Chapter 2
--
"At this rate,
I'll be heading for electric chairs.
I'm only human with my cross to bear.
When she described her underwear,
I forgot all the rules my rabbi taught me in the old school
You're too young to be this empty girl
I'll prepare you for a sick dark world!
Know that you'll be my downfall;
But I call and I call and I call."
- Say Anything, "Wow I Can Get Sexual Too
--
Ron was already up and seated at the computer; the sun had barely broken out into the new morning. He knew it was early, the earliest he's ever woken up for something that didn't include getting Harry out of trouble or having to do with school.
He turned on the computer and waited patiently as it started up. He'd read the booklet all through the previous night, and was confident he knew how to work the machine. After he finished reading, he couldn't believe how simple the thing really was. Ron clapped his hands eagerly as the computer was done starting up and he was now viewing the 'desktop'.
He was all excited, ready to start messing around on this new wonder. But when it was done turning on...Ron couldn't think of what to do first. He could write a document about something? But there really wasn't anything to write. Ron wasn't keyboard savvy yet, either.
All of a sudden bored and disappointed, he slowly clicked on the 'Paint' program half heartedly. It popped up and there was the blank, white screen in which he could draw anything he wanted. Ron began to draw his feelings. Taking the mouse and pressing down on the white square, he spun the mouse around and around. Angry red scribbles took over the white space soon enough.
"Oi! Ron? You there?" Came Fred's voice all of a sudden.
Ron looked up and said, "Come in."
Both Fred and George appeared in Ron's room, and both looked really surprised. "George? Are you seeing what I'm seeing?" Fred asks his twin.
"Why yes, Fred, I am!"
"Our kid brother up at this hour. Something must be up!" Fred mused, then he noticed the Muggle machine up and running. "Hey, you got it to work!"
"Yeah, it was super easy. The only problem is that I don't know what to do with it," Ron grumbled. "We don't own any computer games and I don't feel much like playing Spider Solitaire." Ron had clicked on the 'Games' that already came with the computer, and found the menu most disappointing. It was a way to pass the time, but hardly the greatest thing ever, which was what Ron was expecting after finding out the secrets of this machine.
"Of course you're bored to death! You've got no Internet, you don't!" Fred replied, clapping Ron on the back.
"I've got no what?"
"Internet! World Wide Web! It's the Muggle way of communicating with other Muggles all around the word, via what they call 'e-mail' or 'instant messaging'. You can find quite a few nifty things too with search engines, basically look up anything you'd like," George explained.
"How do you know all this?" Ron wondered appalled. He thought he had learned everything about the computer; had Fred and George been studying about it too?
"Muggle Studies! Duh," The twins replied in unison, both shaking their heads.
"Oh. Right," Ron once again wished he had paid more attention in that class. "So, is this internet really all that it's cracked up to be?" He wondered.
"Why, of course! Fat Muggles by the hundreds own computers just to have internet, really," Fred replied.
"A computer nowadays is pretty much pointless without it," George added.
"Alright, alright! Where can I get this...internet?" Ron inquired.
"You've got to meddle in Muggle shops and such. But I have a proposal," Fred began, then spun Ron's chair around so they were looking eye to eye. "George and I'll get the internet thing for you...if you do our laundry for a few months."
"What?! No!" Ron instantly protested.
Fred and George shrugged together. "Your loss. You'll never realize how cool the internet can be!"
Ron frowned and thought about it. They said he had to do their laundry...but they didn't say he had to do it well. "Fine! Go and get the internet thing. Do it today, and be back soon!" Ron growled.
Fred and George grinned. "Wonderful. We're on our way to Diagon Alley to check on the shop; we'll be back this evening with everything you need for your little Muggle experiment," George told Ron, and with that the twins both turned on the spot and vanished into thin air, Apparating to Diagon Alley.
Ron sighed and slumped against his chair. Pretty soon his mom would be waking up and ordering him about, so until Fred and George got back, he decided to turn off the computer and perhaps start on their dreaded laundry early.
And he couldn't wait until he got internet.
--
Ron was waiting impatiently. He sat at the kitchen table, glaring through the windows as if Fred and George would appear out of nowhere on brooms, or something.
"Ron? Did you do the dishes?" Mrs. Weasley cried out flustered.
"Yes. What's the hurry, anyway?" Ron wanted to know.
"I'm supposed to be meeting your father at a meeting of some sort. I want everything cleaned up before I leave." Mrs. Weasley whisked her wand and the dishes Ron was supposed to have cleaned floated up from the sink and levitated there for a second while she made her way over. "Ron, these are unacceptable," She rolled her eyes. With another wand flick, the dishes were properly cleaned and put away.
"Well sorry if I can't do magic outside of school yet!" Ron complained. Really, why his mom made him do all these tedious tasks manually anyway was a wonder to him.
Suddenly the sound Ron had been waiting for practically all day emerged from the silence. He ran into the living room as a familiar pop of someone Apparating into a room rattled in his ears. "Fred, George!"
"Yes, yes, we love you too," Fred replied, brushing off a sleeve.
"Sometimes I wish our fans wouldn't fluster us so," George added in an after thought.
"Fan? I'm not excited because you're here. I'm excited 'cause you have my internet! You do, don't you?" Ron suddenly started to feel panic as maybe the twins had forgotten all about it...
"Not a fan, eh? Disappointing, really. Our own brother, George," Fred shook his head.
"And yes, we do have your internet. Possibly the only other interesting thing you could be doing instead of worshiping us," George replied, and tossed Ron a box.
"Yes!" Ron exclaimed just as Mrs. Weasley walked into the room.
"What is all this yelling for?" She wondered.
"Ron's got his internet box, Mum," Fred replied.
"His what?"
"Nothing! They're just being idiots," Ron gave the twins a quick side glance. Ron hadn't really wanted his parents to know he secretly put together the computer in his room. Until he could do brilliant things with it, he wanted it to himself only. It was only by sheer luck that his father and mother had completely forgotten the contraption had ever entered the house.
"Idiots, eh? You've just gotten two more months added to your sentence!" George proclaimed.
Ron just shrugged as he ran up the stairs to install the internet before his mom could ask anymore questions. Once in his room, he cleared out his desk the best he could, shoving rubbish and clutter aside and onto the floor.
"Alright, here we go," He murmured to himself as he took a seat on his floor and began to read the instructions on the box.
Before long, the little internet machine was up and running and hooked onto Ron's computer. His excitement was overwhelming. He could hardly control himself as he sat, fidgeting, at his desk waiting for his computer to start up.
Once it was turned on, Ron did the finishing touches to acquire internet. A lot of things began to pop up at him:
"New to the internet? What you need most right now is an e-mail account! If you click here, we can help you handle this nice and easy, and in no time..."
"Do you know the cost of what we do in every day life? Wasting energy and consuming fossil fuels is a big danger and if you click here you can begin the journey of helping support..."
"CAN YOU GUESS THE NUMBER OF D.U.I.'S PARIS HILTON HAS HAD? GET THE ANSWER RIGHT AND WIN A FREE X-BOX 360!!!"
The last pop up scared Ron out of his seat. He had no idea who Paris Hilton was and wondered vaguely if he had even heard of an X-Box (A/N: Oh, the bliss of a guy's ignorance. Am I right, girls?). Ignoring the second pop up all together, he paid attention to the first one. Didn't Fred or George mention something about this 'e-mail' thing?
Ron clicked on it and was now staring at a web page filled with white, rectangular bars. The instructions on the top told him to fill them in with information.
"Alright. Username?" Ron questioned. He wondered what a good one would be. "Ron the best quidditch player ever! No, too long." Ron then slapped himself. "I'm so stupid! I can't go and be giving away Wizarding world stuff! I have to be subtle. Hmm...," Ron thought of another username, one with more Muggle qualities so it wasn't obvious he was a Wizard meddling into Muggle things.
He typed into the white, rectangular box: Spot Terrier
How Ron came to think of this he had no clue. He concluded that he had been thinking about nicknames, and then Harry's dad and godfather came to mind; they and the rest of the Marauder's had names relating somewhat to their Patronuses, or so it seemed. Ron's Patronus was a terrier dog, and when he thought about it, if he ever were to own a terrier, he'd call it Spot.
"Alright, that's subtle. Muggles own terriers. Don't they?" Ron mused to himself, but shrugged and kept going. After he had answered as much of the information as he could (a lot of it he had to make up, because they were either Muggle things he had no idea what they were about or he had no relation to), Ron finally got his own e-mail address.
He soon found out that this particular e-mail address gave him entry to an 'instant messaging' screen name, which was the same as his e-mail except without the domain part. "What do I do with a screen name and e-mail?" Ron wondered and the excitement of having one all his own sort of died down.
Getting up from his chair, he walked out of his room and tracked down Fred and George. "Psst!" Ron hissed at them from the doorway into their room.
"Yes?" Fred and George greeted rather impatiently, without looking up to see who it was.
"Guess what?" Ron lowered his voice, "I've got myself my own e-mail and instant messaging screen name!"
Fred and George looked up from their business planning notes. "Really? Well, let us get a look see," Fred replied, and both him and his twin brother stood up and followed Ron back to his room.
"See!" Ron gestured excitedly to the computer screen.
"Spot Terrier?" Fred questioned.
"It's my Patronus!" Ron replied defensively.
"Whatever you say to help you sleep at night," George shook his head. "Anyway, it looks like you're all set up. Why you calling us?"
"Well, I don't know what to do now. What do I do with this e-mail?" Ron asked.
"Easy. You use it to talk to people, send them messages. It's kinda like using owls, but in some cases it's faster. However, if you and the person you're talking too are both using the internet at the same time, you can do this–" Fred bent down and took over the computer, clicking on random things and installing something.
"Hey! What are you doing?" Ron demanded.
"Making this better for you. Watch," Fred pointed at the screen now and the download was complete. He then opened the program he installed. "This is the instant messaging box. All the friends you make will get listed here. You click on their names twice to talk to them; they'll reply instantly and you don't have to wait long, like you do for e-mail, which is quite a hassle some Muggles have said," He explained.
Ron looked at the screen and back at him in wonder. "How do you know all this?" But he knew the answer before the twins spoke.
The twins looked at their little brother, shrugged at the same time, and replied, "Muggle studies."
--
Fred and George explained to Ron about 'chat rooms', certain web sites called 'My Space' – "But trust me, you don't want one of those. There have been highly addictive cases by the hundreds everyday!"– and search engines.
Instead of bugging them every second, the twins advised Ron to use the search engine when he was at a loss for what to do. They said it was like a Hogwarts sized library, but instead of books there were web pages.
After playing a few online games (which Ron found to be much more interesting than Minesweeper), he got bored and decided to try out one of those chat rooms Fred and George had talked to him about. They said it was an efficient way of making Muggle friends.
Ron perused through the different chat room topics. There were some weird ones, some rather random ones, and ones he wouldn't dare read aloud even in the privacy of his own room.
Finally, he found a seemingly innocent chat that for some reason had only one member. The title read 'Summer Blues' and was started by a person who went by the name of Lady Lessons.
(Spot Terrier has entered chat)
Lady Lessons: oh finally. I thought nobody would come :(
Ron hesitated before typing anything. He thought a simple 'hi' would do. It took him awhile but he located the proper letters on the keyboard.
Spot Terrier: hi
Lady Lessons: not very talkative r u? So what brings u to my chat?
Spot Terrier: I saw that u were alone. Why r u having summer blues?
Lady Lessons: i haven't seen my friends in ages
Spot Terrier: i have the same problem
Lady Lessons: u do?
Spot Terrier: ya my friends r busy well i cant see them anyway so i'm stuck using internet
Lady Lessons: haha yes internet is a savior when it comes to lack of entertainment
Spot Terrier: haha
Lady Lessons: I don't have much time on it tho. I have all this stuff to do with my family
Spot Terrier: at least ur hanging with family. I have no summer plans
Ron decided to be creative and looked through the chat room's smiley face options. He selected a sad, almost constipated looking smiley.
Lady Lessons: that's a very demented smiley
Spot Terrier: haha. I know
Lady Lessons: so where do u live Spot?
Spot Terrier: england. U?
Lady Lessons: Scotland for me
Spot Terrier: u guys have a good team i suppose
Lady Lessons: a good team in what?
Ron was ready to type Quidditch but forgot he was talking to a Muggle. "Close call!" He muttered and put in whatever Muggle sport he could think of.
Spot Terrier: soccer
Lady Lessons: ha i guess we do
Lady Lessons: Look i have to take my leave. Will u be online tomorrow?
Spot Terrier: sure
Lady Lessons: great. U have IM right?
Spot Terrier: whats that?
Lady Lessons: instant messaging silly
Spot Terrier: oi! Ya just got it too
Lady Lessons: great. C u 2moro Spot
Spot Terrier: u too
(Lady Lessons has left chat)
Ron was the only one in the chat room now and sat there thinking for a bit. This 'Lady Lessons' seemed like a nice person. Ron wondered if she was his age. Why didn't he ask? Ron hit his head against the desk but made sure to at least add her to his list of friends on the instant messaging box Fred had got for him.
All of a sudden the chat room blinked, and hopeful, Ron looked up to see if Lady Lessons had come back to talk some more.
LeSbIaNsExRoX: Heyyyyyyyy! N e sexy gurls here?!
Ron's eyes widened and he hurriedly closed the chat room box. All that was left was the unfinished game of Minesweeper from earlier.
"Ronald! Dinner!" Came his mother's voice before long.
Turning off the computer all together, Ron left his room and clambered down the stairs, thinking about how he might have possibly made a new friend for the summer. After dinner I should write and tell Harry, Ron thought smugly. He couldn't wait to see Harry's reaction when he found out Ron had succeeded in doing what no other Wizard might have done. Who knows? Harry lived with Muggles. Maybe he had an e-mail!
Ron's grin didn't leave the table all of dinner. He loved internet. The possibilities were endless.
--
A/N: Looks like Ron's made a new friend. Will Harry and Hermione approve of him meddling into Muggle activities? Will either of them join in the activities? Is Lady Lessons perhaps a 55 year old man living in a ramshackle apartment in Oklahoma? Who knows until the next chapter. Tune in! And review, review, review...