Disclaimer: I own nothing. Literally. I rent my underwear.
Chapter 3
As the sun went down outside Azkaban prison, the head house elf (going by the curious name of Bob) decided that today would be a good day to try out one of the new recipes that he learned while he was on sabbatical in Japan (where he went by the psudeonym of Bob-san, believing he'd blend in better that way). As he made bento boxes for the inmates, he realized that the regular utensils (specially conjured forks and knives that are charmed not to pierce human skin and dissolve 15 minutes after they are given to an inmate) would not be appropriate for this sort of meal. So he sent one of the newest acquisitions, an elf named Dobby, out to the usual shop in Diagon Alley to get chopsticks for the meal. Dobby, being heartbroken after the news of Harry Potter's 'betrayal', only partially followed instructions, and instead ended up in a Japanese market in Essex, where he bought 200 pairs of muggle chopsticks, made from hardened hickory. His mistake was not discovered for hours after the meal, in which the largest mass suicide in London's magical history occurred, as for the first time in Azkaban's history, inmates had the means to do themselves in.
In the midst of ensuing chaos, Harry and Neville sat quietly, listening and learning what they could about what was happening. Once they understood the fact that the chopsticks weren't going anywhere, Harry got the idea of splitting one of them in half, and pulling a hair out of his dreadlocks (hey, he hasn't had a haircut in five years, right?), he quickly laid the hair between the two halves, and a wandless Reparo later, voila! One wand...ish.
"Harry, what are you doing? That's not going to work, a wand core has to be from a magical creature" Neville quietly whispered through the hole.
"Nev, not to be insulting, but I thought you had gotten over your prejudices. We ARE magical creatures...just a different sort than a phoenix or a hippogiff. I honestly don't see any reason why this won't work, all a wand does is focus my magic, and since I've learned how to do a few things wandlessly anyway, this should do nothing more than augment what I already can do." Harry replied, trying to figure out which end will be the front.
"Easy for you to say," Neville replied grumpily, "you at least can do wandless magic. But what about that whole 'the wand chooses the user' thing that Ollivander did?"
"Do you remember third year, with the tri-wizard tournament?" Neville nodded. "Fleur's wand had one of her grandmother's hairs as the core. Granted, her grandmother was a Veela, but what would match the user's magical core better than part of his own body? As a matter of fact, if it doesn't work, I'll try putting a little of my blood on the hair, to see if that will work better. Back up from the wall a little, here goes nothing!"
With a flick, Harry had a fountain of wine shooting from the tip of his chopstick...er...wand. A swish and a flick later, and his bed was zooming around the room. A couple of tests, and Harry started to lose himself in the magic...and was only brought back by Neville's insistent "Harry? Harry? Are you OK?"
"Holy crap Nev, it works! I tell you, we ever get out of here, and I'm opening a wand shop!" Harry replied, the most excited he has been since he removed Voldie's head from his shoulders.
Neville, hearing how well Harry's experiment went, wasted no time splitting open one of his own chopsticks, twisting up a couple hairs, and sticking it all back together. Than he frowned.
"Harry, let me borrow your wand for a second? I can't do this wandlessly."
"I dunno Nev, why don't you just let me do it for you." Harry replied, not knowing how his chopstick…err…wand would react to somebody else using it.
"Harry, let's use some logic here. I can think of four possibilities. One, it works, I get my wand, we're all happy. Two, it just doesn't work, you fix my wand, I feel like a douchebag for a few minutes, Bob's your uncle, we're good. Three, your wand has some strange effect, it all goes tits up, we have two more chopsticks to play with. Or four, I blow us to kingdom come, we're dead, we don't care anyway. But I really feel I need to try this. Please?"
Harry passes the wand through the hole. "The pointy side is the front. Hold it by the side with the oriental lettering that probably means 'stupid British gits'.
Neville chuckles, and prepares himself for the first magic he's done in…oh you know.
"Reparo"
bang
As the smoke clears, Neville sheepishly looks through a 6'x6' hole in what used to be the two foot thick brick wall separating the two cells. "Bloody hell Harry, that was wicked! As soon as the chopstick and the hair went together, it was like when I got my first wand from Ollivander. I mean, it feels like it's twitching how much power is going through it, even when I just hold it. I wonder why nobody ever thought of this before."
"Because the entire wizarding community lives in 382BC, just like the sign on Ollivander's says. How efficient would electricity be if it was powered by magic? Or automobiles? I mean, have you ever tried using a pen and a pad of paper? Bloody brilliant. Or computers. Right now muggles have the ability to get on their computer, type something, and somebody on the other side of the world can see it instantaneously. Or they can write something on an electronic bulletin board, and hundreds of people all around the world can read it. Hell, before I came to Diagon Alley that day I caught Dudley wanking to pictures of some bird in the buff on his computer! And he had hundreds of them to choose from! Why are we so behind? Is it because the purebloods are so afraid of the muggles finding out that there is magic in the world? Or is it because the purebloods are afraid to find out that the muggles have done things WITHOUT magic that make us look insignificant?" By this point Harry's voice has raised to an indignant yell. "Bloody purebloods like Malfoy and Snape, and bloody halfbloods like the Dark Tosser Tom that PRETEND that their blood is so pure are the reason that this happens. What's worse, though, are people like Arthur Weasley, who's JOB it is to make sure that the bloody muggles don't find out about us! Well you know what? Piss on all of them. I'm going to make myself comfortable, and spend my time sitting right here in Azkaban. Fuck them all."
"Um, Harry, mate? I'm a pureblood, and you don't see me talking like that," Neville started sheepishly, "I'd love to see what you're talking about, but I just don't know enough about the muggle world to form an opinion. For instance, you can see women in their skivvies on those computer things? I thought those were just for writing letters?"
"Not just their skivvies, Nev, you can see them in their bare asses. You can watch them shagging. You can see whatever you bloody well want."
"And they can't see you back?" Neville had to make sure of that.
"Not a one. These are just like wizard pictures, but you don't have to take them. And that's the least of their technology." Harry was realizing that he shouldn't have mentioned porn. Or perhaps he should have…if it makes Neville Longbottom interested in the muggle world, maybe it will interest other people too.
"You know, Nev, I had a thought. Now that we have the ability to do magic, you want to, shall we say, raise the comfort level in our cell a bit? Maybe add a few more modern conveniences?"
"What did you have in mind, Harry?" Neville was a bit confused by the choice of words that Harry used.
"Well, I was thinking that maybe we should take a trip into the muggle world. See how they live. And bring back some new stuff to play with. Maybe our legacy is bringing the two worlds together." Harry just shrugged.
"Hold on, you mean leave and come back?" Neville was aghast. "Why? Once we're out, why not stay out?"
Harry got a devious look on his face. "It's not like anybody will bother us here. The guards look in the grate once a day, when they feed us, and a little illusion on the door will fix that. The guards haven't come into my room in months, they stick my smokes on the tray with dinner most of the time. Think about it like this. We can use Azkaban as a testing and training facility. Learn what we need to learn. Find out how muggle technology works, and find out how we can adapt it to the wizarding world. Look at women in the buff. It's brilliant. Or if you'd prefer, we can just escape, and be looking over our shoulders for the rest of our lives. It's your choice."
Neville thought about it for a minute, and than replied "Well, if you put it that way, let's start cleaning stuff up around here. Can't have it all dirty and dusty if we're going to be playing with ecletricity, right?"
Harry chuckled. "It's electricity, Nev. Tell you what, when we go to get the stuff we need, let me do the talking."
Hermione Granger-Finnegan lay in bed next to her husband Seamus, staring at the ceiling. Same thing she's done every night since that day. The day she condemned her best friend to hell. She wondered if this was the day that she would work up the nerve to tell somebody. Even her husband. And speaking of…
"Will you stop that? I already told you not tonight, I have a headache!"