Saturday, February 23, 2008
Continue story (I copy and paste from internet) - Chapter 4 - 'SLIENCED CONESENT'
CHAPTER 4
Complications
“That’s my bag!” Draco pounced startlingly forward.
The red and orange-haired animagus woman who was holding the precious velvety sack stopped him. “Slow your roll, Blondie. I’m Steph. I work with-regrettably-Gillius Sage. You’ve reached the G.U.S. Dust shop and I wonder, obviously, if I can help you?” she said, her tone irritated but still approachable.
“You stole that bag from us,” said Draco more calmly.
“I didn’t steal this bag from you. I stole it from Gus. Who, it appears that, at some point, stole the bag from you. Nonetheless, I can’t help you now. Unless it’s just the bag you want, it’s contents were not availble when I stole it. Perhaps Gillius has it."
“Steph, please! Were can we find him? We need that sand."
"Sand?" Sirius asked, confused.
Just then the much-referenced Gus walked towards them. He seemed upset and upon seeing them his eyes narrowed. "Who are you and what are you doing here?" He was even more pathetic and whiny than Draco, until he saw what the orange-haired woman was holding. “My bag!” he yelled, snatching it from Steph.
“No! It’s my bag!” Draco yelled louder, snatching the bag from Gus.
“Draco, if the sand’s not in there then there’s no reason to keep it,” said Hermione.
That statement prompted Gus to take the bag back from Draco’s long fingers. “My bag…”
"Do you have any sand that we could possibly buy from you? Perhaps the kind that can take you up to, say, two decades into the future?"
“No. I’m afraid not…" Gus said. "I mean we have sand that can take you forward five years if that helps."
Hermione seemed to consider it. "If we had enough we could probably manage it." she told Draco.
He nodded but still seemed slightly opposed to it.
"I don't believe that is possible." Steph said, slowly. "You see I sold it, yesterday."
“TO WHO?” Gus asked in outrage.
“Whom,” Hermione coughed, trying not to make her slight OCD too obvious.
“Dennis,” she said, guilt-ridden.
“WHAT?? I told you specifically not to sell him any sand!!"
“Why not? I thought you worshiped him!”
“I haven’t decided if I trust him or not yet…” Gus said softly, staring at the ground. "And besides, what do you think he's going to use it for?"
Steph shuffled her feet, nervously. She knew, having been friends with Dennis since their Hogwarts years had taught her that anything was possible with him when he had his mind to it. He could very well be taking over the world, as it were.
Draco leaned over to Hermione and whispered: “I no longer wonder why this shop isn’t still in business in our time.”
Hermione shook her head as if recuperating from a swig of strong alcohol. “Enough of this!! My friend Draco and I-my name is Hermione-really don’t have time for this nonsense! Can you bring us to this Dennis character?"
Steph and Gus shared a silent look before Steph answered, “I suppose that could be arranged.”
She looked to the shop next to GUS dust wondering if he was in there or in his house.
Back at the clothing store, just as James and Lily were standing in the check-out line to buy the brown shirt, Lily’s cell phone rang. “Hello?” she spoke into the mobile phone that would have seemed annoyingly outdated and bulky to Hermione and Draco had they seen it.
Lily heard her best friend Rachel’s voice echo her greeting on the other line. “James, can you handle this yourself? Rachel wants to talk,” she said with her fingers temporarily covering the lower half of the phone.
“Sure,” he said as he moved up to second in line. Lily stalked off, listening intently to Rachel whine about her recent encounter with her parents, and while James watched her affectionately he didn’t realize it was his turn to check out.
“Um… Sir?”
He turned around to see the cashier twirling her long dark hair around her manicured fingers and chewing a piece of gum.
“Right. Sorry,” James put the shirt down in front of her.
The scanning machine was giving the dark-haired woman difficulty as it didn’t seem to want to ring the price up. She had to telephone another employee and wait for them. She apologized to James with the sweetest little smile, and James somehow felt the need to fill the wait with conversation-anyway, it would calm him down.
“I’m going to meet my girlfriend’s parents tomorrow, so I needed to find something to wear.”
“Oh, really?” the woman whose name tag read “Sarah” continued to smile politely even though she was more interested in looking for her co-worker.
“Yeah. I hope this shirt is okay. They’re mug-um…” he stopped himself.
“Hm?” her smile had dropped, but she was giving him more attention than before it was as if his near slip had made her interested in what he had to say.
“I wonder if you have any advice on meeting her parents? I’m a little nervous.”
“Suuurrre,” she said happily, almost surprising him. “First off, show respect to the folks, and try to act interested in what they’re saying. It’s a good idea to get your girl to prep you on what questions they’re likely to ask, and think out your answers in advance. And when you’re there, you have to treat your lady like she’s the most important thing in the world…”
James was listening intently, trying to absorb every word the woman was saying and silently cursing for not being able to use a magic quill in a muggle mall.
“Don’t give out your strong opinions until you know better… The first impression means a lot,” the girl named Sarah finished as Lily came back over to them.
“What’s going on?” Lily asked, cordially but curious.
“The machine is broken so I’m getting some advice on how to act tomorrow,” he said, sounding perfectly content.
“You’re asking advice from a complete stranger who’s wearing a shirt that says ‘HIT IT AND QUIT IT’?” Lily asked, her voice sardonic and unimpressed.
James merely looked back at Sarah, who gave her biggest, sweetest smile yet.
“Who the **** is this Dennis guy anyway?” asked Draco finally.
“Hold on. You’ll find out soon enough,” said Steph, and needless to say they reached their destination only seconds later.
It was a small hut in the middle of a forest and they had followed a somewhat camouflaged extension cord all the way there.
Gus knocked on the small door obsessively. “Hey! Hey! Open up!”
“I’m coming! I’m coming!” called a groggy, derisive voice from inside the hut, and out walked a slender man who had to duck to exit, who could have looked like he was in his 20’s had it not been for his freakishly overgrown, gray facial hair. He cursed into his beard when he saw Gus standing there, who was awestruck to be in his very presence.
“Dennis, this is Hermione and Draco. They’ve come to negotiate with you about the sand I sold you earlier,” Steph introduced.
"You see, Draco and I arrived here by accident, I guess we didn't realize that the sand was not in the bag but we need to get back to our time and we were hoping you could sell the sand to us." Hermione said.
After a moment of silence she nudged Draco in the shoulder. Draco merely stared up at Dennis’ long gray beard with the same fascination as Gus.
“You know, you look like Gandalf,” he said.
“I am Gandalf.”
“I thought your name was Dennis.” Draco said.
“That’s only what I call myself when I’m playing Halo...”
Silence.
“Right…” Hermione said with one raised eyebrow.
“Halo doesn’t come out on Xbox for at least another 15 years,” said Draco. "Not that I would know that seeing as it is filthy and muggle."
“That’s why I need the sand.” Dennis said, eyeing Draco.
“Ah,” Draco said, understanding now.
“Draco!” Hermione barked, outraged by his surrender.
“Hermione! It’s Halo,” Draco griped, as if it were obvious.
"I thought it was filthy and muggle." Steph said.
"It is."
“IT’S BLOODY 1978!!!” Hermione practically yelled, bringing everyone back to their subject.
“There’s no reason to raise your voice-” Gus muttered.
“Okay. Okay. Just help me understand this,” Hermione said to Dennis.
“How did you even know about Halo if you live in this time period? By what means did you get to the future in the first place?”
"What makes you think this is my true time period and that like you I didn't get stuck here and miss my x-box so that I needed the sand?" he asked them.
Hermione glared at him. "Please."
“The means were the same sand as you used to come to this time. A young woman not unlike yourself came to the past-this year-for whatever reason, and she was smart enough to bring extra sand for subsequent travels through time. We hit it off and now she travels back and forth with me to buy more sand and video games.”
Hermione squinted at him. “May I ask who the woman is?”
The door opened again and a slightly older Luna Lovegood walked out wearing only an extra long t-shirt. Draco almost lost his lunch.
“Mione! Draco! What are you doing here?” asked Luna, still fixing her messed up hair.
“Oh, Luna…”
“That is deeply and utterly disturbing,” said Draco.
“Luna, do you have some sand to spare for us? We need to get back to the normal time,” said Hermione, hesitantly getting back to business.
“Anything for you Hermione… but we’re a little short. There's only a bit of it left, we, um just came back from the future about an hour ago. I don't think there's enough. It will most likely just take you to a year from now, not even five."
"Did you not bring more from the future, Luna?" Dennis asked.
"No. Remember I met a friend and she promised to come see us soon."
"Yes, you're right."
Hermione furiously looked over at Draco, who was still sticking his tongue out and making sick faces at the thought of Luna and this Gandalf-ish Halo fan.
“Now what?” asked Sirius, who had given up on trying to understand the situation. Hermione had almost forgotten he was there. She gave him a small smile.
“Well… Night is starting to fall. It looks like we’re going to need a place to stay until we can figure this out,” she said solemnly. "Or until their friend comes by, who is your friend?"
"Ginny." Luna stated.
"Oh." Hermione said. "Now, where can we stay?"
“You can always stay with us,” said Luna’s soft voice and she played with Dennis’ fingers.
“We wouldn’t want to… intrude,” said Hermione.
“No, you wouldn’t be intrud-”
“REALLY. We can’t,” Draco cut in.
“Well there’s simply no question about it. You’ll stay with the Marauders,” said Sirius, and it was final.
