An extremely harried Severus Snape materialised out of thin air in a deserted street. Lowering the two boys in his arms down to the street, he kept a hand on both of them till they recovered themselves.
"Uncle, I didn't get my cap!" Harry almost shrieked the moment he was able to, around the same time that Ron exclaimed, "I forgot to put on my watch!"
Instead of answering them, Snape grabbed their hands and started stalking out of the alcove at full speed with the two boys jogging besides him to keep up.
"Uncle!" Harry once again cried out, pulling back on his Uncle's arms to bring attention to his lack-of-cap-state.
"Professor, how would I know when to go to the next class?"
Snape whirled around suddenly, the two boys jogging straight into him. He caught hold of them by their arms to stop them from falling.
"As much as it pains me to see you without the charming cap, I am sure that the girls in your school will survive one day without it." Then, turning to Ron and ignoring Harry’s protests completely, he said, "A bell will ring and tell you when to leave for the next class. I expect both of you to be ready with all your belongings by 7:45 at the latest because I am going to bring you here regardless of whether you have your cap or wrist watch or shirt or pants on or not. Understood.?"
Both Ron and Harry nodded their heads, looking extremely disgruntled. Snape whirled back and stalked off once again towards the school.
Ron giggled.
"What?" Harry whispered, as they followed his Uncle to the school.
"Do you think he will really get us here even if we are without pants?"
"Or, with only one sock on and without the shoes?"
"Or, with our trousers worn backwards?"
"Or, with jam smeared on the jumper?"
"Or, with one gloves on and the other not?"
"It's summer, stupid! We aren't gonna wear gloves in summer."
"Well then, what about with paint smeared on our faces? We could paint our faces red and blue like the spiderman's mask."
"He would just scourgify our faces then - in a minute."
"True!"
"Come along, you two! Stop dawdling."
"What's dawdling?" asked Ron, coming to stall.
"To walk slowly,” explained Harry.
"Walk slowly?"
"Yeah, you know, like this."
"Harry, what are you doing? We are already late!"
"I was just showing Ron what dawdling is."
"You were what?"
"Ron wanted to know what dawdling was so I was explaining it to him."
"By acting it out?"
"Yeah!"
Snape took in a deep breath. "Alright, so now that both of you understand what dawdling is, cease and desist from it - and that means STOP it! It's already 7:55."
"I din't know. I don't have my watch with me."
=======================================================
Today, they were to start summer school camp. Ron was scheduled for science club, Origami, Computer and Play-acting. Harry was also in the science club, Origamy and Playacting. However, he was taking Latin on the side instead of Computer.
Professor Snape was going to teach some ‘College level Chemistry’ class for a senior group from 8 am to 10 am every Monday and Friday morning. This meant that Harry and Ron had to get up every morning at 7 am now because they needed to be in school by 8 with the Professor even though their classes did not start till 9. It was just so unfair!
To top it off, they were also taking Judo classes every Monday and Thursday evenings from 5 to 7 pm. Harry had football (Ron had categorically refused to join them) on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. So every Tuesday and Wednesday evening, Dad would pick him up at 5 pm and then the Professor would take him back sat about 730 pm. They would pick up Harry and go to the Professor’s house.
‘School’ consisted of a couple of buildings (very muggle with all their abnormally straight lines and straight roofs - nothing poking out anywhere) with extensive grounds behind them. The teachers wore simple skirts and blouses or shirts and trousers instead of robes.
Ron’s first class was Science for Grade 3. There were only 4 other students in the class. The teacher started with introducing herself and asking all the students to introduce themselves. There were 3 girls, Rosie, Katy and Celia (whom the boy, Tom, immediately started calling Silly). The teacher, Ms. Prester scolded Tom to stop it.
“Today, we are going to learn about clouds,” she said.
Ron wondered what could they possibly teach on clouds.
“Before we begin, let’s take a look outside from the windows and try and guess the shapes that the clouds have taken.”
Well, that sounded fun.
“It’s like a witch on a broom,” Celia said, pointing out at a section. Ron had no idea where she could see that but wondered if the girl was a witch.
“Hey, that there looks like an umbrella!” Rosie exclaimed.
“No, it’s more like a clown’s face or Mickey Mouse,” Rosie corrected herself.
“You mean, it looks like Silly’s face,” Tom guffawed.
“Tom!” Ms Prester immediately warned him. “Apologise to her immediately.”
“Sorry, Celia,” Tom intoned, not meaning it at all. Ms Prester looked annoyed but moved on.
“What do you think, Ron, Katy?”
“A tree,” Katy mumbled.
“It’s like a dragon with fire coming out of its nose,” Ron said.
“That’s very interesting, Ron. In fact, I am really impressed with all of you. But, look at them again and this time, tell me what you think they are made of.”
“Cotton candy,” Tom replied promptly.
“Is that what you think or is it something someone told you?”
“Mum always says so,” he mumbled.
“It would be lovely if they were indeed made of cotton candy, but unfortunately, they are not,” Ms. Prester replied kindly. “Anyone else?”
“Ummm ... water?” Rosie asked.
“Why do you think so, Rosie?”
“Because when they get dark, it rains.”
“That is right. Very good, Rosie. The clouds are indeed made of water, small droplets of water that are hanging on dust particles. Sunlight causes water from ponds and lakes to evaporate into the atmosphere. This air containing the water vapor is heated at the surface of the earth and rises. As it rises, it cools and the water vapor condenses on some form of particulate matter such as dust, ash, or smoke to form clouds.”
At the uncomprehending stares that she got, she said, “Let me show you. Come closer to the desk.”
Once all of them stood around her desk, she took out a jar and requested Ron to tape a piece of black paper on one side of the jar. She then poured warm water from a thermos into the jar leaving only a couple of inches from the top empty. She lit a match and kept it there for a minute before dropping it into the water and quickly covering the jar with a bag full of ice.
As Ron observed, water droplets magically appeared on the side of the jar.
“So, what do you think you are seeing in the jar?”
“A cloud?” Celia asked, still staring into the jar.
“That is right. We just made a cloud. What is the cloud made of?” She asked again as she herded the children back to their seats.
“Water drops.” Rosie answered confidently this time.
“Very good. The cloud we saw had water droplets on the smoke ash from the match. The hot water evaporated, or became a kind of steam, and when it touched the cool ice above it, it condensed into water.”
“So who can explain to me once again how the clouds was formed?”
The class went on for another half an hour during which Ms. Prester taught them about the types of clouds (even fog was one, formed when the water drops were nearer the ground – imagine! He had walked in a cloud before).
Ron walked out of the class, dazed. Miss Prester had made a cloud in front of him. Not even wizards could make a cloud. He was sure that she had employed some magic.
Miss Prester showed Ron, Celia and Tom to the ‘computer’ room after that. The room was filled with a number of tellies in it. From there on, the class was a blur for Ron, who did not understand a word and wondered what was so great about pressing keys and seeing it appear on the screen.
He was glad when the class ended. Harry was waiting for him just outside the door. He was in some other science class. Ron immediately told him about the clouds, but Harry looked hardly excited. He just shrugged.
“We made clouds, Harry!” Ron reiterated.
“Yeah, we did that last year.” Harry replied. “How was the computer class?”
“Oh, this one was boring. I had no idea what was going on in the class. Could hardly keep myself from falling down on the desk.”
“I like computers.”
“Why? What’s so great about typing something on a screen? We could have written it on the paper itself.”
“We can get computers to do a lot of stuff. We can type into it and get it written in calligraphy with spikes and all, or we can feed it the numbers from our sums in mathematics and ask it to solve it for us or we can feed in a cartoon movie and then ask it to show it to us. Basically, we write or feed in something to the computer and then tell it to do something. It does that for us. What we need to know is how to feed our numbers to it and how to tell it to do what to do.”
“So, it could do all the sums for us?”
“Yeah, and draw pics and paint and stuff. It’s pretty cool once you know how to tell them what to do.”
“Tell them how to do it?”
“Yeah, computers have a language of their own and we need to learn that language to tell them to do whatever we want.”
“Harry, computers are not like animals – they can’t talk.”
“They can, too! You have to write to them to tell them what to do.”
“You are mad. This is just like the sand thing – when you thought that sand could hear you.”
“Well, it’s possible! How do we know for sure that it can’t. And anyway, computers are not like sand. You could actually write to them – it’s called programming and someone else has told them what to do when we write something into it, you know, like we charm a pan to hop off the stove before whatever is in it is burnt. Someone has made that pan and we just need to know the incantation to make sure that it does jump off the stove.”
Ron stared at Harry. The boy was mad. Sand talked, plants talked and now, computers talked too. There was no use arguing with him or Ron would just end up breaking his nose once again. Ron shook his head.
He just huffed and said, “Never mind. Let’s go out.”
They went out and took out their apples to eat while they talked in the short fifteen minutes break when someone pushed Harry from behind
“Hey!” Ron protested, turning around.
“O hello, freckles. Surely, you are not friends with Four-eyes? Pity, you seemed like decent sort.”
Ron’s face heated up completely.
The other boy continued, “You have such a nice apple there, Four-eyes. Give it over here.”
“Why should he give his apple over to you?” Ron asked, getting angrier every passing moment. A few other kids had surrounded them by then and Harry had got up, his apple clutched tightly in his hand.
“Because I want it,” Tom replied simply.
“I am not giving the apple to you.” Harry spat at the boy.
“Do you really wish to be hurt like before?” Tom asked, advancing menacingly but Harry held his ground.
“I will not give my apple to you,” he repeated in a determined manner.
A couple of other boys joined Tom from behind and all the three of them loomed over Harry.
Tom lunged forward at Harry but Harry ducked out of the way and Ron, who had been standing behind Tom, pushed Tom so that he fell down on the ground.
“Ahhh!” he cried as the crowd snickered.
“How dare you?” Tom’s friend screamed before launching himself at Ron, who went down under the bigger boy.
The other boy in the trio grabbed Harry’s collar and pushed him once again but Harry had gripped the hand on his collar, causing both of them to fall down on top of Tom when Harry lost his balance.
Harry quickly squeezed out to prevent being squelched in between and rolling, he got up to help Ron. However, Ron had managed to come on top in his fight with the other boy.
“What is going on here?” came the stern voice of Ms. Prester from behind them. “Ron, get off the poor boy,” she scolded.
Ron immediately got up and out of the way, going to stand besides Harry, both their apples forgotten and lying near some feet away, muddied in the soil.
“Miss Prester,” Rosie came forward. “Tom and his two friends were threatening this boy to give his apple over to them. When he refused, Tom tried to push him and then his other two friends tried to hit him. Ron came in to help the boy.”
Ms. Prester’s lips thinned. “Is this true, Celia?” she asked the other girl who had been standing around watching the entire scene dumbfounded.
Celia nodded and pointing at Tom and his friends, said, “They were bullying Harry. They always bully other kids.”
Ms. Preston pulled up the three boys on ground and said, “Mr. Weasley, Mr. Potter, come along with me. You three as well.”
Leading the way, holding Tom by his arm, she started walking back to the building where classes took place. Ron and Harry followed her, wondering how much trouble they were in.
Ms. Preston led them all straight to an office, where she looked them over and asked them to wash their faces and hands in the sink down the hall. Once they were back, she started out to apply an ‘antiseptic’ to their scrapes. It stung so bad that Ron almost swore.
What followed was a lecture to the two of them on how they should have called a teacher instead of getting into the fight and how she was going to talk to their guardian when he came to pick them up. They shouldn’t have picked up a fight the very first day of the camp.
“We didn’t pick up a fight,” Ron exclaimed. “They were going to hit us and they tried to take our lunch away. Don’t you remember how that boy was calling Celia names in the class? He is a bully, that’s what he is!”
“Regardless of what he is, you could have left and called a teacher instead of hitting him. What I saw was you sitting on top of him and about to punch him.”
“That’s because Rafe pushed him to the ground!” Harry replied.
“So, you got up and then started punching him? Once you got up, you could have called me!” Ms Prester was fuming at being talked back at. “And now, you don’t even look sorry. Go, have your lunch. I will talk to your guardian.”
Ron and Harry walked out, feeling really angry. Lunch break was almost over anyway so they went in for Origamy.
“That was great!” Celia said the moment she saw them in the class. “You guys gave them what they deserved.”
“Yes,” Katie agreed. “They are the meanest kids ever. They should be sent to jail.”
“They don’t send people to jail for stealing lunch, Katie!” Rosie interjected. “They do, too. Last summer, when I went to Londo-“
“Here starts another London story,” Katie said, sounding exasperated.
“Well, it was in London! Anyway, I saw this bakery guy - he was twisting the arms of this bloke because he had walked away with a croissant. He was threatening to call the police.”
“Well then, they dot send kids to jail.”
“Maybe, they do!” Rosie insisted.
Ron and Harry forgot all about their fight as the new argument broke out between the girls. It was not until the lady teaching them origami came in that the snide comments stopped.
“Girls!” was all that Ron said. Harry snickered before getting a glare from both, Rosie and Katie.
Then, they started with Origamy.
The last class of the day was playacting that both Harry and Ron were taking.
A young man entered the room, clad in a T-shirt and jeans and beamed at all the 6 kids in the class.
“Well, hello there. I am sure that all of you are itching to go home after the long day, hmm? Not to worry. We are going to be extremely careful not to learn anything in this one.” He smiled.
“I am Charles Broston and we are only going to have fun in this class. But before we go any further, I say, why don’t we rearrange our chairs to sit in a semi circle. Yes, like that.”
The class actually turned out to be quite a lot of fun with the teacher asking all of them to do a number of activities.
The first one was to hop around the class like an animal – they could choose which one, but they had to imitate the animal, its sound, the way it moved and every time he called out “Change” they were to start imitating some other animal.
The room was soon filled with sounds of clucking and neigning and roaring and meowing and barking and oinking and howling and every other sort imaginable.
Ron did a hen (in which he clucked around in a fair imitation of the hens back at Burrow), a lion ( he roared and roared), a dragon ( in which he swooped around the room, making whoo-whoo noises to breathe fire out), a grindylow( in which he swam around and grabbed Harry and the other kids a couple of times) and an owl( with a paper in its beak for a letter). Harry did a horse( he raised his front foot and ), a monkey(he jumped around the room), a hare(he crouched down on the floor and hopped on all his four limbs), an elephant (he used one of his hands as a trunk) and a deer(galloping around the room).
After Mr. Broston called out for them to stop, all of them explained the animals that they had imitated. He was really amused at Ron’s choices and asked him what a grindylow was and why did he think that owls carried letters. He laughed and patted Ron’s shoulders, telling him that Ron had a very vivid imagination. He told everyone else in the class that they should also ‘think outside the box’ and come up with animals of their own.
Harry, though, looked ready to murder Ron. Ha! The first day at muggle school and Ron was doing better than the precious boy who had been going to school all his life. No wonder Harry was jealous.
After that, they played out a story of a hare and tortoise in a race, in which the tortoise won!
“Are you mad?” Harry asked the moment the class was over. “Dragons and grindylows?”
“Well, too bad you didn’t think of them before me.”
“We are not supposed to say or do magical stuff here,” Harry whispered furiously.
“How are they going to know what they are? They just think that it’s all my vivid imagination.” Ron was laughing. Muggles!
And then, before Harry could drone on and on about this, he said, “Race you!” and ran outside, Harry following him.
They had just got to the gate when he found Ms Prester standing there waiting for them.
“Where’s your guardian?” she asked.
“Umm… he should be here any moment,” Ron answered nervously. He really did not want her to tattle to Professor Snape. Who knew how he would react. But even as he said it, he saw, not the Professor, but his Dad coming by, looking around wide-eyed at all the people and very straight buildings.
“Dad!” Ron called out, glad to see him.
“Oh, Ron, there you are!” Dad called back, a smile gracing his features as he hurried to him. “Did you see those little containers with wheels there? Cars they call it! Look, they are -“
“Mr. Weasley?” Ms Prester said, looking him up and down. “I do not believe you dropped the boys in the morning.”
“Ah! No, that would have been Professor Snape.” Dad answered brightly.
“Mr. Weasley, this is our teacher, Ms Prester. She wants to talk to you about something,” Harry cut in hurriedly.
“Oh, of course! It is a pleasure to meet a muggle always! And a teacher, you say. You must know everything about these ‘cars’ then. Lovely means of transportation, I must say. But you must tell me first about the functionality of something I’ve been collecting over years now. I’ve never understood it well but what exactly are rubber du-“
“Tyres used for? Yeah, Ms Prester. We keep wondering. Why do we use rubber tyres and not tyres of steel or something else that won’t go flat?” Harry suddenly interjected. Ron wanted to kill him. He wanted to know about the rubber ducks too!
“Well, I - uhh!…”
“That’s an excellent question, Harry,” Dad said clapping Harry on his back. “Yes, that too. In fact, I would love to know how cars work completely.”
“Well, there’s an engine which world on fuel -“
“Yes, fuel you say,” Dad nodded his head along with Ron, eagerly listening for more.
“- and the engine - Uh! Mr Weasley, I am not an automobile engineer and I do not believe I can tell you any more than you would already know about them. I am sure you are a research scientist,” she said looking him up and down.
“Research scientist?” Dad sounded confused.
“Just like Professor Snape? I know because he is taking the College level Chemistry here 3 days a week. I am not that advanced if you want more information on the fuel ignition and chemistry.”
“But you made a cloud in the class today!” Ron spoke up. “Dad! She made a cloud, you know and it even rained a little.”
Ms Prester blushed.
“A cloud, you say! Mug-”.
“Yes, a mug of hot chocolate with some cream on it and some ice cream and a sandwich. I am soo… hungry. Please, Mr Weasley, can we get something to eat before I go for football?”
“Oh, yes, we must not get you late, Harry! Umm… Ms Prester, you wanted to talk?”
“Ah, yes! Yes, of course. But, I can talk to Professor Snape tomorrow. You go ahead.” She seemed very nervous.
“Are you sure? Alright then! Good evening and such a pleasure to meet you! Now then, Harry. Where do you want to eat? What about I take you two to Diagon Alley and back?”
Ms Prester looked back at them and then walked off. The moment she was gone, Harry said, “Uh no, I think I’ll probably go because the coach is calling me.”
“Is he? Oh, that’s right! Alright then. Stay here after the practice and your Uncle will come and pick you up.”
Then, as Harry ran off to the field, Ron showed the alcove they had apparated to in the morning to Dad and they disapparated from there to the Research Centre.
=============HP==================
Ms Prester did talk to Professor Snape the next morning but he was not impressed and took their side (Ron would have never believed it). But he also told them to stick to wherever the teacher was during the lunch, which was sort of irritating. Rosie came up with a better idea - to keep their entire group around the teacher playing games they had learnt in the playacting class. They would loudly imitate animals and make a lot of noise while following the teacher on ground duty around. If scolded, they would just say that they were scared to be out of her sight and it was so much fun!
“You could always get the other 3 to play in your sight, instead,” Professor Snape suggested very patiently when Harry and Ron were brought up by Ms Prester once again. “Or, are you really saying that Harry here and Ms Stranton there,” (Ron followed the Professor’s nod to Katie), “are loud and obnoxious?”
Oh, who was the Professor fooling? Harry could be the loudest and most obnoxious git in the world at times.
But Katie’s Mum did step up and asked, “Katie? My Katie is such a quiet child.”
“Well, not her, of course,” Ms Prester amended, “or, Harry for that matter,” she added when she saw the Professor’s raised eyebrow.
The meeting went downhill after that and Ron got a new hero. Professor Snape was the bestest, meanest person ever and Ron decided to practise raising his eyebrow in the mirror every day.
=========HP===========
But, Ron never got the time to practise. Every day, they would wake up at 7 am and they would never be back home before 8 pm because they had to take muggle bus from the school before apparating so that no one wondered how they travelled. Then, the Professor would cook while they washed up. The food was also not as good as his Mum’s.
Unlike Harry, Ron did not spend his weekends sleeping in or flying around or whatever it was he did. He spent them in the Research Centre or with Aunt Muriel or with his Dad, trying to get the insurance work done so that they could get money for Burrow and the Research Centre’s bills.
Ron wanted to tell Dad about his latest class. Ms Prester had shown him how to light a bulb on electricity. All you had to do was use potatoes and pennies! Muggles were ingenious. They didn’t have magic so they used potatoes and pennies to make light. Who could have thought?
But Dad was really busy these days. Just like Ron, he looked like he needed some sleep as well.
And he just wished that someone would let him sleep for hours and hours but that was not possible. Ron had stopped waking up for Nifsy anymore. Even Harry had started grumbling about it now but he had to wake up still.
Ron shook his head in compassion as he tuned out Ginny’s complaint about how she was left to paint all day long the day before.
“RON!”
“Arghh!!!” Ron pushed her away rubbing his ears. She had screamed right into his ears.
“Are you listening to me or not?”
“Yes! Why did you have to do that? You are mental!”
“I was just checking if your ears are working. They seemed to have stopped working,” she answered angelically.
One day, one day very soon, Ron was going to build a car that could fly and put Ginny in it and then let it fly her away. She could be so annoying at times! No, she was so annoying always.
“Do you want to make a present for Dad?” he asked to stop her whining.
“Yes.” She sounded suspicious.
“Alright then, I need 5 knuts for it. Can you get 5 knuts?”
“What do you want to get? And Ron, you can’t get anything in 5 knuts except chocolates. And if I did have 5 knuts, I would have bought a present myself. Are you getting 5 knuts too?”
“No. We are not buying anything. Well, there is this thing I learnt at the muggle school. I think Dad might like it. We could show him how muggles make light.”
“Really?” She looked thoughtful. “That would be nice. But are you sure you know how to do it?”
“Yes, Ginny. We learnt it at school. Now, we need 5 potatoes, 5 nails, some copper wires, 5 knuts and a little tiny bulb. I will get the wires and the bulb and the nails. Can you get the 5 knuts? And some potatoes?”
“You are mad! Are you going to do something crazy like the twins?”
“No! Just listen to me Ginny.”
“No, we can’t blow up the Research Centre or Aunt Muriel’s house, Ron. Do you see how worried Mum and Dad always are?”
“Ginny, we won’t be blowing off anything. We did this at school and it worked! The school didn’t blow up.”
“But they say that muggle stuff doesn’t work at magical places. What about that?”
That was true. Ron had forgotten about that.
“Well, we can try. If it works, we can give it as a gift. If it doesn’t, it doesn’t. We won’t tell them till it does work.”
Ginny nodded very slowly, looking quite unsure, almost as if she thought that Ron was mad, but she nodded. And that meant that Ginny was overboard at least for now.
“So 5 knuts an-“
“I got it, Ron.”
The next Monday, as Harry, Ron and the Professor were having their dinner, Ron said, “Professor, I was thinking of making Dad a gift. Umm… you know making light the muggle way.”
The Professor was looking at him as if he had lost his mind. So, Ron hurriedly added, “Ms Prester showed us how to light a tiny bulb with potatoes and pennies and nails.”
The Professor looked at Harry questioningly.
“Potato battery,” Harry replied, shrugging. “You connect potatoes with wires and zinc and copper and there is a flow of electrons that may be able to light up a little bulb.”
“Ah! The nail and penny act like electrodes. That is ingenious.”
Ron beamed. “I mean, Ginny said that she would get the knuts and potatoes but I don’t think Uncle Bilius or Aunt Muriel have any nails or copper wires or a bulb. Umm …” Ron wasn’t sure how to proceed. The Professor didn’t need to give him anything and who knew, maybe the nails and wires and bulb were very expensive. He really shouldn’t be asking this.
“I presume you are in need of some wires and nails and a small bulb?”
Ron turned red. He should have thought it through beforehand. He should have at least gone to some shop and checked their prices.
“I believe we saw some wires in the attic, didn’t we? And I am sure, there must be some galvanized zinc nails lying around the house. As for the bulb, perhaps we could use the bulb from the little flashlight we have. I am not sure if it would do any more than glow though. Perhaps getting a very low voltage bulb is better.”
“Thank you, sir.” Ron felt as if a weight had been lifted off him. “I just want to show it to him and then I would get everything back.”
Professor Snape peered at me very weirdly and started to say something but then he just inclined his head in that way of his which Ron took to mean the same thing as when Ginny nodded her very slowly.
“You do understand that the experiment is just a way to explain how batteries and electricity work in principle. Muggles don’t actually use potatoes to power their appliances or to generate electricity.”
“Sir?” Ron had no idea what the Professor was talking aboutt and he was feeling very tired and sleepy as well.
The clock struck 10 on the mantle and Harry jumped up as if suddenly woken from sleep.
The Professor looked at both Harry and Ron and seemed to be thinking something before he got up and then said, “Bed, Harry!”
Harry looked completely out though and the Professor had to carry him to bed as Ron worked on the rest of the dinner. He had no idea when he fell asleep.
===========HP==================
Ron wasn’t able to meet Dad on his birthday but on the weekend after that, he and Ginny was successfully able to get the little bulb to glow just a bit. Professor Snape had given him a flashlight and Ron, took out the batteries and explained to his Dad how the batteries contained something just like those potatoes and so were able to light up the bulb. Dad looked so happy with him and Ginny was so awed. Even Uncle Bilus and Aunt Muriel were amazed at the methods juggles came up with.
When Mum was able to come the next day, a Sunday, she saw the experiment as well and she hugged and kissed Ron and had tears in her eyes. Even Ginny came and gave Ron a hug and told him that she wanted to go to the school too. He showed her how to make ostrich and lily and frog from paper and the game where they had to imitate animals, changing every time one of them called out change. They laughed and laughed and it seemed that after a long time, everyone was smiling and happy for some time. Ron even got a letter from Bill the next Thursday. He said that Dad had told him about how he had showed him the way electricity worked and that how Ron was going to become an egg-beer.
Ron shook his head fondly.
“Engineer,” he said to himself. “Engineer.”