“That…tee…aich...tee…so…ounds gee…arr….eight…..I…would…doubleyou…you…dee…like that…tee…aich…tee.” The sight to many a witch and wizard would have been a bizarre one if the speaker hadn’t have been alone in the living room of his friend and colleague. “We…should….sh…you…dee meet for….” The speaker paused in his concentration, his finger resting on a button. “What did he say again? For….four. How do’ya…how did he say to do a number?” The finger hesitated before it forcefully stabbed the button which read ‘4GHI’.

This contraption held in the speaker’s hand was made of a hard sort of…was it really foam? It was heavier than what had been expected. Foam was known for its squishy, malleable form. It was springy, light and full of bubbles. This foam was hard, quite heavy and had vibrated in his hand frequently. This particular foam had cost its owner a ‘tenna’. Jonas had requested one and in return he had handed his colleague this small, hand sized, hard feeling mobile foam. He’d wanted to ask Jonas what made this heavy foam more mobile than others but hadn’t had the chance before the contraption had began to vibrate in his hand accompanied by a ringing sound and a flashing box in what had been a black square.

“That’s me numba’.” The Cornish yet irish lookalike had cheerfully told his colleague before handing him a tiny booklet with instructions for a ‘sim’ card.
“Well what do I do wiv it?” The puzzled handler of the foam had enquired. This was when he’d been introduced to the joys of ‘text in’. Text in what, he had yet to comprehend. And when he’d been told his inn box could hold over 200 messages the man had stared in awe. They had to be some very small owls to fit in that foam. And where did one fit 200 pieces of parchment in such a tiny contraption? He hadn’t even wanted to think about the quills and ink pots!

But to cut the long story short, the wizard had left work and apparated home with a ‘fiva’ credit, a sim card and a ‘tenna’ worth of vibrating and singing foam ready to text in his muggle dates.

This was why this particular evening, a bespectacled Edward Pratt was sat on the sofa in his work partner’s living room squinting at the piece of foam in front of him as he tried to remember the lesson Paddy Trevelyan had given him on how to text people….pee..pee..ell. Ed remembered that one. In fact, Jonas had written him a list of popular ‘text in’ speak which was inked onto the piece of parchment that sat on the coffee table which Ed’s feet were presently propped up on.

Pratt had a conundrum. It wasn’t a work problem. And it didn’t have anything to do with the ruckus in the bar the other day. This here problem was to do with females. Muggle females. Apparently Pratt was an irresistible handsome chap. Therefore getting the girls hadn’t been his problem here. He’d been on a few dates with several of them over the past month. He’d ended up in some of their beds the next morning. He’d dated three of them again. And again. And again. Ed liked all three. He’d enlisted Jonas to get him this foam to keep in contact with all three. But all three wanted him to take them on a date the next evening. But Ed didn’t have a time turner. Or a large enough wage packet.

“meet four…coffee…cee…oh…eff…eff…”

It had been a long day.  The full moon on the previous night had not ended quite as catastrophically as in March, but the results still had not been pleasant.  The tension in the Auror Office was so palpable that one could feel it, outmatched only by Ackerly's very present absence.  Charlene already felt very tired by the time she apparated back to her home, but she and Hunter had made plans for the evening, and the thought of spending a night out on the town with her boyfriend at least gave her something to think about besides the growing sense of foreboding at work.

She was almost surprised that her partner had made it home first.  Ever since he had gotten kicked out of his home, Pratt had thrown himself into his work; he had even started filling out paperwork, although she still usually had to redo the forms.  Even though he'd been sleeping in her spare bedroom, she barely saw the man.  He was either at the office or out with one of his Muggle girlfriends (who, she had made it quite clear, were not welcome in her home afterwards).  It was almost like living with a messy blur, whose presence she would have doubted if it weren't for the disaster that he left in the bathroom and the kitchen.

And yet, here he was, sitting on her sofa and running through parts of the alphabet out loud.  It was almost too bad that she'd already made plans to go out with Hunter tonight.  Shaking her head, Charlene closed the door behind her and started on her way to the kitchen.

"Brushing up on your spelling, are you?" she asked, giving him a tired smile as she passed by.  "I'm certain that Raynor will appreciate --"

She stopped dead, her entire train of thought derailed as she stared at the small rectangular object in the other Auror's hand.  Edward Pratt didn't use Muggle devices.  In fact, next to Tamis Raynor and Dean Bailey, whom she had once caught using something that she would have sworn was a Muggle tea kettle for a practice that decidedly did not belong around tea, she probably would have voted him the least likely to even know what a Muggle device was. 

"Feet off the table.  Don't tell me that working with Trevelyan is rubbing off on you already," she remarked, taking a seat on the other end of the sofa.  Impending night out or not, this was too unusual to walk by without getting an explanation.  Hunter would understand.  "What in Merlin's name are you doing with that thing?"

“Eee eee fullstop...no no question mark...shit how’d ye...?”

"Brushing up on your spelling, are you?"

The now extremely modern and all knowing muggle extraordinaire span his head around the see his partner walking into the living room. He looked at her over his glasses and frowned at her briefly before green eyes shot back to the foam.  How did he go back and delete? The auror pressed the screen forcefully but it did nothing. He stared at it, confused as Charlene lowered herself onto the seat at the other end of the sofa with a command he didn’t pay heed to immediately.

Edward Pratt and his work partner Frizzy Malone had been co-habiting for a few weeks now. Not that Ed spent much time in his colleague’s house. When he wasn’t working late he was meeting the numerous talent on offer for drinks. Sometimes, he didn’t even venture back to the house until the following morning for a shower and a change of clothes.  Ed figured he may as well enjoy his newly found single freedom. Work was hard.  Everyone one of them was being dragged down into the abyss that was the trouble occurring. The problem in the bar the other night had riled Ed but he had to put it behind him and make sure everything was going to be okay. This was why he stayed late almost every night to make sure his family were safe. Jonas had questioned his motives. Ed stuck by them.

A thumb forcefully pressed down on the button marked ‘OK’ and the foam made a loud ringing noise and began to vibrate excitedly, akin to a baby owl being given his first letter to deliver. As Ed held the device at a safe distance (arm’s length to be precise), he imagined hundreds of tiny owls within it shuffling wildly and tweeting with excitement as the first of their herd (or flock or whatever a large amount of owls together was called) flew off with his text to deliver it to another herd of owls inside another foam and his muggle female friend would read it and send another tiny owl back to him. It was wonderful!

“That thing, Frizzy my dear,” The auror began in response as he presented the foam to her with a large grin resembling a child having been given his first broomstick for Christmas. “is a mobile foam. It is not attached to the wall by what muggles call a cow bell like other pieces of foam and one can take it everywhere with them to remain contacted with a loved one or an attractive muggle woman by the use of talkin' into the foam or sendin' a text inn.” Of course Frizzy had never seen one in her life. She was as likely to purchase a muggle’s foam as Jonas was to surrender his eyewash to the mouth of a dragon. Nevertheless, Ed proudly offered the contraption to his partner and friend, still grinning broadly.

“Accordin' to Trevelyan it has a blue tooth, variable ringer tones and 200 really small owls which are apparently very amiable qualities in a foam.”

"And you believe everything that Trevelyan says now, are you?" Charlene asked, giving him a dry look, before turning her attention on the small boxlike object. 

It certainly didn't look as though it had any teeth, at least upon visual examination, and she somehow doubted that any sort of owl could live inside it.  As far as Charlene knew, Muggles didn't use owls at all, so enchanting them to be small enough to fit inside a mobile anything seemed a bit out of whack with what she'd seen of their world.  Chances were that the latest addition to their office had decided to take the friendly rivalry he seemed to have going with Pratt to a new level, although how this tiny box was going to backfire on her partner, she had no idea.

Charlene sighed, stretching her legs out before her as she glanced back at Ed.  "So you use that to stay in touch with Muggle women?" she asked with a frown.  At least that made sense; Muggle women seemed to be the blond Auror's newest pasttime.  "What happened to Nobby?  I thought you quite liked her." 

Even with all of the drama that had been going on with Macduff and his family, her partner had stayed firmly mired in the rebound phase of his divorce.  Charlene hadn't spoken to him much about it; she had a feeling that Pratt was using the dating as a distraction more than anything else, and it wasn't as if discouraging him would do any good.  At least he'd learned his lesson about bringing Muggle women home after the first mishap.  She had actually been rather pleased to hear that he'd gone out to dinner with a witch, if only in hopes that the relationship would become solid enough that she stood a chance of guessing where he was every night.

But if that had fallen apart, there wasn't anything she could do about it now.  Charlene ran her fingers through her hair, glancing in the direction of the kitchen.  She still had to clean up and get ready before it was time to meet Hunter, but now that she was sitting, doing anything at all was feeling much less appealing.

"All right," she said, shaking her head.  "So there are tiny owls living in your foam, and you're sending them off to a Muggle woman.  Doesn't she send them back to you afterwards?" she asked, leaning her head on the sofa pillow behind her as she looked to Ed again.  "I don't see why you'd need two hundred of them when one would do perfectly fine so long as you both return it.  This isn't the same woman as the one you brought home last month, is it?" she asked abruptly, a suspicious gleam starting to creep into her expression.

Pratt grinned, snapping the foam shut with a click.
“Of course I bloody do. That wizard’s a ruddy genius, Frizz. He’d give Merlin himself a run for his money.” Lies, obviously, but Ed was quite happy to tell them right now. He believed Jonas about the foam and its special abilities. Ignoring the fact that Trevelyan was a ginger leprechaun liar, what reason did Ed have not to believe him? Besides, these owls seemed pretty damn fast to Edward. His last reply from Hollie or Heather or something else beginning with ‘H’ had returned to him like a thesral on coffee. Really strong coffee that certainly hadn’t been brewed by an auror trainee.

Then the auror blinked as Charlene asked a question he didn’t believe he could answer. Blue eyes scanned up from the foam where they’d been awaiting the little black screen to light up as the owls inside woke up, opening their eyes and dancing with excitement to cause the funny vibration and flashing.

“Nobby?” the set of bushy brows above the glasses lowered, hiding themselves behind the thick black frames as the auror frowned. “Nowt’s happened to her, Frizz. But a wizard’s gotta keep his options open, luv.” The frown vanished as a large grin tugged at Pratt’s lips and he winked at his partner.
“Two hundred owls worth of options, my dear. I don’t like Kelpie, anyway.” Previously relaxed features screwed tightly into a disgusted expression as the blond auror shook his head. Kelpie was worse than eating flobberworms in eel juice and platypus excretion.

The next question and comments made the wizard grin broadly. Such silly questions. And he’d been about to respond telling Charlene just how daft her ignorant questions were before she asked one that sent the patronising chuckle being kept at bay at the rear of his throat into a choke. He coughed loudly, covering his mouth with his hand and the precious foam.

“No.” Came a mildly stern mutter in response once Ed had recovered. “Anyway, imagine yer a teeny tiny owl.” Ed wiggled his little finger in front of Charlene before he sat up straight and twisted his body to face her on the sofa. “Smaller than that. Much smaller. These owls are well fast and imagine how tired ye’d be when you got half way across the country to this other person’s foam. Ye’d be bloody knackered, Frizz. Ye wouldn’t wanna be sent back straight away. Hence all 200 owls. Only usin’ one owl to go back and forth would be like...” the auror frowned and shrugged before looking back at her. “...owl abuse.”

“And ye don’t only send this little owl to one person. Owls get sent to loads of people at the same time, see? Having one owl in yer foam defeats the whole purpose. Ye do think some daft things sometimes, ye do.”

Considering that merely days before, Pratt had been convinced that he was going to catch something ginger from being forced to spend time with Trevelyan, his sudden reversal on the other man was far too fervent to be truly believable.  Charlene gave a pointed cough, slanting her partner a dry look to make it clear how little she believed him. 

She was almost disappointed to hear his quick dismissal of Niobe.  By all accounts, it sounded as though the date had gone quite well, and Charlene had hoped against hope that it would mean the end of Pratt's temporarily free-wheeling ways.  Apparently, though, her partner didn't want to be trapped by a Devil's Snare.  Charlene didn't exactly want to be the one telling Ed Pratt how to live his life, but considering the recent stresses he was under, sending two hundred owls off at once to avoid feeling committed seemed a bit reckless. 

Still -- she did only have his word for that.  Even with magic, cramming two hundred miniature owls inside the foam seemed a little unbelievable, and his statement was even harder to swallow considering the device was made by Muggles.  There was no way that any number of owls, no matter how small, could survive inside the device for very long.  What did he do, feed them miniature mice through the mouthpiece?

Eddie swore to it so whole-heartedly that Charlene couldn't help but shake her head.  Whatever her opinion of her partner's recent loose dating habits, Pratt's behavior had made it clear that once he committed to an idea, he followed it through to the bitter end.

"So you're sending off your miniature owls to loads of people all at once, are you?" she asked, not bothering to hide the smile that was tugging at her mouth.  "All right, Pratt.  I'll bite.  How many is 'loads', then?  Trevelyan and Eleor?"

Charlene didn’t seem to be grasping the ideas behind mobile foams as well as her far more intelligent and quick partner. But she couldn’t be blamed. Ed had accepted long ago that not everyone was even close to being as intellectually capable as him. Frizzy had obviously accepted defeat in this area. Which was why she agreed to do most of Ed’s paperwork, let him live with her and asked him questions that she was never going to comprehend the answers to. She was a woman with crazy hair so there was little chance for her. It had been startling obvious to Ed since the day she’d stood in his cubicle demanding all of his knowledge on a case that her intelligence had been sucked up through the crazy strands of man eating hair propped atop of her head.

Well since then she’d proved herself to have some brain left and to be very likeable and smarter than her frizzy hair portrayed. These, however, where facts Ed wouldn’t admit to her even if his leg was being chewed off by a teething dragon.

“A foam ‘ent for bitin’, Frizzy, ye daft beggar.” Her lack of understanding betrayed her and Ed took his feet from the coffee table and sat up straighter. The expression gracing the auror’s features betrayed his disapproval at her final suggestion and he began to cautiously press buttons on the foam, squinting through the clear lenses of his glasses at the teeny tiny light box.

“I do have more foam numbers, luv. Look ‘ere.” And proudly the wizard shoved the foam in front of his partner to present to her the ‘foam book’. “This ‘ere book, a book in a foam, Frizz, don’t get much more clever that that does it? Ye can fit a whole book in this foam wiv 200 owls, ink pots, quills, pieces a’parchment. Oh, I’ve got an alarmin’ clock as well ‘ent I?” The excitement at his foam’s features led the man off on a tangent, waggling his foam in front of his partner’s face before he pressed the uncharacteristically non-malleable foam into her hand.

“Right so this ‘ere book has five personal contacts in it. I’m guessing I can have up to 200. So that is loads, ent it?” The auror spoke quickly as he resembled an excited young boy showing his mum his new toy. “And it gets better, Frizzy, my crazy haired partner, these muggles have homefoams, tellyfoams, grammafoams and they have foams named after fruit! Blackberries and blueberries and strawberries. Paddy has an eyefoam which I’m guessing is controlled by yer eyes. These muggles might not have magic, Frizz but they’ve got a hellova lot of foam hangin’ around.”

It was getting late enough that Charlene knew she should really be on her way.  She'd promised Hunter that she would meet him, and as entertaining as discussing blueberries with Edward Pratt might be, she had actually made plans for tonight.  But somehow, sitting there and listening to the other Auror talk about shoving giant pieces of parchment into the tiny bit of foam seemed far more entertaining than anything she'd get up to with her boyfriend.  Whatever logical level Pratt thought he was operating on, Charlene wasn't buying it.

She took the foam suspiciously, holding it at arm's length between two fingers as she eyed what appeared to be the flat, possibly book-like area.  "Do you even know two hundred people?" she asked with a smirk.  "There weren't that many in my house at Hogwarts.  What's that, the entire Ministry and a few more besides?"

The foam seemed to disagree with this assessment, as it suddenly began to flash and angrily vibrate.  Charlene yelped and nearly dropped it, but the violent movement ended just as quickly as it had begun.  Gingerly, she picked it up again, eyeing the screen

"I can't w-- ...double-you eight?" she read out loud, squinting at it.  "What, does this thing talk to you in Muggle code or something?  Two...that's the number two...then a C...U...coo?"  She gave Ed a doubtful look.  "Are you sure these are owls and not doves, Pratt?  Two coo....oh, there's another two again...em arr arr double-you...."

Reading the book inside the foam was like deciphering a foreign language.  Rolling her eyes, Charlene finally gave up in disgust, holding the device back out to her partner.

"I think the last bit's about meeting you for coffee," she informed him dryly.  "I don't think you need to give your owls any more caffeine, though.  If they're flapping about that loudly when they get upset, you might want to think about weaning them off of it."

“Of course I bloody do!” Eddie protested adamantly as Charlene insulted him and his social network. Of course he knew 200 people. There was his mam, pap, brother, wife, kids, colleagues...Ed glared at her, looking mildly defeated. “Well I don’t know 200 muggles, do I, genius.” Green eyes shot back to the foam as he continued to grumble. “And you were in a ridiculous house, of course no-one wanted to be in it, like.”

The mobile foam also decided to protest to Charlene’s ignorance and it began to vibrate aggressively in her hand. It even set the fear of Merlin in her causing her to yelp and nearly drop his valued new contacting machine. His owl miniature post office. His palm-sized owlery. Ed would have laughed at his frizzy haired partner’s fear had he not jumped in surprise himself. No one expected an owl to vibrate but apparently this shocking experience was what occurred when a whole herd of owls gathered and collectively received mail. They were very excitable little chaps.

The witch with malfunctioning hair began to read some sort of undecipherable code out to her extremely handsome partner and Ed listened, intently as with each syllable his brow furrowed further to steadily form a very deep, confused frown. Either Frizzy was incapable of reading (something he should have noticed earlier, and would explain her complaints about his handwriting) or Sheila...or was it Katie...or...this muggle was incapable of text in and in fact Eddie himself was an expert, much better than muggles with plenty of practice.

After having given up, Frizzy surrendered the mobile foam machine and Ed took it from her. He didn’t even spare her a glance as his eyes shot down to the foam. A finger pushed his glassed up onto his nose higher and he squinted.

"I don't think you need to give your owls any more caffeine, though.  If they're flapping about that loudly when they get upset, you might want to think about weaning them off of it." Charlene stated with certainty. Pratt snorted. He covered his mouth with his spare hand as he made a weak attempt to suppress the surprised laughter.

“They ‘ent upset, Frizzy. They’re excited to be welcomin’ a new owl to their flock and sharin’ in the experience of receivin’ post. Don’t ye know anythin’?”

Calm now, the blonde auror began to shake his head. What a daft statement. Who fed owls coffee? Green eyes quickly scanned Malone’s face once more as they analysed her. Did it work? Did it make owls go faster? Ed would experiment one day, but now was not the time. He had a text inn to read.

“No...” He scowled at the text and pointed to a doubleyou. “Reckon that’s upside down. Should be an em. She can’t...w...eight.....wait to...number two...to. She can’t wait to coo my....arm.” He nodded, proud to have succeeded in breaking the code.

“How do you coo something?” He frowned and once more studied his partner. “Why does she want to coo me arm in her coffee? Is it like a muggle matin’ ritual or summit?”

While both Aurors - masters of deduction, trained killing machines, highly coordinated magical operatives - puzzled like chimpanzees over a shiny new spoon, the screen suddenly flashed away from the text message.  The phone buzzed and bounced as before, but this time the ring was a jaunty pop tune.  A tinny version of Lady Gaga's 'Just Dance' chirpped with miniscule bass beats as the screen now flashed a new message:


Ed's thumb, in his jumble, found the enigmatically labeled 'Send' button and soon a voice was heard in the flat.

"Who's this!.... I know you're there! I can hear you breathing!  ... Coward! ... You carry on textin' my daughter and I'll shove this phone so far up your...!"

And so on.

Something was clearly wrong with the owls in Eddie's foam.  First they'd gone into spastic fits over the arrival of a new letter, and then, just as suddenly, they began to panic again, this time accompanied by a tinny-sounded musical soundtrack about how spinning babies made everything okay.  Charlene nearly fell off the sofa in surprise as Ed, in his panic, stabbed at the phone with his thumbs. 

"Who's this!.... I know you're there! I can hear you breathing!  ... Coward! ... You carry on textin' my daughter and I'll shove this phone so far up your...!"

Charlene clapped her hands over her ears, more out of instinct than anything else.

"Pratt, it's a Howler," she hissed at him, mustering the most fearsome glare she could.  What had he done to the poor angry man's daughter that would incite him to send such an awful message?  At the very least, as loud as the voice was, it was still much quieter than a real Howler.  Apparently the letter's volume had to be adjusted to account for the size of the tiny owls.

The Howler on the foam was still going, now angrily shouting something about how he wasn't howling at all and that the mysterious 'you' had better listen to him.  Charlene leveled a finger at her partner's chest, meeting his gaze with a stern look.

"I knew that cooing was something inappropriate," she hissed at him, having to raise her voice slightly to make herself heard over the ranting coming from the foam.  "What did you do to that poor girl, Ed?"

It was as if something that Charlene had said while insulting the owls in Eddie’s foam that had truly offended them. They suddenly became infuriated and began to go crazy, each little owl flapping its little wings and vibrating furiously as a tinny noise engulfed the room and the owls began to sing. Singing owls! Ed would have further congratulated these ingenious muggles if he hadn’t been so shocked by the explosion from his now feverishly vibrating mobile foam device.

The foam was gripped tighter in his shock and Ed’s thumb clumsily found a button which he had hoped would stop the atrociously metallic noise. And the noise did stop. Instead a heavy breathing came from the foam. Ed’s first confused thought had been that the owls were simply catching their breath after their appallingly loud excuse for singing. Well it certainly hadn’t been the weird sisters!

Then the howler started.

A voice roared from the plastic foam in Ed’s hand and he threw it up in the air to land between him and Frizzy on the sofa.

"Pratt, it's a Howler,"

This was when Pratt remembered Frizzy was there next to him. He looked up from the cursed foamy device to see her with her hands clapped over her ears as if to protect them from the very muggle metal banging noise and the shouting voice. And it appeared the howler was answering back. It was seemingly an interactive howler! Eddie once more stared down at it, eyes wide in confused surprise.

“That ‘ent a girl’s voice, Frizz!” Ed finally spoke up, pointing at the alien device. “It’s Trevelyan! He must a’cooed someone before he even gave me the foam!” Next the howler continued to shout, asking who Trevelyan was and how he could kill him. “How do I shut it up? He never told me that bit!”