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Growing up surrounded by wizards and witches, Arthur Weasley never thought much about Muggles. He knew about them, of course; their last war had reached as far as the wizarding world and further. It wasn't even that he didn't like them; certainly they never came 'round calling, but he was sure they were all good sorts of chaps, in their Muggle-ish ways. He'd heard rumors, even, of a distant cousin who lived among the Muggles, as a Squib, but that was different. Squibs weren't really Muggles at all, were they?
Even coming from an old wizarding family, that first night at Hogwarts was magical. Yes, the food appearing on golden plates was a spectacular trick, and nothing beats getting Sorted by a relic of the great wizards of old, but the real charm and delight of the evening came from seeing all these budding witches and wizards from across the country, all on one place. This was the sort of gathering Arthur equated with Quidditch Cup matches, not school.
That night, the first year Gryffindor boys talked a bit while they unpacked. For Arthur, the most exciting thing was hearing from little Charlie Cribbins. When asked about his favorite Quidditch team, Charlie shrugged, saying that he didn't know Quidditch, but he was mad for Manchester United. You see, until a couple of months ago, Charlie didn't know he was magical at all; he had grown up Muggle.
At breakfast the next morning, Arthur couldn't contain his curiosity. He sat down across from Charlie and, after putting some bacon on his plate, said, "Is it true Muggles think the rain is full of pets?"
Charlie looked up from his porridge. "How's that?"
"This Muggle at the train station yesterday said it was raining cats and dogs, but when I looked outside, it was just water."
Charlie laughed so loud and long that a prefect from the Ravenclaw table came over to shush him. Wiping his eyes, he said, "Sorry, mate, but I haven't heard anything so funny in forever! No, Muggles don't think rain is full of cats and dogs. It's just a saying, a quaint sort of way to describe a heavy rain."
Arthur looked at Charlie for a moment, and then sunk his head onto the table, his ears turning bright red. He felt a tap on his head and looked up to see Charlie with the widest, cheekiest grin on his face.
"Now you know how I felt all last night. To think that witches actually fly on brooms! I thought it was just a story!"
"Oh, but broom flying is brilliant! You can't play Quidditch without a broom!"
Arthur and Charlie spent the rest of breakfast going over the finer points of Quidditch. At least Arthur did. Charlie tried to make sense of it, but every time Arthur mentioned the keeper, he kept seeing Harry Gregg flying on a broom in front of the net, and that just didn't work.
Charlie and Arthur sat together at lunch, and this time it was Charlie who did the talking. As he talked about his home, his old school, and football, Arthur found he had more questions than he thought existed. "So there's this big white box that keeps food cold? You just stick a wire in the wall and it works? And you're saying it's not magical?"
"That's the heart of it, yeah."
"I'm... I'm... gobsmacked!" Arthur said. "I never imagined Muggles were full of such inventive ideas!"
"We do all right for ourselves," Charlie said proudly. Even if he was a wizard, the Muggle world was his home.
For the next several weeks, the boys traded tales from their respective worlds. Charlie was fascinated by the different methods of magical travel and wondered how well they worked over long distances. "The latest series of Zoo Quest went to Madagascar. That's what I wanted to do, before I found out about Hogwarts."
"What did you want to do?" Arthur didn't know what a Zoo Quest was.
"Be a television presenter and travel the world to see all sorts of animals," Charlie said.
Arthur hadn't heard of television before, and as Charlie explained about the box with the glass window that brought pictures and sound into the living room, Arthur's eyes grew wide and a smile spread across his face.
"I'm telling you, Charlie, we wizards have nothing on the Muggles. Just think of it — moving pictures that aren't magic, cones that make voices heard around the country, and glass windows that can see into jungles!"
The school year, however, soon drove all thoughts of Muggle ingenuity out of Arthur's head. Even if he had seen hover charms performed hundreds of times, he couldn't do a decent one without a lot of concentration. Still, Arthur and Charlie spent some Friday evenings talking about all things wizard and Muggle; both were fascinated by the things they heard.
In December Arthur surprised Charlie with a birthday present. "It's not much," he said as Charlie opened the box. Inside lay an eagle feather quill and a dark jar. "I thought you'd get a kick out of the rainbox ink. My brother said that it takes a while for each stroke to settle into its color but before it does, it sort of dances through all sorts of colors." They spent the next hour and a half doodling on a spare bit of parchment, watching the ink colors swirl through dozens of variations.
When Arthur turned twelve a few months later, Charlie couldn't help but laugh at some of the presents. Arthur's father sent him several books all about Muggles, including one called The Adventurer's Guide to Simple Muggle Living. When Charlie began reading passages with a Binns-like drone, Arthur laughed so hard he ended up in a coughing fit.
"How'd you like something properly Muggle?" Charlie asked after Arthur had recovered. He handed a small, lumpy package to Arthur and explained, "My dad works in an electronics shop and has a lot of these hanging around. I thought you'd like it."
Arthur quickly opened the package and found something wonderful and undeniably Muggle... even if he didn't know what it did. He picked it up by one of the silver colored tubes. Holding it close to his face, he spun the object around in his fingers, trying to suss out what it could be.
"I don't know what it is, Charlie," Arthur said excitedly, "but it's fantastic! Cheers, mate!"
Charlie grinned. "It's called a plug. It's what connects things like the television and refridgerator to the wall so it can have power."
Arthur immediately grabbed his new book, A Compendium of Muggle Objects and Their Uses, to find the entry on plugs. He bookmarked the page and stuffed it in his schoolbag. "So I can read it later," he said.
"During History of Magic?"
"Probably," laughed Arthur, pocketing the plug.
True to his word, Arthur read through the Compendium's entry on plugs during History of Magic, along with a dozen other entries. In fact, Arthur Weasley was the first student in years to be excited about learning in Professor Binns's classroom. Too bad it wasn't about magical history.