later, we were on a cab heading north, and going as far as three Euros could take us. The cab driver was a fairly nice guy, but there was something strange about him. It wasn't that he dressed strange, smelled of a weird tobacco, or seemed surprised that we paid him with Euros. It was that whenever he tried to turn on the radio, he turned on the heater, blinker, headlights, or ignition key. But what did calm our nerves was that when he dropped his pipe, he let go of the steering wheel completely to pick it up, and the car seemed to be driving itself, so we knew that there was no need to worry about his driving ability (that wasn't the first time Jeff and I had seen a car drive itself, but I will tell you about Hope later).
When our Euros were used up, he dropped us off next to a herd of sheep and told us of some mysterious ruins to the north that we should look at but not go into. Since we had no other place of great interest to go, we headed north.
The next four days almost seemed like a blur, (probably from all the running) but no fear, we were able to get out of the infected village with only sustaining a couple of bruises (I fell down some stairs), killing nine infected wolves, and hiding from half and fully-crazed people. When we arrived at the ruins, which was no more than a lake, a mansion, and some woods all surrounded by a five foot high stone wall, which was the strangest wall I have ever seen.
First of all, the wall seemed to hum an untoned melody, second of all, there was a sign that read "Touch at your own RISK", and third of all, when touched, the wall hurled you back twenty feet.
After several experiments of throwing rocks, and gear that was apparently forgotten by other hikers, Jeff was able to conclude that if we went over the wall we should be fine (I was unconscious at the time, from a ricocheting mess-kit and my face).
After regaining consciousness and finding a suitable tree, we jumped the wall. When we crossed it, Jeff and I saw that we were facing the wall and still standing next to the tree. A few (14) tries later, we decided to use the gate.
The gate was unlocked (locked with old lock) and was easy to open (break) and upon entering we found a small village. Relieved that we wouldn't have to make camp, we headed for the nearest pub. We quickly learned that this place was a secluded society that magicians (illusionists) could practice their work freely. After ordering whatever the good looking bartendress recommended, Jeff amused several magicians with his basic card tricks (I thought they would have thought he was a neophyte, compared to what they could do, but they seemed highly entertained, and a bit confused on how he was able to choose the card they picked). After all was said and done we headed up into the inn.
After a good night's sleep, Jeff woke me up so that I could look at a shop with three fancy gold W's on it.
"What do you think it stands for?" he asked.
I frowned, "Probably an Internet store, or something like that."
Jeff and I agreed that it probably wasn't an internet store, but it did give us the strangest feeling of de-cha-vu (not to be confused with de-ja-vu), so we went over there to see what their merchandise consisted of.
Upon entering my eyes must have fallen out of my head, rolled on the floor (which would explain that strange splinter), saw something else, and jumped back into my skull for protection. It was because there were many things that my imagination could not dream of thinking of, such as small furry things of various colors, randomly transforming things, talking objects, and many other things I cannot describe.
After a moment or so, a red haired man came out of the back, he was wearing a black cloak thing, and he was missing his left ear, and had several cuts and bruises on his face and hands. Then he approached us.
"What can I do for you boys today?"
Jeff was able to collect his wits faster than me and said, "Sorry for asking, but is this-"
"Weasley's Wizard Wheezes! And I am the owner/founder, George Weasley." He seemed suspicious though.
I think Jeff already knew that, because I had dropped what wits that I gathered. So Jeff continued, "Yeah, um, we weren't sure because we're traveling and-"
"From where?" George interrupted.
"I-I-Idaho." I stammered, thinking I should say something.
"Where?"
"North Western United States." Jeff said, preventing me from messing up.
"Then you must be from Rancorden?" the shop owner said as he reached for something in his back pocket.
Jeff replied, "Yeah, so you must know-." He didn't finish because George drew his wand, Jeff was already out of the way but I was too slow, and the spell hit me in the chest knocking me over.
While lying on the ground waiting for something to happen to myself (and praying that it wasn't permanent), I noticed a small red orb the size of a marble over the door vibrating. After I concluded that I was fine. I was able to get up only to see my Geek Squad shirt with the Geek Squad emblem missing and exposing my Narnian chest plate. I also noticed some pidgins that weren't there before. For a second I thought, "Oh no, Jeff" but Jeff had George pinned on the ground with the wand in Jeff's mouth.
Jeff gave me a 'why are you wearing that?' look and I shrugged, "It's comfortable."
When George admitted defeat, we let him up, but kept his wand (just in case). He then went on explaining that there was no Rancorden, and that since the biography of his brother-in-law was published, muggles have been showing up more often than they should, and that's why he had installed the muggle detector (red orb).
"Well, why don't you guys just seal off the gate?" I asked.
"Because Dumbledore thought that if a muggle could find a way in, they should be allowed in. But that was when one or two would come every other year, not every other month." George explained, but not letting his eyes off his wand.
After some negotiating, George said that he wouldn't modify our memories if: 1. we didn't tell anybody about Hogsmead (who would believe us?); 2. to keep an eye out for his nephew Ted Lupin, who was missing for about a week from the Diagon Alley branch of Weasley's Wizards Wheezes; 3. to transport some merchandise to a Kevin Connell in Washington, and keeping some of the merchandise for ourselves; and 4. show him some of Jeff's card tricks and explain how airplanes stay up.
"Couldn't we get a tour of Hogwarts?" I asked while looking at a scale model on a counter.
"No. For two reasons, one being that they have to clean up a mess that Ted made during the banquet, and two, because the teachers are too busy to give tours, so students have to do it, if they are good." Then George went back behind the counter and grabbed a bag of green powder. "But, I believe Professor McGonagall will want to take a look at that armor of yours. So take this floo powder I got from my brother in the Auror Office, it will work in any fireplace, event the unregistered ones. You know how to use floo powder, don't you?"
"Yeah."
"Okay, then I'll just send you an owl when you should come and you can get here. Do you have any questions?"
Jeff yelled from across the store, "Do you take VISA's?"
In the end, we left with a crate of black-like powder for a Kevin Connell, a bag of floo powder, two wands that could transform small objects into various things, some joke candy (puking pasties), fireworks, some shield charm gloves, a small truth detector cube thing that would vibrate if someone close by told a lie (it was almost complete waste of money because Jeff and I could barely get through a conversation without it going off, it is now stuffed away in several rolls of socks, and some mild love potions (that would wear off after a couple of hours).
Jeff and I agreed that it would be for the best not to walk back to London, so we were able to get a ride on the Hogwarts Express.
Neither Jeff nor I had been on a train before, so we didn't know what to expect. It was for the best because after an hour of looking out a window, things start to get boring. There were only two times that something exciting happened. The first one being, that we spilled chocolate frogs throughout the cabbin and the second was when the old lady that sold candy started to flirt with Jeff.
Oh, yeah… the infected villagers (with what, I don't know) that I mentioned earlier, stopped the train to get their revenge on us (for what? I still don't know, but Jeff might). Unluckily for them, they stopped that train on a narrow bridge, so they had to be in a single file line. So Jeff, being the pyromaniac that he is, took the biggest (most expensive) firework, which when lit turned into a dragon, and fired it at the villagers. It scared most of them, but only a few jumped off the bridge, and the rest seemed to have disappeared in the fiery lizard.
Other than that, nothing interesting happened on the Hogwarts Express.
When we (finally) arrived at London Station (Jeff and I swore that next time we would go on a train, there would be more people and alcohol) we were tired of candy and wanted to get some real food, but there was one problem. We didn't know how to get off the platform nine and three quarters.
After about a half an hour of search, I noticed something shiny (I like shiny things) under one of the benches. It looked like a dull shiny because when I came closer I noticed that there were two rings covered in a lot of dust.
When I pulled both of them from out of underneath the bench, I saw that I was standing the middle of some woods with pools scattered everywhere.
"Shit…"