Written for the the One Day While Watching Television Challenge by Haley96.
J. K. Rowling owns Harry Potter.
(Ginny's point of view)
After Mum and Dad picked us up from King's Cross to take us home for the summer, I walked through the door to The Burrow for the first time in months, since last Christmas.
I could sense that Dad was excited, he kept grinning at us and giving Mum secret smiles and such.
Fred and George had their own assumptions as to why this was, and so did I.
When we had all gathered in our small, usually not used living room, Dad cleared his throat loudly, purposely.
"Your mother has finally let me get..." he took this time to pull an old blanket off of the whatever-it-was. "...A television set!"
"What the bloody hell is that?" asked Ron.
"Don't talk to your father that way, Ronald," chastised Mum.
If she only knew how much he swore at school!
Fred and George each put on a mockingly thoughtful face.
"It appears to be-"
"Some kind of-"
"Muggle contraption-"
"That Dad got," finished George.
"What does it do?" I asked Dad.
"That's what we're going to figure out," he replied.
"You don't know how to work it?" I asked.
"There's the instruction manual, but it's a little confusing...I'm sure that it'll just take a bit of fiddling around," he assured me.
He didn't see me raise my eyebrows and mutter under my breath, "Merlin knows hiw long this will take."
(Two weeks later)
"EVERYBODY GET DOWN HERE!" yelled Dad.
I lazily walked down the stairs, likely for the eighth false alarm this week.
"I fixed it!" announced Dad proudly.
"That's great, dear," mumbled Mom as she charmed a broom to sweep the kitchen floor, then rushed upstairs.
"Well, it looks like it's just you and me, then," said Dad, and he took my arm and dragged me over to the couch in front of the television set.
"Ginny!" he exclaimed. "Watch. This."
He walked over to the television and pressed a little circle on it, and a colorful, moving picture appeared on the screen.
Kind of like a painting, more like a moving photograph, actually.
"How about them apples?" he said, elbowing me.
"What are we watching?" I asked.
"One way to find out. You see, we can use this little rectangular wand thing and point it at the television, and it displays the information!"
"Wow," I replied sarcastically.
"So, right now we are watching...Spongebob Squarepants!" Dad said excitedly.
"Is there anything else you can watch?" I asked.
"Anything-of course, Ginny! Just watch me wave the plastic wand and...a...it appears to be some sort of advertisement..." my dad trailed off thoughtfully.
I picked up the instruction manual, glancing through it.
"A commercial," I stated.
"How did you- Yes, it is a commercial. If we just change the channel, then...HA! I'VE GOT IT!"
"What?" I raised an eyebrow at him.
"We can just use an image modifying spell to put whatever we want on the...the..."
"Television," I finished.
"Yes!" Dad got up and ran up the stairs, yelling, "Molly? Where did we put those old pictures of Ginny when she was a baby?"
Merlin, I thought. This would not end well.
"Ginny!" hissed two voices from behind me.
I spun around anxiously, seeing Fred and George in some sort of hidden passage behind the television set.
"Come with us-"
"If you want-"
"To live!"
I ducked through the entrance of the passageway and closed the door behind me.
"Now," said Fred.
"How much are-"
"You willing to pay-"
"For Mum and Dad-"
"To not find-"
"These."
George waved several photographs in my face.
What had I gotten myself into?