A/N: This was written for Round 7 of the Quidditch League. I'm a Beater for the Montrose Magpies. A huge thank you to my teammates who both helped with the inspiration and with betaing this fic.

This is a one - shot and something of a prequel to a multi - chap I've been planning for a long time. These five Ravenclaw boys and Lizzie have been knocking about in my head for quite a while now — their story is hopefully going to be what this year's NaNo is about. As it is, here's a brief introduction.

Prompts, as always, are listed below the fic.

Microwaved Brains

Lizzie's birthday was always one of the hardest in the year. September birthdays were always overshadowed by going back to school — and then there was the fact that Lizzie always appreciated thoughtful things. Books were out of the question, Lorcan mumbled to himself as he methodically tore a piece of paper full of crossed-out ideas to shreds. He couldn't constantly get his best friend the same gift for birthdays and Christmas year after year.

"Maybe you should just put shrinking spells on the books? That'd be different and help on her space issues," Elijah suggested from where he was sat working on the first lot of homework they'd gotten this year.

"C'mon, Greengrass, I know we're Ravenclaws, but I can do better than books."

"She's the only Ravenclaw girl in the year; sometimes, stereotypes should be adhered to." The ginger shrugged.

Lorcan rolled his eyes at that. Elijah wasn't invested in the conversation because he and Ollie had already gone halves on some Quidditch equipment for her. That made sense; Elijah had the money and Ollie was more interested in Ravenclaw winning the Cup than even Lizzie herself or half the team.

For someone so quiet, he was scarily house proud.

Focus, Lorcan. Lizzie's birthday is barely a fortnight away.

Lorcan vanished all the scraps of paper as he groaned again in frustration. Getting a gift for his best friend shouldn't be this hard — even if she was quirky and the only girl in Ravenclaw in their year, which, by extension, meant she was the only girl Lorcan really talked to.

"Write down things that she likes," Eli suggested.

Lorcan did exactly that and then started to have an idea.

"Do you have any idea where my brother is?" he asked excitedly.

Elijah shook his head and then blinked. "That's weird… he's walking over now. Maybe Adam and Lizzie are right; I think he might be a seer."

Lorcan ignored Elijah as Sandy came up to their table, yawning.

"I know what we're going to do for Lizzie's birthday!"

"'Kay."

Lorcan felt mildly put out that Lysander was not any more enthusiastic, but he pulled himself together and carried on. "Do you remember when we bought Lizzie all those fairy lights she decorates her room with?"

"When Dad and Mum took us to Bangkok, yeah." Lysander nodded.

"We had to put runes on the batteries to make them work so she could use them here."

"What are batteries? Something Muggle, right?" Elijah interrupted.

Lysander and Lorcan shared a look. Elijah was knowledgeable about a lot of things, but when it came to Muggle life and technology, it was almost embarrassing how conservative he was. The Scamander twins themselves were purebloods, but their parents travelled so much that they had grown up around both worlds. Lorcan could even use a phone during the summers away from Hogwarts.

Lysander launched into a detailed explanation of batteries and their components. Elijah's eyes had gone panicked as soon as Sandy started going into the difference in sizes and lithium versus rechargeable; Lorcan was sure his brother was doing it on purpose.

"What was your idea anyway?" Sandy asked lightly after Elijah had said in a dazed voice that he understood.

"She loves the wireless. Lizzie's always listening to the radio whenever she's in her room doing homework. What if we get a music player thingy and some headphones and make it work in Hogwarts for her?"

"That's… a great idea." Lorcan immediately frowned at the hesitancy in Sandy's voice. "Except charming something like that is a lot more difficult than putting runes on some battery packs."

"Couldn't hurt to try."

"Well… it probably could. But if you get blown up, I'll be the only one left to inherit." Sandy beamed happily. "So that's fine with me."

Now, they had a plan. Lorcan could do a lot now that there was an idea to go off. He immediately asked Adam to owl his older brother to see if he could get them the device Lorcan was thinking of. The very next morning, the owl returned with a slightly used mp3 player. Apparently, Adam's family were highly tech savvy and seemed to collect them; Lorcan didn't care why, just that it was there. He had fourteen days to do the impossible.

[Several Days Later]

"So, it's going well, then?"

Lorcan blinked in confusion at the voice, which sounded distorted, like he was underwater. Why was he upside down? Why were his ears ringing?

There were four pairs of shoes in front of him. Elijah pulled him to his feet as Lysander pursed his lips, midway through a healing spell. Lorcan blinked again, the other Ravenclaw boys coming into focus. Ollie was the one who'd made the sarcastic comment, leaning against the wall whilst Adam stared, gobsmacked at the smoldering remains of the desk.

"Please, for the love of God, tell me that you didn't blow up the gift that we've been working on —" Sandy began.

"Lorcan, you could end up microwaving your brain or something if this goes wrong!" Adam yelped.

Even that was slightly beyond Lorcan's understanding of Muggle technology. He held his hands up and took a breath in the silence.

"That was just a practice and I'll be fine."

"Just having been thrown across the room is an interesting definition of fine." Ollie snorted. "Why are we even here, Eli? We've sorted our gift and Liz is going to get suspicious anyway."

"Because the others need our help!"

Lorcan bristled at that. He was perfectly capable of doing it on his own. Then, he looked at the charred part of a desk leg lying on the floor nearby and reassessed his opinion.

"I think I know where I went wrong. I'll do one more practice — could you check this for me? — and then we should be okay."

With the others' help, things went a lot more smoothly — at least, there were no more explosions. With four days until Lizzie's birthday, the rune circles had been drawn and a lot of the research done. The main reason why Muggle technology didn't work inside Hogwarts was that the magic interfered with the electricity and circuits. The boys were hoping that by integrating magic into the device and making the power feed off it, there would be nothing to cause an adverse affect or make it switch off.

That was the general idea, at least.

Adam took a deep breath as Lorcan somewhat ceremoniously placed the mp3 player in the centre of the runes.

"Four times today, you've said that we might die," Ollie muttered. "You say that again and I'll microwave your brain."

It had become a new favourite phrase of the group over the days they'd been working on the project together. Lizzie had heard it yesterday and been particularly taken aback. How they'd all gotten away with keeping this momentous mission a secret was amazing to Lorcan.

Adam rolled his eyes and spoke anyway. "I was just thinking about how I told my brother to put on a general selection of good songs, but since it's arrived, I haven't been able to check, given that it's not working. What if he put on a load of heavy metal? Or something like Basshunter's greatest hits?" Adam went to laugh and then sighed as the others just stared at him. "Okay, Lizzie would have found that funny. When this does work, she and I are going to educate you on Muggle music. Oh, I see that look you just pulled, Elijah!"

Lorcan activated the runes.

There was a moment of anti-climatic silence and then all the runes lit up. Simultaneously, so did the mp3 player. It stayed lit. Then, there was nothing. No explosion, no microwaved brains oozing out of ears — just a piece of Muggle technology working in Hogwarts, surrounded by overjoyed teenage boys.

Lorcan fumbled while trying to put the headphones in and Adam wasted time picking a song he liked, but all were agreed after the boys had passed it around: they had done the impossible.

"I am so getting points in Muggle Studies for this," Lysander said happily. "I didn't tell you guys, but I've already got Lizzie a load of sweets, so this present is just from Lorcan and Adam. I only wanted the experience and extra credit."

"'Course you did," muttered Lorcan.

"Um, so… just one thing," Ollie said after the celebration had died down. "It affects us all, really, considering we've all got gifts to give. Does anyone know how to wrap?"

Numerous looks were exchanged, no one looking particularly hopeful.

"We'll make it work," Lorcan said confidently.

After what they had just done, how hard could it be?

A/N: Total word count came to 1455.

Prompts used were:

- batteries

- confusion

- "You say that again and I'll microwave your brain!"

Thanks for reading.