Copyright: What elements of this story that I own, and are not the property of anyone else, are licensed
CC-BY-NC-SA. That means that you can take anything in this story, up to and including the whole thing, and use it
however you like, as long as you promise me three things:
1. You will link back to me (preferably to my author page)
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3. You will share your work under these same conditions
Took me a while to get this one up, too; sorry for that. Hope you all had a merry Christmas, happy Hannukah, and any others you may celebrate that I missed, and a happy new year as well. Welcome to 2013, and congratulations on surviving the apocalypse two-and-a-bit weeks ago.
Today's prompt: 'How is your character with technology? Super savvy, or way behind the times? Letters or email?'
It's set an indeterminate time after Hogwarts, but no more than five years, and it's a little late-Christmas piece for you all. Enjoy!
Harry Potter loved Christmas, but it had not always been that way. As a child, it had been his least favourite day of the year; seeing all of the happy families celebrating the fact of each other; it made him reflect on his own Christmas memories, too terrible for polite conversation, and how much he dreamed of being part of something bigger than himself.
Hogwarts had changed that, and so had the Weasleys, but none of those wonderful days could compare to this, his first Christmas away from Hogwarts: Christmas Eve gifting in Hermione's flat with his best and first friends.
"Hermione, what the bloody hell is this?"
"Watch your language, Ronald; there are children around."
"Who, your landlady's little shrimps? I bet they've heard much worse than me."
"That's no excuse."
Harry laughed to himself and took a sip from the glass of wine Hermione had poured for him. He had missed this, spending time with his friends. Their lives had gotten dreadfully busy all of a sudden, once they left Hogwarts: Harry was working obscene hours during his Healer training at St. Mungo's; Hermione was lost in a sea of paperwork in her capacity as a clerk in some obscure corner of the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures; Ron was buried up to his elbows in Auror training. It was an uncommon thing, and something he dearly missed, to just sit and be, like they had in the days before Voldemort. Even Ron and Hermione's bickering seemed like music to Harry's ears, so rare was it for him to see his two friends.
"Honestly, Harry." Hermione sighed. "You shouldn't be encouraging him." Though she wore a look of exasperation, Harry could see her eyes smiling.
Still chuckling, Harry opted not to respond and instead opened the package Hermione had deposited in his lap at the beginning of the evening. From it tumbled a large plastic object, identical to the one that had so confused Ron moments before. "Hermione?" He asked, turning the object over in his hands and noting its resemblance to a muggle device he had seen at the Dursley's but never himself used. "Is this a telephone?"
Hermione nodded vigorously, breaking into a very self-satisfied smile. "The muggles just started making them, they call it a mobile. You can use it anywhere in the world, not just your kitchen, and I made some modifications so they'll work around magic." She puffed up, clearly proud of her accomplishment, and Harry smiled at her, "I thought we could use them to keep in touch a bit better."
Harry thought it was a very nice gift; he certainly appreciated the ability to contact his friends whenever he felt like it. However, judging by the suspicious looks Ron was throwing at his device, and the arm's-reach he was keeping it at, the redhead did not feel the same way. "What do we need these for? Why can't we just floo each other, like normal folk?"
Hermione deflated, but only a fraction; if he had been anyone else - if he had been Ron, for instance - Harry wouldn't have noticed it, but he did, and he took it upon himself to stand up to their friend. "No, I think this is brilliant. Think about it, Ron: how often can you get enough free time to find a floo? About as often as I can, I bet." The redhead nodded, conceding the point. "Thank you, Hermione."
Hermione beamed at him, her happy look not even diminished when Ron muttered something that only vaguely sounded like gratitude. Harry felt very warm under her eyes, his heart doing funny things in his chest, until her mobile went off loudly. "Oh!" She exclaimed, flushing lightly and turning away from Harry's eyes. "That must be Toby; I gave him one for his birthday, and…" She trailed off as she hurried out of the room to take the call from her new boyfriend.
The warmth in Harry's body suddenly chilled, and he could even feel his face fall, reminded as he was of Hermione's burgeoning relationship with Tobias Porter, a clerk in the Ludicrous Patents Office in the Ministry.
Ron, however, was oblivious to both Hermione's sudden disappearance, and Harry's very obvious reaction to it, all wrapped up as he was in the new 'toy' Hermione had given him. "Pass the wine bottle, would you Harry?" Harry did. "You know, this thing really isn't all that bad."