Arthur and the Muggles

Title: Arthur and the Muggles
Author: dolorous_ett
Fic or Art: Fic
Rating: PG
Characters: Arthur Weasley
Warnings: None
Summary: This is the story of Arthur Weasley's enduring love of Muggles: how it began, how it was received and how he had to struggle to learn as much as he has.
Notes: None.

Arthur and the Muggles

When Arthur Weasley was a very little boy, the Muggles went to war with other Muggles from a far country.

Because the Weasley family estate was a long way away from anywhere where Muggles could normally be found, when the war came, the Muggle Army thought that it was just the right place to build an airfield. Sometimes as he was falling asleep at night Arthur could hear the roar of the Muggle aeroplanes as they set off from the runway just a few fields away, to fight the enemy high in the night sky, higher than any broomstick had ever been, and far more powerful. He never forgot that marvellous sound as long as he lived.

When people ask often how it came about that Arthur Weasley, son of one of the purest blooded families in the land, had come to take such an interest in people who were like that, he usually mentions the aeroplanes. His family, however, will happily tell you another story altogether - often while Arthur begs them loudly not to drag out that old chestnut again.

***

Arthur Weasley was his parents' third child, but because his father managed the Weasley estates for his elder brother, who had five sons of his own, Arthur always felt like he was growing up as the seventh child of eight. For a fairly reserved and unremarkable young boy, it was hard to make his mark. There were (in order) Gervase the charming one, Pericles the clever one, Leopold the artistic one, Hector the sporty one, Ralph the kind one, Jerome the joker and (once he was old enough to merit an adjective) Clement the baby.

At a family gathering when Arthur was about four years old, a visitor asked him: "And which one are you going to be?"

Arthur considered the matter carefully. Nobody had ever asked him such a question before. But the answer was obvious, really: "I want to be a Muggle an' fly a hairy-plane."

The gale of laughter that greeted this remark took him by surprise. At the time he was rather pleased - for the first time the grown-ups had noticed him and laughed at his joke, even though he did not realise it was a joke. Luckily for him, Gervase (who was already in his second year at Hogwarts and wise in the ways of the world) took him on one side and explained why - for their kind of people, at least - this kind of thing was Just Not Done. Arthur, who craved approval, learned his lesson and never mentioned aeroplanes again - though he could not prevent his evil cousins and brothers from mortifying him in public with quips about his embarrassing lapse.

Secretly, Arthur couldn't see any difference between their kind of people and any other kind of people - the important thing was to be nice to everyone so that they would like you back. But he also worshipped his dashing cousin, who was so much older and admired by all - if Gervase said his tastes were wrong, who was he, Arthur, to persist in the face of such worldly-wise advice? He knew that aeroplanes were best forgotten, and he did his best to do so, shouting at his cousins every time they mentioned the Muggle One Incident, and sure enough, in time the aeroplanes stopped flying overhead, though they continued to appear in his dreams.

***

So Arthur gave up Muggles as a bad job and began to try to find another role for himself. In a family with so many siblings and cousins this proved no easy task, for so many good parts had already been taken. Over the next few years he tried to be the Brave One (his mother begged him to stop after three trips to St Mungo's in as many weeks), the Handsome One (quickly put to an end after Jerome discovered him peering wistfully into his mother's mirror), the Prophet (nobody but little Clement believed in his visions, which gave him nightmares and prompted another little talk from his mother) and the One Who Was Good At Dancing (he was doing quite well until Jerome came back from Hogwarts and teased him unmercifully all summer).

By the time Arthur was ten, five of his brothers and cousins were busy raising hell at Hogwarts, and it seemed that he might have to spend his life as the One Who Gave No Trouble. He had not run with an expensive crowd like Gervase, become abrasively sarcastic like Pericles or taken to smoking opium in his bedroom like Leopold; he did not count a week lost when he did not risk life and limb to save a match like Hector, struggle at schoolwork like Ralph, spend all his evenings in detention like Jerome or throw screaming temper tantrums like Clement. He was a nice, normal little boy who worked hard at his dame school and dreamed of the day when he would follow the others to Hogwarts. Once there, he felt sure, he would finally get a chance to strike out on his own.

And sometimes, secretly, he dreamed of aeroplanes.

***

At last the great day came. Dressed in Hector's old robes, carrying Ralph's trunk and Leopold's old broom and with Gervase's old hat rammed down firmly over his head, he set off with his brother and three cousins for Hogwarts.

Being a Weasley, he was naturally sorted into Gryffindor. The staff at the High Table looked at each other in trepidation, wondering which sort of Weasley they were going to end up with this time. But Arthur was too excited and relieved to notice - Jerome had teased him all the way north, saying that he was too boring to be a Gryffindor and would end up in Hufflepuff.

An hour later the new boys were settling into their dormitory. Arthur was surprised how well he was getting on with the other boys in his year - not least, the way they seemed to hang on his every word as he regaled them with exciting stories of his big brothers. All the older ones in his family had been keen to impress on Arthur that he knew nothing about anything, but this lot knew even less than he did. The only slight disappointment was that all the Muggles who had been sorted into Gryffindor this year were girls, so he wouldn't get any real chance to talk to them about their lives back home. Of course, asking questions was harmless enough in itself, but he had heard too many embarrassing jokes from his mother and aunt about how half of all witches met their future husbands at Hogwarts, and he wasn't having any of that, thank you very much.

When Arthur tried to push his trunk under the bed, he found that something was blocking its way. He lifted the up hangings to find another trunk filling the space. It seemed only half full, and there was a name engraved on the lid: Stanley Hepplewhite.

"Look at that!" exclaimed Charley Bulstrode. "Somebody's forgotten his trunk! Who are we meant to ask about lost things, Arthur?"

"The Head Boy, I suppose," replied Arthur. "I'll go and look for him, shall I? Stanley must be wondering what's happened to his trunk!"

The head boy that year was Gustav Bennett, who was on the Quidditch team with Hector, and greeted Arthur cheerfully. But his face fell when he mentioned Stanley Hepplewhite's trunk.

"Poor Stanley!" said Gustav, and for a second looked quite upset. "Thing is, Arthur, he's dead. He died in the summer of his second year. His parents were Muggles, they lived in Manchester, where the Muggles have lots of factories, and - well, d'you remember that war they had a few years ago? A bomb fell on his house while they were sleeping. The whole street was blown to bits."

"A Muggle bomb killed him?" Arthur asked in surprise. "I thought that wasn't meant to happen - not to us at any rate."

"Well, normally it wouldn't - our magic protects us from accidents that would leave a Muggle really badly hurt, or even killed. But I don't think anybody's magic is strong enough to stop a whole house from falling down on top of them. I wouldn't like to try it, would you?" He cleared his throat. "Now run along, it's late. Keep the trunk if you like - there's nothing in it but a few Muggle bits and bobs, but I'm sure Stanley would rather have someone using them. He was always tinkering with them."

Arthur rushed back to his dormitory, full of excitement. He felt sorry for poor dead Stanley of course... but all the same, a trunk full of Muggle artefacts on his very first day at Hogwarts! Perhaps he would turn out to be the Lucky One in his family.

His roommates, on the other hand, seemed unimpressed. They all nodded gravely and said "That's very sad", but none of them seemed interested in the contents of the trunk. Only Charley Bulstrode came over to have a look, but he soon drifted away when it became clear that there was nothing magical or even explosive inside.

Arthur, however, was entranced. He had never seen so many things without magic in his life: the snakes on the Snakes and Ladders board didn't move or hiss; the marbles stayed politely where they were put instead of spitting in your face; the pictures in the comics stayed still and were full of - oh, glory! - aeroplanes ... and best of all, there was the radio.

The radio came in its own cardboard box, printed with non-moving illustrations of towers and lightning in the kind of dull colours Muggles seemed to like. The radio was a box made of some dull, slippery, brown material like nothing he had ever touched before, and there were dials and labels and numbers all over it. Arthur resolved then and there to learn what the radio was for, and then to learn how to use it. Muggle Studies classes were, after all, only two years away. He would be the Muggle One after all - and he would be the best there ever was. That would show them all! Especially Jerome.

***

The next two years passed uneventfully. Arthur worked hard at his lessons and made solid if unremarkable progress in all of them (he fell asleep in Professor Binns's History of Magic classes, but everyone did that). He got on well with his classmates, was a natural peacemaker and was generally well liked. He was an enthusiastic if clumsy Quidditch player and competent at Gobstones. He was a nice, normal boy who everybody liked and nobody disliked. He was, in short, the One Who Gave No Trouble.

Sometimes, on days when it was too rainy for Quidditch, Arthur would go through Stanley Hepplewhite's old trunk, pushing the inert marbles about the floor, stroking the still snakes on the board and fiddling with the radio. He still had no idea how to make it work, but he knew now that it put out a scientific vibration and Muggles used it to talk to each other. One day he would use it in his turn, and his voice would be heard among these strange people who were too weak to fly unaided but could make explosions so powerful that if they wanted to blow up a street, not even magic could stop them.

Arthur sat cross-legged on the floor as the rain lashed against the window, waiting patiently for the third year and Muggle Studies.

***

It was the start of Arthur's third year at Hogwarts, and the staff were holding a meeting.

"Final item on the agenda," proclaimed old Professor Dippet. "As you all know, Professor Cooper left us three years ago to continue his stage career in the Muggle world. Unfortunately, the Board has been unable to agree on a suitable replacement, so this position remains unfilled. Luckily for us, however, Professor Binns has agreed once more to take this course for us." He beamed at Professor Binns, who blinked back at him. Those of the staff with any Muggle sympathies scowled. "Unless, of course, there are any other candidates?" Everybody looked at the floor. "Very good. Meeting adjourned!"

"This is scandalous!" muttered Professor McGonagall, the pretty new Arithmancy teacher, to Professor Dumbledore. "Dippet and his cronies on the Board don't have the nerve to abolish Muggle Studies directly, so they're doing it by stealth! In a few years time nobody will be doing Muggle Studies at all, and they'll be able to get rid of it without anyone noticing. It's disgraceful, and I mean to write to the Prophet about this!"

"Hush, Minerva," said Dumbledore with one of his most enigmatic smiles. "Have no fear: Dippet is making a rod for his own back, and it remains only for us to stand by, like the best of Muggle firemen, ready to quench the flames when his schemes backfire. Control your rage, my dear, and try a piece of this rather fine Edinburgh rock."

They left the staffroom together, deep in conversation.

***

The first day of the new term dawned. For once, Arthur was up before his alarm went off, and by five to nine was waiting in the front row of the Muggle Studies classroom, quill and parchment at the ready, determined not to miss a word.

He was the only one to arrive so early, but he was far from the only taker for Muggle Studies. A large contingent of Slytherin Muggles or half-bloods were there, eager for a chance at easy marks; the Hufflepuffs were talking earnestly about how much better a place the world could be if we all understood each other; the Ravenclaws were excited at the thought of a new branch of study; and the Gryffindors were keen to see one of the explosions Arthur had described, big enough to kill a wizard.

So when Professor Binns tottered into the room, a large and dusty volume under one arm, an audible ripple of dismay ran through the class. Ignoring this (he was rather deaf), he took up his station in front of the blackboard.

"Ahem... good day, class!" he quavered. "I am sure that we all agree that one can make nothing of Muggles without putting them in their proper historical perspective. We will therefore start with the most necessary and edifying example - witch-burning..."

And with that he launched into the same lecture on witch-burning in the Middle Ages as he had given the year before in History of Magic. The class spent most of the lesson staring out of the window at the Care of Magical Creatures lesson outside in the grounds, where jolly Professor Kettleburn was showing the students how to groom a Puffskein in the bright autumn sun.

Next lesson there were a lot more empty chairs.

***

At the end of Arthur's second week of Muggle Studies, all but three students had deserted the class, which seemed to be getting more tedious by the day. When the lecture was over they slouched out miserably together, trying not to yawn too much.

"Here, Weasley," said the other boy, a skinny Slytherin who Arthur knew was called Brian Bird, "what's a pureblood like you doing here, then? I can't believe you've stuck with this class for so long. I mean, what's in it for you, eh?"

"Muggles are our brothers and sisters!" said Arthur. "We should all learn more about them, so that we can understand each other and live happily side by side."

The other boy gave a snort of derisive laughter.

"I don't see what's so funny," said Arthur crossly. "I could ask you the same thing! In fact, I could ask both of you the same thing."

"It's different for me," said the third student, a stocky girl from Hufflepuff called Hilda Scrivener, who had bobbed hair and a no-nonsense expression. "Everyone knows about the fuss there was when my Dad suddenly married a Muggle barmaid. None of her family are speaking to her now, and she never talks about her old life, so this is my only chance to find out what it's like for Muggles. Not that I'm likely to find out much here. What about you, Brian?"

"Both my parents were Muggles," Brian said quietly. "We lived in the East End of London. Mum and Dad got hit by a bomb on their way home from the pictures. I was five then, and I was down for a place at Hogwarts, so the Ministry got me out of the orphanage after a couple of days, and took me to be brought up by wizards - an old couple who live in the country. They were nice, but they wouldn't let me go anywhere near other Muggles - said I needed time to grow out of it. I asked them for a radio once because I missed the Muggle music. You should have heard Aunt Prue create!"

"A radio?" said Arthur. "I've got a radio, in my dormitory. One of the other boys left it behind. Would you like to have a look?"

"A radio?" gasped Brian, all hostility gone. "A real radio? Can I borrow it?"

"And me?" asked Hilda eagerly.

"Of course," said Arthur. "But only if you show me how it works - I don't understand eckletricity at all. Shall we go now?"

***

The first snag came when the Fat Lady flat-out refused to let a Slytherin and a Hufflepuff into the Gryffindor Tower ("Never heard of such a thing! Shameless!") In the end Arthur had to race up the tower to his dormitory, stuff the radio into his satchel and pelt back down the stairs to where Brian and Hilda were waiting. They trooped back to the Muggle Studies classroom, where Brian reached reverently inside the bag and pulled out the radio.

"Wizard!" he said softly, falling back into long-forgotten slang in his excitement. He turned the machine over slowly in his hands, then placed it on the table and flicked one of the switches. There was an audible click, but nothing happened.

"What's wrong?" asked Arthur. "Why isn't the music playing?"

"It must be a flat battery," said Brian. "I think I know a trick to deal with that... let me just get the back open..." He fiddled for a few moments with the back and pulled out a large square object, which he placed on the table, before drawing out his wand and pointing it at the object. "Ennervate!"

There was a bang, a brief spurt of light and the "battery" caught fire. It burned quickly, with an oily flame, and soon there was nothing left on the desk but a puddle of smoking, evil-smelling goo.

"I don't think that was meant to happen," said Hilda.

"Well, how was I supposed to know!" exclaimed Brian angrily, sounding close to tears. "Uncle Titus and Aunt Prue kept me away from all that stuff, remember? I chose Muggle Studies because I wanted to learn, not because I knew this stuff already! And a fat lot of use it's turned out to be!"

"No need to be so dramatic," said Hilda. "There's got to be another way. My dad's a brilliant researcher ..."

"Oh yes," said Brian sarcastically. "Your pater the professor who does research. Jolly good of you to join us here, I'm sure. This must all be a bit beneath you really..."

"Don't be silly," said Hilda briskly. "What I was going to say was that my dad's a brilliant researcher but a terrible teacher. Whenever he tries to teach us anything, my sister and I just want to go to sleep. So what we do is we try to remember the name of the experts he talks about - and then later we go to his library and look up what they actually said. It saves a lot of bother in the long run."

"So?" said Brian.

"Well... d'you remember this afternoon's lecture? 100 Muggle Thinkers in Alphabetical Order?"

Brian and Arthur nodded, yawning at the memory.

"And do you remember he mentioned someone called Benjamin Franklin?"

"I remember! He was the man who went to America and found eckle-trici-ty!" said Arthur, rolling the syllables slowly round his mouth with great satisfaction.

"And what lives inside batteries and makes them work?" continued Hilda.

"Electricity!" cried Brian.

"There you are then," she said. "We go to the library to look up Benjamin Franklin. We find out what he knew, and we use it to work out how to make a battery. And then you can listen to your music, Brian. How does that sound?"

"I'm in," he said.

"And me," chimed in Arthur.

"What are we waiting for, then?" said Hilda. "To the library!"

***

Of course, for magical people, getting a Muggle radio to work is much easier said than done. Nowadays, advanced students of Muggle Studies who show unusual promise are sometimes allowed - under highly controlled conditions - to attempt to reduplicate this experiment. Not one of them has yet succeeded.

Arthur, Brian and Hilda had no way of knowing this, so they saw nothing in the project to be afraid of, and they set to with a will. Even so, it took them far longer than they expected. But for the happy combination of their different talents, the whole thing would have been impossible; even so, the school year was almost over by the time they finally had the radio working again.

Hilda had learned research, archiving and reverse engineering at her father's knee, and had seen her mother struggle to use all the unfamiliar objects of a Wizarding kitchen without magical skills. It was Hilda who waded through the boring histories of Benjamin Franklin favoured by Professor Binns (including lengthy discourses on his handwriting, whether he might have wizarding connections in his family tree, and the state of his bowels), in search of further references. It was Hilda who turned up a dusty, Muggle-produced pamphlet called "Our Friend the Battery" at the bottom of a dusty cardboard box marked "misc", and she was the one who produced a working plan from the rather vague and childish illustrations it contained.

This was where Brian came in. Despite the accident of his birth, he was something of a favourite with his Head of House, Professor Slughorn, thanks to his gift for Potions. Once he realised that making a battery required acid and rods of unusual metals he was in his element, and he spent hours tinkering away happily in the Potions classroom to get the materials and proportions just right. Always glad to encouraging a promising student, Slughorn was perhaps more free with information on this matter (now classified by Ministry decree) than perhaps he should have been, and eventually Brian turned out a battery that did not blow up, catch fire or start swearing at the user, which could be coupled to the terminals of the radio with two twists of copper wire.

However, none of this would have been any use without Arthur. Long after the other boys in his dormitory had gone to bed, he would sit on his bed, radio and battery on his lap, adjusting dials and settings to new combinations. Weeks had passed, then months, without ever picking up anything, and although the other two knew that days of careful enchantment and the finest of fine tuning would be necessary to get a signal through the magical interference produced by two hundred young wizards, now that their work was done, their interest began to turn to other, easier Muggle things, such as Meccano or model aeroplanes. Without Arthur, who continued doggedly long after Brian and Hilda had dismissed the matter as hopeless, they would have given up entirely. So when Arthur (risking a severe thrashing) came banging excitedly on the door of the Slytherin dungeon one evening at the end of May, Brian was unable to believe his ears.

"I've got a signal!" Arthur whispered, as soon as they were safely out of eavesdropping range. "It's not music or anything, but there are words. I mean, I think there are words, but... well, it's... strange."

"What do you mean, you think there are words?" said Brian. "Either there are words or there aren't. You must be picking up interference. What do they sound like?"

"We'll get Hilda and then you can hear for yourself," said Arthur.

Ten minutes later, they were holed up in the Muggle Studies classroom, watching with bated breath as Arthur connected the battery to the radio and turned the switch. Lights lit up on the front and a strange noise filled the room: a sighing like the wind in the branches of some great tree, interspersed with a strange clicking and whistling. They listened in silence some time before they realised there were words, though so warped by the interference that they were barely recognisable as speech:

Can you hear me? ... Help me... Can you hear me? ... help me...

Arthur crouched by the set.

"Yes!" he shouted excitedly into the grille at the front. "We can hear you! We're here! Are you all right?"

There was a pause, and then the strange, distorted voice asked:

Friend? You are a friend?

"Yes, yes!" said Arthur excitedly. "We're friends!"

Help me! moaned the voice. Trapped... the Forest... cannot get out... help me...

"Should we?" asked Brian. "Why would this person trust someone he's never met?"

"Because he's in really bad trouble, of course!" said Hilda stoutly. "Poor chap! Of course we should do everything we can to help - it's the right thing to do!"

They argued back and forth for a few minutes. Then Arthur returned to the radio set.

"We're here to help!" he called into the loudspeaker. "We'll come as soon as we can. What do you need, and where are you?"

Help me...came the answer between bursts of whistling and crackling. Trapped... lost... hungry... the forest... help me...come to me...

And with that, the battery went dead.

***

They had never had a flat battery before, and it took Brian several evenings of intense work to get the battery useable again. He ransacked the Potions lab for acids and metal rods, to the point where even Professor Slughorn quizzed him gently about what on earth he needed so much copper for, but at last it was done, and Arthur, Hilda and Brian clustered around the radio once again. This time Arthur found the station quickly, and once again the clicking and whispering sounds began to emanate from the set: Friend?... help... danger... hungry... come...so lonely... help...

"Who are you?" asked Hilda. "Where are you? What do you want?"

A friend...came the faint voice. Help... trapped... durance vile... lonely...

"But where are you trapped?" shouted Brian into the speaker, shoving Hilda out of the way. "How do we get you out of there?"

The Old Forest... Past the lake... a red boulder... twelve silver birches, one burned by fire...an old quarry, a dell... lonely... hungry... come...

"How can we help?" asked Hilda, giving Brian a shove that sent him staggering. "What do you need?"

Need...friend...was the reply. Need ginger... salt...galingale...garlic...bouquet garni...tinder and flint...garum ...Time is short...they come...Help me...

There was a loud crackle, a hiss and the radio went dead.

"Oh no!" said Arthur. "We didn't even get his name!"

***

Half an hour later, the three friends, bags bulging, were already deep inside the Forbidden Forest and pushing their way deeper. Late May in Scotland can be a charming time for evening rambles, and their first few minutes in the forest had been delightful, despite its sinister reputation, with wild flowers and grasses blooming in the glades, small birds calling out to each other overhead and fresh green leaves rustling in the canopy. However, once they had passed the red boulder and turned down the a narrower side trail at the group of twelve silver birches, the trees drew closer together, cutting out the last rays of the sun, the birdsong faded and then disappeared altogether, and the flowers were replaced first by drifts of damp dead leaves and then by fungi, some of which glowed an eerie yellow in the gathering dusk. They turned a corner, and a steep cliff suddenly loomed up in front of them, throwing a deep shadow over the track, which skirted its base and descended a steep slope into the even deeper gloom below.

Cautiously, with wands out and at the ready, the three of them started to pick their way down into the valley. When they were halfway down, Arthur gave a start. The radio in his back was emitting a faint hum, and felt hot to the touch, quivering under his groping fingers. He was about to call out when Brian and Hilda came to a halt in front of him. They had reached the bottom of the slope, and were standing in the bottom of a deep, bowl-shaped valley.

"Well, here we are," said Brian. "This is the place. Now we just have to find him, give him what he needs and get him out. But where is he?"

"He probably thinks we're his captors," said Hilda. "We should call out to him to show himself, so he won't be scared."

Arthur cupped his hands to his mouth. "HELLO!" he bellowed at the top of his voice, causing Brian to flinch. "WE'RE YOUR FRIENDS! WE'VE COME TO HELP YOU! AND WE'VE BROUGHT ALL YOUR THINGS!"

Silence followed his words. Then, from somewhere quite a long way overhead, they felt it approach: at the start no more than a feeling that they were being watched from above; then a sighing, as if of wind through the trees (but there was no wind in that enclosed valley); a rustling of leaves that seemed to be coming closer, and finally a clicking, like on the radio. There were words within the clicking.

Kind friends...here you are... so good... so young... so tender...

"Er... we've brought what you asked for," said Arthur, squinting into the branches high above his head. "Are you all right up there?"

The clicking increased in speed and volume.

You have brought it? All of it?

Hilda nodded, holding aloft her sack.

The salt? The garlic? The ginger? The galingale?

"Yes," she said.

The bouquet garni? The fish sauce?

Arthur started. Was that a pair of huge eyes staring at him from the branch of a high tree? And was it his imagination, or were they getting closer? He gripped his wand tighter. Hogwarts suddenly felt a very long way away.

"Fish sauce?" said Hilda, puzzled. "I don't know about fish sauce, but we brought garum, just as you asked. I don't understand, though - how will it help you escape?"

Escape? came the clicking, now coming from a point not so very far above their heads. Why should I escape? When such a tasty dish walks into my larder, and so richly seasoned, what need have I or my children to leave our lair where we are safe? We thank you for your gift, so generously given, and our grandchildren will sing songs to remember your succulent, sweet flesh...

"Run!" yelled Brian. "They're going to kill us!"

Arthur was already sprinting up the slope, with Hilda pounding at his heels. Behind him he could hear a scuffling of claws on leaves, but he did not dare to turn around to see what was following them. Brian was a few yards ahead of him, and was almost out of the dell when he gave a despairing yell. Eyes were advancing down the slope towards them: dozens of pairs of bulbous clusters of eyes, attached to the bloated bodies of spiders the size of a pony. All those eyes were fixed on them as the creatures advanced, claws clattering and feet waving.

Arthur just had time to point his wand skywards and send a stream of red sparks high into the darkening sky before the first set of claws closed around his leg and he tumbled to the ground. The last thing he could remember was a huge, hairy body above him, and the hot breath and blinding pain as its mouthparts pierced his arm.

***

Some hours later, Arthur woke from a terrible dream of monsters, fighting and confused shouting to find himself in an unfamiliar bed. His arm stung and his head throbbed, but he found that if he made an effort he could raise his head a few inches from the pillow. He looked around and saw Madam Fairhead, the college nurse, making notes at her desk by the dim light of a lamp. This must be the hospital wing, then. He was safe. And there were Hilda and Brian, fast asleep - how did they get here? But he was so tired...

Arthur's head fell back to the pillow, and he slept.

***

The next time Arthur awoke it was morning. Hilda and Brian were already awake, and were being spoon-fed porridge by a nurse-elf who refused point-blank to allow them to serve themselves. Arthur even found that he was hungry, despite being so desperately tired. He lay back on the soft cushions as Cissy the elf spooned gruel into his mouth, just enjoying the feeling of being alive and not in danger, as Hilda gave him a brief summary of what had happened after he lost consciousness. Somebody in Gryffindor Tower had been looking out at the Forest and seen the sparks, but the dell was a good way from the castle, and by the time the rescue party had arrived, the spiders had overpowered all three of them. But for the argument that had broken out among the spiders over the exact use of the bouquet garni, it might have been too late. In short, they were lucky to be alive. Arthur smiled, at peace with the world.

His good mood lasted nearly an hour, at which point the door of the infirmary swung open to admit Headmaster Dippet and three angry Heads of House. Arthur realised that he was in for the scolding of his life.

It took some time for everybody who was entitled to scold Arthur and his friends to take their turn. First the headmaster gave them a furious lecture on school discipline, then Professor Dumbledore issued a surprisingly stern warning on the dangers of speaking to invisible strangers, then a harassed-looking Professor Spinks (Hilda's Head of House) told them how worried everyone had been, and finally a remarkably non-jovial Professor Slughorn read Brian a terse lecture on the ethics of petty theft and the foolhardiness of unescorted visits to unknown entities that demanded spices and seasonings. Then came the visit from his mother that afternoon. She burst into tears to at the sight of Arthur in his hospital bed, hugged and kissed him with bone-crushing force, and then spent the next half hour berating him soundly: not even Jerome, it appeared, had ever caused her so much worry. (Arthur tried to look suitably contrite when he heard this, but secretly was as pleased as Punch. His days as the One Who Gave No Trouble were definitely over.)

All three of them lost a great number of house points, which made them rather nervous about leaving the hospital wing and returning to their Houses. But they need not have worried: the story of their brush with the spiders had preceded them, and their housemates were so impressed that their quietest, most innocuous classmates had had a life-and-death encounter with monsters too dangerous even for Care of Magical Creatures, that the loss of house points counted for little compared to the contribution to house pride - and in any case, it not just one house had been penalised. Arthur suddenly found himself the centre of attention, even among senior Gryffindors who had previously considered him entirely beneath their notice. Even Jerome seemed impressed, and one of the second-year girls, a redhead named Molly, took to following him everywhere and giving him languishing looks.

When Arthur returned to his dormitory, Stanley's trunk had gone. Later that evening, as he was watching the sunset, he saw a lone, bearded figure in a purple robe flying on a broomstick above the lake. When he had reached the very centre of the lake, he held out his arm and dropped a squarish brown object into the still waters. As it hit the surface of the lake, a white tentacle reached out to coil itself around Arthur's radio. It brandished the radio aloft for a second and then vanished.

On her return home, Arthur's mother wrote a furious letter to the Daily Prophet, and another to a cousin in the Ministry of Magic's Department of Education, blaming her son's brush with death on the lack of proper training in Muggle Studies, which had failed to equip him to deal with objects of a Muggle nature. Professor Dippet found himself summoned to a hearing at the Ministry. He returned very late that day in a vile temper, and the next day the senior staff were ordered to begin a search for a new teacher of Muggle Studies. Muggle Studies, it appeared, was now to be taken seriously, and should be entrusted to the care of a properly qualified teacher who could warn the students effectively on the dangers of meddling in the affairs of Muggles. He also gave orders that the protections placed around Hogwarts were to be strengthened: from that day forward, no electrical item of any kind, no matter how trivial or of how low power, would ever be able to operate in Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

Although Professor Dumbledore confiscated Stanley Hepplewhite's trunk and all its contents, sometimes, as a special favour, he would permit Hilda and Brian to visit the Gryffindor tower for a game of Snakes and Ladders, Muggle-style.

***

Term ended, and, in due course, a new school year began. The new Muggle Studies teacher arrived: a keen young man in horn-rimmed spectacles who scandalised some of his stuffier colleagues by insisting that the students call him Mr Briggs, and who had taught for two years in a Muggle prep school while researching the Muggle education system. His early lessons, which were based on the practicalities of day-to-day life in the Muggle world, were not an unqualified success, as everything that might conceivably contain anything electric now no longer worked at Hogwarts. After a rather frustrating first term, he gave up on the practical lessons and decided to teach Muggle Studies from a literary and historical perspective. For his OWL Arthur studied the Roman Empire, William the Conqueror, the Wars of the Roses, the six wives of King Henry the Eighth, the French Revolution, the Aztecs and the First and Second World Wars, all of which he found far more appealing than Professor Binns's alphabetical lists. He came top in his year in Muggle Studies - the first pureblood student ever to do so. Brian Bird and Hilda Scrivener came joint second.

Arthur, Hilda and Brian all continued Muggle Studies at NEWT level, although Hilda was increasingly devoting herself to the study of Ancient Runes, and Brian seemed to spend most of his time and energy in the potions lab. Arthur, however, threw himself into Muggle Studies with even more abandon. He studied Gone with the Wind, Jane Eyre, A Tale of Two Cities, Swallows and Amazons, Gaudy Night, Canterbury Tales, The First Men in the Moon and Vanity Fair, and did a special project on the works of Isaac Asimov. His project won a national prize in Muggle Studies, and at the prizegiving ceremony at the Ministry of Magic, he caught the eye of the Head of Muggle Affairs. By now his family were calling him the Muggle Studies One - and without irony. Gervase was running through the family fortunes at a frightening rate, and any son who could make a career for himself without depending on the family was to be encouraged.

When he left school, Arthur was invited to take up a junior post in the Department of Muggle Affairs. He was eighteen years old, with an Outstanding NEWT in Muggle Studies and glowing references from Mr Briggs, but he had never seen a car or television, or - apart from that one disastrous episode with the radio - touched an electrical appliance. The next few years, he felt, were going to be very interesting indeed.

***

Decades later, Arthur is happily married with a large family, still working away in his little corner of the Ministry, and still fascinated by Muggles and all their works. He has kept in touch with Hilda (now teaching Ancient Runes at Hogwarts) and Brian (joint owner of a custom potions business in the fashionable end of Diagon Alley), and sometimes after a few drinks they ask him why he has never tried to make more of his life. Arthur is pleased that they care, but he doesn't really understand the question. He can never be bored, he says, when there is so much still to learn.