Chapter 14:
With the stress of the last months falling from her Marianne was suddenly hit by a few ideas of how to solve the problem that stopped her from completing her magical version of the ipod.
Three days later she had finally worked out the last kinks of the multiple transferring charms on her Ancient Runes project and could now finally present it to her Professor.
All the tears and frustration that she had felt in the last four months were oh so worth it when she demonstrated her finished project to a baffled Professor Gamp a day before her trip home.
The auditio mobilis, in short audmo, was half the size of Marianne's palm and about 3 mm thick. It had a modified protean charm inside the metal casing that was linked to the customer sheet. On which were the name of the customer as well as the songs he or she had paid for were listed.
The customer sheet had a transferring charm to the information sheet, which would be given to the customer after purchasing the audmo. From this sheet the customer could chose which songs he wanted to listen to on his audmo. With a tip of his or her wand a second protean charm transferred the choices to the customer sheet which in turn transferred them to the audmo.
The audmo had a start, stop, fast forward, fast backward and a pause rune.
Above them was a paper sheet that functioned as display, it showed the name of the song and the Interpret. Said display was out of especially charmed paper that glowed in the dark and so made the script readable, it was also impervious against water or other fluids.
Furthermore the audmo had a radio function that played the songs out loud while the ear function, two small discs on the back side of the audmo that could be detached, those were equipped with an automatic attaching charm so that they held onto the ears of the person. To regulate the volume a small rotating disk could be found under the display.
Into the casing were warming and cooling runes incorporated as well as an deleting sequence which would activate the moment it was opened without the correct procedure.
To complete the audmo there was an automatic sticking charm attached to the whole casing, which could be turned off or on with a simple touch to two runes, to make it also useable to underage wizards and witches.
The audmo like many other magical gadgets in the Wizarding world, siphoned ambient magic from its' environment.
The Professor had been absolutely fascinated by her project and gave her an instant O and a glowing recommendation for any future job applications.
Still high from the praise Marianne had spent the train ride between the compartments of the Marauders, her Hufflepuff colleagues and Lily and Alice's compartment. Flittering from one friend to another and babbling about the holidays, her friends watched this amused. They had never seen Marianne that playful and happy.
Sirius used her affectionate mood to get in some serious snuggle time with her sitting between his feet while he slowly combed with one hand through her hair while the other had possessively encircled her waist. Remus and James just shot each other meaningful glances, they had a bet going on when Sirius would finally break down and ask Marianne out.
Said Hufflepuff just enjoyed spending the last few hours with her friends before returning to her family. The girls made arrangements to meet up during the summer holidays. While the boys, being James, Sirius and Remus would spend nearly a month in France with Mr. and Mrs. Potter they had agreed to meet up for buying their school supplies in August.
Peter on the other hand had a big family reunion in Slovenia and wouldn't be in Britain for the majority of the holidays.
At the train station Marianne greeted her family enthusiastically with hugs and kisses, both Thomas and Michael were not sure what to think about the normally so shy girl showing affection in public.
As soon as Marianne arrived at home she sat down with both her brother and father and told them about her Ancient Runes project and the grade she had received in advance before demonstrated her finished product and convinced or really sweet talked their father into patenting her invention right away for the next 30 years.
The next morning her father accompanied her to the ministry where she had to fill out a few dozen sheets of paperwork before she was acknowledged as the patent holder of the audmo.
After finishing that process, Marianne relaxed a bit; the next step was to establish a company to produce the audmos'. While her father was still skeptical and didn't want her to invest in such a risky endeavor, Michael was all for it.
The older Abbott sibling had seen the determination in Marianne's eyes and he would encourage and support his sister in her choices. He felt happy that she had finally started coming out of her shell.
The following day he brought the paperwork for establishing a new company with him from the ministry and sat down with Marianne to go through the legalities. It was possible to establish a company in her name, even if she was still underage, her family had a long enough history even if Marianne was a halfblood.
The problem was she would need an adult wizard to act as a stand in until she was of age. At first Marianne wanted to ask Michael to be her stand in, but with his own job and responsibilities as heir to the family he would be unable to complete a satisfactory job. After going over the possibility of hiring somebody, Michael checked the specifics for the stand in again. It didn't specify the blood status of the stand in, staring out of the window he thought of a particular person who would be perfect for the job.
He explained to his younger sister about a good school friend of his who was at the moment unemployed because of his muggleborn status and would be competent enough for the job.
Delighted Marianne agreed to meet him and only an hour later Michael sent off an enquiry to Charles.