Sasha had walked away from the party a week ago with at least three important observations. 

1. The transition from classmates to working adults had had interesting effects on some of the interpersonal dynamics of his classmates.  In some ways it had been for the better.  People who might not have crossed paths very often back at Hogwarts seemed to be interacting more freely now that they were free from the constraints of seven years of house dynamics.  But, there did seem to be some interesting tensions building as each of them found their place on separate paths. 

2.  Bringing Anton had been about as problematic as he had anticipated and, with luck, it would be an isolated incident without any future complications.  That should be a simple enough goal to accomplish; it wasn't like his more outgoing counterpart had free access to the places his former classmates tended to congregate.

3.  Figaro's abilities to navigate the muggle world were dangerously limited.  Though many in the wizarding world strove to avoid slipping past cultural lines, there were sometimes when it was unavoidable, especially now that they weren't tucked away in a magical castle for the majority of the year. 

So, when Figaro had mentioned that he needed to go up to Cambridge for a work errand, Sasha had suggested they meet up for bit.  He'd neglected to specify that when he'd recommended finding a place to grab a bite before taking care of the errand, he'd intended on introducing Figaro to the epicenter ... the mecca ... of youthful muggle culture.  An immersion cultural experience, so to speak.  Tossing him off the deep end, with floaters attached of course. 

"You could easily spend an hour sniffing your way through The Body Shop," Sasha admitted as he held open the door to the Grand Arcade open and followed Figaro inside.  "Or, watch girls or play with the new phones on display.   Especially with the holidays coming up, there's bound to be good people watching." 

He shoved his hands in his pockets and weeded his way through a small cluster of people hanging out by the front door.  "How long do you have before you have to get back?"

Figaro had grown up cosy in the wizarding communities of Manchester and London, and spent his school years at Hogwarts - in this he wasn't unlike a great many people he knew. It might have been easy to simply cross the street and live one foot in the surrounding muggle world, but he just never had reason. That and Figaro had a reputation for lacking subtlety and had since he was wee. To be sure, Sasha Schlagenweit was his most muggley friend and thus among the most perplexing. He seemed to Figaro to suffer from not quite belonging either place. Hearing he'd ended up at Cambridge seemed to fit his studious friend, but Figaro couldn't relate to the desire to do more school.

As it was, Thursby jettisoned Figaro by broom to the ancient scholarly village of Cambridge to pick up some some old films which were not safe to Apparate.

"Nobody cares," Figaro answered, although it wasn't exactly accurate. "I'm the only one who will ride a broom in this weather so I'll not get snitched on. Whoa, brilliant."

The place was bright and open and filled with the dull echo of voices in the tall atrium. The shops all had this sleek modern look with loads of glass and faceless mannequins.

"Where are the phones?" he said, not being able to help staring at an older couple in matching turquoise tracksuits. They swish-swish-swished past. According to his muggle cousin, everyone had phones and she couldn't understand how Fig and Frank coped without one.

Sasha cast a curious glance in Figaro's direction but didn't comment.  He wasn't entirely sure Figaro was the best judge of what authority figures cared about but his former classmate was bound to know them better than he.  So, he kept his doubts to himself and figured, in this, Fig was bound to know better than him.

In complete agreement with the ones who had passed on the task of broom riding cross country in less-than-ideal conditions, Sasha wrinkled his nose and nodded.  "That sounds miserable," he admitted, quietly, as he slipped his coat off his shoulders and shook out the extra water over the absorbent mats by the front door.  "Could you have not used a fireplace?" he asked, adapting the wording with practiced ease.  "There's also the bus.  I still can't travel using the popular method so I still use the alternatives regularly." 

Of all the alternatives available to the non-apparating wizard, he'd quickly discovered brooms were the least comfortable for long distances.  Then there was also the question of what to do with the broom when you got there.  They were too expensive to leave lying around and he couldn't just use a bike lock and strap it to a street lamp.  And, sometimes, taking out the convertible Aston Martin was superior to all of the instantaneous options.

"Phones?" Sasha asked, glancing Figaro, again, this time with surprise.  "There are probably a couple of options.  But..." his voice trailed off as he led the way over to one of the rotating directories and scanned through the list of electronics stores.  "How about ... Mankind!  They probably have the new ones."  And other fun muggle-y stuff. 

Weaving past a cluster of teenaged girls, Sasha led the way to the store and up to the glass counter display filled with all the newest phones, including the new Siri-containing iphones.  "You can play with them."

It always surprised Fig when he knew more than Sasha. "Some things don't survive the Floo and Knight Bus doesn't run out here."

Fig had left his broom in his enchanted backpack along with the film. It was this really old archival stuff from when magical film was just being invented. It was very sensitive to magic, he'd been told. There was loads of it in the Daily Prophet's archives and there were signs everywhere to mind your wand (and not wear too much perfume when handling them). He might have explained more about the nuances of the transportation of magical antiques and filled Sasha in on the merits of broom travel, including Figaro's great skill at it, but they'd arrived at the phone store.

There was so much to look at, and Figaro didn't know what to look at first. He meandered as if he belonged there, in the shamless comfort that was Figaro Sellaphix. A great deal of the items glowed or blinked. There were bright colors, moving parts, and it smelled like a hospital. The phones were easy enough to find. There was a glowing white counter with shiny rectangles on little stands.

He laughed and picked one up. They were smooth and cold and the screen was bright filled with little square pictures. He turned it over in his hands looking for a button or something. Muggle things always had buttons.

"What..." he breathed. He glanced at a lady in a purple scarf looking at another phone nearby; she was tapping the screen.

He followed suit and tapped one of the squares that looked like rain cloud. The screen changed.

"What...!" he said, marveling. "It's the bloody weather. How does it know?"

"What could a newspaper want that wouldn't survive the Floo?" Sasha half-said, half-mused to himself, out loud.  "What doesn't ... nevermind."  Obviously, film didn't.  Sort of like metal detectors, he supposed.

The cause of Fig's surprise was completely lost on Sasha.  He'd generally come to accept that most of his classmates knew more about the wizarding world than he did, especially Figaro.  Figaro had grown up in the heart of the wizard world; Sasha had been almost completely isolated from it until three years ago. 

Sasha let Fig lead the way through the cases and stands filled with the latest gadgets, keeping a keen eye pealed for either a must-have that he didn't, yet, have or something to augment Abby's growing collection of technology. 

But, the other's meandering came to a halt as he picked up one of the latest iphone on display and turned it over in his hand.  As Figaro turned the floor model over in his hands, Sasha slipped his own phone from his pocket and punched in the password. 

"What...!  It's the bloody weather. How does it know?" Sasha heard from next to him and he glanced up from his own phone with a grin. 

"Well, the cop out answer commonly given when people don't know how something works is 'magic.'  But, I imagine that explanation won't work."  The irony was really rather amusing.  At least, it was to him.  "Satellites are flying high above the planet, gathering information about the weather and relaying it to the company that sends the information to the phone.  But, it gets even better." 

He turned his own phone off and set it on the display case in front of Fig.  "Hey, Siri.  What's the weather?" he spoke, unmistakably in the phone's direction.

"It's currently raining and thirteen degrees in Cambridge.  Expect rain to taper off this evening as temperatures go down to six degrees."

He scooped his phone up off the counter and opened it, snapping a quick picture of Figaro and The Phone before texting it to Abby.  Fig's discovering Apple.

Now if the phones were magic then it would make sense! Figaro marveled at how the clever muggles worked around it, launching giant ... electronic ... boxes into space to watch the weather from above. It was hard to wrap his brain around.

"Science," he grinned.

He looked up at Sasha. How could it get better -? Then Sasha asked a question allowed and the phone politely answered. The look on Figaro's face was pure gold.

"Sick! How did you do that? Hey, Siri, what do I have in my pocket?"

"Did you accidentally summon me?" came the pleasant response. Figaro arched an eyebrow at Sasha and then back at the phone. It was then that they were approached by a muggle with a mustache and a name tag.

"Are you finding everything, gentlemen? Ah, right, the iPhone 4S. Very cool, very cool."

Figaro twirled around, for a second feeling like he was caught with his hand in the cookie jar. But no. He was a regular muggle customer in a regular muggle store in the market for a regular muggle 'iPhone'. He presumed the stance of someone who was most accustomed and not at all dazzled.

"Very satisfactory, Amir." He looked to Sasha. "Wouldn't you say, Sasha?"

Sasha grinned as he watched Figaro fiddle with the iphone with obvious fascination and he could do little more than grin and shrug at the other's explanation.  "Ja.  Science." 

"And, it's like that old quote: magic is science we haven't found a way to explain."  It was, of course, a very muggle saying, but he hadn't really found a way to refute it.  Even after discovering his own abilities.  He dropped his voice, slightly, and leaned against the glass class to tap open the Google earth map and double tapped down to the overhead view of the street corner where the Leaky Cauldron sat.  "Imagine if we could ever get magic and science to play nicely together; imagine what would be possible." 

He chuckled and shrugged his shoulders, watching with quiet amusement as Figaro revealed in his first conversation with an Apple product.  His expression wasn't all that dissimilar from the (presumably) muggle customer at the other counter who was also trying Siri for the first time. 

"Siri - where's the closest sushi restaurant" he heard the other pair ask the phone and then giggle, excitedly, when the phone provided an answer. 

"Are you finding everything, gentlemen? Ah, right, the iPhone 4S. Very cool, very cool."

Sasha held back, allowing Figaro the opportunity to collect himself and answer without stepping in.  He even managed to avoid giggling at the answer the other provided though he wasn't at successful at avoiding a thoroughly amused grin.   "Yes, satisfactory, indeed.  My friend and I were looking for the latest and greatest in iphone accessories, but -"  Something around the corner of the last aisle had caught Sasha's attention and it was a must see.  "We'll have to come back to that.  Fig!"

With a tug at Fig's sleeve, Sasha scooped his own phone up in his hands and led the way to a display set up along one of the side walls.  With the eagerness of a(nother) child in a candy store he grinned broadly.  "Now, this is what I want," he admitted, gesturing for Figaro to sit down in the very gadget-y and totally awesome gaming chair set up, expertly, by the store in front of a gaming console.  "Here - swords, guns or driving?" he posed to Fig.  The offerings of a store display console were probably very limited but they were bound to have at least one first-person shooter, one driving game and one fantasy-esque magic and sword swinging game. 

As Sasha carted Figaro off to the next bright-n-shiny, Fig offered Helpful Amir a very serious muggle nod and smile. "Cheerio!" There was yet another wonder to behold. Again, Figaro's initial response was a breathy interjection.

"What?" He'd never seen a chair like this before in his life, and in front of it a large screen with rapidly changing images, luminescent, loud, shouting with light and color that he should try the demo. Below the screen contained in glowing blue plexiglass, an Xbox 360 S. As for the choice, well he'd never been offered such a thing.

Swords? Guns? Driving!?

"Driving ..." he whispered. He'd always wanted to drive a car. He sat down and he was suddenly surrounded by sound - the chair had speakers in the winged headrest. There was a smooth white controller set into a stand nearby, suspended like a crown jewel in a tower. It fit easily into his hands, the buttons like little gems.

"How do I do it?" he asked and pressed a button before waiting for the answer. The screen and the sounds changed.

"I know, I know - just take a seat," Sasha urged, inexplicably giddy from Figaro's reaction to the chair.  Unfortunately, the store's display only had one of the marvelous thrones set up so Sasha had to content himself with plopping down on the floor between the chair and the wall. 

Luckily, he was skinny enough that he could tuck himself into the small space without anyone accusing him of blocking any aisles of merchandise. 

"Nah ja - Fahren, Sasha murmured as he picked up the second controller on the display.  "Just give me ein Moment," he muttered, again, managing to leaf through the menu despite the effects of Figaro's random button pushing. 

Sasha cleared his throat as he loaded the driving game, trying to suppress a laugh that came out as a snort, instead.  "So - the game's Grand Theft Auto.  It's a pretty popular one; my friends and I play it a lot.  It's fairly straightforward.  You accelerate, break and turn-" he explained, lifting the control to show his own motions to Figaro. 

"You're going to want to drive your way to that flashing point on the screen and ... pick up some ... donuts.  Then, deliver the ... donuts across town.  That's probably a good starting point.  Just try not to hit too many things or the cops will come after you and you don't want to get caught with their donuts." 

Figaro was absolutely rapt. He leaned forward, eyes narrowed slightly as he glanced back and forth from the screen to the controller in his hands. He watched as a little cut scene played of his avatar puppeting through some irreverent dialog and got into the wrong side of a purple hot rod. Figaro checked down at the controls again and started pressing buttons as Sasha was showing him. The car on the screen mostly obeyed, but Figaro quickly over-corrected into a park bench, which went flying.

He giggled and kept going, little regard given for the curb. Awkward puppet people dove out of the way, smaller less-cool cars collided at intersections and Figaro continued skidding down some California street in a violet Camero. In the corner, a little beacon on a mini-map showed his location relative to his goal.

"Why are there sirens? Is that the cops? Move, bus! Move!" Figaro tapped the controller with feeling but the large city bus was wedged in somehow.

"Since I know you didn't take mug- social studies, I feel-"  Sasha laughed and cringed, again, as Figaro proceeded to put another pixel dent into the side of the sparkling purple paint job.  "I feel obligated to point out that benches and garbage cans won't move out of your way." 

It wasn't like the Knight Bus, though that would be a killer modification to his own game. 

As tiny on-screen pedestrians dove out of Figaro's way, Sasha provided the occasional quiet cries of 'Heeelp' or 'I'm calling my lawyer' as an uninvited soundtrack.  "You are definitely not driving any of my cars," he remarked with a cheeky grin as the corner of the game started flashing blue. 

"Yes - yes - cops.  Go go go - down that alley.  They know you have drugs...donuts.  Back up around the bus and then - turn right!"  Sasha urged, pointing at the screen.  "There's a chain link fence you should be able to drive through.  If they catch you, they'll yank you from the car and throw you in jail.  Pedal to the metal!" 

"I am absolutely going to drive your car," Figaro said. He grunted and heaved himself bodily to the right in an enthusiastic attempt to follow Sasha's directions. His digital car responded and ricocheted down a narrow alleyway. He got it straightened out and sure enough, the chainlink fence at the end of the street gave way and some kind of point bonus flashed across the screen.

"Someone's already there. You must wait your turn." 

Fig glanced over his shoulder. A little girl with poofy pigtail puffs was being practically held back by an older relative.

"Oh, uh, we're almost ..." Figaro said and started to stand up. But they were so close...! Or maybe they weren't, Figaro couldn't yet tell if they had the 'donuts' yet or not, or if they were going the right way. He did see a trail of destruction in his wake, which was satisfying.

Almost immediately, Sasha's mouth opened to issue some sort of polite declination of such an idea but he quickly shrugged and closed it, again.  He watched the violet sports car careen around the corner into the alley before offering a slightly smug: "I suppose I did teach Xavier how to drive.  Maybe I need to open Sasha's Speedway and Driving School for Wi- Wildly Vehicularly Challenged." 

Less enraptured by the game play, he'd caught the movement of the girl and relative out of the corner of his eye before he'd committed to some vagrant act of exposure. 

Yes, unfortunately for Figaro, they would have to relinquish the game to other customers.  To add to the other's misfortune, Sasha had some difficult news to break to his former classmate. 

"You're nowhere  near done, I'm afraid," he offered, patting Figaro consolingly on the shoulder.  "I've logged over forty hours into it and I'm just over halfway done.  You're not even halfway through the tutorial."  He patted Figaro's shoulder once more and carefully pushed himself to his feet.  "But, I do have the game at home, if you ever want to play it in earnest.  Just, don't have the fancy chair.  Yet."  Something that would have to change soon; he just had to figure out where he was going to set it up.

He left Figaro to detach from the game in peace (a need he was all too familiar with) and returned to browsing the display of appropriately-nerdy phone cases near Amir and the mobile device display.  It wouldn't hurt to get a new personalized case; his old one would soon be no longer applicable and maybe he needed an appropriately themed one. 

"Forty hours," Figaro mumbled as he unsuccessfully attempted to put the Xbox back to the demo mode where he'd found it. The little girl, though, she knew exactly what she was doing and before Figaro had fully walked away she was steering a sword-wielding warrior in scrappy leather armor through windswept moors.

"Forty hours, I'd never have time for that," Figaro repeated and caught up with Sasha. He rather wondered how Sasha did - the kid seemed to live two lives at once. Figaro joined Sasha in browsing the brightly colored phone cases, gleaming like gems in clear plastic packages claiming to be accident proof and water-resistant. The range of choice in this store was vast and Figaro would have been overwhelmed if he wasn't a naturally laid back and unaffected; but had there been any pressure to make a choice, or if he was here on his own, it would be easy to get quickly lost in the bright and shiny.

Figaro stepped away to an adjacent display of headphones. They hung on hooks ready to try on. Like everything else, they came in tons of colors and styles and were described with arcane scientific buzzwords like blue tooth and noise cancelling.

"Get the one with the unicorn," he suggested pointing at one of the phone cases. "You and Abby, right? You'll blend right in. They'll accept you as one of their own."

First Moira, now Figaro.  Figaro!  "It's like an hour a night for a month," he offered quietly, in his own defense as wide eyes followed Figaro as he came to join Sasha at the phone cases.  The whole post-school productivity role reversal was getting progressively weirder.  "It's a good substitute for sleep.  Though, once I become a government trainee, that might be harder," he admitted, as much to himself as Figaro.

"Is that a reflection of work hours or have you blossomed a respectable social life?" Sasha tagged on, turning back to browse the selection.  "I hear you're hanging out with Moira a lot."  He let the comment dangle in the air, curious as to what their budding companionship amounted to. 

Which, apparently, girls had become a bit of the topic of choice. 

"Get the one with the unicorn.  You and Abby, right? You'll blend right in. They'll accept you as one of their own."

Sasha coughed, a brilliant blush spreading across his cheeks as he mumbled an awkward "he didn't mean it like that" to two other shoppers that had looked quickly in their direction.  He plucked one of the cases from the rack, tucked it under his arm while pulling out his own phone to fire off a quick text.  He had the bemused response by the time he was standing next to Figaro. 

"That word has ... alternative connotations," Sasha pointed out as he slipped his phone back in his pocket.  "It - nevermind.  Anything strike your fancy?" he asked.