For some time, Hermione walked in silence, looking thoughtful. Unable to hold back any longer, she asked:
"Richie, why didn't you introduce me?"
Richard shook his head with displeasure and replied:
"Introduce you to a pure-blood wizard from a family of far-right racist Muggle-haters, who's drunk on freedom and impunity? One who wears 'spoiled bully' written all over his face? You don't need acquaintances like that, Hermione."
"Why?" Granger frowned.
"Hermione, trust me—you'll understand later. It's better to stay away from people like that. Nothing good comes from those kinds of connections."
"And you, does that mean you're good?!" Hermione asked, offended.
"For the Grosvenors, the word 'honor' is not an empty sound. Whether I'm good or bad—that's for you to decide."
Richard and Hermione walked up to the locomotive and questioned the engineers. The girl was interested in how far it was to Hogwarts, while Richie pressed them about how the magical steam engine worked. And what he learned left him deeply thoughtful.
When the boy and the girl set out on their way back, Hermione asked:
"Richie, what are you thinking about?"
"Hermione, you heard what the engineers said, right?"
"Yes," Granger nodded.
"An ever-burning enchanted fire in the furnace, frozen by stasis charms… Doesn't that bother you at all?"
"It's magic, Richie!" the girl replied in a lecturing tone.
"Magic…" Richard drawled meaningfully.
"Is that strange?" Hermione asked.
"Strange?" Grosvenor echoed. "No… It's madness! An infinite source of energy and time manipulation just to keep an ancient steam engine running! A perpetual motion, Hermione! A damn perpetual motion!!!"
"Uh…"
Now Hermione fell into thought as well. She froze with her mouth slightly open, blinking her thick eyelashes.
"A perpetual motion?" she asked.
"A PERPETUAL MOTION!!!" Richie exclaimed.
"Oh! It really is…" Hermione murmured.
"Just think about it—stopping time to suppress a perpetual motion…" Richie was clearly astonished and excited. "And wizards treat this like something completely ordinary. Hermione, we absolutely have to find out what spells can produce this effect!"
"Of course," the girl agreed, her enthusiasm igniting. "I hope there are books about it in the Hogwarts library."
"The laws of thermodynamics and conservation of energy…" Richard muttered under his breath. "Nope, never heard of them! An autonomous artificial Maxwell's demon in action…"
"A demon?!" Hermione gasped. "Is that some kind of Dark Magic?"
"Grayish-brown gobbledygook!" Richard replied sarcastically, casting her an ironic look. "Didn't you study math and physics? Although—what am I even saying… Of course an elementary schooler wouldn't know higher mathematics."
Hermione puffed up indignantly and said reproachfully:
"If you're so smart, then explain it. Not everyone here is a genius, you know!"
"Maxwell's demon, Hermione—also known as Maxwell's paradox—is a mathematical paradox. An imaginary microscopic intelligent being, proposed by the British physicist James Clerk Maxwell to illustrate the apparent contradiction in the second law of thermodynamics."
Hermione didn't understand a thing, but not wanting to seem foolish, she pretended that her new acquaintance's explanation made everything clear. Mentally, she made a note to study physics and mathematics, rather than limiting herself to explanations like 'It's magic.' Apparently, ordinary people had long since come up with ways to describe magical phenomena—they just couldn't reproduce the effects of spells… not yet.
As Richard and Hermione passed through the third carriage, they spotted the Weasley twins in one of the compartments. One of them—Fred, it seemed—called out:
"My Lord, wait! Father asked us to pass along a new development. Sorry, we forgot. George, where are they?"
"I'll get them now," George replied, pulling a large suitcase from under the seat and retrieving a cloth bundle from inside.
Richard unwrapped the cloth on the table between the seats and found what looked like ordinary radiotelephone handsets: black, compact, with miniature antennas. There were five in total.
"These are voice communication artifacts," Fred explained.
"Artifacts?" Hermione snorted. "They look like ordinary phones."
"They used to be Muggle phones," George said. "But in the workshop, they were enchanted with Protean charms. Dad called this artifact a 'Wizardphone.' We all have them too."
Richard picked up one of the wizardphones and turned it over in his hands. What immediately caught his eye was the presence of additional buttons—not the usual ones from one to nine and zero, but from one to fifteen. In addition, there were two buttons: green and red. On the back of each handset, a number from one to five had been painted in white.
George began to explain:
"With these artifacts, you can talk to the owner of any of the fifteen wizardphones from anywhere in the world. All of us have one. You press the owner's number and then the green button. To end the call, you press the red button. Dad is number six, Mom is seven, Bill is eight, Charlie is nine. Percy is ten, Fred is eleven, I'm twelve, Ron is thirteen, Ginny is fourteen. The fifteenth handset is in the workshop."
"Hmm…" Richard mused. "So that means I have phones one through five. But did I hear you correctly—you said communication works from anywhere on the planet?"
"Exactly!" Fred said proudly.
(End of Chapter)
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