Hermione walked in silence for a while, looking thoughtful. Unable to bear it any longer, she asked:
- Richie, why didn't you introduce me?
Richard shook his head in displeasure and replied:
"Introduce you to a pureblood wizard from a family of far-right, racist, Muggle-hating wizards, who's experienced freedom and permissiveness? Whose face says 'rich, hooligan'? You don't need that kind of acquaintance, Hermione."
"Why?" Granger frowned.
"Hermione, trust me, and then you'll understand, it's best to stay away from guys like that. Nothing good will come from such acquaintances."
"So, you're a good person, then?!" Hermione asked, offended.
"The word 'honor' is not an empty phrase for the Richs. Whether I'm good or bad is up to you to judge."
Richard and Hermione strolled to the steam engine and questioned the drivers. She wanted to know how far it was to Hogwarts, while Richie inquired about how the magical steam engine worked. The knowledge he gained made him very thoughtful.
As the boy and girl set off on their way back, Hermione asked:
- Richie, what are you thinking about?
- Hermione, you heard the engineers, right?
"Yes," Granger nodded.
- An eternally burning enchanted fire in the furnace, frozen by stasis spells... Doesn't anything bother you?
"It's magic, Richie!" the girl replied in a didactic tone.
"Magic..." Richard drawled meaningfully.
"Is that weird?" Hermione asked.
"Strange?" Rich drawled. "No... It's madness! An infinite source of energy and the manipulation of time to keep an ancient locomotive moving! A perpetual motion machine, Hermione! A fucking perpetual motion machine!!!"
- Uh-uh...
At this point, Hermione, too, paused, her mouth slightly open and her thick eyelashes fluttering.
"A perpetual motion machine?" she asked.
"PERPETUAL MOTION MACHINE!!!" Richie exclaimed.
"Oh! That's true..." Hermione drawled.
"Just think-stopping time just to stop a perpetual motion machine..." Richie was both amazed and excited. "And wizards consider it such a commonplace thing. Hermione, we absolutely must find out the spells that can achieve such an effect!"
"Of course," the girl agreed, her enthusiasm flaring. "I hope there are books about it in the Hogwarts library."
"The laws of thermodynamics and conservation of energy..." Richard muttered under his breath. "No, we haven't heard of that! An autonomous artificial Maxwell's demon in action..."
"A demon?!" Hermione was horrified. "Is this black magic?"
"Gray-brown-boggy!" Richard replied sarcastically, looking at the girl ironically. "Didn't you study math and physics? Although, what was I saying... Of course, how would a primary school girl know higher mathematics?"
Hermione pouted and said reproachfully:
"If you're so smart, then explain it better. Not everyone here is a genius, you know!"
- Maxwell's demon, Hermione, also known as Maxwell's paradox, is a mathematical paradox. It is an imaginary microscopic intelligent being created by the British physicist James Clerk Maxwell to illustrate the apparent paradox of the Second Law of Thermodynamics.
Hermione didn't understand anything, but to avoid looking stupid, she pretended her new acquaintance's words explained everything. She made a mental note to study physics and math, and not limit herself to explanations like "It's magic." It turns out that ordinary people have long since come up with descriptions for magical phenomena; they just can't replicate the effects of spells...not yet.
As Richard and Hermione passed through the third carriage, they discovered the Weasley twins in one of the compartments. One of them, Fred, it seemed, exclaimed:
- Lord, wait. Father asked me to hand over a new development. Sorry, we forgot. George, where are they?
"I'll get it right away," George replied, after which he pulled a large suitcase from under the seat and took out a cloth bundle from it.
Richard unfolded the cloth on the table between the seats and found ordinary cordless telephone handsets: black and compact, with miniature antennas. There were five of them in total.
"These are voice communication artifacts," Fred explained.
"Artifacts?" Hermione chuckled. "But they look like regular phones."