Desperate Measures Duel - Round Two, Entries Options

[Department_of_My...]

Round Two ~ The Muggles Return

Our story begins with The Night of Many Returns.

Remus had to dash off because of the mysterious message. In his haste he overlooked some magical item he’d had with him.
What was accidentally left behind? What does it do? Is it important or significant where it is situated? (Be creative. Either a canon item or one of your own magical invention is quite acceptable.)

Did he also misplace or rearrange any of the Muggles’ items, or otherwise leave any clues that he’d been in the old stone house while the Muggles were gone? If so, what, how, where, etc.

What happens when the Muggle(s) come home and discover the above?
(Be creative. Extra points for humor.)




Remember ~
Each Entry needs its own unique title and you must not end your story until the third and final round.

Entries accepted until 9 pm Central Time Zone, Wednesday December 20th. 9am, Thursday December 21st.

Voting for Round Two will be open from Wednesday night through Friday.




***There is still a “Secret Character” lurking, though the likelyhood of you bumping into him or her seems rather slim with the turn the storyline is taking.
Still, best of luck to you!***

[Amunet]

The Unusual Task

A swift chill hit Remus in the face as he dashed outside looking for his longtime furry friend. Emerging from a nearby bush came a mangy black dog with a low growl.

“That’s hardly a way to greet me, Sirius,” commented Remus.

Sirius simply whimpered and walked towards the sidewalk, turning his head back to see if Lupin was following. Lupin sighed and followed along, “I think you’re really getting used to being a dog again.”
Wagging his tail, Sirius continued about a half a block and turned towards a secluded park with a rusty teeter-totter and some squeaky swings. For a moment, Remus was surprised to see a muggle girl on the swings, after all it was 4am.

Sirius went up to the blonde girl and licked her hand. She seemed to be in a daze and snapped out of it once drool was trickling off her fingers. Lupin chuckled a bit, which brought the young girl to notice a man standing a few yards from where she sat.

“Are going to watch me today?” she asked with not much of a change in expression.

This struck Remus as odd, who in their right mind asks a perfect stranger if they will be spying on them? To further Remus’s confusion, Sirius took it upon THAT time to sneak off into a nearby play area that consisted of some broken tunnels.

Speaking up again the girl said, “He’s a rather mangy mutt but I like him. Dumbledore said he would be highly helpful, so far he has helped me get my hands slobbery for the past few hours.”

“Dumbledore?” Lupin found himself asking out loud.

“Yes.” She said plainly, with no more explanation.

At that moment Remus focused on Sirius and followed him into the dirty tunnel. Sirius surprised him by sitting there in his human form with an unexplained half grin; half exasperated look on his face.

“Your note just had a paw print with ‘Hurry’ on the bottom, care to explain why I am to be babysitting?” Lupin asked.

“If you paid attention, there was an ink splotch on the parchment which should have indicated that it was enchanted and you should have looked at it more carefully …. Oh you were supposed to find the magic ink instructions.” Sirius finally explained after seeing the quizzical look on Remus’s face. “Where is the parchment? I’ll show you … I forgot the instructions Dumbledore told me to write down.”

“I left it in the house!”

“The muggle house!? Are you crazy, they are gonna come home soon!”

“Summarize the explanation for me. If the muggles find it, that’s fine since they can’t read the ink anyways.” Lupin said, a bit too casually for his liking.

“Fine,” Sirius snarled, “ You are to keep an eye on this girl, her father owns a silly newspaper that has ridiculous articles but some seem to be annoying the followers of Voldemort and the father wished that Dumbledore keep an eye on her to keep her out of harms way.”

“Then why are WE watching her?!”

“Shhh!” Sirius quieted his voice, “Dumbledore has uh, other matters to attend he said and trusted us with the job. That girl doesn’t know who I am yet, but if she saw me like this,” he patted his ratty jacket, “then we don’t know if she would alarm the ministry or tell her father who would publish it.”

“Okay, what am I suppose to do with her now?”

“Those instructions, I dunno, Dumbledore wrote them himself … on the parchment.” Suddenly Sirius went into his furry form.

Before Remus could question this act, the blonde girl crawled into the tunnel, “I’m Luna Lovegood and I need to go to the bathroom.”

[chad13]

Magi Patch

Sandy Sanders returned home with her parents from an evening with relatives in London. Mr. Sanders switched on the hall light and stomped his shoes on the front mat as Sandy hurried inside, her shoes still on, towards the kitchen.

Seating herself at the kitchen table Sandy waited patiently for her mother to fix her something to eat, her grandmother had never been a wiz in the kitchen.

Kicking her legs up, as most small children do when placed in large chairs, Sandy gripped the edges of her seat very tightly. Oddly enough, her left hand continued to slip as her right hand clung obediently to the wood of the chair. Halting the motion of her legs momentarily Sandy stared down at her left hand. A small coarse dark green patch was stuck to her chubby palm. Reaching around Sandy pulled the material fiercely away from her left hand, only to find it adhered to her right hand instead.

The struggle continued only so long as Sandy found it amusing, which was not very long, and then she screamed.

Mr. and Mrs. Sanders came running only as fast as they could into the kitchen.

“Sandy!” Mrs. Sanders coddled. “What's the matter?”

Through a stream of thick tears Sandy raised her left hand and waved it madly in her mother's face. Only together could Sandy’s parents keep her still enough to see what she was waving so franticly at them.

“It’s just some cloth sweetie,” Mr. Sanders stated matter-of-factly, as if Sandy understood matter-of-factness.

Yet, as a matter-of-fact, it was not simply some cloth , as Mr. Sanders so delicately put it, and he soon realized how wrong he was.

After grasping the patch firmly between his own hands Mr. Sanders realized that it would not come off of his daughter, but simply moved about her, as if it were a magnet attracted to her very skin. Between his wife and himself, there was no hope, and no way to console the small child.

Had the Sanders’s been wizards, or even squibs, and not the muggles which in reality, they were, they would have known very nearly instantly what the matter was. The small green varmint of sorts was actually a Magi Patch , or the poor mans repairo. Magi Patches had gone out of fashion many years ago after the second werewolf act passed the Wizengamot. Magi Patches after all, are only necessary to repair cursed rips and tares, any self respecting wizard would know.

Yet, the Sanders family was of strictly muggle origins, and to expect them to know anything of Magi Patches , the Wizengamot, or the fact that Remus Lupin, both a known werewolf and wizard was in their home scarcely an hour before their arrival, was absurd.

Mrs. Sanders ran quickly to the sink to get some water, as if that would help at all, as Mr. Sanders held Sandy in his lap, trying as best he could to keep her from flailing about.

Squirming on her father’s knee Sandy turned to her mother near the sink and stopped crying almost immediately. With one pudgy hand, half covered by the Magi Patch the small girl pointed, eyes wide. “Doggy! Doggy!” she shouted towards the window.

[McGonagall's Cat]

Again, I'm not in contention for any of the prizes. If my sub is chosen, whoever got the next most votes gets to choose what they want to claim.





Wizard's Compass


In a jumble of hampers, bags, suitcases, and with a dejected, “Hello the House”, the Edwards family returned home near eleven the next morning.

“There’s no helping the weather going bad,” said Mr. Edwards as he dumped an armfull of groceries onto the kitchen countertop. “We’ll go again later in the summer.”

The kids looked at him resignedly, mumbled something, and wandered off toward their rooms with duffle bags dragging behind them. At the top of the stairs Sean turned left and Sarah right, into their respective domains.

“Sarah?” her brother called across the hall, “Were you in here before we left?”

“Oh, yeah! I went into your room right after I put my radiation suit on,” she answered tartly.

“You’re sure?”

“No, I frequently stroll into disaster areas and don’t remember doing it. Look, Sean, (which she said as “seen”, in a very mocking tone), I have much better things to do than enter your maggot-infested pile of…”

But Sean interrupted her, “Stop it! I need you come see something.”

Knowing he wouldn’t leave her alone until she looked, she sauntered over and stood in his doorway. With her hands on her hips she irritably sneered, “What?”

He pointed to his rumpled bed.

“So what! You never make your bed.”

“But it was made before we left! Remember! Mom came in and stood there while I put the clean sheets on. She said we couldn’t go until my room was clean. She said the smell in a shut-up house would curl the wallpaper while we were gone. Remember? ”

“Okay… so you just messed it up and now you’re messing with me.” She started to turn on her heel to leave.

“But I didn’t,” he replied quietly. “Someone’s been here while we were gone.”

She looked at him with a skeptically raised eyebrow and stalked off, already in a bad mood from the ride home.

The bed appeared to have been slept in. There was a head-sized dent in his pillow, pressure wrinkles in the pillowcase, and the comforter had obviously been pulled into place hastily. A glass of water, partially drank, sat on the bedside table. Beside it lay a very interesting gold thing that resembled a compass.

“Coo-oo-ool!” Sean said reaching for it. Its cover had some foreign writing across it. Sean thought it might be hieroglyphics, but they didn’t have any of the funny birds or eyes that the hieroglyphics he’d seen before usually had. It was polished from many years of residence in some pocket, with the wear having blurred some of the symbols. He turned it over. The back had an odd bird carved into it. A button, or at least a protrusion that was obviously supposed to do something, stuck out from the side. Excited, he twisted it between two fingers.

Nothing happened.

He pushed on it. Again nothing happened, though it seemed to feel a bit warmer, which he thought might have been from holding it. Sean squashed it between his palms and rotated each in opposite directions. A slight vibration caused him to jerk his top hand away; the cover came with it. Inside, intricate moving parts danced around in what seemed random patterns.

“Wow!”

This time when he pushed the button, the parts melted toward the edges, allowing the three-dimensional image of a room to appear. Sean thought it was a very average setting, boring really, of a dog sleeping on a braided rug before a fireplace. It seemed like this had to be some sort of computerized storage device. Eager to explore this new gadget, he pushed the button again.

The dog in the image jerked awake and looked around. Its ears came forward and it tipped its head the way dogs do when hearing a high-pitched noise.

“Kewl! I wonder what else I can make this do,” the boy muttered, fascinated - and he pressed the little knob again.

Suddenly he was spinning uncontrollably. Smears of swirling colours assaulted his eyes until he was forced to squeeze them shut or throw up what was left of the pancakes and strawberries he’d had for breakfast. He felt like he was being compressed at the same time. Just as unexpectedly as it had started, the churning and twisting stopped. He swallowed, frantically reaching out to brace himself from falling over. As he wobbled in place, the big dog rose from the braided rug, ambled over and stuck its cold nose against his hand.

[lupinsmyman]

Ack, it could've been better. I guess this is what I get for forgetting.


Tea For Two



He breathed deep, taking in the cool night air. It was a week until the moon reached its full and Lupin could already feel his fingers itching. He opened the letter to make sure he was reading it right.

Remus,

Meet me by the tall oak on the right side of the house. Dumbledore put an Anti-apparation charm on house so no one can get in (but still get out if need be).
Padfoot



Well, thought Lupin sarcastically, that really explained things. He pulled out his wand and walked towards a clump of trees. The tall pines, oaks, and elms cast odd shadows on the ground. Even one shaped like a dog.

What he had thought to be a shadow, leapt up barking and wagging his tail. Golden eyes shined against his coal-black fur.

“Hello, Sirius.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“So you’re telling me that Ministry isn’t just out for my blood now? I guess fraternizing with a murder doesn’t get you a medal these days.”

Sirius Black swept his dirty hair away from his face, accepting a conjured cup of hot tea from his friend.

“You didn’t know?” Lupin asked, taken aback. Somehow, the ministry had learned that he had aided in Sirius escape the previous year and now had a warrant for his arrest.

“No. Albus just said you needed help and I was the one to give it to you. He’s always been like that, I suppose. More of nudge in the right direction that the actual answer.”

“I can’t stay here forever, and the ministry is bound to have you and me both in chains. I’m running out of options.”

Sirius was silent for a while. He stared absentmindedly at his cup of tea.

“There’s always Grimmauld,” he muttered.

“You mean, you’re willing to go back there, after all that’s happened?”

“I don’t particularly like the idea, but I suppose it’s the best place. Its nearly unplottable, after all.”

Lupin downed the last of his drink.

“Allright. When do we leave?” He said.
“In the morning. I’m tired of running around tonight.”


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The smell of bacon and eggs filled the new morning air. Lupin stretched and pulled the sheet up over his head. He had taken the room that looked least occupied. It still had the same wallpaper as when he was younger; blue with white stripes.

The sunlight was pleasantly warm and Lupin felt well rested. But something was wrong. He had never known Sirius to cook a day in his life.

He sprang out of bed, wincing as the floor creaked. He hadn’t noticed that coming in. Poking his head around the corner of the door, he listened carefully.

“…..that’s right, two cups. There’s no tea in this house. My wife is highly allergic. No, sir, the door was locked when we came in. When can we expect you? Around eleven? Thank you, officer, goodbye.”

Lupin muttered every curse he knew under his breath. How could he be so stupid? He’d left the cups on the table and gone to bed. He had barely ten minutes to make an escape. He knew he couldn‘t just leave, not with the ministry on the tail of every suspicious event. They‘d be caught in a days time, even apparating. Remus knew what he had to do.

Sirius came stumbling out of the room next to him. Remus pressed a finger to his lips and pointed out the window and down the road. A silver and orange police car swerved down the country road. Sirius nodded and together they apparated out.



Several minutes later, a tall blonde haired, balding man opened his front door. His wife pushed the shiny new dishwasher closed and welcomed the two police officers inside.

[lupinsmyman]

Here's my second. Enjoy, I'm going to bed now since its 2:00am

Mazes of Different Sorts

Sirius Black sat on the front porch, in his animagus form. He wagged his tail and jumped up on an unexpecting Remus Lupin. In his mouth was a letter.

"Padfoot! You nearly gave me a heart attack!" Lupin laughed taking the letter from his friend's jaws.

Sirius transformed back into his normal self once they were inside the house. Considering they saw each other almost every day for seven years, the few months that had passed since their last meeting seemed very long ago.

"How've you been, old friend?" Lupin asked

"The same. I've had to live off of rats the past few months. But Harry and his friends were kind enough to bring me some chicken last week. You know their having the Triwizard Tournament this year?"


"The rats?"

"Attempting a joke, Remus? You were never very good at them. They're having the Tournament at Hogwarts. Harry's been chosen. Someone's up to something, and I don't like it." Sirius replied, almost growling at the end of his sentence.

"But never mind that now," he continued. "What I came here for is in your hands."

Lupin turned the faded green envelope in his hands before opening it. He stared at it hard, confused.

"Its blank," he muttered, tossing the paper back down onto the table.

"Wha--" Sirius was interrupted as black lines swirled like smoke not on, but above the parchment. The lines formed paths and the paths formed a maze. At the center was an x.

"Where did you get this?" Lupin demanded.

Sirius shrugged. "Dumbledore said you'd know what it meant. Do you?"

"Yes. Follow me."

He got up from the living room couch, turned several corners, flung open a door and descended down the steps. Utterly confused, Sirius followed.



~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Kathryn, how many times do I have to tell you not to leave the basement door unlocked?" Ms. Eileen McLaughlin pushed the heavy door back into its spot.

"I didn't, Mum. I promise, I haven't been down there since Monday," the eldest daughter replied.

"Hey look at this!" A voice came from the living room. Eileen and her daughter rushed into the living room where a nine year old boy was hovered over an emerald green envelope, trying to read it.

"What's it say?" he said handing it to his mother. Her blue eyes swept the page quickly.

My dear Remus,

I hope this letter finds you (and its deliverer) safely. I trust that you know the meaning of the map enclosed and what supposedly lies in your grandfather's basement. Don't forget to be wary of muggles.

Warmest Regards,

A.D.

"Grab the flashlights, children. I think we need to go down to the basement"