The plot of this story is based on JKR's Harry Potter series. Our plot weaves in 2 new characters: David Murray and Elizabeth Fawkes. It also incorporates ideas borrowed from the White Wolf storyteller game system. This is the second story in our series and our plot weaves around the original plot of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. We own only our own characters and our plot. All other characters and the original plot belong to JK Rowling. Please don't sue us:) Part 2 of the disclaimer: All gaming terms, references, settings and characters relating to Werewolf: The Apocalypse are owned by White Wolf (Martyn, Macha, Dave, and Lizzy are our own characters however), no copyright infringement is intended. BTW, we are not making a penny off this.
We also want to take this opportunity to acknowledge our good friend, Jason. He created Amadeus and the Werewolf chronicle from which our characters, Martyn and Macha, were based. Without his creative input, Martyn and Macha, and their subsequent development, would never have existed.
Kudos to our Beta Reader RemusisMine: aka JAX
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The Lord, the Lady, and Luna, Year Two
Chapter 4: Stop Yelling or Telephone 101
Sometime later that evening, after Vicky had gone up to bed, Tas came back, looking somewhat disgruntled. Lizzy let him in but, although he let her take the letter from him, he fluttered to his perch, still looking disgruntled and offended. Lizzy was puzzled, but she figured that maybe he was just tired and opened her letter. She saw with a mixture of amusement and annoyance, that Mad-Eye was miffed at her for sending him such a letter, although at the end he admitted to being a bit impressed. Lizzy knew by now that most people were afraid of him, but common sense dictated that the Chief Auror wasn't about to do anything to a twelve-year-old girl. She found out from the letter that Tas had startled the paranoid Auror and, as a result, had gotten himself singed a little.
"Gran!" Lizzy called to the kitchen where her Gran was chatting with her Mum.
"Yes, dear?" Gran replied.
"Could you please come take a look at Tas? Mr. Moody says Tas startled him and he singed him a little." Gran came hurrying out of the kitchen and checked Tas over. A healing spell later, Tas was just fine. "Thanks, Gran." Lizzy went to give her owl a hug, but he fluttered and turned slightly aside. "Come now, Tas, I didn't think he'd do anything to an owl, no matter how paranoid he might be. Besides, just think what a brave owl you were. You know, not many owls are willing to go to him. Khisanth will probably be very impressed with your bravery." Hearing that, Tas perked up and rustled his feathers happily. Then, to show her he wasn't mad, he relented and let Lizzy hug him.
The next day, Gran come over fairly soon after breakfast with a rather grim look on her face. Knowing that Lizzy would be in her lab, she went back there and knocked on the door.
"Come in, Gran," came Lizzy's voice from the other side. Gran walked in, amused and perplexed.
"Are you taking a leaf out of Professor Dumbledore's book?" she asked. "How did you know it was me?"
"Well, I wish I could just know what's going on around me without even trying, but the answer's a bit simpler," Lizzy replied, grinning. "I saw you coming from my window. But you're here early today. I thought you weren't going to be back until lunchtime."
"Madam Malkin Flooed me this morning. She would have Flooed you, but she didn't know you're hooked up to the Floo network. She tells me that when she talked to Mad-Eye about seeing David off in September and meeting him in June, he had assured her that he would take care of it. I do believe she has sent him a Howler of her own."
"Good. Maybe getting all these Howlers will get him to clean up his act," Lizzy said with some satisfaction.
"She's also a little upset with David for not telling her that his uncle hadn't shown up."
"Mr. Moody wrote that when he'd told Dave that he couldn't make it, Dave was very understanding. The problem there is that Dave would say that. He the type of person who wouldn't want to cause anyone any trouble, unless they're a troublemaking Slytherin, of course. Of course, he'd tell his uncle not to worry about it and of course he wouldn't tell Madam Malkin. But that doesn't mean he doesn't feel left out when he sees that everyone else's families are there for them."
"You're right, of course," Gran said. "I'll tell Madam Malkin that from now on, maybe she shouldn't rely on him to be there and go herself, or at least check with Mad-Eye the night before or even minutes before it's time to go."
"Good, because if he fails Dave again, I'll send him another Howler, and I'll keep doing that until he develops the habit of spending more time with him." Gran had to smile at Lizzy's indignation on her friend's behalf.
"Lizzy, do you know where David is? Madam Malkin said she tried to Floo him but there's no answer at Murray Manor, and Mad-Eye doesn't seem to know where David is, either."
"Oh, yes, I do know, but we can't really tell them. Dave is at the Caern, so maybe we could just say that he's at the 'anger management' place that Professor Dumbledore had set up for him. I think if they know that Professor Dumbledore knows where he is and knows that he's quite safe, they'll be reassured."
Shortly after, Gran went back home. She decided that instead of Flooing Madam Malkin, she'd go to Diagon Alley personally and have a chat with her.
About half an hour later, there was a knock at the door. Lizzy's dad went to answer it.
"Hello sir, does Miss Elizabeth Fawkes live here?" the man standing at the door asked.
"Yes, who might you be?" Lizzy's dad replied.
"I am Martyn MacLeod," the man said. "Are you Elizabeth's father?"
"Yes, I am Reverend Fawkes, what can we do for you?"
"I am also known as Falcon's Choice. I am Caern Warder of Darkness Falling."
"Oh yes, Lizzy has told us about you. Please, come in."
"Thank you," Martyn said, walking inside. "Is Miss Fawkes home?"
"Yes. Lizzy! Visitor!" Lizzy heard her dad call and came inside. She stopped short at the sight of Martyn.
"Mr. MacLeod! A pleasure to see you again," she said. "What brings you so far from Scotland? I hope everything is okay?"
"Yes, everything is fine," Martyn replied. "I was just curious as to why you and your family haven't visited the Caern yet. Did David not invite you?"
"Um, well, not so far."
"Curious, I did tell him to call. I would like it if you and your family would come to the Caern tonight. We're having a moot."
"Oh, the phone might be where the problem is," Lizzy said. Martyn and her dad looked blankly at her. "David is wizard-born. He might not know how to use a phone." As if on cue, the phone rang. Lizzy's mum came out of the kitchen to answer it.
"Hello?" she said into the receiver.
"HELLO? IS LIZZY THERE?" came a bellow from the other end. Lizzy's mum held the phone well away from her ear.
"Yes, but please don't shout like that."
"THEN HOW WOULD YOU HEAR ME? YOU'RE ALL THE WAY DOWN IN THE SOUTH OF ENGLAND AND I'M UP IN SCOTLAND!"
"The telephone will carry your voice. Just talk in a normal tone," Lizzy's mum instructed. "Here is Lizzy." Lizzy took the phone.
"Hi, Lizzy," came Dave's voice from the other end.
"Oh, hi David."
"These Muggle contraptions are really weird. Oh, I was supposed to invite you and your family to the Caern."
"Yes, Martyn is here. He said there's a moot tonight. We'll be there."
"Martyn's there? Why?" Dave asked.
"Well, he was concerned that we hadn't been to the Caern yet, even though he told you to call us," Lizzy replied.
"I did try to call you, but I kept getting strange places. One was Russia, then Canada, Indonesia, I think, and the last was Argentina. I tried typing in 'ElizabethFawkes', 'LizzyFawkes', 'MissFawkes', even just 'Elizabeth', but kept getting these strange places instead."
"Oh. David, you're not supposed to spell out my name, you're supposed to type in my phone number."
"Number? Then why are there all these letters on this thing?"
"Those are there for other reasons. It would take too long to explain it all. Didn't anyone show you how to use the phone?"
"Your number was right by the phone, Elizabeth," Martyn said, deducing from her half of the conversation what was going on. "Oh, wait, I don't think anyone told him that." Dave heard Martyn's comment through the phone and looked beside the phone.
"Oh, there is a number here, Lizzy, with your name next to it, but how was I supposed to know? Hey, you, knock off the laughing!" Dave said, directing the last comment to someone behind him.
"It's okay, Dave," Lizzy said. "They really should have taught you. Anyways, we'll all be there tonight, even Gran."
"Okay, I'll see you then." Dave said and began to walk away from the phone. Lizzy heard someone on the other end say,
"Aren't you going to hang up?"
"Hang up? What do you mean, hang up?" Dave asked, partly to Lizzy, as he picked up the receiver again.
"You have to hang the phone up to disconnect," Lizzy said, trying to be helpful.
"Okay, I hung up. What's so funny now?" she heard Dave ask.
"Dave!" she called, "Where did you put the phone?"
"Well, there's a coat rack here, so I hung it up there. Maybe I should hang it up with a noose?"
"No, no, no," Lizzy said. She could still hear someone laughing their head off on the other end. Before she could continue, she heard Dave cast 'Rictusempra', probably at whoever was laughing. She heard the laughter crescendo. Chuckling to herself, she continued her instructions, "First of all, does the phone you're using have a cord attached?"
"What, you mean this squiggly thing?"
"That's it. Now, follow it to the other end."
"It's a box of some sort," Dave said.
"Good. Now check the box. It should have an area on it that looks like it would fit the piece in your hand."
"There's some sort of cradle here."
"Good. That's where the piece in your hand will go when you hang it up."
"But I'm not hanging it up," Dave said, perplexed. "I'm placing it down."
"It's just a figure of speech, Dave, based on the fact that with older phones, the receivers used to actually be hung up," Lizzy said patiently. "You can also say disconnect, if you want to be more precise."
"Okay, so what do I do now? Just disconnect?"
"Well, generally you'd want to give the person you're talking to fair warning, as it's considered impolite to just hang up on someone. Usually, when we end a conversation, we say something like 'see you later' or 'bye'."
"'See you later'? But I haven't seen you yet," Dave said.
"Okay, then 'talk to you later', but since I'll be there later, in this case it does apply."
"Oh, okay I'll see you later then, I guess," Dave said
"Bye, Dave," Lizzy replied. "I'll wait till you hang up so you can be sure you did it okay." At the Caern, Dave placed the receiver on the cradle, looked at it for a second, then picked it back up.
"Did I do it right?" he asked, but all he heard was a buzzing.
"Do you hear a dial tone?" came Macha's voice from behind him. "It might sound like a buzzing. That would mean the connection has been severed."
"Oh, I guess I do, then," Dave said and put the receiver back. Seeing that Fionn had gotten what was coming to him for laughing at Dave's lack of telephone knowledge, Dave and Macha walked away, discussing various Kung-Fu moves that she had been teaching him.
"Martyn," Lizzy said as she hung up the phone carefully, "You might want to get back to the Caern fairly quickly. Dave cast a spell at someone, one that causes them to laugh uncontrollably." Only now did Lizzy permit herself to start laughing. The others were chuckling as well.
"I guess we really should have taught him," Martyn said, "But we never really thought someone his age wouldn't know how to use a phone. Is this why I've been getting phone bills that have places like Russia and Canada as destinations?"
"Yes," Lizzy replied, still chuckling. "It seems he dialled those places when he tried to spell out my name."
"Mr. Martyn, sir," came Vicky's sing-song voice from the stairs, "Will that handsome boy, David, be there tonight, too?"
"Yes, I will make sure the handsome boy, David, will be there. Well, we look forward to seeing you and your family tonight, perhaps around 5 or so. I must be getting back as we have to prepare for the moot," Martyn said, nodded at everyone, and stepped into the hallway mirror.
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Here ends chapter four of our second story. We will try not to take quite so long in writing this story, but of course, with kids and work, we can't make any promises. Please review and tell us what you think. BTW, this is, to some degree, an alternate universe fic. In the immortal words of Adam Savage (from the TV show "Mythbusters"): "I reject your reality and substitute my own." :)