“Alright there, Arthur?” the eccentric man with the candy floss hair asked his friend.

“Ah, Xenophilius.  How are you?”  Arthur deflected the question that he did not want to answer.

“I’m well.  Really well.  The centaurs just gave me some fabulous information about the crumple horned snorkack.  It seems they’ve been spotted along the Cape of Good Hope,”  He put his hand on his friend’s shoulder and pressed his friend to answer,  “You know what I mean, Arthur.”

It had been two months since the Battle of Hogwarts.  Two months since the celebrations and the Order of Merlins had been awarded.  Two months since Arthur had buried his son.

“Molly is taking it pretty hard,” Arthur conceded.  “George and Ginny too.  We are all sort of muddling through,” he let out a heavy sigh.

“But how are you doing my friend?” Xenophilius pushed a little harder.  “I have not known the pain of losing my child permanently, but there were those several months when Luna was kidnapped.  I can only imagine what you are going through.”

Arthur hung his head.  “Come with me,” he said.  He led Xenophilius through the back garden of the burrow and into his shed.  Arthur wound his way around a large bench, piled high with interesting objects from the muggle world.  Xenophilius normally didn’t bother with such trivial objects, instead preferring to study magical creatures.

Xenophilius was watching Arthur intently as he fiddled with one of the unusual boxes.  It had a series of buttons on the side of it and an unusually thick string coming from underneath the box.  The string was very long and hung off of the table.  Xenophilius bent over to follow it, but realized it ended with another interesting looking button that lay on the ground.

“That is what the muggles call a plug,” Arthur’s voice sounded a little more perky.  “Apparently they use something called ‘lectrisitee’ to operate their objects.  But…” Arthur lowered his voice and leaned in toward his friend, “Harry taught me a spell - don’t tell Molly.”  Arthur tapped his wand at the box and muttered a few words.

Instantly a few sparks flew out of the side of the box and Xenophilius raised his eyebrows.  “Indeed that is impressive, Arthur!  The muggles must make great use of their spark-flying machines!”  he clapped his hands together.

“No, no, no!” Arthur chuckled.  “It does that sometimes if the spell is too strong.  It is called a stereo.”  Arthur quickly began fiddling with the buttons on the side of the box.  A strange, squeaky sound was coming out of it.  It was quiet at first, but got louder, the more he twisted the buttons.  There was a voice speaking out of the box.

“Hello?, Hello?” Xenophilius tried to speak back to the person in the box.

“No, no!” Arthur was laughing for real now.  “The muggles call this a stereo.  It is similar to when we used to listen to ‘Potterwatch.’ You know —the show that Fred put on with his friend, Lee Jordan.  When I’m feeling sad, I come in here and listen to this for a bit.  It helps.”

“Well, that is very good indeed Arthur.  I was going to suggest that you dust some dried Gillyweed around your fingertips to get rid of the nargles, but it seems you are doing just fine on your own.”

Arthur smiled at his friend, shaking his head at the outrageous suggestion.  Despite it all, he did feel a bit better.