Video
"They're wizard pictures, Hermione!"
"No they aren't, they're just videos."
The two of them were currently on a site called YouTube. After laughing at the name for several minutes, as it made completely no sense to him at all, Ron settled down for Hermione's explanation. "YouTube's a site for people to put up videos of themselves," said Hermione. "Video comes from the Latin word meaning 'I see', which is pretty self-explanatory, but I don't need to go into that, I think. And just like Google, you can search for anything you want and it will come up, unless it happens to be a really obscure, esoteric thing no one really knows about."
"So, for example, if I searched for something like, oh, I don't know, music." Hermione typed 'the Beatles' into the search bar and pressed 'enter'. Clicking on the first link on the page, they were immediately transported to a large screen of four men with loud voices and bad hair. They were singing and dancing on a stage as they played their music in front of a very large cheering crowd.
"Merlin, they're awful," Ron said loudly, covering his ears. Hermione gave him a very offended look. "They were my parents' favourite band in their day," she said with a somewhat defiant air. Ron took this as a good moment to shut up and watch the video.
"You can pause it here, see?" Hermione moved the cursor over the moving picture and a little bar suddenly appeared. She clicked a button which looked like two solid lines very close together, and in an instant, the music halted. Ron stared. "Did you just put a Freezing Charm on it?" he asked. Hermione shook her head and smiled. "Then – why – " he pointed a half-shaking finger at the screen, "why aren't they moving?"
"You can stop it just like that," said Hermione, snapping her fingers for emphasis. "And play it again." She clicked the same button, which had changed to look like a lopsided triangle, and the video resumed. Ron gaped at it, then at her. "Wish we could do that with Sirius' mum's portrait," he said. "Click a button and – " he made a gesture with both hands in the air to suggest complete silence.
"How about we try taking one of ourselves?" Hermione said suddenly, brightening. She opened another window, and in an instant, Ron could see the two of them in the screen of the computer. He raised his left hand. Computer-Ron mirrored him. He made a face. Computer-Ron made a face back.
"I'll start recording," said Hermione, and pressed a button on the screen that looked like a round circle in red. There was a faint ding. "Hello," said Hermione. "It's – " she looked up at the calendar, " – the 26th of August, and Ron's making his very first video."
"You make it sound like I'm a whiney three-year-old," grumbled Ron. Hermione ignored him. "What are you doing, anyway?"
"Shush," said Hermione, putting a finger to her lips. "We're being caught on camera!"
"What?"
"Never mind," she answered, and clicked the button again. There was another ding, and the video automatically played back.
"Hello," said the Hermione on-screen. "It's – " pause – "the 26th of August – "
"These are just like wizard pictures with sound!" said Ron. "Wicked!"