Harry pointed the wand at Wensley for a second longer, then sighed and put it away.

"What are you doing?" Wensley repeated.

"Putting my wand away," Harry replied. It may not have been what Wensley had meant, but it was the only thing he was sure about right now.

Wensley stared at Harry for a second, shrugged and started to walk away.

"Wait!" Harry yelled.

Wensley paused and looked over his shoulder at Harry.

"That thing... on the television. What was it?"

"Chrono Trigger?"

"Yeah, that. What is it?"

"It's an RPG for the Super Nintendo."

"Okay," Harry said, "but I don't know what that means. Please explain it to me."

Wensley sighed and entered Harry's room.

"Okay, how much do you know about video games?" Wensly asked.

"'Video games'?" Harry asked. "Nothing. I'd never heard of the term until you used it just now."

Wensley sighed and climbed onto Harry's bed.

"A video game," he explained, "is something like a Super Nintendo or a Sega Genesis. You plug it into your TV and you play it. Or if the game's for your computer, you put the disc in and run it from either your A or C drive."

Harry had no idea what any of these terms meant, so he grasped onto the one part of the explanation he could understand.

"You play it?" Harry asked. "So it's a type of a game?"

Wensley rolled his eyes. "Yes, it's a game," Wensley said condescendingly. "That's why it's called a 'video game'. You plug it in and turn it on and you control a character on-screen to play the game."

Harry's eyebrows furrowed as he tried to wrap his head around Wensley's explanation.

Wensley sighed. "Okay," he said. "Come with me. I'll show you what I mean."

Harry hesitated. "So, it won't... attack me? It said something about enemies."

Wensley looked at Harry incredulously. "That," Wensley said, "is the dumbest thing I've ever heard."

Without another word, Wensley hopped off the bed and walked out the door. Harry hesitated for a moment before following.

Harry sat in front of the "Super Nintendo" with Wensley. Harry had explained his situation and Wensley had, oddly enough, accepted Harry's outlandish story without question.

"So what you're saying is, my life turned into a video game?" Harry asked.

"Well, has it always been like that?" Wensley asked.

"No," Harry replied. "It only started once I beat Lord Voldemort. Then I saw a message that read," here Harry screwed up his face to remember exactly what the message had been, "'Congratulations, you beat Hogwarts!' That's the school's name. Then it said something about completing other quests 'for hours of entertainment.'"

Wensley nodded. "Makes sense. You beat the bad guy in real life, but the story ends and has to go somewhere. So this video game picks up the slack. Only you're not a video game main character, so you notice all the things that are weird. How did you say you managed to escape?"

Harry thought about King's Cross Station and the way he managed to slip through the invisible barrier.

"I think I went somewhere I wasn't supposed to," he admitted.

Wensley nodded. "That'll do it. The game didn't know what to do with you, so it just dumped you into the real world."

"No, my world was the real world," Harry contradicted. "This is just... something else."

"If your world was the real world," Wensley asked, "how did it turn into a video game like that?"

Harry thought about this. Wensley's logic didn't hold up, but Harry wasn't going to argue the point.

"So what now?" Harry asked.

"Well, if you ever go back, you'll need to know how video games work. And," Wensley gestured to the television, "this is a video game."

Harry thought about this for a second, then grinned. "It is, isn't it?" he asked happily. "Well, start it up and teach me what I need to know."

A major shortcoming of Wensley's was that he seemed utterly unable to play the game and answer any questions at the same time. It was as if something about the shifting color patterns on the screen just sucked Wensley into a trance. This was unfortunate, because there was much Harry still didn't understand about this "ar pee jee". Several minutes into the game, Harry saw a window pop up reading "Ran away!", right before the monsters disappeared from the screen.

Harry asked Wensley, "So how do you know when to run away from a battle?"

Wensley didn't hear Harry and kept playing.

"Wensley. Hey, Wensley."

No response.

Harry nudged Wensley. When he didn't get a response, he grabbed Wensley and gently rocked him back and forth to get his attention.

"Hey, Wensley! How do you know-"

"Knock it off!" Wensley barked, and continued playing the game.

Harry frowned. Then he drew his wand, pointed it at Wensley, made a wobbly gesture with it, and quietly pronounced "aguamenti". A brief spout of water blasted out of his wand and his Wensley square in the face, causing him to yell and drop the controller.

After that, Wensley tended to answer Harry's questions very quickly.

It turned out that Walter had agreed to watch Wensley for an entire week. Harry wasn't entirely sure how Walter had planned to keep Wensley occupied, but it turned out to not be a problem. Wensley had his games, and Harry watched Wensley play them and learned from him. Harry doubted that Walter meant for them to occupy the main store area like they were, but Harry was completely certain that, so long as they stayed out of Walter's hair, Walter didn't much care what they did.

Eventually Wensley had to leave. When the time came and his parents arrived to pick him up, Wensley packed up his games and left without a word to Harry. Given Wensley's personality, this didn't surprise or upset Harry at all. Harry made the appropriate conversation with the parents ("No, he wasn't a trouble at all. We played some video games. We had fun.") and then they were gone.

In that week Harry had learned a surprising amount about video games and RPGs. Most of it was through observation, since even with the threat of a water-blasting, Wensley remained surprisingly uncommunicative. Now Harry wanted more information about the genre of games that had almost defined his life this second time around.

Harry grabbed the phone book and looked for the nearest games and electronics store. He had some research to do.