I took a quick look around as I entered Lys's home. The ground floor was composed of two large rooms, connected by a doorway; one was a large kitchen while the other was an equally large dining room.
The dining room, which was where we entered, was dominated by a large long table, like the ones at Hogwarts. I knew there were only five of them in the house so I assumed they had something this big to have space to entertain guests. That would also explain why the kitchen was so big, and why it came equipped with enough stuff for a small army to cook in there effectively, without tripping over each other. From my quick peek into the place as I passed the doorway I'd seen two stoves, at least, with accompanying work surfaces for easy access. Dried foodstuffs, like herbs, onions and garlic hung fro, the rafters within easy reach. There were two large ovens, side by side, at the far wall and flanking another door that led outside was a pair of washing stations.
There didn't seem to be anything resembling a refrigerator in there, but I did spot a trapdoor near to the ovens, it was possible that they had a cold cellar. I also noticed that they didn't seem to have running water. I'd have to mention it to Lys later. It shouldn't be too hard to install some indoor plumbing. It should be a snap to manage hot and cold running water as well.
The dining room was richly decorated with various pieces of art, the normal kind, that didn't move. There was a large fireplace on the right side of the room and at the very back, I could see a staircase leading up to the second floor.
Torby made a beeline for the kitchen, while Lys led me to the table and sat down and I took that to mean I should too.
"Dad! Are Grond and Fae home?" Lys yelled.
"No, they are with their mother!" Her father called back before he appeared beside them holding a tray with various pastries and a pitcher of something green.
And then he started with the interrogation! Nothing too bad at first, just questions about school, friends, and interests I had. I answered as best I could, while still keeping things as vague as possible when it came to any future plans I had. I knew he would probably start to dig into areas I might not be interested in talking about as of yet, so, to forestall it I started to ask some questions of my own, mostly about the village and his place in it, which naturally lead into his business ventures, and his ongoing cold war with the goblins.
Though, calling it a cold war might be overstating things, a little a bit. There was only about a hundred people living in this little village, mostly dwarves but there were three families of wizards here as well, and while Torby was independently wealthy, his enterprise, which mostly dealt with trade between the wizarding world and the magical one, was not big enough to significantly cut into the goblins' profit margin. Not yet anyway. So, while there had been some shady types skulking around and making veiled threats, Torby wasn't disruptive enough, or wealthy enough, to warrant more stringent actions.
I have to say, I was impressed by what he had managed to build, particularly in the muggle world. The use of squibs and muggleborns and their muggle families to act as go-betweens to facilitate the movements of good was smart. He'd even owned some businesses on the other side, and to my amusement, he had actually gone for one of the more common ways people like me would make a living, by opening various repair shops.
Lys excused herself from the table around this point and disappeared upstairs, obviously not interested in the topic of conversation. We let her go without comment.
Seeing as Torby had already hit on one of the more common ones I suggested he open a delivery service. At this time Wizards could travel long distances both faster and cheaper than any muggle could, and across borders. Torby was initially skeptical of the notion but warmed up to it as I continued to explain the various ways he could easily profit from it, particularly if he made use of vanishing cabinets. I didn't do it out of the goodness of my heart, of course. I had been wondering how I would go about establishing an identity in the muggle world for some time now. Because the hard truth was, I didn't exist, not as far as muggles were concerned. And I had no idea how to go about changing that.
But I bet Torby could help me with that, or find someone that could. That was provided I could get on his good side. There was also the issue of future business opportunities. It was 1970 now, and in five years' time Bill Gates and Paul Allen would found Microsoft, and a year after that Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak and Ronald Wayne would create Apple.
That was two of the most successful companies in human history, and the ones the led the world into the computer age.
It would be rather stupid of me not to try to find a way to get a finger in the pie. I bet both of them would appreciate some investment capital in return for a share of the company. A silent partner, if you will. And now that I thought about it there was also Intel, I think it was already a thing at this time. My planed trip to the states suddenly gained a new facet. I asked Torby if he had any contacts over in the states, he did, and if he knew anything about computers.
"I dunno Drew... I mean, thinking machines? Who has heard of such a thing?" Torby said to me with a dubious expression on his face. "I have heard of computers, but they are supposed to be big and expensive, and not all that useful. Hardly something the average person could ever afford. It doesn't seem to be a very profitable thing to sink money into tight now."
"It's the future, T. Trust me on that. I know it might not look like it now, but consider this, the first computers were so big they filled several floors of the buildings they were in, now they fit into a room. In forty years' time, you can walk around with one in your hand." I told him seriously.
Torby smiled faintly, clearly not believing me. "That's quite the prediction, kid. But still, you have no way to know that it will really happen."
I smirked and reached into my jacket and pulled out my cellphone and laid it out on the table in front of him. It was a bit of a risk, showing this to him, but I figure that anyone that could produce someone like Lys was at least trustworthy enough to give a chance to. Torby looked at the small black rectangular piece of plastic I'd placed in front of him curiously before looking back at me. Deciding that this would be much easier to do if we were sitting beside each other I switched sides and sat down beside the older man and then switched on the phone.
It still worked of course. I'd been carefully experimenting with it over the years, very carefully; to see if I could identify the cause of the disruptive effect magick could have on technology in certain cases. While I hadn't been able to conclusively say what the underlying cause was, I had made one important discovery. It was only in the moment when a spell was cast that it caused disruptions. Just taking a technological object into a magical environment wasn't enough to cause any noticeable effect on it. But casting a spell near it, well, that did have an effect.
The discrepancy was rather obvious in hindsight. Diagon Alley was actually a really good example. The Alley existed in the middle of a muggle residential area. By all rights, the charms that hid it from the muggles should be shorting out anything running on electricity on the whole block. But it didn't. I'd asked some of the shop owners, one that sold lighting fixtures, if they suffered from unexplained outages all the time.
They didn't.
My current, unproven, theory was that wizards emitted short-ranged EM pulses when they cast spells, for some reason I'd not been able to determine. It would handily explain why Hogwarts was so adept at cooking electronics, and why keeping my phone in a steel box while it was there, keeping it functional.
"This is called a cellphone, it's a micro-computer more powerful than everything the muggles have at the moment, hell it might be more powerful the everything they have at the moment." I handed the phone over to Torby, who took it gingerly before looking at me uncertainly. I smiled reassuringly. "Why don't you play around with the apps a bit, you use it by tapping or dragging your fingers across the screen like this," I said and demonstrated by opening my word-processor app. "Some of the stuff doesn't work since you need an internet connection."
"Internet connection?" Torby wondered even as he started to experiment with the phone.
"Not sure of what it is exactly, only that it has something to do with the transference of information back and forth between devices similar to this one," I explained, having expected the question and had a pre-loaded lie ready to go. Something that would fit in with the rest of the lie I planned to tell the half-elf. "Most of what I know about it I've gotten from the book loaded into its library."
"Library?" Torby asked before flinching back with a yelp as the phone started to blare out music. I was quick to snatch it out of the air as he dropped it and turned it off. "Yeah, it has about fifty books loaded into it, a few of them mention the internet, calling it the world wide web, for some reason."
"I see..." He said absently as he accepted the phone back and began scrolling through the apps again. "Where did you get this? Did you make it?"
"No. I had a bit of an adventure when I was ten, I was out in a lightning storm, got hit, I must have used magic accidentally to do... something, since I survived. I found that afterward, along with this." I said and produced the charger. "It's a charger; the phone runs on electric batteries that can be recharged by plugging one part of it into the phone and the other into a compatible socket in the muggle world."
Torby noded absent as he clicked on the camera app and was surprised when his face appeared on the screen, though, not enough to not make a little quip. "Oh, hello there, you handsome devil you!"
I laughed at his feeble joke. "If you press the gray circle at the bottom it will take a picture and save it in the phone, and if you hit the squiggly bit in the upper right corner it will start to record a video."
"Video?"
"It kinda like a wizard picture, only you can't interact with it, it just replays the time you have recorded over and over again," I explained shortly.
"Oh, I see." He said looking stunned. "Well... this just takes the cake, dosen't it."
"Convinced?" I asked smugly.
Torby gave me a chiding look. "Don't get sassy with me, young man. I admit you have given me something to think about, but I will have to do some looking on my own before I commit to anything, so don't pat yourself on the back just yet."
I reclaimed the phone from Torby, who looked a bit reluctant to let it go, before giving him a thumbs up. "You do that. I'll be heading over to the states after my stay here so if you give me your contact there we can touch base."
Torby was prevented from responding by the front door flying open with a bang and two children, a boy and a girl at about the same age, charging into the room, and at seeing there father the rushed over and hugged him while babbling at about the speed of light. Torby didn't seem to have any problem understanding them though.
"Did you have a good time visiting Uncle Pat?" He asked.
"Yeah!" Was the enthusiastic reply from both of them before the boy piped up. "He let me play with one of his pigs, it was big and fat, and it farted!" The boy said before giggling like it was the funniest thing.
"It's nasty." The girl stated firmly.
"Nuh uh!"
"Yuh uh!"
"Nuh uh!"
"Yuh uh!"
"Alright!" Torby interrupted, separating the two before they came to blows. "Now, where is your mother?"
At that moment an unearthly shriek echoed trough the whole, emanating from the back of the house.
[GREETINGS!] Gond's voice boomed through the house moments later.
The only response was another yell, this one sounding angrier then frightened, followed by a sound like a bell being rung.
Torby chuckled, deducing what was happening. "Never mind, I think I found her. Come along. Let's go rescue your sister's present before your mother turns it into scrap."