The OWLs were drawing closer, and Harry, along with the other fifth-years at the castle, was becoming progressively moody and tetchy every day. His reasons were slightly different than those of his yearmates, however; rather than being apprehensive about the upcoming exams, he was growing disenchanted and bored. It's not that he didn't have anything to do (their coursework was more demanding than ever, after all), Harry was simply feeling burned out and apathetic, and there were several good reason for that.

First of all, he couldn't play Quidditch anymore. He didn't even realize how much fun being a part of a competitive sports team was until he lost his position. The Ministry was trying to place their own official at the helm of the school again, but after what happened to Umbridge, no one wanted the position. As such, Hogwarts officially had no headmaster for the time being, which is why McGonagall couldn't remove his ban. She had actually told Harry she'd cover for him if he wanted to play – a testament to how much the usually straight-laced Head of Gryffindor enjoyed Quidditch – but he didn't have the heart to demand his place back from Ginny, who seemed to be having a blast playing Seeker.

Then there was the fact that his fledgling dreams of becoming an Auror were shattered in the face of cold, harsh reality. The Ministry was inefficient, corrupt, and hopelessly backward, so it was the last place he wanted to work at when he finished school. Thus, he felt no motivation to study, especially when it came to a subject like Potions, which he had long since started associating with Snape's ugly mug.

Finally, his more fun plans had to be put on the back burner. Hermione was still brewing the Polyjuice, and the Twins ran into some trouble when researching certain materials they had corresponded about during summer. It was frustrating, but he couldn't proceed without them.

All of those reasons contributed to Harry barely paying attention in class, and acting increasingly jittery and snappy outside it. It didn't take long for his friends to notice that something was wrong.

"Ron, can I have a word with you? It's about Harry."

"What about him?" Ron was slumped moodily in one of the comfy chairs in front of the fireplace at the Gryffindor common room. He was still the Keeper for their house team, but he wasn't performing up to par during practice, not to speak of the actual matches.

"He has been acting really weird lately. Surely you've noticed something?"

"I s'ppose. He's been a bit grumpy."

"Well, you aren't exactly a ray of sunshine, yourself," Hermione retorted. "That's not what I meant. He keeps borrowing Creevey's camera and going after my cat, trying to make him do something funny. Poor Crookshanks is terrified of him! Aren't you, you big sweet kitty?"

Crookshanks, who had been snoozing on the rug near the fire, opened one yellow eye and glared at Hermione, as if angry at her for implying a manly cat like himself would be afraid of anything.

"That's very interesting. Please, tell me more."

"Pay attention, Ron! That's not all. His essays lately don't make any sense. Here, take a look." She handed a piece of parchment to her friend. "Harry skipped class yesterday when McGonagall was handing these back, and I told her I'd get it back to him. I've never seen anything like this before."

Ron skimmed over the short essay, then frowned. Hermione was right – the text was written entirely in green ink, and looked like codswallop to the pureblood wizard.

"Be learning the Principle Exceptions to Gamp's Law," Ron read out loud. "Don't be transfiguring rocks into food. Greatnowiamhungry dot vellum... What is this rubbish? Has Harry gone round the twist?"

"I hope not," Hermione replied somberly. "But we have to talk to him."

The duo didn't need to look very far – they found Harry in the boys' dormitories, a somewhat unusual location given the time of the day.

"Why do you have your owl here at the dorms, mate?" Ron blurted out before Hermione could say anything.

"Oh, hey, you guys. I'm just trying to get Hedwig to do the 'O RLY' pose. She's really stubborn though, aren't you, girl?" Harry raised the camera and attempted to take off another picture.

Hedwig hooted indignantly when the flash went off; if it was possible for an owl to have a tortured expression, then the bird was the very image of suffering. Giving Harry one last glare, she took off and flew out of the window, hitting her wizard with her wings on the way out.

Harry lowered the camera, annoyed. "I don't understand why she has to be such a drama queen. I just wanted to snap a few photos."

"Yeah, about that, mate..."

"You've been acting weird lately, Harry, and we're worried about you," Hermione cut in. "What's wrong?"

"Wrong?" Harry pondered the question for a moment. "Well... I guess you could say I'm bored."

"Bored?" Hermione seemed offended about Harry's declaration. "If you're bored, you should study for the OWLs! And stop skipping class!"

"Study, study, study. It's all I've been doing lately!" Harry exclaimed. "I need some downtime, but there's just nothing fun to do at this place. I tried to get a card tournament going yesterday, but everyone's obsessing over exams these days. And we still have like two months until then!"

"We could play chess," Ron offered. "I don't feel like I can cram anything else into my head at this point."

Harry pouted. "Yes, we could, but then you'd just kick my ass."

"There must be something you want to do, Harry." Hermione sounded worried.

"Well, sure. I want to play a good RPG, or own some noobs in Counter Strike. My favorite webcomics probably updated a bunch of times by now, and I haven't checked my email in ages. Bah! This place should get with the times and get hooked up with some fiber optics."

Ron looked at Harry like he had grown a second head. "Uhh..."

"Honestly, Harry, you know as well as I do that Muggle gadgets fail in highly magical areas. They even mention it in the first chapter of Hogwarts: a History."

"Yeah, and it sucks! I could really use a dose of the internet right now. I'm almost out of SAN points!"

"Why don't you do some research?" Hermione suggested thoughtfully, trying to nudge her friend into doing something more productive than making funny animal photos. "You know, into why magic fries electronics."

"Research..." Harry rolled the unfamiliar word around his mouth. "I don't believe I've done much of that at Hogwarts, have I? It could be fun. Thanks for the idea, Hermione. To the library!"

"Muggle eckeltricity, huh? Do you think he will figure out how to make it work around magic?" Ron asked after Harry left the room.

"Don't be silly, Ron," Hermione scoffed. "Everyone knows that's impossible. But at least he'll be learning something instead of wasting his time."

Harry really threw himself into research after that. While most of the theory he had to read was dry and boring, it was surprisingly exciting to think of himself as a scientist (or whatever the magical equivalent was), and he was also motivated by the fact that success would mean getting Muggle tech into Hogwarts.

To his pleasant surprise, he found an answer a mere fortnight later. He was so excited about his discoveries, he had to share them with Ron and Hermione immediately.

"So, the bookworm finally returns from the library." Ron laughed. "You've been outnerding even Hermione lately, mate."

"That's not even a word, Ron," the girl snapped irritably.

"It is if I want it to be."

Harry cleared his throat to get Ron and Hermione's attention before they could start arguing in earnest. "Ahem. As you well know, I've been looking into the interactions between magic and electronics the past few weeks. After reading through whatever relevant books I could find, I came up with a clear and unambiguous conclusion about mixing the two of them together."

Harry paused for dramatic effect. Ron looked amused by his friends antics, while Hermione actually seemed to have a condescending look on her face. He raised his finger before delivering the final line.

"It is impossible."

"I could have told you that, Harry," Hermione declared smugly. "But I thought doing some independent study would be good for you."

"Hermione, I wasn't finished," he stated calmly. "As I was saying, casting magic on anything electronic will ruin the circuits. Thus, any protective spells or enchantments won't work either, since they are, by definition, magic. The only way to get something like an iPod to work at Hogwarts would be to recreate it entirely using magic."

"I knew all that," Hermione complained petulantly.

Ron rolled his eyes at the witch. "Sounds like what my dad was doing with all that Muggle stuff."

"Yeah, the flying car was pretty damn impressive," said Harry, reminiscing about their second year. "But I can't imagine wizards recreating computers using magic any time soon. Nor it's something I could realistically do without long years of study – probably in a Muggle university, too. So, I came up with something else. Instead of trying to enchant the item itself, we could simply isolate an area from ambient magic – like a Faraday cage of sorts. An entire room would probably be the easiest to work in, but there's no reason why smaller containers couldn't be enchanted this way as well."

Hermione was listening raptly now, impressed with Harry's findings despite herself. "Do you know what kind of magic you'd need for that?"

Harry's shoulders slumped slightly. "Well, not yet. But I'm fairly certain that it exists, and that it's a ward of some sort. It's likely to be some pretty high-level stuff, though – not something we're going to learn in class any time soon."

"You should write Bill," suggested Ron. "He knows all about wards."

"Good idea, Ron," said Harry appreciatively. "I think I'll do just that."

Not only Harry ended up writing Bill, he actually claimed a small room in the more remote part of the castle for this particular experiment. McGonagall was surprisingly amenable about the idea when he explained it to her; in fact, the normally strict witch praised Harry for finally showing some initiative about his studies. All-in-all, this little project kept Harry busy and gave him something interesting to do, which is what mattered the most.

"Hello, gentlemen," Harry greeted his accomplices in the Room of Requirement. "How's it going?"

"Heya, Harry. We're almost finished, aren't we, George?"

"Indeed, brother of mine. Just need to pack everything, all neat and tidy like."

"It won't explode on me, will it?" Harry was justifiably concerned. He had read that acetone peroxide was notoriously unstable.

"Nah, you'll be alright. We put Dampening Charms all over the bag, so nothing will happen even if you jump on it. This Muggle powder got nothing on Erumpent fluid, you know. George nearly lost his fingers playing with that stuff."

"Erumpent fluid? Couldn't we use that instead?"

"Might work, but it's impossible to get in any quantity that matters. We nicked a few drops from Mr. Lovegood last summer. That lunatic keeps a whole Erumpent horn on display in his living room." Fred shook his head ruefully. "Wouldn't listen to our warnings, either. Kept going on about Grumbling Snorkies or some such."

Harry made a mental note to warn Luna before she returned home. "So, I just take one of those things out of the bag, and drop it?"

"It would be best not to dawdle, yes. While not quite Erumpent fluid, it's still rather volatile."

"The bombs should explode on impact, but we've added a timed detonator just in case they don't," the other twin quipped in. "Just tap your wand on it once, and it will blow up in fifteen seconds. Quite ingenious, if you ask me."

"No argument there," agreed Harry, admiring the impromptu lab the Weasleys had set up. "You've really outdone yourselves, guys."

"Aww, don't make us blush, Harrykins."

"Compared to making fireworks, this is a lot simpler. No need to make things pretty, just loud and powerful."

"Normally, it would be less fun this way..."

"...But knowing who will be getting the delivery, we can't really complain."

The three boys adopted matching feral grins on their faces. They all had a bone to pick with that particular family. Fred broke the silence first.

"And is our favorite bushy-haired bookworm finished with her task as well?"

Harry nodded seriously. "The plan is a go."