54: Is that a Telephone?
[3rd Pov]
A few days had passed since Alaric and Lysandra had returned to the Bagshot's Cottage. Aunt Bathilda, as always, had welcomed them with a sizable dinner with an array of different foods — because she couldn't remember what the twins liked.
Isadora was still extremely busy with work, but when she didn't have any ladyship duties, she would try to spend her free time with her son and daughter. The business wasn't that accessible when you were part of a house that produced a Dark Lord, but Isadora was no frail woman. She kept their house's pockets full and business afloat, all by herself.
It was about midday by now. Alaric had allowed himself to sleep in for the first time in a while. Summer was about to get hectic with the things he wanted done before the beginning of the next school year, so he doubted he would be able to rest like he did in the past few days.
Randolph Spudmore was the top priority on his list. Alaric and Orion were aiming to be the sole distributors of his new Firebolt, meaning they needed to pull an idea out of a hat for the man to give precedence to their shop over all others — in Britain at least.
The warm sunlight shining through the windows roused him from his slumber, propping Alaric to stretch and yawn in satisfaction. His hair was unkempt, his sleepwear dishevelled, but a flick of a finger was enough to tidy everything, including his bed.
After a cold shower to properly wake up, Alaric was dressed and ready to go. Sporting a simple white shirt with the sleeves folded back, black suit trousers and dark brown shoes, he walked out of his room and made his way downstairs for brunch.
He placed his wand on a small holster on the left side of his hip and went down the wooden stairs, finding the unusual chatter coming from the living room slightly annoying. Lysandra must have her friends over, he wondered but groaned at the thought. Stealthily, Alaric walked past the living room into the kitchen, sighing in relief when no one noticed him.
"Alaric?"
Alaric made a clicking sound with his tongue and glanced at the red-haired girl in front of him. Hope wore a cute white summer dress, brown boots, and a black belt with a shiny silver buckle around her waist. He had to admit she looked rather pretty, but it didn't change the fact that he didn't want to interact with her little group.
"Hi," he greeted with a friendly smile. Alaric walked by her in an awkward movement, picked up a glass, and acted like he was quenching his thirst while hoping she would go away. But Hope lingered at the entrance, looking in his direction, clearly struggling to say something.
Silence settled in the kitchen as Alaric took small gulps of his water while taking breaks in between, almost as if he was savouring a newly opened bottle of wine. The awkwardness in the air was almost palpable, and when Hope finally managed to gather some courage, a voice came from the corridor.
"Hope?" The distinct voice of his sister echoed down the hallway, and Alaric thanked his mother and father for giving him a twin. "What's taking you so long?"
Lysandra's black-haired head peeked into the kitchen, a hint of surprise in her eyes as she saw her brother. "I thought you'd sleep the whole day," she chuckled and then proceeded to shoot a sly smirk at her friend.
"I have some things to do later," he said, placing the empty glass on the counter, which magically cleaned itself and floated to the cupboard it came from.
"Is that so?" Lysandra shrugged. "Anyways, come with us, I want to show you something," She said, grabbing his hand and pulling him to the living room while Hope followed.
The living room of the Bagshot cottage was how every elderly lady's room was. Neat and tidy, cosy, and above all, filled with dubious amounts of furniture and cutlery. Of course, in this case, the room had a touch of magic in it. Each dish hanging on the walls displayed animated scenes — sometimes animals, at times family portraits, and occasionally beautiful landscapes. Cupboards and bookshelves featured a straightforward yet effective dust-cleaning charm that kept them pristine, and the sofa boasted of warming and cooling charms, depending on the season, while by the fireplace stood a grand family tree illustrating both the Bagshot and Grindelwald lineages.
When Alaric entered the room, he instantly noticed the weird — definitely Muggle — contraption on the ground, surrounded by the familiar faces of Ron, Harry, and Ginny. They were huddled on the floor by the sofa, puzzling over this strange device.
"I've already told you that's not how it works, Ron!" Harry rebuked Ron, slapping his hand away, irritated by his random button pressing.
"Bloody hell," Ron said, rubbing his hand. "No need to slap me,"
"Then keep your hands to yourself," Ginny chimed in.
Alaric stared intently at the device, making certain there was no trace of magic on it.
"Is that a..." he finally said, turning to his sister, who had settled on the sofa.
"A telephone," she said, propping her chin in the palm of her right hand. "It's what Muggles use to talk to each other from a distance,"
"I know that," Alaric uttered with a grimace. He took a seat beside his sister, and after a brief inner struggle of emotions, Hope daringly settled beside him—close enough to be friendly but mindful of his comfort.
"Oh, hi, Alaric!" Ron, recognizing the newcomer, stood up to greet his friend's brother but ended up tripping over his sister's leg and landing on the floor with a thud.
"Don't mind me," Alaric chuckled, nodding at Ginny and Harry with the same friendly smile. Both had an awkward expression plastered on their faces but returned the nod nonetheless.
The three continued to fiddle with the pink telephone. While Ginny explained to Ron how it worked, Harry tried, unsuccessfully, to conjure a power cable to connect the telephone to the only electricity source in the house — a small radio Aunt Bathilda had bought from a Muggle vendor, mistaking it for a Wizarding Wireless Network.
"It's not going to work," Alaric noted after being silent for a while. Harry looked at him, confused. What did he mean by 'It's not going to work'? How were they supposed to call Hermione then? And it wasn't like Alaric knew telephones better than him. After all, Harry and Hope grew half in the muggle world, and half in the wizarding one.
"There's too much magic in the air for it to work," Alaric continued. He flicked his finger at the radio, turning it on. For a while, a static sound emitted from the device, but suddenly, it turned off. "Electricity-powered devices don't usually work in spaces heavy with magic because of the dampening fields the magic itself emits,"
Except for Lysandra, they all looked at Alaric as if he was an alien.
"You know what electricity is?" Harry blurted out without thinking and Alaric rolled his eyes. Contrary to popular belief, he knew quite a lot about Muggles — and that's exactly why he carried a slight distaste for them.
Apart from that, telephones were something that interested him quite a lot. After all, if there was something that Alaric agreed the Muggles were good at, was being ingenious. For him, the muggle device opened a lot of possibilities for artefacts he could create — the only problem being the ICW.
The International Confederation of Wizards was probably the reason there was no wizard phone or something similar to the device in this day and age. Because of the International Statute of Secrecy, creating artefacts similar to muggle devices or enchanting already existing ones was strictly forbidden. Meaning, that if Alaric wanted to make something with the same function, he had to get creative with its appearance and functionality.
And even if Alaric managed to create something within legal bounds, would he really sell it as a product? Wouldn't it be better to only spread it among those close and trusted in case of a major conflict? It wasn't pretty to imagine a squadron of Death Eaters relaying real-time information to their lord.
"I admit that I may have forgotten that part," Lysandra said with a sigh before looking at her brother. "How are we supposed to make it work then?" she asked.
Being broken out of his thoughts, Alaric looked intently at the telephone on the ground, before kneeling beside it. He pulled out his wand and placed it on top of the device. After what seemed an hour — or only ten minutes — of writing and re-writing runes and enchantments, Alaric recited the last incantation before sighing.
"You now have an illegal enchanted item punished by imprisonment in Azkaban," Alaric smiled while tapping Harry's shoulder. It seemed they were too excited to hear him because the moment Alaric got up, they started to type in Hermione's house number.
*RING*RING*
In London, in the Hampstead Garden Suburb of Heathgate number eight, to be precise, a 13-year-old girl with bushy brown hair and a pale face, was sitting on a cushioned armchair, staring intently at the telephone in her lap.
When she was about to give up, the phone finally rang, although with a strange tone, different from usual. She quickly picked it up but instantly regretted it.
"Bzz — HERMIONE? HE-LLO! ARE.YOU.THERE? H-E-R-M-I-O-N-E? CAN YOU HEAR ME?"
The distinct voice of her friend, Ronald Weasley, echoed from the phone, almost crippling her in the process. Even with the speaker a metre away from her, she could still clearly hear Ron's shouting through the telephone.
"R-Ron! Stop yelling!" she said loudly, and it seemed Ron understood, as his shouting ceased.
But on the other side of the phone, what really happened was Ginny's hand meeting her brother's head.
"Give me that," she said, taking the phone from Ron's hand and placing it near her ear. "Hermione? Hello?"
"Ah, Ginny!" Hermione's voice was mixed with some static, but nothing too hard to understand. "I thought your brother was trying to turn me deaf!" she chuckled from the other side.
"Well, sorry about taking too long to call you," Ginny apologized. "We took some time to get it to work,"
"Oh, I understand," Hermione waved it off — well, tried to because no one was present with her in the room. "Anyways, have you seen the news?" Hermione's tone quickly turned sombre as she asked the question.
"What news?" Ginny, confused, inquired while looking at the rest beside her.
"Do you have today's newspaper nearby? It's better if you see it for yourself,"
Alaric, hearing her worried voice, quickly whistled. From another room, a grey owl filled with food around its beak came flying into them. "Sir Feather, were you eating instead of delivering the newspaper, you glutton?" He reprimanded the family owl, but still rubbed under his chin affectionally, displaying a rather cute picture.
He grabbed the paper from its claws and opened it, expecting Skeeter to have finally realized her article on Lockhart.
'Sir Feather,' Hope thought with a red blush. 'So cute,'
The grey owl was a beautiful bird with soft, silvery-grey feathers. Its big eyes sparkled like silver stars, and it had sharp claws for catching its food. When it flew, its wings spread out, showing off its pretty grey feathers. She wondered if its name came from how elegant the owl was.
However, her happy thoughts didn't last long because of Alaric's next words.
"Mass murderer Peter Pettigrew escapes Azkaban... what?" His amazement at the feat was evident, after all, no one had escaped Azkaban — ever.
""Pettigrew?!"" Harry and Hope shouted in disbelief.
**********
A/N: Fun Fact! Did you know that Rowling created Quidditch after having a big fight with a now ex-boyfriend? She said she doesn't remember the connection between the fight and the game except that maybe "in my deepest, darkest soul I would quite like to see him hit by a bludger."
Hope you enjoyed the chapter!