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SIYE Time:11:05 on 28th March 2024
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Technical Support
By Whyte Mouse

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Category: Muggle Technology Challenge (2014-1), Muggle Technology Challenge (2014-1)
Characters:All, Other
Genres: Humor
Warnings: None
Story is Complete
Rating: G
Reviews: 11
Summary: Any sufficiently advanced magic is indistinguishable from... and the manual is no better.
Hitcount: Story Total: 2711



Disclaimer: Harry Potter Publishing Rights © J.K.R. Note the opinions in this story are my own and in no way represent the owners of this site. This story subject to copyright law under transformative use. No compensation is made for this work.





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Angelina smiled at her husband. George was draped limply in his favourite squashy chair, his head thrown back and snoring erratically. Even the rest of the family didn’t seem to realise just how much effort he put into Weasley’s Wizard Wheezes. Everyone knew that he was the face of the store, the recognisable self-promoting proprietor, and the principal inventor of nearly every unique product, and the one to figure out how to make all those products for prices that their customers would accept, and the overseer of the production and owl order and procurement and every other part of the business. She helped out, and so did Ron and Lee, and he had employees, but George Weasley was both the living symbol of WWW and trying to do the work of two busy men all by himself.

She understood, of course. The shop wasn’t just his dream, after all. She had insisted that he should take at least one day off every fortnight, and convinced him to close the shop one day a week (Tuesdays, so they were open over the whole weekend), but even so he hardly ever seemed to stop. She was the only person to see him this relaxed.

After watching him snooze for several long moments, she tossed the tea towel into the kitchen and pulled the camera out of the sideboard. She loved her husband, she respected the work he put into every aspect of his life, but she also knew a photograph of him drooling on the upholstery was priceless.

The fire turned green. Angelina set the camera aside and bustled over to the hearth.

“Hello, Geor…”

“Shh, Quiet! George is sleeping for once.”

“Oh, sorry, Angelina,” whispered the head hovering above the coals. “Is he alright?”

“Yes, just tired, Ginny.”

“Good. Blast. I wanted some help with this magic mirror thing he’s got me testing.”

“The mSlate?” Angelina leaned over and dragged a cushion off the sofa to sit on. “I helped a little with that. Maybe I can help you?”

“You did? You can?” asked Ginny. She reached out of Angelina’s view and produced a mirror. Glancing at it, she frowned and hit it with her palm. “The first thing is, why does it stop working whenever I look at something else? I lost all of my writeup of the Bats’ game against the Cannons…”

“You don’t have to slap it every time,” explained Angelina. “If you just tap it, it restarts where you left off. Just a firm tap with your finger.”

Ginny’s frown faded slightly. “Right. I’ll try that. Why does it turn off anyway?”

“I think the idea is that you can leave it for a moment and no one can just look at what you’re doing. George copied it from the muggle confuser he got the original idea from.”

“Oh. Well, that’s almost sensible… and I still wrote up that match with a quill and ink. The Harpies are playing Puddlemere this weekend, I’ll have another try.” She ran a hand back through her hair, and Angelina smothered her smile at the gesture Ginny had picked up from Harry. “What I really flooed about was this eek-mail thing…”

“Email.”

“Pardon?”

“It’s called ‘email’,” said Angelina. “Short for ‘electric mail’, I think.”

“Email, right. Anyway, I’ve been sending messages back and forth to Hermione, she’s got a confuser of her own, but every time I try to read her latest, well, look…” She tapped tentatively at the mirror.

A distinct, loud sneeze broke out. George shifted in his chair.

Angelina rocked back on her heels and peered over at her husband. After a moment, she relaxed. “It’s alright. He didn’t wake.”

Ginny sighed. “And then it’s not showing the message,” she whispered.

“Well, when it sneezes, that means the anti-virus is working.”

“Anti-virus?” She gave the mirror a look. “Does that mean it’s ill?”

“No…” said Angelina uncertainly. “It’s an anti-virus, so it’s stopping the mSlate from getting… does that make sense?”

“It sounds like one of Dad’s explanations of muggle things…”

“…So plausible but probably wrong.”

Ginny grimaced. “Yeah, ‘fraid so.”

“Well, great. I’ll ask George when he wakes up… maybe in the morning. I suppose you want to know what to do about it?”

“Yes.”

“If the anti-virus doesn’t let the email show, the only thing I know to do is to delete it and tell whoever sent it to try again,” said Angelina. “Oh, and you should tell her about the anti-virus stopping it, because the virus has to get to you with the message, and if they sent it…”

“Hermione’s got a virus,” concluded Ginny. She nodded firmly. “I’ll send her some Pepper-Up Potion, as well. It can’t do any harm, and I know I hate brewing when I’m stuffed up. You don’t realise how much you use your nose brewing until you can’t smell anything.”

“I know. I had real difficulties brewing in the lab here because George always has three or four things going and the smells get all mixed up. I’ll send her a bag of Pepper-Up Mints, too.”

“George told me about them last winter. Has he finally got them right?”

“Just about. They won’t be on sale until he’s figured out the best way to make loads of them, but the experimental stocks are building up. Of course, the other issue is he can’t sell them as pranks.” Angelina leaned into the fire. “Do you realise that W-W-W makes more than half its profits from the ‘serious’ products?”

“That much? But George puts so much effort into the jokes! Why don’t they sell?”

“Oh, they do,” assured her sister-in-law. “But the ‘jokes’ are pretty much kids only and sell for sickles and knuts. One shield cloak pays as much as a full day of jokes and pranks.”

“I don’t expect there’s much demand for them now.”

“No, not really. George is hoping this will be the next big thing.”

“It could be,” admitted Ginny. “If he can get all the features he was telling me about to actually work… and it’s turned itself off again.” Cautiously, she poked the mirror with her finger.

“Firmer than that,” advised Angelina. “Like you’re — yes, like that.”

“He’ll have problems if he has them connected to the muggle interweb, though. Everyone and their kneazle will be jumping to ban that.” She paused, checked behind herself and then peered over Angelina’s shoulder in the general direction of George’s chair. Lowering her voice, she leaned further in and asked softly, “Have you found the lingerie stores?”

Angelina also checked on her husband before whispering, “Yes! I ordered some but it hasn’t arrived yet.”

“Harry’s already seen mine,” giggled Ginny. “You should have seen his — well, actually, I’m glad you didn’t, but you know what I mean. He hasn’t been that tongue-tied since our wedding night.”

Angelina giggled herself. She confided, “I’m not sure I’ll have the nerve to wear them when they arrive.”

“Oh, you must! The ones I bought look like little scraps of nothing, but they’re quite comfortable, especially if you’re actually doing something. They do make my robes fit a bit oddly, tight up… was that George waking up?”

Angelina had turned on hearing her husband shift behind her, and answered, “I don’t think so…”

“Well, I don’t want to discuss my undergarments where my brothers might listen in,” said Ginny, “and given that it’s George…”

Angelina nodded. “Too much chance that he’s faking.”

“Yeah… so, I just delete the message…”

A square sheet appeared above the mirror in Ginny’s hand and unfolded itself, draping wetly over her fingers.

“Eww!” Shaking the mirror dislodged the strange object, sending it flying through the floo. Angelina slapped at it as it emerged from the flames, and it fell wetly onto the hearth. She expressed her feelings about touching it in much the same way as her sister-in-law.

“Yuck, what is that?”

“I don’t know,” replied Angelina as she fumbled in her pockets with her uncontaminated hand for a handkerchief.

“What’s what?” asked George sleepily.

“This stuff your magic mirror thing conjured,” explained Ginny.

“What stuff?” repeated George, dragging himself out of his chair. Rubbing his eyes, he shambled towards the fire. “Hi Gin.”

“That stuff,” indicated his wife, pointing at the evidence. “I told Ginny to delete an email with a virus on it, and it conjured that!”

He knelt, absently pulling the black woman into a loose embrace and kissing her crown before leaning down to inspect the vaguely meat-like, vaguely cooked slice of mottled pink something. “Hmm. Oh, I know. The next email, what’s it about?”

Ginny fumbled for the mirror and frowned at it, wiping it with her sleeve. “Um, ‘Half Price on…’ I can’t pronounce that, it’s got an exclamation mark in the middle. V, exclamation, aggro? And the address is ginny-dot-weasley, that a-squiggle, p-e-r-f-d-r-u…”

“That’s all I need to know,” interrupted George. “I got loads of those, almost as soon as I set up the muggle-magical email gateway. So I sent out an update to all the prototype mSlates this afternoon.

“I call it a spam filter.”

Reviews 11
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