The Facts Machine

The Facts Machine

"Ron, I'll be right back. Sit down over there - and this time, please don't touch anything," Hermione pleaded with him quietly. He nodded once, his lips tight, and he watched her disappear into the back.

He sulked as he wandered around the empty room. It really annoyed him that she didn't trust him alone in her parents' office. Merlin's sake, what was he - a small child who had to be told to keep his hands to himself?

When he got tired of pacing, he leaned over a table and considered reading a magazine that lie on top. It had a smooth, slick cover, but the old man on the front looked dull and lifeless. A shrill ring from across the room made him nearly jump out of his skin. Figuring it had to be some sort of phellytone, he relaxed a bit. But when he heard a high-pitched squeal interspersed with hissing, he became very concerned indeed.

"What the-?"

With the receptionist, Grace, out to lunch, Ron decided that he ought to look into it; after all, those were some pretty distressing sounds. What if they were a signal that something was wrong? Was there a patient, somewhere behind those doors, hurt or requiring help from the doctor? He craned his neck to see where the noise was coming from.

The screeching stopped all at once, but he wasn't immediately assured that everything was all right. Had the patient . . . died?

Behind the desk, there was a strange, white box with at least a dozen buttons and a couple of blinking lights. He had no idea what it was for; when he had been there before, it had always just sat there, silently, serving no apparent purpose. Now, it was humming and buzzing and sputtering like it was broken. Then without warning, a piece of parchment - er, 'paper' - came floating out and landed on a short plate at the front of the box. Ron's mouth fell open as another, and then still more paper, piled on top of the first one. At last, they stopped, and the box was silent once more.

He was flabbergasted. He didn't know what to do; should he get someone, and if he did, what would he say to them?

After glancing around the office, he stepped gingerly behind the desk, careful not to disturb the large stack of colored folders that lie in the middle. Many of the folders were stuffed with strange-looking parchment with odd little holes punched along the sides. Worried that the box might start spitting out more pages - or something worse - he approached it carefully. Where had the mysterious pages come from, and what had caused them to just . . . pop out like that?

Ron slowly inched his head closer and closer to the box, squinting at it and turning his head as he inspected it cautiously. Fascinated yet fearful, his nose was soon just a few inches away from it. His heart was pounding. When he heard another shrill ring, he yelled, stood upright, and thumped his head against the bookshelf that jutted out over the box, nearly knocking it off the wall. He stumbled backwards onto Grace's desk, toppled into the folders, and sent them flying.

Within seconds, folders of all colors and sheets of pink, yellow, and white littered the floor. He winced, closed his eyes, and gritted his teeth, wishing it would all just stop; once it did, he reflexively reached for his wand and set everything right, mindless of who might be watching.

"Ron! What have you done?" his wife cried out as she emerged from her mother and father's work area.

"It wasn't my fault! It was that infernal box over there!" he snipped, pointing his wand toward the desk.

"Do put that away, this is a Muggle office!" she hissed. "Now, what box are you talking about?"

"The one with the parchment on it!"

"Oh . . . the fax machine--"

His eyes popped open. "The Facts Machine? Is that what it's called? Does it only print facts?"

"What are you talking about, Ron?" Then she chuckled and smiled. "Oh, you thought I said 'facts', like it doesn't print lies. How on earth would it do that?"

He frowned. "Well . . . it does sound a bit stupid when you put it that way."

She took her husband's hand and said sweetly, "Come on, dear. I'll explain it to you over a cup of tea."

Later that afternoon, Hermione's father came into the reception area with a green folder in his hands and a puzzled look on his face. "Grace," he said, "what are these notes about Mr. Hinkey's dentures doing in with Susie Hawthorne's x-rays?"