~Written for the QLFC Round 7~

Position: Chaser 1 (Reserve)

Prompt: Write about a witch or wizard trying to explain to a magical child how (one or more) Muggle technology works.

Optional Prompts:

(dialogue) "How many wizards does it take to make an aeroplane fly?"

(word) confusion

(word) batteries

Word Count: ~2850

Beta(s):DinoDina, CUtopia

Chapter 8: Muggle Magic

Malfoy Manor was a regal abode. Should one happen upon it, to stare up at the towering, dark walls of its stoic frame, the tiled roof sloping down like a tipped hat, and the wide, darkened windows peering like unblinking eyes, they would have been intimidated. Of course they would be, if only because the grounds were sprawling and expansive. That the entire estate was ringed by a wall and iron-wrought gates to deter trespassers was probably a contributing factor, too.

It was, as acknowledged by the Wizarding world, one of the Old Houses. A pureblood house, untouched by time and as persistently unshakeable as a manor stepped right out a history book. Even Muggles, in all of their ignorance, perceived as much as they passed along the footpath winding in the shadow of that wall, their heads bowed over cell phones or ducking into cars idling in the gutter. Muggles in their Muggle world, and yet oblivious as they were to the magical nature of the manor they hastened past with an unwittingly wary sidelong glance, they knew it was old. Different. Other.

Malfoy Manor was removed from the world around it, and nearly as much as the Wizarding as the Muggle. Or at least it was - until the summer its youngest resident returned home from his first year at school.

"Let me do it, Father."

"No. You'll cut yourself."

"Father, I can use a knife -"

"And I can use a wand. No, Scorpius. Step back. It's dangerous."

Between the old, old walls of the old, old house, untouched by change and sedately placid with the weight of years that rested upon its foundations, change arose. That change was nudged into fruition by the desperate longing of Scorpius Malfoy.

Draco stared at his son across the parlour, regarding him with unblinking flatness as Scorpius waved the knife he'd likely stolen from some house elf with far too much enthusiasm. He was different to how Draco had known him before he'd started school. Different, even, from how he'd been at Christmas, though the change had already begun by that point. Scorpius had always been a quiet boy, withdrawn and reluctant to partake in the games of children his age. It was a different kind of isolation to that Draco had comfortably worn in his own childhood, and primarily because Scorpius was entirely alone in that isolation. At least Draco had his Slytherin housemates. But Scorpius…

Well, he was mostly alone. That 'mostly' was the primary reason he'd changed, Draco suspected. That 'mostly' was the reason he'd spoken more in the week since he'd returned from school than he seemingly had the entire year before, why he smiled more, seemed to have more energy, seemed excited as a twelve year old boy should be, rather than the subdued and seemingly dignified scion of the Malfoy family. It was that 'mostly' that catalysed his enthusiasm with the knife.

Draco raised his eyebrows pointedly, eyeing that very knife. "Put it down."

Scorpius frowned, a touch of a pout that Draco had only seen him begin to adopt that summer holidays pursing his lips. It almost reminded Draco of himself; he'd perfected that expression in his childhood. Deliberately so. "I want to help," Scorpius said.

"Not with that knife, you're not."

"It's going to be mine, Father."

Possessive. Just like me, too. Draco almost smiled, because he'd never seen that much of himself in Scorpius before. He wasn't sure if such was a good thing or not. "Regardless of whether it will be yours or not, I am the one more learned in the arts of Muggle gadgetry. Which means that I will be the one to open the box, and I will direct you on how to use it." He pointed his wand at Scorpius like a stabbing finger. "All of which have little bearing upon your knife-wielding."

Scorpius' pout deepened. "But -"

"Scorpius, if you don't put it down now, you're not getting this at all."

It was a lie, of course. Draco was indulgent with his son; even more than his wife was. He'd never had reason to withhold the urge to shower Scorpius with gifts and trinkets, games and books and anything else he'd desired, because Scorpius wasn't a demanding child. He didn't disregard such gifts, either, unlike many pureblood children born into money. So when he had asked for something, almost desperately, how could Draco deny him?

"Father," he'd said, almost as soon as he'd climbed from the Hogwarts Express, "I need a phone."

Draco gave his son everything - and yet at that moment, he very nearly withheld from his ready provision.

Malfoy Manor was old. Ancient, even, and untouched by Muggle hands and Muggle science. It roiled with magic so thickly that most technology likely wouldn't function within its walls anyway, and Draco had never tested it. He had to work with gadgets for work, of course, despite the confusion it evoked; the Ministry's stumbling steps into progressiveness deemed it necessary to become familiar with telephones and televisions and tele-whatever-else, to say nothing of the newer items on the market. Draco had seen more evidence of Muggle science that bordered on magic in recent years than he had any inclination to understand. Evidence and an integration

Internets and 'routers' that enabled communication in a second, to say nothing of the archives of knowledge stored 'on the web'.

Digital watches that did more than simply tell the time, and little gadgets that hooked into ears and played music.

Exercise machines that made a runner sprint on the spot, or a bicycle that rode nowhere. Special panelling that made energy from the sun. Cooking utensils that could keep a dinner warm without a Warming Charm, and electric kettles, and special machines that functioned only to make donuts, or waffles, or press a square of sandwich into a square of grilled sandwich.

And that hardly even brushed the surface. Draco saw more Muggle magic every day, and much of it he didn't understand. Much not many wizards understood, for that matter, and in turn evolved questions like, "How does a Muggle make an aeroplane fly?" to "How many wizards does it take to make an aeroplane fly?" Because Draco didn't know how, and he was sure that few enough of his colleagues did.

For all his ignorance, however, Draco knew more of it than his wife did. Certainly more than Scorpius - or so he'd thought, until Scorpius had begun babbling like he'd never babbled before.

"I'll be able to call my friends whenever I like, and I won't even need a fireplace," or "When I'm hooked up to the 'Net, I can download books without having to go to Diagon Alley," or "If I get one with a camera, Father, then I could take pictures and post them on this place called Instagram, and then everyone could see -"

"And you know how to do this?" Draco had interrupted on that particular occasion. "You know how to make a call, and take a picture with the special phone camera, and do a… post?"

Scorpius had paused at that, yet though he'd fallen as silent as he usually was, the mute shyness didn't resurface. It was a considering silence that arose instead as he frowned, gaze dropping to his feet in thought. His brow furrowed increasingly deeply for a long moment until he abruptly brightened and raised his gaze to Draco. "But you know how to use a phone, don't you, Father? You could show me, couldn't you?"

How could Draco say no to that? Even though it would be a sorry mess to tweak the wards and smother the magic of the manor to enable Muggle technology to work, and even if that technology still sometimes caused him to twitch in discomfort, Draco was still a father. He still wanted to help his son. He still wanted to make him happy and proud.

So Draco bought Scorpius a phone. It had taken him a whole week of gnawing his lip and denying the notion, but he'd done it. That phone rested in his lap where he sat upon the parlour couch and stared down Scorpius' excited attempts at helping.

"Do I need to call the house elves to come and take the knife away from you?" Draco asked as a final warning. "Perhaps I should send you to your room? I'm sure I'll have a grand time fiddling with this device while you're sulking."

It was a lie, of course, but Scorpius didn't need to know that. His pout disappeared instantly, and Draco thought it only his fear of being dismissed from the grand opening of the phone that he didn't immediately drop the knife upon the floor. Instead, edging forwards with suddenly wide-eyed wariness, Scorpius placed the knife upon the table in the centre of the room. He slipped silently into the couch alongside Draco's a moment later, though for all his silence, his eager perch on the end of his seat bespoke nothing if not barely restrained excitement.

Draco stared at him for a moment longer before nodding approvingly. Then he stared a little longer still. Let Scorpius think it be in reprimand; he wouldn't possibly have guessed that Draco was nervous - no, apprehensive about opening the box. Not at all. He was his all-knowing father, after all.

With a breath that Draco managed to mask the depth of, he finally dropped his gaze to the box in his lap. With a flick of his wand, it unfolded itself of the strange folds of cardboard that his and Scorpius' confusion for unwrapping had led to the retrieval of the knife in the first place. The box peeled apart like an orange into a structure of misshapen plastic, paper booklets, and wires wrapped tightly upon themselves. A wide, flat, black contraption that Draco knew was the phone itself only from observation of the more tech-savvy ministry workers lay in the very centre.

"Is that it?" Scorpius whispered. The reverence in his tone suggested it was more of a sacred idol than a gadget that lived in the pocket of every Muggle on the street.

Draco swallowed. With casualness that belied the awkwardness of his fingers, he plucked the phone from its plastic cocoon. "This," he said,holding it out flat on his palm, "is your phone. Do not break it."

Scorpius' eyes were widened further as he glanced up at Draco. "Of course, Father."

"You will call only your schoolmates and no one else. Am I understood?"

Scorpius nodded solemnly. He and Draco had shared many a talk over the dangers Draco had only recently learned pertaining to Muggle telecommunication devices. Social media, he'd discovered almost at the same time as he'd learned that 'social media' was even a thing, could be terribly dangerous. "Yes, Father."

"You will return it to me every evening before bed. I'm the one with the batt-er-y, so if you wish to use it the next day, you'll need to, ah… 'plug it in', I believe it's called."

"Yes, Father."

"And should any difficulties arise, you will approach me about them. Understood?"

Scorpius stared at Draco for a moment longer. Then, slowly, a smile spread across his face and he nodded with more excitement than solemnity this time. "Yes, Father," he repeated.

Draco nodded once more. He couldn't help but smile a little himself, because he liked that Scorpius was excited, if not quite the reason for that excitement. Scorpius had rarely been anything less than nervous or subdued his entire life - it was the cross every Malfoy bore after the war.

But now he was excited. He was happy. Draco would be foolish not to accept the source of that happiness. Pinching the phone, he gestured with it to Scorpius indicatively. "Alright, then. Let's get this set up. From what I understand, it takes quite some effort to initiate…"

Draco didn't know what he was doing. Of course he didn't, but he knew more than Scorpius, and that left him in charge. He'd made phone calls before, and even used a cell phone on occasion, if with almost embarrassing inefficiency. Draco knew he knew far more than his son, which wasn't particularly unexpected; purebloods weren't supposed to understand Muggle magic.

Besides, Draco had the instruction booklet. If nothing else, he would make it work out of sheer stubbornness. It was a father-son bonding moment of which Draco's wife had eagerly bowed out from, and Draco refused to let go without trying his utmost to make it work.

"It says to put the sim card in. Which one is the sim card?"

"I think it's the one that says 'SIM', Father."

"What? What one that -?"

"This one."

"Ah. Now, to put it in, there should be a little window that opens on the side…"

"Here?"

"Yes, yes, I think that's it. And we need a little pin to poke it open with -"

"This?"

"... Yes, that. Give it here, Scorpius, I'll put it together."

"Yes, Father."

It was a mess of pieces, delicate windows and flimsy metal protrusions that poked out before sliding back into place. The wiring of the 'charger' became a tangled snake as soon as Draco unravelled it to plug it into one of the chunky, external batteries he'd taken from work. He'd have to power the thing each day; the manor wasn't capable of evolving to accept a modern Muggle rewiring, and Draco was secretly relieved for that inability. He might accept the phone's presence for Scorpius, but more than that? It was nothing short of daunting.

"Where's the 'On' button?"

"I'll read the booklet, Scorpius, you -"

"Oh, I found it."

"Where?"

"Here. The one on the top, it's - oh, look! I turned it on! Father, look, it's working!"

"Yes, it appears to be. Now, this device is strange in that, instead of buttons, the screen projects the letters and numbers you'll use to select - what're you doing?"

"It told me to put my name in it."

"Did you press the screen?"

"I pressed the letters on the screen. Wasn't I supposed to?"

"...yes."

It was a trial. It was more confusion, and there were buttons that weren't buttons, and a glaringly bright screen, and words like Wi-Fi and iCloud that Draco didn't understand. He knew what an email was but not how to use it. He knew what a passcode was - of course he did - but not how to ensure it had 'letters and numbers and symbols' in it.

Scorpius figured that out. Somehow, as though he just had an innate knack for it, he worked it out himself. Draco was as baffled as he was secretly proud.

In short, Draco taught Scorpius to use his new phone. Or he attempted. Or, perhaps more correctly, they learned together, and Scorpius taught Draco as much as Draco informed him of from what his limited knowledge could provide. Scorpius was... surprisingly adept given that he'd had no experience with phones or electronics or - or Muggle gadgets before.

"I learned a little bit at school," Scorpius said when Draco asked. His eyes were locked unblinkingly on the screen that was bigger than his hands and sat cradled in his palms. His attention was rapt. "And I played Candy Crush on the train home."

Draco blinked. He didn't know what a 'candy crush' was. He wasn't sure he wanted to know. He'd bought the phone, made the allowance, committed himself to teaching Scorpius how to use it - and surprisingly seemed to be of little help at all. "Well, I trust you won't abuse the knowledge you have?"

Scorpius shook his head immediately. Then he glanced up at Draco and beamed. It was a wide smile the likes that Draco wasn't sure he'd ever seen from his son, and he felt both warmed and saddened for that fact. And incessantly bemused, too. What was so good about a phone?

"Thanks, Father," Scorpius said. "This is the best thing ever."

Draco blinked again, and he was too stunned to smile, even if the urge rose within him. Well. That made the effort wholly worthwhile.

my father got me a phone . i'm just starting to use it now .

Wait, what? Seriously? You actually convinced him to get it for you?

yes ! isn't it so good ?

Scorpius, that's awesome! I didn't think you'd pull it off!

Also, you totally text like a newb.

hey ! I will get better with practice . you are the first person I am texting

Really? Well, then, I'm honoured. Seriously, though, Scor, this is awesome. I was definitely going to miss chatting with you this holidays otherwise. Even Floo-chats aren't quite the same, and you've got to sit at the fireplace the whole time.

yes ! we can now talk all the time ! i am so happy !

In his room, sprawled on his bed and staring at the screen of his phone, Albus Potter smiled. He hadn't been sure that Scorpius would be able to pull it off, what with being a Malfoy and all, but he had. And it would be totally worth it.