The internet... Right... Okay. Cool. How do I explain the concept of a universal knowledge box that everyone has access to, filled with a near infinite amount of different libraries, all with different subjects covering the span of history, the present, and general knowledge with different viewpoints of those subjects, different viewpoints of those viewpoints, and the occasional analysis dump that all those viewpoints were wrong to begin with, to an entire community filled with stuck at home people playing magical picture games whilst been obscenely racist to one another for no reason at all and all put under the universal concept that if it lives or trends long enough it will inevitably lead to a discussion on what the Nazis did?
And that's not even getting into the concept of Twitter and Youtube.
I should probably just not mention the dark web as a whole-
And... judging by the vacant stares coming from my two cousins, I pretty much just did.
"...Okay," Andromeda stated after a moment. "From the top now-" Narcissa promptly leaned in towards her sister's side, interrupting her in the process.
"Shouldn't we ask him about what he did at the hall?"
"I can hear you, you know?" Narcissa blinked at that, before frowning- "Seriously, have you not been paying attention to my seri-"
"Don't you dare make a pun after the crap you pulled!" Narcissa remarked, alarmed. "You- What were you even thinking!?"
I shrugged at her.
"Dunno. Honestly, can't really remember what drove me to use it in the first place, but eh, it happened and we're just going to ignore it and move on."
"..." Andy tilted her head at me. "You can't seriously believe that? You threatened every single family in the country-"
I idly looked around the room and patted the bed I was still on. "And got a pretty decent room for it."
"Sirius, this is..." Andy paused for a moment before letting out a sigh. "Serious..." A beat passed before she locked eyes with me again. "Don't."
"I wasn't going-"
"Yes, you absolutely were." Both of them cut me off.
The injustice- The presumption that I would, even in this state- I mean... Yeah, they're not wrong.
Oh, I think I said that out loud judging by the looks on their faces.
I rolled my eyes at them.
"Look, most of the time, I tend to confuse you two right?" I got a very fast nod from the older cousin and a hesitant one from blondie. "Right, well, honestly, I confuse me too." I gave them a thumbs up. "So, you know, nothing to worry about, it's the same old, same old-"
"You threatened the entire country." Narcissa cut me off with a deadpan voice.
"Technically I threatened the entire world, but eh, whose counting?"
"...Why??" Narcissa continued and this time with a grumble. "Everything was going so well, you could've- Could've literally come out of Hogwarts as a... As another freakin' Merlin!" Narcissa remarked, utterly frustrated.
"You mean Him, right?"
She blinked at that, her rise in emotion dying down the slightest bit.
"'Cos I still am Him, just, you know-"
"Whose him?" Narcissa interrupted me again.
Rude.
"I mean, literally, Him." A beat passed. "The dude. The guy. The great." Another beat passed as I tilted my head at her. "Him? What's not to understand?"
Narcissa processed that for a few seconds before she turned toward her sister. "I think he's still broken."
"He's always been broken." Andy deadpanned with a sigh. "Sirius."
"Sup."
"You can't just ignore what you did yesterday." A frown rapidly etched itself onto her face.
Sheesh.
At least wait 'til your married before getting lines on your- Oh wait no, the evil in our genetic blood makes us look good forever.
"This... This isn't just family you showed that to you know... It's the... It's everyone." Andy remarked, a solemn tone to her voice. "They're not going to ignore it-"
"Good." I couldn't help but blurt out. "I don't want them to."
Andy blinked a few times at that, mostly in worry.
"I want them to understand where I, and they stand." I continued with a shrug. "I want them to know exactly what it is they'll be fighting if they decide to play chicken with me." I narrowed my eyes. "It's all in good intentions, Andy, but believe me when I say that the future is not on our side regardless of that."
The sisters looked at each other for a moment at that before turning back towards me.
"Is this about that internet thing?" Narcissa questioned, beating her sister to the punch. "I didn't... I didn't really get what you meant so... Is it really that bad? You mentioned that it'd break the statute of secrecy but... It's not like that's never happened before right?" The girl chuckled, uneasily. "Like, they can just-"
"Cissy, imagine a giant spider web." I cut her off with a stern look- Which I imagine didn't look particularly sterny on my child ass face. "Imagine a world wide web, connected to every single home on the planet. Where muggles, and magic alike can access it as easily as they access water."
I gave them a moment to think about it, before getting a rather confused okay from the blonde.
"Now imagine that connection that everyone has access to is a book." They blinked at that. "A book that they can write on, whatever they feel like, whenever they want- A book they can write their feelings on, a book they can write their studies on- Their views- Their everything, from what they learned, to what they ate for breakfast." A beat passed. "And every single person in the world, within seconds, will be able to see all of that."
There was a heavy frown growing on Andy's face by this point, while dread slowly built up on Narcissa's face.
"All the information they put in? That web will hold for eternity. To the point that even if they decided to take whatever they put in back out, moments after putting it in, it would already be too late 'cos somewhere out there there's a copy of it word to word."
"...That can't be real." Andy muttered slowly, before shaking her head. "That just- That sounds magical... There's no way the muggle world wouldn't find out about something that-"
"It's the muggles that create it."
You could hear a pin drop in the silence the tension suddenly swept in.
"What?" Narcissa choked out.
"Yup." A beat passed. "Muggles, create it." I waved a hand. "And honestly, trading information is the least of our concerns- Inevitably there's going to be hotspots in the web where communities of people can gather- Communities you can't break, communities that even if the slightest whiff of magic gets through too, you will never see the end of its mention. Regardless of how many, or how much you try to hide it from them."
I pushed myself off the bed and turned my gaze away from my cousins towards the door.
"Once that can's open... It's over." I shook my head and set my gaze back on them. "And that's not even getting into the video side of things... There are going to be hundreds, if not thousands, of popular hotspots on this web where people can literally post the equivalent of magical pictures of themselves into it within seconds. Magical pictures that can span up to the length of their entire day, showcasing every little thing that happens in it and storing it in there for eternity." I narrowed my eyes at them.
"Now imagine billions, I mean that literally-" I pointed a finger at Andy. "Billions Andy, imagine all of them, doing that, at any random moment in their day..." I snorted, and put my finger down. "They get one look at anything remotely out of the ordinary and up it goes, for millions more to see..."
I calmly pocketed my hands and tilted my head at them.
"The moment that thing comes to life... And it will, there's no doubt about that, allit'll take for the statute of secrecy to permanently break is one whiff of accidental magic... And... Well." I snorted. "War I guess?" I let out a sigh and just took in their utterly shocked expressions- Narcissa had been opening and closing her jaw for a good minute as my rant went, every so often peeking at her older sister's face for some form of relief before turning back to me with dread.
"I didn't threaten the magical world yesterday out of some inane, megalomania-infused reason, dear cousin... I did it to save it... I did it to make sure that the future magicals, of at least Britain, are prepared to take me absolutelyseriously. That to go against my plans would be tantamount to suicide- I did it to make sure that whoever decides they might know better, or just goes against me for any other reason- Is prepared to lose their life for their foolishness- And spoiler alert, most usually don't."
I let out another long sigh and briefly looked upwards, taking in the ceiling of the room.
"I am trying to save what's left of our society's freedom..." I looked back down and idly noticed the fact the shock had worn off Narcissa's face, but not Andy's for some reason. "And I am not going to let anyone stand in the way of that."