A Serious discussion while watching cartoons
All was good in A Village with No Name on the second day, of the third week, of the first month, of the summer after Hermione Granger's fifth year at Hogwarts. She was spending the summer with the Weasleys at the Potters' residence. Convince by their youngest child and only daughter, Ginny Weasley, to enjoy at least one summer not buried up to her nose in personal research and homework. Hermione had agreed reluctantly.
The visit had at first been boring and bordering on awkward for Hermione who was barely an acquaintance of the Weasleys through Ginny and Ron, their youngest son. She didn't personally know the Potters, not even Lily Potter, who was the current Charms Professor at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Though well known and mostly liked by her professors Hermione Granger had shown early on that she was not one for social relationship, of any sort. She was content with being in Gryffindor and getting through her years at Hogwarts with little to no deep social attachments. At least that was her plan until this second day, of the third week, of the first month, of the summer after her fifth year at Hogwarts. On this day she found herself sitting in the Potters' den when their eldest son came in and jumped over the couch and onto Hermione.
"Hello!" he exclaimed, and by the way he exclaimed it Hermione was sure he was using it as a surprised expression, not one of greeting.
She raised one recently plucked brown eyebrow, courtesy of Ginny the day before.
Still sprawled across her lap and the couch the oldest Potter boy, who had yet to give his name! Which Hermione considered very rude, considering he was using her as his personal pillow right now. She was in fact contemplating shoving him off and into the glass coffee table in front of them, and seeing if she could place enough force in the push to cause damage to both eldest son and decorative furniture.
Instead the 'Eldest Son,' Hermione decided to dub him since he had not coughed out a name yet, game Hermione an apology and picked himself up from both girl and couch. He then placed himself, with a reasonable amount of space between them, at the other end of the couch.
"Sorry," he said again sincerely, at least to Hermione it sounded sincere. "No one's usually in the den. I usually come in here and watch the telly."
Hermione blinked and then looked forward and there was indeed a television seated on a TV stand along with an entertainment system.
"But…wait…how?" she turned to the eldest on the couch next to her.
He grinned and reached for the remote on the coffee table. "A lot of complaining and puppy dog eyes on my part."
"No, not that. How does it work inside a magical house?" Hermione asked leaning forward, a spark visible in her eye.
"The same way the other tellies in the neighborhood work with a magical resident living near them. You hook it up, get the cable company down here, and read the instruction manual." By now he had switched the TV on and was flipping through the channels.
"But the magic –" Hermione began, but was cut off, "It's not high enough or highly concentrated in this one house to actually cause problems with the electronic signals. In fact I would say that the electronic signals might cause a bit of problems with the magic. Might not work as well considering it is the dominate force in this area."
"But at Hogwarts –" she was lucky to get that much out.
"You have years of magical build up and constant use of magic year around. Not only that it is surrounded by and enchanted lake, magical forest, and all magical community less than a mile away. I'd say that it fair to say the dominating force there is magic, not electricity." The Eldest Son had finally decided there was nothing of interest on and had gotten up to put a video into the VCR. Hermione was surprised to see it was a Disney movie, The Little Mermaid to be specific.
"What do you mean by force?" Hermione got comfortable; after all she did love this movie the most.
Harry popped the tape and had to stop it when it automatically started playing, and the credits rolled up the screen. He grabbed the VCR remote and headed back to the couch. After finding a comfortable position and finding a random channel to watch while they wait for the tape to rewind, he explained.
"I suppose I should say power source not force." He pushed his glasses up and glanced at Hermione. He looked unsure if he should continue.
"Please, explain. I've been under the impression that no electronics could work if there was magic nearby." She leaned in a bit more, that spark becoming brighter.
"Right," he nodded and the proceeded. "The way I see it is that there are two major power sources, electric and magical—"
"What about nuclear, solar, wind, and water powered energy sources?"
"When you think about it they get converted into electrical power, so in the end it may come from a different conductor but it all gets turned into the same thing. Like the digestive process. In the end it doesn't matter where the food comes from, the body is going to use it and break it down, taking what it needs and then disposing of the rest."
Hermione nodded; the cartoon characters on the TV exploded.
"So, with that in mind, we have magic and electricity as our main power sources. Since muggles are more wide spread than wizards and witches, it safe to assume that electricity is the dominate power, but then again magic is so deeply rooted in the Earth that the occasional unknown electric black out will occur once in awhile."
Hermione's spark had turned into heated interest and for the first time it was nice to discuss magic with someone who was not a magical practitioner. Someone who was viewing it from an unbiased and scientific point of view, a simplified view but well informed nonetheless. "You're talking about the Ley lines, right?"
The cartoon had entered into the next part and the tape clicked to a stop. Hermione was sure he was going to end their conversation there. Instead he muted the TV, shifted to look at Hermione, and made himself comfortable. Hermione followed his example.
"That I am, but before we continue I think it would help if I knew your name. I don't think we introduced ourselves."
"No, we didn't! Hermione Granger," she said and thrust out her hand to be shaken. He grabbed it with a firm grip, squeezed lightly and they shook three times before releasing.
"Harry Potter," he replied back. "Nice to meet you."
"Likewise."
He leaned back against the pillow that had been placed on the corner of the couch. Hermione was sure he had placed them there. "Now, where were we?"
"Ley lines," she reminded.
"Ah, the fun magical bits. Just to let you know sometimes I hate magic simply because it so hard to define scientifically, and as you've noticed I'm logical type of thinker. I suppose you are too but it's been skewed with that whole 'because it's magic' type of thinking, yes?" Harry asked and Hermione nodded somewhat hesitantly.
"No worries, happens to the best of us. Now the way I see it is that Ley lines and are so old and deeply rooted in the Earth itself that even magic itself can become chaotic around it at times. Take for example that magical school in Turkey two years back. Their school had been directly built on a ley line in hopes that it strengthened the anti-muggle wards, and protection wards. Which it did, but ley lines are unpredictable and always changing, like the Earth's tectonic plate. They relatively are the same but at certain points the magical build is too much for the lines to take, so it's not a big surprise when they had a little magical earthquake."
"Magical earthquake? I've never heard of that," Hermione's brows knitted together and she frowned. Harry couldn't help but think it was an adorable look on her.
"It's usually referred to as Ward Failure or magical backlash," Harry stated, "but if you were to have a seismometer around when it occurs, it would appear as an earthquake, if the amount of magic is big and heavy enough."
"Have you conducted an experiment to prove that?"
"Ten times with different amounts in size and heaviness. And I would say about five out the ten were registered as small earthquakes, and even then the smallest size and heaviness still registered as a blip on the seismometer." Harry stretched and his back popped.
Hermione was about to ask what Harry meant by size and heaviness when Ron, Ginny, the twins, and Harry's twin Edmund, came stumbling into the den. Laughing and rowdy and destroying the intellectual atmosphere. Harry quickly unmuted the TV and pressed play. The twins noticing the noised looked up and swaggered over to the couch.
"My, my," said Fred, "what have we here?"
"Why I believe it is our Dear Hermione, alone with a boy," replied George.
"I believe you're right brother!" Fred exclaimed and by now Ron, Ginny and Edmund had taken noticed of the two. Hermione scowled and shot the twins an angry look.
"Now, now Hermione-dear! No need for mean looks," Fred cooed.
"Yes," George agreed, "You'd think we'd interrupted something."
Then both twin covered each others' mouths and gasped out, "Oh! How scandalous!" Only to dissolve into peals of laughter afterwards. Ginny looked skeptical as if she was sure Hermione was incapable of doing anything with anyone, even if they were a guy. Edmund gave Harry a look and Hermione was sure had Harry staring harder at the TV, and Ron had turned a dangerous shade of red and was glaring at Harry.
"Well, you did interrupt something!" Hermione said sounding quiet put out.
The laughter ceased and other five teens gave her shocked looks. Ron looked ready to burst in anger, and Edmund looked like he had paled. Harry, she noted tensed and stilled immediately.
"Just to let you know sometimes I hate magic…"
In that moment Hermione thought it best to not tell the others about their conversation. She wasn't sure why she'd never noticed it before, but Harry didn't attend Hogwarts, and she'd never heard of him till this summer. If Hermione was willing to bet all her books she was sure that she could safely say Harry Potter was a squib.
So Hermione sniffed in that way she knew people hated, because it gave them the idea she thought she was better than them and turned to the TV.
"We were about to watch one of my favorite Disney movies, since Harry here was nice enough to let me watch it seeing as I'm a guest here." She got comfortable and looked at Harry. "If you don't mind fast forwarding through the previews Harry, I'd appreciate it."
The twin laughed again and then said they were off to go talk Sirius and Remus about pranks. Edmund tugged on Ron saying he felt like flying, and Ginny followed hoping to join in.
As the tape sped by and the images move in fuzzy fast motion, Hermione felt a hand on her shoulder. She looked and Harry was giving her a look she'd never thought she'd receive from someone.
Absolute gratitude.
"Thank you," he whispered. She nodded stiffly feeling her throat was too tight with emotion to say much.
"About the conversation," she began, but Harry shook his head and patted her arm.
"Later," he said and gave her a wink.
Hermione was sure this summer couldn't be that bad and that perhaps having a social relationship with someone was worth the effort after all.
End or tbc?
AN: lol my attempt to make magic scientific. Sorry for any mistakes. I don't have a beta and I tried to fix any mistakes that were there. My friends and I tend to have serious discussion and conversations while cartoons are showing. Once a friend and I were talking about family issues when the Dairy Queen Ice cream and cake commercial came on and it ruined the mood, but we had a good laugh that eased the tension. Just a little FYI Harry is not a squib. Remember he mentioned performing experiments to prove his hypothesis. So, Harry has magic it's just a bit of a mystery. *winkwink nudgenudge*