Arthur Weasley's newest toy
Disclaimer: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by J.K. Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury, Scholastic, and Raincoast Books, and Warner Brothers Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended. I do not own Harry Potter or anything related to Harry Potter.
Summary: ONE-SHOT Mr. Weasley just came home with the most brilliant muggle contraption he'd ever seen. How could he NOT tinker with it?
It was a well known fact that Arthur Weasley had an uncanny love for muggle contraptions. Every few days he would bring in a new, strange and wonderful device and then proceed to tear it up to shreds, in vain hope of figuring out how it might work.
Of course, just because someone likes to do something, that doesn't automatically make them talented for it, the fact best proven by endeavors of one Jennifer Lopez... But to both Jennifer and Arthur, the lack of talent in their chosen fields was nothing more than a minor inconvenience. While Jenny was more than happy to keep making her millions off misguided teenage girls, Arthur was content to keep breaking muggle technology apart in his little shed, hoping that one day he might understand at least something about it's inner workings.
So it was very happy Arthur Weasley that one summer day brought in the most strange and wonderful piece of Muggle equipment he'd ever seen. He quickly said hello to his ever so plumper wife and hurried off to his shed, eager to break his new toy apart. “I'll get it this time”, he murmured in his beard, as he carefully set the contraption on a table and got his toolbox ready. Eagerly caressing his largest hammer, he gave the thing another curious look.
It was a metallic cylinder the size of a smaller school trunk. It was damn heavy as well, but Arthur luckily managed to shrink it and put a feather-light charm, before snatching it away from a strange storehouse, where he'd found it resting in a place of honor, surrounded by weird looking Muggles in funny suits.
Shaking his head at the Muggle antics, he noted another interesting thing about the artifact. On the top of the cylinder were some of those funny eklectricity thingies that blink or can be pushed, but they weren't doing anything at the moment. “Strange”, muttered Arthur, “this usually happen AFTER the inspection, not before”.
One last detail Arthur had noticed in his initial examination was a strange sign on the side of the thing. Some old memory stirred in the back of his head. He was certain he had seen that sign before. Where was it, where was it, he muttered to himself, while searching through his cluttered shed. “Ahh, there you are”, he said fondly, as he retrieved a strange piece of metal from a junk pile on one of the shelves. He suddenly remembered what it was. “Mercedes!”, he cried happily, remembering a name of the otomogule he had snatched this little item off. And indeed, it was an easily recognizable circular sign, with three even rays of shiny metal spreading from it's centre. At the bottom of the item were still visible traces of skewed metal, where Arthur had detached the logo from it's previous holder.
Arthur sighed happily at his discovery, before putting the stolen sign back in it's place. He had luckily studied all the emblems that come with various muggle otomogules from one of magazines he had found in a trashcan. Collecting plugs and otomogule signs were two of his most favorite hobbies, which is why his knowledge in these areas of Muggle lore ran far deeper than in any other (which is to say, it was on the level of a 6 year old muggle boy).
If Arthur was happy before, he was nothing less than elated now. What a luck! It must be the heart of an otomogule, the thingy that makes it go around without magic! And it's brand new, probably fresh from the craftsmen! With that revelation, Arthur eagerly approached the cylinder and started searching for any way to open it up.
Aha! He recognized little muggle thingies that you could screw one way or the other, but for which he couldn't remember the name at the moment. He retrieved his muggle screw-on-offer, as he quickly mentally dubbed it, and started playing with the screws like a little child.
Half an hour later, there was a loud clang, as the casing of the item fell to the floor, followed by a loud “Yes!” from an ecstatic Arthur. So, it DOES matter which way you try to turn this screwy thingies, he smartly concluded. He was certain he had come to this conclusion before, but it somehow always slipped his mind between the projects. Maybe I should write it down, he mused. Nah, I'm sure I'll remember it this time, he concluded.
Unfortunately, his newly gained knowledge quickly faded away, repressed by the new wonderful images his eyes were supplying. Wires, plugs, strange little boxes, green plates and a metallic buldger in the middle of it all. All this goodies were however wrapped up in a heap of yellow tape and what seemed like muggle warning notes. “Removed from the crime scene”, “Access denied”, “Evidence”, “Do not tamper with”... Arthur read the labels and shook his head. “Silly little Muggles, bless them”, he murmured fondly as he removed all the tapes and notes and threw them on the ground.
Now that the sight was clear, his eyes lit up once again, as he searched the alien interior, looking for anything he could recognize. “Aha, a plug!”, he screamed, as his eyes gained a maniacal glint. And indeed, almost obscured by the highest concentration of muggle labels' remains, there stood something that could only be a very unusual plug. “Of course it doesn't work, the poor thing had ran out of substance”, cooed Arthur, while caressing the buldger-like thing fondly. “Don't worry little guy, uncle Arthur will fix you right up”. If the contraption had been alive, it would have probably shuddered in fear.
Next half an hour Arthur had spent struggling to set up his cables, pincers and power-generator, without electrocuting himself or setting his shed on fire. Few times he was interrupted by the flapping sound of Muggle heliocobbler thingies that were frenetically flying around the landscape, but he was too busy at the moment to give them a second thought. Finally, after lord knows how many tries, he managed to correctly connect his diesel power-generator, power cables and tongs to the end of them. He finally had his eklectricity supply.
With a tongue in each hand, he carefully approached the artifact, ready for another round of toss-the-coin power rewiring. You see, one of the Arthur's more shrewd conclusions was that there is half-half chance for any muggle plugging to work. He never quite figured out why was this, but he supposed that was the reason for all that hash Muggle workshops keep reporting.
He closed his eyes and threw a mental coin... then reversing the coins' decision, he quickly attached the tongues to metal thingies sticking from the strange plug and jumped back, half expecting a fireworks to start. But instead of that, all the funny little blinkers on the panel came to life and the artifact started humming with life.
“Yes! I win!”, Arthur yelled while jumping around the shed and pumping his fist in the air. Merlin, muggle trinkets are so much fun!
When he calmed down, he approached the artifact again, eager to see some more eklectricity at work.
His elation somewhat dimmed when he saw that there weren't any of those funny wheels and cogs moving, even though machine-like sound coming from the thing was getting stronger and stronger. Strange, he mused, I don't see anything moving over here. Where do you attach the wheels then?
With a slight disappointment but ever increasing curiosity, Arthur realized that his first estimate that the artifact was an otomogule heart was incorrect. Actually, that was painfully clear now.
“Why would a heart need one of these... teflonvisor thingies attached to it, especially one showing... a painting of an elephant. Or is it a pair of glasses?”, he mused, inspecting the LED panel more closely. As the humming reached it's peak, there was a soft click and to Arthur's delight, the little red picture changed. Arthur blinked, trying to figure out what was the new picture representing, when it changed again.
He leaned back, peering at the display from afar, until it finally dawned to him. Ahh, I heard about these... this must be one of those new number-showing teflonvisor thingies. Brilliant!, he mused, bouncing with excitement. So the first picture was '007', the second '006' and it's now '003', he mused, peering at the display with newfound understanding.
“Nope, definitely not a otomogule heart”, he finally concluded, nodding to himself in confirmation. “Besides, who's ever heard of a 'Mercedes' sign in black and yellow? Pff, ridiculous.”
At that exact moment the LED display had reached '000', which was signaled by a slight 'ping'.
“Oh, it can sing too! How delight...”, was Arthur's last comment, before he, along with the surrounding 3 square miles of English countryside, was transformed into pure energy.
Arthur never found out that the resulting crater and a surrounding nuclear wasteland were named 'the Burrow' and were considered a forbidden zone during the course of a next couple of centuries. He would have probably found it fascinating.
Author notes
January 2008: Just a little dribble that turned into a one-shot. No plans to expand this, although turning Burrow into a nuclear wasteland might be an interesting way to start an AU...
BTW, I'd chosen '007' because that was the number a nuclear bomb had stopped at in one of the older James Bond movies. You can assume that this was that same bomb, which was first taken to one of Army/police warehouses and then snatched away by our own unfortunate mister Weasley...