Formed approximately 4.65 billion years ago, the tiny planet of Earth is a vast chunk of utterly unremarkable rock merrily drifting along in the dark sea of infinity that is our universe. At least that's what most people think, and to be fair, they're right for the most part. Aside from sending out the occasional deep-space signal, (marked as spam and quickly atomised by most galactic mail-servers), it keeps itself to itself, quite content to just sit there on its arse. The world of magic, some may say, is quite similar.
In a town, perched on an obscure little island in the North Sea, just down Rutt street behind the new cinema is a bedraggled pub. Murky paint flaking, its windows stained yellow with cigarette smoke, the ramshackle building juts out on to the pavement like an angular tumour. They say John Lennon spat on it once whilst doing a gig nearby.
Hull is rainy. It always has been, and Tuesday is no exception. Once, further back than most can be bothered to remember an entirely fake documentary had been released offshores describing the town as a "Paradise!", calling it "a little slice of old-fashioned English heritage". Somebody believed it. Steve Hackenbacker believed it, and what's more, it would be no matter the cost. He is currently jammed into a barstool in the dingy, dirty, Dog and Trout.
He asks the idiotic barkeep, (in his well rehearsed accent of course), for a screwdriver, on the rocks, for the third time.
The unfortunate lad behind the counter once again asks the large man to give him a few more minutes. He is almost sure from his bizarre accent that he must be Dutch, and frankly, his is a little rusty. He is absolutely sure "Droiver" means some kind of road salt, but that doesn't really help matters.
The Dog and Trout has never been the most highly regarded of establishments, but since the new cinema, things have taken a decided turn for the worse. A favourite amongst the locals is the new pungent carpet of soft, mulching popcorn, a springy substance particularly easy on the collapsing frames of passed-out punters.
The barkeep is probably worth a mention at this point, he is after all, one of the central characters in this story. His name is Stanley, and he still can't remember what a "Screuyw Droiver" is.
Steve Hackenbacker notices this. Really, how hard could it be for this Brit kid to throw some vodka at a glass of orange juice? Weren't they all from Oxford or something?
Stanley gives up at this point and eventually asks him what on earth he means.
"Wat een je de betekenis meneer sir?"
As you may have noticed, the issue here is that he does so in a broken Dutch. Steve Hackenbacker is not the kind of man to get angry, but unfortunately, neither is he the kind of man who goes to Holland for brunch.
"Vodka boy! That meener enough for you?"
Surprised though reassured, Stanley knows exactly what to do, or so he supposes. Filling a small glass half with vodka, he dumps a tablespoon of salt in and gives it a stir.
A few moments later, Steve Hackenbacker leaves the Dog and Trout.
Maybe he'll try the Cinema - at least they know what a hot dog looks like.
Having gathered the shards of salty glass from the yellowing carpet, Stanley straightens up.
"Ouch", he thinks, as he removes a stray fragment from his left hand.
His boss, a Mr. Gregory Untik comes downstairs to see what's going on.
Gregory Untik lives with his mother in a flat above the pub, and suffers from the condition 'wondering bladder'. He has two cats, and is the owner of the Dog and Trout.
He has recently employed Stanley Spencer out of sheer desperation - it is his sincere belief that he's getting too old to deal with his customers, and so has chosen what he calls a "more executive role". This consists almost entirely of drinking coffee in an upstairs bedroom (newly entitled "CORPORATE MANAGEMENT SUITE") and staring angrily at a laptop for several hours a day.
Stan Spencer has recently applied for the post because he needs somewhere to lay low for a while. He is 15, and needs work that comes with bed, board and as few questions asked as possible until school starts again.
Gregory Untik doesn't seem to like the police very much, and so the two have entered a mutually beneficial agreement.
He is after all, a wanted man, or so he might have phrased it. In reality, it has far more to do with a vaguely cataclysmic incident involving a structural support beam in the family home, and a slightly overpowered modification made to a vacuum cleaner.
His small wage from bartendering is almost completely spent on fulfilling his lifetime ambition, to invent something that is both interesting and useful. He often fulfils the first of these, but rarely the second, as his creations have a nasty tendency to catch fire, which while interesting, is certainly not very useful, and is in fact the main cause of his covert lifestyle. His fish toaster caught fire as soon as fish were inserted. This had only set light to a curtain or six, but the last straw had been his innovative "Crazy Sucka" hoover, which while successful in tests, had managed to blow a small hole in the back of the house when introduced to even the slightest notion of carpet dust. Honestly, people get far too wound up over critical structural damage these days.
As you may have gathered, his ideas - although brilliant in his eyes, never really come out quite how he imagines them.
The latest amongst them is not particularly different, though it did not, (so far at least) catch fire, pull itself apart, or kill any household pets. A work in progress, the "Screamer" is a new form of hybrid rocket, that runs entirely on air.
There is one, glaring reason that many of his designs fail.
No electrical input.
Stanley Spencer's Grandfather, a Mr. Percy Spencer, was the inventor of the microwave oven, and a powerful wizard. It was only by charming the contraption, could he get it to hold together long enough to cook anything bigger than a stuffed grape. This is where Stan inherits both his love of inventing, and his magical abilities. For five years, he has attended Hogwarts school of witchcraft and wizardry, and owing to spending most of his time there, his devices cannot use electricity. This means he is fighting a constant battle to power his creations without power.
As you can imagine, this leads to difficulties, for example; Napalm, while very hot, makes an exceedingly poor substitute for toaster filament.
A herd of drunks wander in and start making a row at the back of the pub.
Mr. Untik visibly cowers behind the bar and slinks off back upstairs.
In two days time, Stan will be going back for his fifth year at the magical school. His younger sister, Betty, is just starting her second, and is currently listening to "Take That", much to the annoyance of her father. It will be the first time in nearly a month that he has seen her, although he strongly suspects she'll be avoiding him since the whole gas-powered hair straightener debacle. Despite his Ravenclaw badge, he has never been particularly brilliant in lessons, but proudly keeps at least forty percent of his dorm completely full of scrap metal, finding it an excellent, not to mention entirely undetectable place to practice his hobby. He loves the input of his friends too.
He's looking forward to seeing them again. All but one of the members of their elite club is in some way "parentally challenged", and now it seemed they would be a full set. By 'Elite Club' of course, he means a modestly dysfunctional gathering of four people who happened to occupy the (now fifth year) Ravenclaw boy's dormitory.
He had thought a few of the others in his gifted house were occasionally good if he needed a hand with matter/energy conversions, but had learned the hard way to rely upon his own results for that sort of thing. Some of them, it turned out look down on him for being a bit daft, and will occasionally take advantage of this, nearly always resulting in explosions of varying size and colour.
Untik stumps down the stairs again and reaches for the bronze bell hanging above the counter.
"LAST ORDERS YOU SMELLY BUGGERS!", he yells.
Said smelly buggers wander up to the bar and order beer, which Stanley serves to them. He likes beer, beer is easy to find and hard to spill, ideal for the inexperienced barkeep.
A few minutes later, Gregory Untik decides to call it a night and get shot of the stragglers. His doctor told him to avoid stressful situations anyway, and it seems as good an excuse as any. He always knew he should have been a vet or a plumber like his mother wanted.
Pulling himself up to his full four foot six, he shouts a few choice words at the scattered patrons. They completely ignore him.
A look of anger flashes across his red, sweating face.
"Poor old drunks" thinks Stan. He knows what this usually means, and frankly, it's not at all pretty.
Untik shouts something up the stairs behind the bar, and a rumbling like a small avalanche rings down from the upper levels. Beermats shake across shabby tables, and just seconds later, Gregory Untik's mother, a fearsome juggernaut of a woman hurtles down the dangerously quivering stairs, brandishing a hatchet and screaming like a banshee, chasing everybody on the wrong side of the bar out on to the gloomy streets.
She sighs contentedly and slams the door.
She loves Tuesday night.
Turning to face her son, she says in an altogether more calm tone;
"Don't worry love, your tea's in the oven. Close up for tonight and I'll put the cats to bed."
Untik nods contentedly, looking forward to his fish fingers. Life may not be perfect, but it has its moments.
It has been a long day, and a longer night. By the time Stan gets back up to his room, it is almost one 'o clock in the morning, the last of the street lights outside his window flicker in limbo, before eventually letting the dark envelope the alleyway for good.
The latest Screamer prototype rests on the floor next to his bed, surrounded by discarded bits of metal and wire. It takes up most of the space in his tiny room, but he is immensely proud of it. It works surprisingly well right up until that bit where the back falls off.
He is far too tired to do anything else but to throw himself onto the musty mattress. He does just that, and tries to get to sleep.
As he dozes on the coffee coloured 70's sheets, he looks forward to the week ahead. He wants especially to see Hermione Granger again, she seems to be the only person who can make sense of his bizarre contraptions, and he needs some advice on the whole matter-conversion element.
Honestly, just because splitting atoms is difficult, doesn't mean it's impossible.