Chương 42: ITW,H - Chapter 42 - (5) Christmas Break

(Word Count: 1, 410) By their next stop, Luna was back to her cheerful self. Nothing can get her down for long. Their next stop was a bookstore, and this time, Draco did seem to be impressed by something. Primarily, with the comic books displayed. Harry glanced at the one he seemed most intrigued by. It was a recently released X-Men comic, Vol 2, #1. It had Wolverine with his claws out, Cyclops shooting a laser, and Iceman covered in ice.

"Interested?" Harry teased.

"Don't be ridiculous, I was just… looking," Draco said, and quickly moved on. Harry glanced between them and went ahead and gathered some of the comics for Draco's christmas gift. Any boy should find comics interesting, and all of the powers of the mutants were sure to capture the imagination of even a young wizard like Draco. Draco was a bully. There was no doubt about that. However, he was still just a kid at the moment. He didn't deserve to be hated as a death eater.

And even in the later books, when he actually was marked as a death eater, it was easy to pity the kid. If there was something Harry could do now that would help pull Draco away from that path, then he would at least try. If buying him a couple of comics got him to appreciate something from the muggle world, and by extension muggles and muggleborns, then the small cost was worth it. Luna came skipping over to him, and handed him a book.

"Harry, you have to look at this!" Harry looked at it. It was a book on cryptids around the world.

"Do you think these are really out there?"

"Well, considering that we're still discovering new species all the time, and that the wizarding world is hidden away with all of its magical creatures, why not?" Honestly, he wouldn't be surprised to find out that bigfoot was some eccentric wizard. Luna smiled excitedly and jumped up and down in a small, happy dance.

"Oh, Harry! You have to get this for me! Make this my Christmas present!" Harry laughed, taking part of Luna's own excitement.

"Alright, if that's what you want, I'll get the book for you." Luna squealed and hugged him, "Thank you, thank you, thank you! Daddy will love to see this too!" Harry smiled to himself. A book like this was Harry's original plan for Luna's gift already. Now it looked like he would have to get her something else as well, so she would still have a surprise gift from him. When they found themselves in a game store, Draco was intrigued by the moving pictures.

It was the first time he saw moving pictures since they came into the muggle side of London—so far it was just billboards that didn't move—so he was attracted to something that was finally familiar. It was a game machine, set up to attract kids and gamers into the store. Because it was Christmas break, there were some kids already on it, playing what looked to be two characters fighting each other. He approached them.

"What are you two doing?" The boy playing glanced at him, but otherwise stayed focused on the fighting game.

"What does it look like? We're playing!" That's when Draco realised that the kids in front of the machine were controlling the little guy on the screen. He was stunned.

"You mean, you're actually controlling those images? How?" If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

"I don't know, man! You just press the buttons! Now leave me alone, you're making me lose!" Harry came over to watch. It was Street Fighter 2, which came out earlier this year. Harry hadn't been able to see it yet.

"Nice, I wasn't expecting to see Street Fighter here."

"You know about this?" Draco asked.

"Do you know how they're controlling the people in the glass?"

"Through a little thing called electricity. They push the buttons, and that tells the computer inside it how you want the characters to act. The character's don't actually have any sort of thoughts on their own though, so they're not like paintings we see in the wizarding world. It's just a series of images, shown in a certain order. It's called a video game. Do you want to try it?" Harry explained.

Draco looked like he wanted to refuse, just on the principle of the matter, but then he saw Chun Li on the screen do her high kicks. He flushed red and nodded without thinking. Harry grinned.

"Heh, Come on then, you don't have to wait in line to play it on this machine. You can just buy your own gameboy, and get a couple of games you may like."

"I can get my own…" Draco gestured to the arcade game machine questioningly.

"Well, not here, but there's a smaller hand held device you can get." Though now that Harry thought about it, setting up an arcade room sounds like a pretty good idea. He would have to look into it. Hey, he was rich, so he could do that. Harry led them to the selection of gameboys.

"These smaller gameboys can play games on them too, and look! They have Street Fighter as well!" Harry grabbed them, and placed them into Draco's hands.

"Wait, I can't buy this! I don't have any muggle money on me!" He tried to deny it, but Harry insisted.

"Don't worry about it, I can loan you some money, you can just pay me back in galleons," Harry said brushing off his concerns. He then picked out a couple of more games Draco might like. Such as Final Fantasy 1, Castlevania 1, and Metroid: Return of Samus.

"Here, you'll have to try these games out. These are only the first ones, but you can always come back to get the sequels." Harry had, of course, already bought them for himself as they came out. He had those, along with their sequels, Battle Toads, Mysterium, and Ninja Gaiden Shadow. He had copies to play for himself, as well as new sets that he kept preserved in their boxes. They would sell for a lot later down the road. He also owned a bunch of shares in many of the game companies, so there's that.

"Are you worried about your father finding them? If so, you can always hide them with me and we can play them together when you come over. I'm sure your mother will want us to keep visiting each other to ally our houses together, so you'll have plenty of opportunities to play them."

"Hmph, no need, Potter. It's easy to hide things from him. He's gone for most of the day anyway, or in his study," Draco didn't look so happy about that.

"But why should I bother? That seems to be a lot of effort for muggle stuff. Not to mention, if I do get caught, father will have my hide. This seems like something a blood traitor would do."

"Because these games are a lot of fun! I think you will love them. Trust me, I've played them all myself. On a more serious note, I'm not saying you need to become a blood traitor and abandon your beliefs, but I believe that there is something good and worthwhile in every culture. Why not learn more about the world you live in? There's no harm in that." Draco looked doubtful, but relented.

"Alright, fine. I'll get the games. But I'll be paying you back for the games later. I don't want to owe you anything." Harry raised his hands in surrender.

"Alright, fair enough. Just remember, you can't cast any spells on the gameboy, or it will stop working. Also, when apparating or traveling through the floo, you need to take the batteries out, they're right here." Harry pointed out the batteries, and then explained how to put them back in properly.' Heh, you fool! You've fallen into my trap!' Play enough games, and enjoy enough muggle culture, and soon enough he'll stop hating muggles and muggleborn.

Soon, he'll be declared a blood traitor by his father, and he'll stop being racist. It was Harry's grand plan. Honestly, the games might work better than the comics, but there's no reason why he can't get both. Overall, the day went much better than Harry had anticipated. He had bought all of his gifts, and Draco came away from it with the start of a deeper appreciation for muggle culture.