Culture Shock
"Hey Jerry," Sasha asked while lounging on a bean bag, "Can you come over here for a sec?" She was staring at the smartphone they bought for research purposes. Last month, they barely managed to send the report before the deadline. This month, however, they planned to send a well-made report, on-time, so Sasha was diligently doing her job of further examining the phone.
"What is it?" Jerry irritably replied as he got up from the desk he was sitting. An open laptop sat on that desk, the password still unentered. Jerry had spent the last hour trying to figure that thing out. And now Sasha was disturbing him.
She held up the phone so that Jerry could see the screen over her shoulder. There was a small rectangle with a weirdly coloured musical note in it. The caption below said "Tik Tok". "I don't remember putting this in here. Did you or Mina put it in? This weird looking app…" Sasha began.
"Not that I can remember. Maybe Mina put it in. We'll ask her when she comes back with lunch." Jerry replied as he leaned in to get a closer look. "It does look really weird though. And why is it called Tiktok? Does it have to do anything with a clock?" Sasha shrugged.
"Let's see what it is, I guess. Here goes nothing." She clicked on that little rectangle. The screen turned into a blinding pink, and obnoxious music started playing. Both Jerry and Sasha flinched in surprise. Soon, the music stopped and a white page with the heading "Sign-in into your Account!" appeared. Not knowing what to do, Sasha pressed faint 'X' in the top right corner. The screen changed again, this time to several rectangles with people in them.
"What do I do?" Sasha turned to Jerry, nervous and unsure. Things were happening a little too fast for her liking.
"Try pressing on one of them."
It was a whole new world. On pressing one of the videos, loud and bassy music started playing. Sasha flinched a little again. A kid who looked not too younger than them was doing some kind of a dance. The music looped these three lines, "I'm a savage, classy, bougie, ratchet. Sassy, moody, nasty."
Sasha and Jerry at each other in disbelief. There was an awkward silence in the air. After all, the culture shock was huge. Is this what muggle children did in their free time? Didn't they have to study for any test like the NEWTs? Are their professors okay with this stuff?
Jerry was the first to speak, "Ughh, this is why I didn't want to do this! I wanted to join the Auror department and do cool Auror stuff, not see Muggle children do weird things! Not to mention, what is that music? I am not sure if it can even be called music!"
Sasha sighed. She knew this would happen sooner or later. Jerry was a pureblood kid raised by his grandma, and his views were rather... Orthodox. But he had agreed to this nevertheless. "Look, I know it's really weird. I don't understand it myself. Maybe not all muggle children are like this. We haven't been here long enough to make that judgement. Besides, if we do this well, we get promoted to some of the highest ranks in the Ministry." She yawned and stretched her back. Jerry still had his face twisted in irritation. "Don't worry, we won't add this in the report for this month. This might make wizard perception of muggles even more negative."
"Yeah," Jerry said, under his breath, not wanting to yield. "Anyway, why isn't Mina back yet? It shouldn't take her that long to get lunch. I am hungry." They had let Mina go deal with what to get for lunch as she was the oldest and the only one who had enough expertise to mingle among muggles. Sasha just shrugged again, which was starting to get on Jerry' nerves.
Just then, they heard the clicking of heels outside the door. Jerry ran to the door and opened the door. There stood Mina, hair all over her face, and exhaustion evident on her face. She carried lots of bags, and her fingers were red from the pressure of holding the bags. Instinctively, Jerry offered to take some of the bags and Mina happily obliged.
"Hey, Mina!" Sasha said while getting up from her bean bag. "That took you a while."
"Yeah, it did," replied Mina as set the bags down on the sofa. "It was a really long walk from here and the restaurant was crowded. Then I also decided to get you both some appropriate Muggle clothing, because you people haven't stepped out at all, and that won't do."
"Oh, that's nice! What did you get me? You have great taste, so I am really excited!" Sasha said, hurriedly approaching the bags.
"Who cares about that?' Jerry interjected. "What's for lunch?" His face was a mix of annoyance and expectancy. Mina simply pointed at the paper bag that stood out from the other pale white bags. Without missing a beat, Jerry took the bag from the sofa and unloaded its contents on the table. Several big and small boxes from a place called "McDonalds". This was not the first time they'd had Mcdonalds during this stay. Everything was still warm, so Mina must've cast the incendio spell on it.
"We need to start cooking on our own. I can't imagine how this food is going to be good for us." Mina said, helping herself to one of the fries. Sasha nodded. Only if Hogwarts had taught them how to cook.
Everyone was into their lunch as something piqued Sasha's interest. "Mina, what's that other bag on the sofa? It doesn't seem to be more clothes"
Mina just smiled as she cleaned the grease off her fingers with a tissue, "Oh I found the muggle equivalent of a house-elf."
Now both Sasha and Jerry's ears perked up.