Chapter 24: 28th July 1991, Sunday: Part 12

That line delivery wasn't exactly George's BAFTA-winning performance, but it was enough to get his family out of Stowe & Packers Magical Bags. The Linwoods ended up aimlessly walking around the market and perusing the shops' goods, but nothing particularly caught their eye. Although there were a lot of stores at Carkett Market, none of them really specialised in back-to-school equipment. Most of them sold luxury goods like grandfather clocks and bewitched musical instruments; they were generally worse versions of muggle electronic products. Sensing the awkward atmosphere, Remus took the initiative to suggest heading back to Diagon Alley. Since George couldn't see anything else he wanted here, he was willing to return back to the inferior street.

Whilst they were about to head back down the winding cobbled path, George had one last look around and spotted a purple shop that differed from the rest. It was called the Museum of Muggle Curiosities, and it was getting the same lack of attention as Parkers' store. To absolutely no one's surprise, muggle culture must not have been that interesting to the wizarding world. The whole concept of a muggle museum seemed intrinsically flawed in George's opinion. The best thing muggles had to offer was electricity, and electronic products didn't work in magic-rich areas. How could someone demonstrate muggle ingenuity without the ability to turn anything electric on?

George halted in his steps as a new idea popped into his head. Maybe the owner of that museum had already solved that problem. There was a precedent for electronic-to-magic conversions after all, take the Wireless for example. The wizarding world had adopted the radio decades ago, and they even had their own broadcasting service. It was fair to assume that if a radio could be converted, then so could anything that ran on electricity. And it just so happened that George's plans could benefit from some muggle items if they worked in Hogwarts.

"Have you seen something?", Dominic asked after almost walking into his back.

George turned around and asked, "is it possible we could have a quick look inside there before we leave?"

Remus stopped and had a look at the odd building as well. Once he realised what the museum was presenting, his face scrunched up in befuddlement. George could imagine that Remus was thinking at this exact moment why a muggle-born would be interested in a museum about muggles. It would be like travelling all the way to Japan only to immediately visit an English pub, what would be the point?

"Why do you want to look in there? It's just going to have a bunch of old junk you'd probably find in your grandma's attic", Remus jokingly advised.

"Do you think they might sell muggle items which are bewitched with magic?", George asked while maintaining his perfectly executed innocence.

Remus shrugged, "it's feasible. I used to know a wizard who collected muggle stuff years ago, probably still does now I've come to think about it. I think he used to bewitch them as a hobby.

You have to understand that electronic products don't work around wizards and witches unless they're powered with magic. That's why you can't take electronic scales to Hogwarts and instead have to use old-fashioned brass ones."

George's face lit up after hearing confirmation of his theory, "I do understand, but I would still like to have a quick look around. That's if everyone else doesn't mind?"

Amanda smiled at George before saying, "we can have a quick look. It will be... interesting seeing what wizards think of our modern technology."

It was obvious by Dominic and Amanda's expressions that she didn't mean what she said. They looked just as confused as Remus did as to why George wanted to go there of all places. George guessed that the old microwave and electric fans being displayed in the windows weren't enticing them inside, what a shocker. Considering his persona's lack of interests outside of reading books before today, his foster mother was probably willing to try anything to help diversify George's interests. Even if that meant entering a museum of junk you would find at a car boot sale.

As they walked towards the museum, Ellie started to drag her feet and deliberately slow down Amanda. She had slowly been turning into a shackle to his foster mother and was making her life a lot harder than it needed to be. Her obstinance was most likely due to a mixture of being ignored all day and having to walk past every store she wanted to enter. Now she was being dragged into a boring museum against her will, her good mood was utterly destroyed and this appeared to be the last straw. Her bright red cheeks and clenched fists meant Ellie was primed to have another outburst.

Just like in Gringotts bank, Remus made a proposal to defuse the tension, "maybe I should take Mrs Linwood and Ellie to Sugarplum's Sweets Shop while Mr Linwood and George are in the museum."

After hearing Remus's suggestion, Dominic saw the look on Ellie's face and didn't waste any time pulling out his Gringotts pouch and handing it over to Amanda. Even with all that bravado, his foster father didn't look ready for another one of Ellie's meltdowns. When she exploded a few hours ago, she almost caused an accident on the M1. The same thing happening with all these wizards around wouldn't be ideal. George certainly didn't mind his step-sister leaving for a while. At least he could concentrate on shopping without fear of being crushed under her incompetence.

So the family split up once again, leaving the father and son duo to enter the museum alone. The interior of the museum was decorated just like an art exhibition. There was 'artwork' positioned on wooden plinths and hanging from chains on the walls. The display pieces consisted of many twenty-year-old or more items such as; televisions, desk lamps, microwaves, electric fans and a trouser press taken straight from a three-star hotel. All of these technological relics had their own little sign beside them informing observers of their names and purpose.

George walked up to the trouser press and picked up the card resting on top of it. According to whoever wrote this description, this 'muggle artefact' was used to warm the pants of muggles during winter. That was maybe the case if you put them on right after they had been ironed, but George was pretty sure that wasn't the trouser press's intended purpose. An alien reading these would probably assume that the muggle race was some long-lost civilisation like the Aztecs. It was clear from skimming through a few more cards that the author didn't know what they were talking about.

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Hopefully, the author's lack of knowledge regarding the electronics utility didn't represent their understanding of how they functioned. At a bare minimum, they knew that the trouser press heated up. George put the card down and turned around to find Dominic playing with the dials on an old television.

His foster father looked back at George and said, "we used to have one of these back when I was your age. I remember my pet goldfish getting cooked alive because my mother left the bowl on top of the television.

They used to get really hot back in those days, but my mother didn't know that. You know, I never quite forgave her for boiling Terry."

George just gave Dominic an awkward nod of confirmation, he wasn't sure how else he was meant to respond to that. Bonding over a dead fish wasn't on George's to-do list for today. He looked back at the cards and noticed that none of them had a price listed, nothing appeared to be for sale. His plan to buy a muggle device that worked at Hogwarts wasn't looking too good, this museum might end up being a complete waste of time. Although, all hope wasn't lost yet since he could just about hear familiar music coming from the opposite end of the room.

He walked over to a door labelled with multiple 'STAFF ONLY' stickers, the sound was unquestionably coming from the other side. At first George couldn't have been sure, but now, he could recognise the music. It was Bob Marley singing Buffalo Soldier. That song was less than a decade old which meant it was being played on either an LP or a cassette. It didn't matter which because both needed to be played on an electronic player. George hadn't been wrong, this place was well worth his time. Now all he needed was a reason to convince Dominic to let him go through this door.

Then his foster father walked right past him and pushed the door open, "I wonder what's back here?"

Well, that was easy. George was about to open his mouth and make something up, but it seemed that Dominic was already on board. For the sake of his innocent child act, it felt only right that he mentioned his foster father's blatant rule-breaking.

"Erh... isn't that room for staff only? The door said..."

"I find that asking for forgiveness can be more productive than asking for permission. Otherwise, you'd never get anywhere in life, you can trust me on that", Dominic interrupted while striding into the room.

He then paused and looked back at George, "don't tell Amanda that I said that."

Dominic's go-to attitude was a welcomed change from the serious 'never-break-the-rules-or-else' personality. George guessed that his foster father must have only meant his own rules in the past, everyone else's was just guidelines. If it meant he could get what he wanted, George wasn't going to complain. Especially now that he had access to the contraption playing Bob Marley.

George walked into the small poorly lit room and was more than pleased to see a wizard-muggle technological hybrid workshop. The walls were completely full of dismantled electronics similar to the ones in the museum. There was a massive table rapping around the perimeter of the room covered with tools ranging from; spanners, screwdrivers, manual drills and a woodworking lathe. Even the floor under the tables was full of junk such as mounds of wires and scrap metal. It was clear that whoever owned this mess was trying to understand what made these appliances work.

And in the far corner of the room, besides a broken Commodore 64, was a nineteen eighties boombox deformed beyond all recognition. It was a Frankenstein hybrid of old and new music-playing devices. There were the parts of a hundred-year-old windup record player bolted onto the side of it like a wooden tumour. Instead of Bob's smooth voice flowing out of the boombox's speakers, it was coming out of the big brass horn sticking out of the top. George could see the cassette tape's reels turning inside the machine which explained where the music was coming from. The fact that this abomination of muggle and wizard audio devices worked at all was a stroke of genius.

George couldn't help but kneel before this mechanical marvel, it was exactly the sort of thing he had been looking for. He was made even happier by the lack of any wires sticking out the back, which meant it must be battery-powered. The mad scientist who built this must have found a way to produce a battery that used exclusively magical power. As long as it was rechargeable, he could take it with him to Hogwarts. Not only would he have something to listen to whilst he worked, but it could solve one of the many problems he had in his mission.

As George was wondering who he had to thank for making this... thing, a woman in her mid-twenties absentmindedly walked into the workshop. George and Dominic both turned around at the same time to see her struggle to drag a washing machine through the narrow doorway. She pushed it into the room with a great deal of difficulty, closed the door, and wiped the sweat off her brow before noticing the two intruders. Oddly enough, she looked neither angry nor surprised to see them.

"Oh please tell me that my mother didn't send you… I'll pay her back next month… I promise", she begged between gasps for air.

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