Chapter 25: 28th July 1991, Sunday: Part 13

George had guessed that a mad scientist was behind the creation of that magically modified boombox, and this woman's appearance certainly ticked those insane boxes. Hagrid might have said muggles stood out in a crowd of wizards, but this woman was on another level. She looked like the byproduct of a nineteen-eighties hippy melding with a victorian era clockmaker. There were so many conflicting styles that it was near impossible to put it into words. For example, who would have ever thought to pair a psychedelic t-shirt with a tweed waistcoat? Or what about bell bottom jeans and a leather bum bag full of brass magical tools?

The second crazy lady of the day locked eyes with George, "okay... I don't think my mother-in-law would send a child, sooo..."

She turned to Dominic, "you're here for the museum?"

Dominic stepped forward with an outstretched hand, "good afternoon. My son and I have been having a great time exploring your establishment."

Instead of returning the handshake, the woman squinted her eyes at Dominic. She was looking at him like she had recognised him but couldn't quite remember his name. George had given up speculating Dominic's and Amanda's past, but he highly doubted that they would have met this particular weirdo. She was a woman you'd never forget, and Dominic definitely didn't look like he'd seen her before. Not only that, but his foster father's body language had changed subtly in the past few seconds into a more defensive posture. George hoped this handshake didn't turn into another Remus situation.

"You wouldn't happen to be a muggle, would you?", she asked hesitantly.

Dominic started to retract his hand in response, "yes I am. Is that going to be a problem?"

She lunged forward, grabbed his withdrawing hand, and began shaking it like a lunatic. The sudden 'attack' caused Dominic to almost punch back with his opposite arm, but he stopped after seeing the joy in the woman's face. There wasn't the slightest sign of malicious intent in her wide twinkling eyes. If anything, she looked delighted with Dominic being a muggle. Regardless, George's foster father was clearly going to keep his guard up. This woman was giving off strong red flags, and her case wasn't helped by the weirdest handshake George had ever seen. The mad rambling she was spouting while waving Dominic's hand up and down wasn't helping to ease the tension either.

"I can't believe it, it finally happened. A muggle in my museum, a real muggle. I'll have to take a photograph and frame it. Oh, what a momentous day, what a lovely day", she spoke manically while staring into nothingness.

The fist that was about to be planted into the crazy lady's face was changed into a pair of snapping fingers as Dominic attempted to get her attention.

"Excuse me. It's nice meeting you too, but you can stop shaking my hand now", Dominic asked with a raised voice.

The woman's glazed-over eyes regained their focus, and she abruptly ended the 'handshake'. She took a big step back and nearly fell over her washing machine. Judging by her terrible communication skills, George was wondering if she hadn't talked to another human being in a while. He certainly knew what that felt like and could see a version of himself from eleven months ago in her disjointed fumbling. It took a few more seconds for her to recompose herself and finally face Dominic with a reddening complexion.

With a look of embarrassment, she apologised, "I'm so so sorry for that. I can just get a bit... over-excited sometimes. It's for the best if I start this again..."

She straighten herself up and adjusted her long blonde hair before continuing, "hello, I'm Sheena Layla, the owner of this muggle museum. Here you can find all the necessities muggles use on a daily basis. From machines that can automatically clean the dishes to moving pictures for endless entertainment, there's no end to their ingenuity."

"Oh right, now that I think about it. I guess, as a muggle, I didn't really need to tell you that", she awkwardly concluded.

Dominic shook his head, "not at all. Motivation is one of the key requirements to run a business successfully, and I can see that you have that in spades."

"I wish my mother-in-law thought the same way", Sheena murmured before saying enthusiastically, "anyway... so what can I help you with today? Do you want a tour?"

"That's very kind of you, but my son and I have already had a good look around. We wouldn't...", Dominic began to politely decline.

Her excitement ramped up another notch, "really, what did you think? You're the first muggle visitors I've had, so I would really appreciate your honest feedback. I would hate to think I'm giving the wrong impression of what modern muggle life is like."

"Are you sure you want my opinion?", Dominic asked.

Sheena nodded her head eagerly, "most definitely. It's the most surefire way to determine how good of a job I'm doing representing them... I mean your people's lives."

Dominic looked around Sheena's workshop, focusing on all the rubbish one would expect to see at a second-hand charity shop, before speaking his mind.

"Alright then", Dominic agreed, "don't get me wrong, it's all interesting stuff that I haven't seen in a while. But, for a museum about 'modern muggle life', some of the exhibits are a little dated."

"Really? So muggles don't watch television and use microwaves to heat their food anymore", Sheena asked intensely.

"We still do, but things have come on a long way since the fifties. The television for example..."

While Dominic was keeping Sheena busy explaining the evolution of modern household products, George went back to inspecting the boombox. He wanted to see exactly what was powering this device and whether it would be difficult to replicate. Sheela didn't seem like the sort to part with her beloved muggle possessions, and the funky-looking music player was probably her metaphorical baby. Therefore, the best thing he could hope for was some way of recreating her work before he left for Hogwarts. But first, he had to find what was powering the thing.

He focused his attention on the old wind-up record player modification since that was producing the most magical radiation. There was a little brass catch holding a wooden hatch shut, and George could see glowing blue light leaking out of the gaps. He undid the catch, and the hatch fell open revealing an iron box with magical electricity arcing from two bolts on top. It was plain to see that this power supply wasn't any old nickel or lead-based battery. The box was emitting unstable waves which were powerful but highly disordered, it was basically the opposite of his Packer's magical bag.

George was kind of scared to touch it in case it randomly exploded. In the end, his curiosity overpowered his fear as he moved his hand inside the wooden recorder. The only way he was going to get a closer look is if he could pull the battery outside the boombox. Fingers crossed that all he would get in return is a gentle zapping and not a heart-stopping shock. It also seemed like a good idea if he avoided touching the sides, a bit like playing Operation with Ellie. But just as George was about to touch the iron box of sparks, Sheela's voice whispered into his right ear.

"Fascinating, isn't it?"

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Whilst George had been in deep concentration, Sheena must have crept up on him. What was it with crazy ladies making him jump out of his skin today? His poor heart couldn't take much more punishment, Sheena might stop it before the battery had a chance. It took all of George's restraint not to jump out of his skin and scream profanity back at her.

"The muggles have such an unusual taste in music, and each year they keep on coming out with something new that sounds nothing like the last. Not many wizards see the beauty of it, calling it just noise, but I think they're completely wrong."

George turned around slowly and saw Sheena and Dominic both looking down at him. Clearly, their conversation had ended at some point and George had become the centre of attention.

"I was just telling Mrs Layla about your interest in her boombox", Dominic said while winking at George.

George got the impression that his foster father was covering for him, "erh... yes, I am interested. Would you be willing to sell it, Mrs Layla?"

Sheena appeared to be quite pained by George's question, "this is one of my current prototypes, and I don't think I should be selling it to the public quite yet. I'm sorry, but..."

"Hold your horses, George. Are you sure you want to buy this? You do realise that we have a nice boombox at home that's much more up-to-date than this", Dominic said whilst winking even more.

Okay, so George's foster father was trying to help him haggle. It was nice of Dominic to try and help, so George put on his best puppy eyes to melt Sheena's heart. She was probably going to say no anyway, but it was still worth a shot. A disheartened expression and a few sorrowful words might be all he needs to save himself from building a battery from scratch.

George looked at Dominic and said, "but Remus said that won't work at Hogwarts. If I don't find something that doesn't use electricity, I won't be able to listen to any music whilst I'm away."

After seeing his pleading eyes, Sheena eventually responded, "for an up-and-coming muggle music lover like yourself, I think I can make a compromise."

She then spun around and pulled a heavy red toolbox from under one of the tables covered in capacitors and rubber belts. With a loud slam, Sheena dropped it onto the table, crushing everything underneath, and threw open the rusty lid.

"I've been working on a way to replicate muggle electricity with alchemy for the past three years, and most of my projects had a tendency to be a little... explody. It turned out that muggle tech and magic mixed about as well as whale oil and water", Sheena monologed while digging through the toolbox.

"Against my mother-in-law's wishes, I kept at it until I made a breakthrough six months ago. It turned out that I'd been thinking about it all wrong. Ah... there you are, you little devil."

Sheena pulled out a little brass box, similar to the one in the boombox, and held it up against a gas lamp.

"Still looks good. Oh yeah, where was I?"

"You said that you'd had a breakthrough", Dominic answered.

"Ah yes, a breakthrough. See, I started to realise that maybe I should just learn how the muggle stuff works and then recreate it only out of alchemical ingredients. And BOOM... it exploded, at least for the first few times, but then it finally worked."

Sheena held the box up so George and Dominic could clearly see, "take this for example. It's based on this big plastic thing called a twelve-volt lead acid battery I pulled out of a muggle car. The muggle battery was full of this clear oily stuff that really hurt when I spilt some on my arm, and that's how I learnt that muggles must use acid to make electricity.

So I did the only sensible thing and melted down a dozen Acid Pops from Honeydukes Sweetshop and distilled it until the liquid stung as much as the muggle acid. Then I rinsed and repeated that process for every component until I had this, my own fully functional battery."

She proceeded to pick up a screwdriver and laid it across the two bolts sticking out of the top of the box. As one would expect, blue sparks, just like the ones inside the boombox, arced from the tip of the screwdriver. With a look of crazed pride, Sheena pulled the screwdriver away and threw the brass battery at Dominic.

"That's one of my older batteries that I don't need anymore. If you connect it to a battery-powered boombox like mine, it should turn on and work at Hogwarts. Well, what do you think?"

Although George was all up for this massively convenient solution to his problems, years of neglect and hardship had taught him a healthy dose of pessimism. If magic and muggle tech didn't mix, why did her boombox's appearance beg to differ? George didn't want to have his fingers blown off because Sheena's bomb battery didn't gel with his particular brand of cassette player.

While Dominic was inspecting the battery, George asked Sheena, "why does your boombox look so weird if your battery works on anything?"

"That would be due to my ever-so-understanding mother-in-law", Sheena said while rolling her eyes.

"She didn't like me 'wasting my time' developing my world-changing projects unless there were galleons to be made. So to meet her demands, I had to start...", Sheena shivered before continuing, "marketing my work."

"The only business partner I could find didn't like the muggle-modern aesthetic, too many buttons and flashing lights apparently. He wanted more traditional stuff like brass horns and wood panelling. So that's why my current latest version looks so... special. Oh, who am I kidding, it's just awful", Sheena cried out hysterically.

Well, that would explain why she had made the Frankenstein's monster of media players. Just like in the muggle world, investors provided the means but ruined everything in the process. It was a real shame since this woman was just as technologically brilliant as she was psychotic. Within the space of a few years, she had managed to pioneer a new age of wizarding machinery on her own basically through trial and error. And now, she had to cater to the lowest possible denominator just to keep her vision alive. Perhaps the wizarding world wasn't ready for someone like her, that's unless...

Dominic looked up from Sheena's battery and asked her, "Mrs Layla, have you ever heard of a silent investor?"

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