I do not own Harry Potter.

"Tell me what it was like to grow up a Muggle."

Andromeda, Emmaline, and Ted were working on their homework in the common room one day. Andromeda couldn't help it; she just spite it out. At first she blushed, but then curiosity overtook her and she waited for him to answer.

Ted wasn't offended. He smiled, pleased that he was getting good attention about his Muggle background.

"Well . . . everything requires a lot more effort. Or at least it did. You couldn't just conjure fire when you needed it, so people learned to make matches, and then came electric lights, and then even battery-powered lights, and-"

"Ooh, I've heard of electric lights," breathed Emmaline. "Isn't lighting electric, too?"

"That's why the Lightning Hex is a different concept than Lumos," Andromeda pointed out, nodded to their Charms homework.

"Yeah . . . and there's cars, run by gas . . . there's a lot of things run by gas, actually."

"So what do you learn in school? How to build cars?"

Ted laughed. "Kind of. If you want to get a job building cars. You start off with basic stuff, and then get more advanced in the field you want to go into. But you'd start off with everything, like we do here. You learn . . . well, Math, Reading, Writing, History, Science-"

"Isn't Science like magic?" asked Emmaline. "I read in our History book that sometimes Muggle scientists were accused of performing magic, and they actually died in the witch-burnings. Rather sad."

Ted nodded again. "Some of it. In Chemical Science you basically make potions, but it's mixing and it's not very magical. Physics is how to lift things and drop things and shoot things so they go certain ways- things you don't have to worry about as a wizard, because you control it with your mind and wand. Biological Science is just the study of living things- like Herbology and Care of Magical Creatures combined."

Andromeda nodded, entranced. "Which was your favorite?"

"I liked Science a lot, but I have to say magic's even better . . . but I actually was going to go on to school as a musician. My name was on the waiting list for the conservatory when I got my letter into Hogwarts."

"You were going to be a musician?"

"Yes; I play violin. I actually . . . well, brought it along with me," Ted blushed.

"Show us!" Emmaline prompted. Ted disappeared into his dorms and brought back a lumpy black case. He set it on one of the blue silk chairs and opened it, revealing a shiny red-brown violin. Andromeda was reminded of the man on the way to the station she had watched a year ago.

Ted picked up the violin, tucked it under his chin, and began to pull the bow across the strings. At first he didn't look at what he was doing- he saw the faces of all of the other Ravenclaws as they turned to see what the noise was- but he was excellent and he knew it, so he kept on. Andromeda knew why he had signed up to go into the conservatory- he was positively excellent. She watched his fingers press down on the fingerboard, pulsing like hesitating butterflies and making a rich vibrato. His bow flowed over the strings, releasing the most harmonious and charismatic sounds Andromeda had ever heard. Ted was such a nice, funny boy- and this was a side of him she had never seen. This was his emotion.

When he stopped, the entire common room clapped. At least half of the students were purebloods who had never even considered learning to play an instrument, brought up simply having their parents snap their fingers to get a symphony out of mid-air. Of the others, if any played an instrument at all, they were not nearly as gifted as Ted.

Andromeda couldn't hold in her rapture. "Oh! Let me try it! Let me try it, please!"

Ted positioned the wooden frame under her chin and helped her lay the bow across the shiny, metallic strings. Andromeda thought as hard as she could, willing beautiful music to come out, and pulled the bow.

SCRAWWWWWWCH.

Even Andromeda screwed up her face at the noise. Ted smiled wryly. "It doesn't work like magic," he said. "It takes both will AND practice. I told you Muggle Arts were much more difficult."

Andromeda handed the violin back to him. "I guess we wizards are so lazy," she said bitterly. "We just WILL things all the time. As long as we know the spell and are powerful enough, it just . . . happens. You actually have to make some effort." She felt rather guilty about it, actually. Her parents went on and on about how incapable and stupid Muggles were. It was simply just because they didn't have the advantages of wizards- and they had done terribly well in spite of it all.

"Do you want to try again?" Ted held the violin out. "You'll get better, I promise, if you work at it. I can teach you how."

Andromeda nodded. She wanted to work at something for once, have it come with difficulty. The violin's beautiful music was definitely worth it.

So Ted showed her how to hold the bow, how to position her fingers correctly on the ebony fingerboard, pressing down the strings so that they rang clearly. He helped her angle the bow right and after about an hour, she could work out the tune "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star"-- a Muggle children's song Andromeda had never heard but Ted insisted was always one the first pieces violinists learned. Some of the other Ravenclaws grew annoyed with this noise that was so vulgar and crude compared to Ted's symphony and headed into their dorms (and one, in NEWT Charms, simply placed a soundproof charm around their head and went on studying). Even Emmaline figured it was best she went to bed, until at midnight the two first years, still diligently bowing away on Ted's violin, were shooed off to bed by the Fat Friar.

Andromeda had musical dreams all that night. She had improved greatly, but it had taken a while. She didn't just say the right words and get a result; her fingers were calloused and her arms were tired from supporting the violin for so long. It felt good, in the same way Sirius told her Quidditch felt good- it made one tired but blissfully happy for having done something that required energy.

There was something, too, brewing in her 11-year-old mind, a bliss even deeper and more elusive than the tiredness and success of violin-playing. She didn't quite understand it and certainly didn't recognize it, but it was there.

It was something like Ted close to her, his breath mingling with hers, gently placing her fingers on the fingerboard and guiding her bow gently with his soft hands.

TBC . . .