"I don't think that works like that," Harry said for maybe the hundredth time that day. It was only the third time, but it felt like hundreds
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“I told you, that doesn’t work. It’s all rubbish,” Ron replied, because he’d tried putting the circle thing into the square thing before and it hadn’t worked at all. While he’d agreed with Harry and Hermione that it was worth trying to figure out just what all of that junk cluttering up their hut was actually good for, he couldn’t shake the feeling that somehow, whoever had given them presents the previous year had mixed him up with his dad somehow.
Why else would he get a pile of useless Muggle junk while Harry had gotten two Quidditch teams’ worth of perfectly good brooms?
He was lugging a piece of equipment for a class demonstration when he noticed the two hanging around outside.
The parts they were prodding more than the people themselves; for a moment, he thought they'd dragged something out of the room, but he hadn't brought anything before now.
"That circle thing doesn't just plug in, it isn't Lego," he said, pausing beside them, tipping his face forward so that his sunglasses slid down his nose a touch and he could look at them over it. "What did you pull apart to get those?"
He had been trying to keep from getting frustrated, but time was wearing on and it felt like they had tried every combination of parts possible. (They hadn't, clearly, but at a certain point everything feels repetitive.) Sighing heavily, he said, "Well, how are we supposed to--"
And then the man walked up. Harry recognized him vaguely as someone he had seen around the island, but he had no idea what his name was or how this was his business. "We didn't pull anything apart," he said.
He was in the middle of trying the circle thing again- just in case- when the man turned up with some weird Muggle junk of his own. Ron had seen the him around before, maybe in the compound or something, but he couldn't remember his name.
"Yeah, they're mine," Ron added, trying to very subtly set the two pieces in his hands down and pretend that he hadn't been trying to make them fit again.
"Yours. You don't know what it is, but... it's yours," Tony said, shooting him a skeptical look. "That's... well, those parts over there are a repulsor, assembled correctly. And that's junk, there, but it's junk that could easily be stablizing mechanisms. Really, where did you get this?"
Harry didn't like that skeptical look one bit. He got the impression that the man thought they had been stealing, which was ridiculous. Why would they steal something they didn't even know how to use? It was all pretty worthless to them, until they figured it out.
That the man had it all figured out, apparently, made him even more disagreeable to Harry. But it was useful information, so he checked his annoyance, as best he could.
"In January, when everyone got stuff," he explained with a hint of tightness in his voice.
Ron had absolutely no idea what a re-pull-ser was, but from the sound of the man who'd found them there, it was somehow important.
"Do you mean it actually does something?" Ron asked, his annoyance over he and Harry being criticised for messing about with something that they had every right to mess about with abated for the moment.
"It does a lot of things, none of them especially relevant to... you got parts you can't use and janitorial equipment?" he said, glancing between them. "Are you sure you got the right packages?"
“It’s not janitorial equipment.” That annoyance that Harry had held so carefully held back leaked into his words now. Not just leaked. It was liberally applied. “They’re racing brooms. They’re finely crafted. Best money can buy. Back home.” Some of the wind leaked from his sails now, as he came to the slow realization that the man had every reason to think of the Firebolts as little more than cleaning tools.
"We're not stupid," Ron replied, "Our names were written on the bloody packaging."
So, if anyone had gotten it wrong, it wasn't either of them. Maybe whatever weird thing went out giving random presents to people in January had mucked it up, but it wasn't either of their faults.
"Flying brooms," Tony said. Right. Wizards. British wizarding schools, from universes that matched up with certain works of fiction through multiversal circumstantial inevitability.
"Okay, now the pieces are fitting together. One of the things you could do with those-" he pointed at the parts, then at the brooms, "-is make those fly."
"That's what we're trying to do," Harry replied, as snootily as an eighteen year old who really had no idea what he was doing mechanically could manage. Which in the case of this particular eighteen year old was rather snooty. "Only it's not as easy as that."
Ron was just as annoyed as Harry that the man had turned up and had suggested that they had either stolen the Muggle junk or had gotten the wrong packages, but there was one important bit he picked up on.
"Hang on a minute, Harry," Ron said, before turning back to the man, "Do you have any idea how to make it work?"
Because as disappointing as it may have been, he and Harry definitely weren't getting anywhere.
"Some idea," Harry echoed dismissively, not willing to hear the man out with both ears just yet. So what if he knew more than Harry and Ron? Anyone might know more than Harry or Ron at this point.
"Good question," Ron agreed, looking to the man to answer Harry's question. If he'd never actually made anything fly before, then they'd just be putting their trust in someone who probably knew just about as much as they did. In that case, they'd just be better off asking Hermione to research it for the,.
Why else would he get a pile of useless Muggle junk while Harry had gotten two Quidditch teams’ worth of perfectly good brooms?
“Maybe we haven’t got all the parts.”
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The parts they were prodding more than the people themselves; for a moment, he thought they'd dragged something out of the room, but he hadn't brought anything before now.
"That circle thing doesn't just plug in, it isn't Lego," he said, pausing beside them, tipping his face forward so that his sunglasses slid down his nose a touch and he could look at them over it. "What did you pull apart to get those?"
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And then the man walked up. Harry recognized him vaguely as someone he had seen around the island, but he had no idea what his name was or how this was his business. "We didn't pull anything apart," he said.
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"Yeah, they're mine," Ron added, trying to very subtly set the two pieces in his hands down and pretend that he hadn't been trying to make them fit again.
"Do you know what all this is?"
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That the man had it all figured out, apparently, made him even more disagreeable to Harry. But it was useful information, so he checked his annoyance, as best he could.
"In January, when everyone got stuff," he explained with a hint of tightness in his voice.
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"Do you mean it actually does something?" Ron asked, his annoyance over he and Harry being criticised for messing about with something that they had every right to mess about with abated for the moment.
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“..Where they can fly.”
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So, if anyone had gotten it wrong, it wasn't either of them. Maybe whatever weird thing went out giving random presents to people in January had mucked it up, but it wasn't either of their faults.
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"Okay, now the pieces are fitting together. One of the things you could do with those-" he pointed at the parts, then at the brooms, "-is make those fly."
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"Hang on a minute, Harry," Ron said, before turning back to the man, "Do you have any idea how to make it work?"
Because as disappointing as it may have been, he and Harry definitely weren't getting anywhere.
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"Do I have any- I have some idea," he said, twirling one hand in a vague loop.
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"But have you ever done it?"
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