Mama this surely is a dream

[mad-actually.livejournal.com]

*Television boxes are strange things. Even for wizards, there's just something about them that wields a certain power. They're only happy when they're used, providing a stream of muffled laugh tracks, flashing lights and comfortable background distractions. But when they're unhappy, dead-screened and neglected, they can cast something almost oppressive around the room, making it seem emptier, quieter and distinctly uncomfortable - much more so than if it hadn't been there at all. They're particularly temperamental children; they demand interaction, input, ears and eyes.

Sure enough, like a failed father, Barty had never gotten the thing to work. As much as he loved it, cherished it, bragged about it, the tiny little muggle television, left behind by previous inhabitants, had never lit up as intended. Oh, he'd enchanted it innumerable times - but without the aid of wires the reception had never lasted for very long and usually picked up the worst sort of channels.

He sits in front of it now in cross-legged reverence, as if bowing before some fallen mentor. It lays where he pushed it, its screen-side flat to the floor, glass shards spewed up around it like fresh sick.

Clutching the cable box to his chest, Barty frowns.*