Apologies that there is very little Scorpius and Alice in this chapter, but I promise they'll be back in the future.

Standard disclaimer applies.

September 2021 – September 2022

Fifth year. OWLs are rapidly approaching, and Rose and Scorpius, after a summer of owling each other, resume their partnership in Care of Magical Creatures. In addition to class, they meet up once a week in the library to study together. But despite Alice's continued teasing and the resumed whispers from the rest of the school, nothing develops. Rose's crush is as strong as ever, Scorpius is as well-mannered and studious as ever, and outside of class and the library, the two are strangers. Rose complains about this in passing to Alice sometimes when they go to Hogsmeade, bemoaning that Scorpius never asks to go together, but looming exams prevents this from weighing too heavily on her mind.

The year passes uneventfully. The fifth years take their OWLs, and return home on the Hogwarts Express. Same as last year, Scorpius' first owl comes three days into summer hols, and Scorpius and Rose resume their penpal-ship.

A week into hols, after Rose feels that she is all caught up on sleep, her Granddad Arthur invites her to come to his office for a day. He leaves her at an unoccupied desk next to a young wizard trying desperately to look busy while he goes off for the morning's briefing, telling her to sit tight, he'll return soon. As soon as he is around the corner, Rose promptly turns to the wizard at the next desk over, and asks, "What's that?"

He twitches violently, and casts a panicked glance around, as if his manager is spying on him.

"Er, I'm not entirely sure. It came in with the report that it had been cursed to give off the illusion that the holder was being engulfed by spiders coming from this spiderweb pattern on the front." Rose shudders, and the wizard continues, "The curse has been lifted now, but now I'm supposed to figure out what the box is meant to do." He shows her the front of the little palm-sized rectangle, matte black on one side, and shiny glass on the other. It is the glass side that has the spiderweb pattern.

Rose reaches for it, curious. When the young wizard hesitates, Rose decides to introduce herself first.

"I'm Rose! I go to Hogwarts and I'm on vacation so I came here today with my Granddad Arthur."

The stranger blinks at her. "Your grandfather is Arthur… Arthur Weasley? Like the Head of Department?"

"Yes, him."

"Oh." The young wizard's face closes up and he almost physically withdraws from Rose, back into his work.

Rose barrels ahead. "No! Please don't worry, I'm not a plant or anything! I'm here because I was driving my mum and da up the wall and Granddad thought this could be a good idea for me to get a chance to see what life could be like after Hogwarts. I'm really curious about what's going on, so please will you tell me more about this spider box that you're working on? And also what's your name?"

"The name's Andrew. Andrew Golding. I graduated from Hogwarts four years ago and just finished the training academy for Ministry field work, so now it's back to shuffling papers at a desk for me. And playing with these—" he gestures at the box "—things."

"Can I hold it?" Rose asks.

Andrew passes it over. Rose turns it over in her hands. Other than the crack on the glass and three buttons on the side, the surface is smooth.

She points at the buttons. "What do these do?"

"To be entirely honest, I don't know. I didn't want to push them in the event that something exploded."

"But surely your department handles things that explode with regularity! One more little explosion surely won't harm anything." In fact, when Rose looks at the desk she is currently occupying, she sees scorch marks on the wood.

When Andrew hesitates, Rose continues, "Could you put up a local containment spell, and do your manipulations inside that bubble?"

Andrew looks thoughtful. "You know, that could work…"

"Okay! Great! Let's try it!" Rose promptly levitates the box, puts up a Localized Shield Charm around it, and is about to use a Projection Charm to push the buttons with her hands on the outside of the Shield Charm, when Andrew stops her.

"Wait. Let's record this. So I'll know what not to do with the next one." He opens a drawer on his desk and Rose sees dozens of phones waiting for testing.

When Andrew has the camera set up, Rose pushes the topmost of the three buttons. The box gives off a small plume of purple smoke but remains otherwise unchanged.

"Well that was anticli—" Rose begins, but then she sees tiny bolts of lightning coursing across the surface of the box, and with a miniature clap of thunder, the entire device goes up in a giant purple explosion. The Shield Charm fortunately holds, and when the dust settles, there is nothing left inside the containment except a heap of silver dust.

"That was fun! I wonder what is in this dust – what materials and such… I wonder if reparo will work to restore the box…" She gives it a try, and the only thing that happens is the formation of a tiny tornado, which dies down.

She glances over at Andrew, who looks shooketh. Then she looks around the room and sees the eyes of all the staff on her.

"Whoops… I guess that was a bit loud."

Andrew frowns.

Rose next sees her Granddad Arthur hustling toward them, and says to Andrew before she gets hauled off, "It was nice to meet you! Thanks for letting me help you figure out what's going on, that was really fun! OK bye!"

Later that night, Rose's mother informs her that she will unfortunately not be allowed to join her granddad at work again. But also Rose senses that her mother is secretly pleased at the experimental nature that she revealed today in that escapade.

Rose thinks it's probably best that she doesn't go back to the Ministry. One thing that she tactfully decided to not ask was why employees in the Department of the Misuse of Muggle Artefacts never interact with Muggles to divine the original uses of these objects. Surely some of them must have muggleborn connections, and surely a muggle consultant would be more productive than just blowing things up all day. She knows for a fact that there are muggles who are aware that magic exists; in fact, she is related to some.

It's with this attitude that Rose goes to visit her grandparents on her mother's side the next weekend.

When her grandmother brings Hugo into the kitchen to start baking a batch of cookies, she sits with her grandfather in the den.

"What new things have you learned recently, Rose?"

"The usual in school, but I really enjoyed learning about the theory of Animagi in Transfiguration. Not that I'm going to become one, but it's cool to learn how and why the procedure differs for becoming different animals. And combined with what we learn in Care of Magical Creatures, I have been really enjoying learning how other animals approach life and interactions with humans."

"It sounds like you are really passionate about working with creatures! Is this something that you will want to do as a career?"

"It is definitely my top choice right now, and I spoke with Professor Longbottom about this during career planning. He says that I could take a year after graduating from Hogwarts to intern at a creature facility, and then attend a secondary academy with a good veterinary program. That way I could focus on what I think is interesting right now, but also have exposure to other careers and change my mind if I want."

"This sounds like good advice from Neville."

Rose waits a second to see if her grandfather will say anything more on this, then she moves to change the topic.

"I went to visit my Granddad Arthur at his office last week."

"Oh? And how did you pass your time in the office?"

"Well, he left me at a desk next to some wizard who was working with a," Rose fishes around for a word, "rectangle."

Rose's grandfather nods for her to continue. He is smiling a little bit.

"It had previously been enchanted to give off ghostly spiders from a spiderweb crack on the glass side, but that had been lifted, and the wizard, his name was Andrew, was trying to figure out how the thing worked. It was like a slim rectangle with glass on one side and it was black on the other side, with a couple of holes on the edges and there were three buttons. And when we tried to push one of the buttons, the whole thing exploded in a puff of purple smoke. And I hoped that maybe you would know what the thing was."

"Hmm… I can think of something that matches most of your description, except the exploding part. But I am going to guess that's not part of its normal behavior. Did the device look anything like this?" He reaches into his pocket, draws out a little box, and extends it to Rose.

She reaches for it, and then nearly drops it when the glass side lights up. When she recovers, she looks again. The glass face of the device proclaims that the time is 14:23. This box is slightly smaller than the other one, there is no spiderweb crack, and the backing is silvery.

"What you're holding is a cell phone. A smartphone, to be exact. It's very similar in premise to a telephone, your grandfather must have introduced you to those. You can make phone calls, but also a great deal more. You can send people text messages and take pictures and play games… I could go on, but you look like you have questions."

"I think I'm still stuck comparing the thing that I blew up at the Ministry to this," she waves the one her grandfather has handed to her around a bit. "So you're saying that the spiderweb crack is not normal?"

"Yes, the glass screen often cracks when you drop your phone on the ground."

"But that doesn't break the phone altogether?"

"Yes, the majority of falls do not completely disable the phone."

"And the different size and color I guess is similar to my wand – they are shaped and sized differently, but have the same basic functions?

"Right again."

"Grandpa, will you show me how to use this? All of the features that you talked about earlier?"

This is how Rose starts her summer of learning about muggle technology. Rose and her grandfather are on the phone with her parents (because of course Granddad Arthur gifted them a fellytone for their wedding) when her grandmother and her brother return with rich and chewy molasses cookies. Rose borrows her grandmother's smartphone and she and her grandfather spend an hour writing messages to each other from next to each other on the sofa, and taking and sending photos of each other. Rose finds that the flashy games start to give her a headache, so instead returns to the messaging function.

"This seems so much more reasonable than sending owls. Or even the flying paper notes that they have at the Ministry. Why doesn't the wizarding world have these implemented?"

If she is thinking about her impatience with waiting for Scorpius' return owls, she doesn't mention it.

When she visits the next week, her grandfather presents her with a small box. Inside is a smartphone of her very own. Rose throws her arms around her grandfather in thanks, and they spend the afternoon setting it up, and sending messages back and forth to make sure it works.

However, as soon as Rose gets home, carrying her new phone, the screen blinks off and does not come back on. No matter how much Rose presses the power button, the phone does not come back on. Unfortunately there are no power sockets in the house, as all of the lights and appliances are magically operated, so she has to wait three days for the next time she sees her grandfather again to ask.

"Ah, I was worried that you weren't picking up my calls or answering my messages. I assumed it was just a teenager thing, but I see now that I underestimated you. Let's have a look, then."

But when Rose and her grandfather look at the phone together, it comes on without any problems. The battery is somewhat drained from the last week, but not enough that it would not have come on.

That night, Rose writes a letter to the Muggle Studies professor.

Dear Professor Kowling,

My name is Rose Weasley and I will be a sixth year at Hogwarts in the fall. I am not currently taking Muggle Studies with you, but I have a question about muggle electronics. I just learned about smartphones with my muggle grandfather, and was thinking that implementing the phone calling and instant messaging features from these devices would make communication much easier in the wizarding world, and represents a significant advance from the current Protean Charm. However, upon carrying a smartphone home, I discovered that this electronic does not work in the presence of magical wards. My question is, do you have any insight on how to improve the compatibility of muggle electronics with magic?

Thank you for taking the time to read my note, and I eagerly await your response!

Sincerely,

Rose Weasley

While Rose waits for a return owl, she learns about other forms of muggle technology. Next up is the laptop, and the word processing feature. She imagines that writing three foot essays will be significantly more straightforward and standardized if everyone digitized their writing and font size. Additionally, the larger size of laptop keyboards makes writing long pieces more feasible than the small size of the smartphones. She is also fascinated by the Internet and the vast availability of information, although some of it looks a little unreliable… and contradictory. Her grandfather shows her how to access digitized textbooks, and while Rose would love the simplicity of not having to lug around all of her textbooks all the time, she does also enjoy the feeling of turning pages, and the smell of old books. After a couple of hours, she realizes her eyes are getting tired from taking in even a limited portion of what this device has to offer, and decides that e-books are not for her.

A week later, Rose receives a return owl from Professor Kowling,

Dear Rose,

Thank you for your excitement about muggle technology! Regretfully, I am not very well-versed on this topic, as the material in the class is predominantly anthropology – the history and culture of muggles. However, I was able to find a volume about muggle electronics, which I have enclosed.

Here, Rose pauses to look at the enclosed book, and her heart falls a little bit when she sees how slim it is. She continues reading the letter.

I have also included the contact information of a witch I once met when I was on vacation in America. Her name is Cecily Piros, and she is married to the CEO of a major muggle technology company. If anyone would know more about this topic, it would be her.

Best wishes for your studies, and please continue to send questions my way. I'll do my best to answer them, and I eagerly look forward to hearing about your progress.

Sincerely,

Professor Kowling

It is with low hopes that Rose opens the book that the professor enclosed. A Guide to Electronic Muggle Artefacts, compiled by the Department of the Misuse of Muggle Artefacts. She reads it in one night, and learns nothing except there is a huge variety of shapes, ranging from squat and round to very large and flat. There are colorful, palm-sized devices that vibrate, used for unknown purposes. All of these devices are described as containing some combination of metal and polymer, and all go up in smoke when witches and wizards try to operate them within the confines of security spells.

It's extremely disheartening.

In fact, Rose is so frustrated that she waits until after her family reunion in France to send a letter to Cecily Piros. Thanks to her family's connections in the Ministry, sending a trans-Atlantic letter goes very smoothly.

Dear Ms. Piros,

My name is Rose Weasley and I attend the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Some time ago, you gave your contact information to Professor Jae Kowling, who teaches Muggle Studies here, and who passed your information to me when I expressed interest in muggle technology. I was recently introduced to smartphones and laptops, and I think it would be phenomenal if I could use this technology with my magical friends, but I have achieved only various degrees of failure when I try to use these devices within the confines of magic. I understand that you have connections to the upper echelons of the muggle technology scene, so I am wondering if you may be able to help me solve or clarify this conundrum.

Thank you for your time, and I look forward to hearing back from you!

Sincerely,

Rose Weasley

Time passes, and the new school year approaches. Rose sees her muggle grandparents for the last time for the summer.

Her grandfather's parting words are, "Rose, we're very proud of you and all that you've learned this summer. We always thought that your mother gave upon the muggle world and all it has to offer too quickly, but we're very happy to see that you're trying to bridge this gap. Good luck with the next school year, and shoot me a text when you get it figured out!"

She hugs each of her grandparents, then meets up with her cousins at Diagon Alley to pick up supplies for the next year. She has all but given up on the idea that Cecily Piros will return her letter, but as the family is rushing out the door to the Hogwarts Express on September 1, 2022, an owl arrives for Rose. She absentmindedly takes the letter and tucks it into her shoulder bag for later reading, then strokes the owl and gives her a treat before she flies off.

The letter lies forgotten as Rose happily reunites with a very tan Alice (who has been in the Brazilian Amazon all summer with her father), and they spend the first several hours of the train ride catching each other up with their summers. They discuss all of the fit people Alice met in South America, the plants that her father discovered, the beautiful creatures, both magical and non-magical, who are losing their homes to the horrors of the muggle logging industry. Rose doesn't spend much time speaking about Scorpius, because their messaging wasn't as often or as interesting as the previous year, but they do seem to be continuing the study sessions they started last year.

She hesitates when she gets to what she's done with her grandfather, and suddenly she remembers the letter in her bag.

"I spent a lot of time with my muggle grandfather this summer, and it was really fun! They have a lot of technologies that the wizarding community doesn't have, and I've been thinking about trying to bridge that, starting with communication."

"So what have they got that's improved from owls and Floo?"

"Well you remember my Granddad Arthur's fellytone, right? Which is basically like Floo-calling, just you don't see the other person's face. Muggles do this thing called video calling, which is a combination of voice and visual. You don't have to stick your head into a fire, actually you don't need to be anywhere near a fire, but both sides need to have a device that's capable of video calling. It's instantaneous and anywhere, provided you're carrying this device."

Alice nods for Rose to continue.

Rose continues, "And instead of having to write a letter in longhand and send it by owl and wait for a response, they have instant messaging – you write your message into the same device I talked about earlier, and seconds later you can have a response!"

Alice looks thoughtful. "This all sounds great and convenient, but potentially also very distracting. But tell me why the wizarding community doesn't have this already?"

Rose sighs. "We couldn't really figure out why this summer. It looks like these devices just don't work in the proximity of magic. And when you've got security spells up, they tend to explode when you try."

Alice shudders. "So what can you do about it?"

"I don't know. Probably not much, considering that I'm sixteen and in school most of the time. But Professor Kowling put me in touch with somebody who might be able to help, she's in the States…" Rose takes out the letter and she reads it together with Alice.

Dear Rose,

Thank you so much for your letter and for your enthusiasm! I must confess that my husband's company is not involved in the push to integrate magic with hardware, but some other companies here in the Valley are. It seems a pretty challenging problem, and very little headway has been made over the last several years. Lucky for you, opportunities to participate abound. I suppose that my letter is reaching you as you prepare for another year at school, but if you are still interested in this problem come next summer, I can recommend you to the other companies in the area for a summer internship.

Until then, there is a company based in Finland that builds cell phones, and if I'm not mistaken, they also have a magical integration department. I've included their contact information below, and I've also spoken with your Headmistress McGonagall about the possibility of you conducting an internship concurrent with your school term. She seemed to look favorably on the project, and said that she would speak with you about the matter.

Please feel free to reach out with any further questions, and these don't have to be restricted to this technology! I look forward to hearing about your development as a young witch and scientist!

Best wishes,

Cecily