Over the next half hour, Taylor explained as much about electricity as she could, finishing her lecture with the cautionary tale of George's near-electrocution.

"The shock stopped his heart," Taylor told the rest of her team. George looked particularly pale. "I started it again, using a Muggle procedure—" here she looked pointedly at Paul. "—called CPR. I don't really know enough about it to explain properly... Chest compressions manually kept the blood pumping, and rescue breathing pushed air into his lungs 'til he started breathing on his own. There's nothing magic about it."

Charles was frowning, thoughtfully.

"This seems like something we should cover in Mediwizard training, Muggle-based or no," Charles said. "I think I'll talk to my advisor about it."

"Well," said Oliver, speaking to the group as a whole. "Is that enough explanation for everyone? I know some of us have class to get to." There was a flurry of checking of watches and nearly everyone excused themselves from the kitchen in a hurry.

Taylor didn't wear a watch, but she didn't have class until ten o'clock, and felt reasonably sure she still had time to spare. She felt exhausted from the physical and emotional stresses of the morning and she sighed, leaning back and holding the edge of the counter to balance herself. She was taken by surprise as two strong arms enveloped her from behind and pulled her backwards into a huge hug. A chin rested on her shoulder, and she heard George's voice in her ear.

"Thanks, Taylor," he said. "I owe you one."

"Just...don't ever do anything that stupid again, alright?" said Taylor, turning to face him once he'd released her.

"I'll do my best," said George, grinning. "Uh, I do have a favor to ask, though."

Taylor raised an eyebrow, half questioning and half skeptical.

"You're Muggle-born," he said. "Would you have a look at the DVD player for me? See if it's salvageable?"

"Sure," agreed Taylor wistfully, too tired and relieved to really argue. "Why not?"

They left the kitchen together, Taylor carefully transferring Kali from her lap to the floor, and walked around the couch in the common area. The DVD player was sitting on a shelf above the television, and what Taylor presumed to be severed end of the cord was peeking out from behind the shelving along the floor to the right. She knelt down beside the cord and picked it up, carefully touching only the plastic encased part of the wiring. Looking at the twisted copper wire protruding from the end, Taylor remembered seeing it clutched tightly in George's hand and shivered.

"Never do anything like that again," repeated Taylor, quietly. George stood behind her, but didn't say anything.

Some distance away from the cord, Taylor found the plug George had removed, and she turned it over in her hands.

"Ah, see?" Taylor said. "That's an American plug, no wonder it didn't fit." She turned around, still on her knees, to show George.

"There's different kinds of plugs?" asked Richard, who was standing next to George, leaning over to examine the plug. Taylor seemed to be drawing a bit of a crowd. Oliver was standing behind the two others, and in the kitchen Taylor could see Charles paying attention even as he cleaned up the dishes from breakfast.

"Uh," said Taylor, surprised at her audience. "Yeah. I'm going to try transfiguring the plug into a European one and then mend the cord. Oh, no, hang on," she stopped abruptly, checking her pockets. She couldn't remember what had happened to her wand during all the commotion and she started to panic.

"Here, I've got it," Charles called from the kitchen. He walked across to where Taylor was kneeling and drew her wand from the pocket of his pajamas. Taylor took it gratefully and turned back to her work.

"I thought Gary said magic and electricity don't mix," commented George, as Taylor tapped the plug with her wand. It changed shape immediately, becoming recognizable as a European plug. Taylor noted absently that her guess was right about her two teammates' names.

"True," replied Taylor after a moment. "Mixing magic and Muggle technology is pretty much always a sketchy endeavor, but..." She carefully fused the newly made plug back onto the end of the cord with a quick repairo spell. "...let's give it a try anyway, shall we?"

She brandished the mended cord and plug at the wall, stretching it nearly taut to reach the outlet.

"Might we all want to step back a few paces before she plugs that in?" asked Charles, warily.

"Ha ha," said Taylor sarcastically, but she swallowed nervously all the same. "You probably should, actually. Just to be safe." She glanced over her shoulder and saw George and Richard both hastily move around behind the couch. Charles looked doubtful, and Oliver started moving forward with his hand out to stop her.

"I don't think this is a good idea," Oliver began, but Taylor just took a deep breath and pushed the plug into the outlet.

Nothing happened.

She let out the breath she was holding, and turned to smile over her shoulder. There was an inscrutable expression on Oliver's face, and he stood with his hand still stretched out, fingers inches from Taylor's shoulder.

"It's fine," she assured him. "It might not work, but it's not going to explode."

"Turn it on," called George, still in relative safety behind the couch with Richard.

Taylor stood, using Oliver's still-outstretched hand for balance, and walked to the front of the DVD player. With some trepidation (she couldn't actually be certain it wouldn't explode), she pressed the power button.

The little red light above the DVD tray winked on and Taylor laughed as the message "WELCOME" scrolled across the display.

"I think it'll work," said Taylor, pleased. George let out an excited whoop. Then he jumped over the couch and disappeared into his room. Oliver and Taylor exchanged confused looks and Oliver shrugged.

"Well, I have to get to class," said Richard, retreating to his own room to change and get his school things. "I'll see you all at practice."

"See you," chorused Taylor, Oliver, Charles, and also Kyle and Paul, who were already at the door, headed out to the stairs and, presumably, class.

George reappeared at Taylor's side a moment later with a large cardboard box in his arms.

"Here, set up the rest!" he said, breathlessly.

"The rest?" asked Taylor, wondering how on earth that bedraggled owl, which was still passed out on the kitchen counter, could possibly have carried such a weight. She peered into the box and saw a set of speakers and some assorted DVDs. "I suppose I could," she admitted. She hadn't yet connected the DVD player to the television, so she might as well connect the speakers at the same time.

Taylor pulled one speaker out of the box and turned to the shelving behind her.

"They'll just fit," she stated, maneuvering the speaker into a compartment just to the left of the television. She repeated the action with the other speaker on the opposite side, and George put the box down on the couch.

Taylor surveyed the whole set-up with her hands on her hips before kneeling. The television was at chest-height, and she bent at the waist to crawl a few inches on hands and knees into the compartment below the television.

In the dim light that peeked through the other compartments, Taylor could see all the cords dangling down to her eye level, and she twisted to look up at the back of the television visible in the few inches of space between the shelves and the wall. She heard the floor creak softly as someone stepped up behind her.

"Taylor..." George's voice came, hesitantly. "Can I help?"

Taylor hit her head on the shelf above in her hurry to back out and turn around.

"No!" she said, putting up a hand to keep George away from the electronics, the other hand rubbing the tender spot at back of her skull. George looked crestfallen at her reply, and she felt a little guilty. "Look, later I'll teach you more about this stuff, but for now...please just stay the hell away from it. I'm taking no more chances with you today, alright?"

"Okay," said George, still looking a bit put-out.

"Just...sit on the couch for now," Taylor ordered, and George complied. He pulled the near-empty box onto his lap and began looking through the DVDs that had come with the equipment.

Taylor turned back to her work, crawling again waist-deep into the shelving. She gave a little start when she realized Kali had climbed into the compartment when her back was turned. The cat was on her side, batting playfully at the plugs dangling just within reach. Taylor rubbed Kali's stomach and pulled her away from the wiring.

"You be careful too," she warned the cat. Kali seemed as if she understood the command, and moved to sit patiently at Taylor's shoulder with her tail curled around her front paws.

Twisting uncomfortably, Taylor found the cord to one of the speakers and tried to feel for the appropriate connection on the television above with the same hand. It was an awkward position, her weight on her knees and on one hand, craning her neck to see up into the lower rear part of the television. To make the task even more difficult, Kali's patience seemed to have waned, and she began licking Taylor's ear.

Taylor felt the sandpapery feeling of the cat's tongue against her skin and tried to pull out of reach.

"That tickles!" she protested.

Abruptly, Kali disappeared from Taylor's peripheral vision, whisked backward with a startled "Mrowr!"

Moments later, Oliver's head and shoulders took the cat's place, crowding Taylor for space and elbow room in the now very cramped compartment.

"Can I help?" asked Oliver, echoing George's earlier request.

"Uh," said Taylor, startled. "No offense or anything," she began, pulling all the wiring out of Oliver's reach, "but you're not Muggle-born. How do I know you won't fry yourself like George?"

"Well," said Oliver, pulling the DVD connector out of Taylor's reluctant grasp and fitting it expertly into the input jack in the television. "My sister's kind of a whiz when it comes to Muggle Studies, and she loves the electronics and technology Muggles come up with instead of magic. She's always bringing home things like this and asking me to help. I've become an expert-by-proxy of all things electronic."

"Well why didn't you speak up back there at breakfast, then, when I was trying to explain things?" asked Taylor, exasperatedly.

"You looked like you were having fun lecturing us," he said, grinning and shrugging as best he could in the space, squeezed in against Taylor's side.

"I wasn't!" she replied, forcefully. If she could have moved, she would have punched him in the shoulder. Oliver just laughed and began connecting the speaker cords.

After a while of cramped quarters and some experimenting with where the wiring went, the two of them had the electronics all sorted out. They spent the next few minutes trying to back haphazardly out of the shelving compartment, getting stuck squeezed together at the shoulders for a moment before finally freeing themselves.

"Let's try everything," said Taylor, sitting back on her heels in front of the television. Oliver stood and turned on all the equipment without incident.

Taylor turned to George.

"Did you find any films that looked interesting?" she asked him. George held up a darkly decorated DVD which Taylor recognized instantly.

"Something called 'Lord of the Rings,' " said George. Oliver walked over to look at the back cover and George continued. "Dad recommended it, said the Muggles loved it and it has to do with magic."

"It's one Muggle's imagining of magic," corrected Taylor.

"Have you seen this?" asked Oliver, gesturing at the DVD.

Taylor had, and she nodded. Her father was a huge Tolkien fan, and together the two of them had seen the film during her summer holidays from Hogwarts. Three times.

"Is it good?" George asked.

Shrugging, Taylor said, "You guys would probably think it's funny. Not very much of it is accurate, magic-wise."

"Excellent," said George, standing and snatching the disc case from Oliver's hands before crossing to the DVD player. Taylor intercepted him and George quailed at her stern look. She took the DVD away, opening the tray on the player and inserting the disc herself.

A moment later, Taylor recognized the film's musical score coming from the speakers as the DVD menu appeared on the television screen.

The image was upside down.

Taylor fell back onto the couch, laughing, as both George and Oliver turned their heads sideways to try and make sense of the DVD menu.

"I guess that's what happens when you mix magic and Muggle technology," gasped Taylor, wiping her eyes, which were watering from laughing so hard. She suddenly sobered, sitting up straight and looking alarmed. "What time is it?