[TEMPORARY HIATUS]Wahfellas in: Hogwarts Online

Prologue

June 25th, 2033. 9:30 PM.

Outskirts of Manhattan, New York

Peppino wiped the sweat off his brow as he set up his laptop. He'd been working for over seven hours straight at his pizzeria and had only let Gustavo fill in for the remaining 30 minutes a moment ago. He opened Zoom and pulled out his phone to read out his niece's code. He typed it in, and was almost immediately taken in.

He didn't like anyone seeing him sweating his pants off outside of work, so he had the screen recorder off. His icon was a family photo of him from 10 years back with his arms down his long black pants and staring nervously at the camera. His sister, niece, and brother in law were all on the one other screen smiling softly. The former adjusted the camera a bit before waving.

"Hey Uncle Peppino!" Madeline was wearing black robes and a red and yellow scarf over a plain white shirt and black shorts. Peppino noticed small bits of sweat on her, likely from her daily mountain climbing, though her skin wasn't as slick as it usually was "You excited for the launch of Hogwarts Online tomorrow?"

"Of-a course, dear." He replied softly. He looked down at the white tiled break room floor as he fidgeted with his fingers.

"It'll be fine, uncle. When we get in, I'll show you around and explain everything you need to know. After all, I'm quite a hard-core fan if I say so myself." She pulled out a wand from her coat and placed it to her cheek as she grinned. Shortly after, there was a knock at the door. Madeline got up to open it and her boyfriend stumbled into the room carrying a large stack of Harry Potter novels. He placed them on the couch to the left and turned to the computer.

"Hey dude." He smiled and waved in a casual manner "Ready to become a wizard tomorrow?"

"Theo, did you seriously bring in The Cursed Child?" Madeline asked from behind as she held up the novel, laughing a little "It's shit and you know it. It's not even canon to the MMO."

"Yeah, but y'know after watching a few Marvel movies, I just gotta sit back and have a field day with The Room every now and then."

"I don't think my uncle has any idea what that film is, let alone anything relating to Harry Potter."

"Wait, he knows nothing about Harry Potter?"

"No. He doesn't have much time for that stuff." She noticed him sweating a little and smiled in a cocky manner "Thankfully, he'll be in good hands with me as his guide."

"Yeah-a it's a family thing." Peppino spoke up with a light smile and subtle blush "It'll be nice-a to have some more-a quality time with my niece."

Theo smiled back as he brushed some snow off his dark brown hair and skin "So, I've done some online digging and I found that in the starting town, there's this arcade I think you might like."

"That's-a nice but, I'm-a more into consoles." Peppino replied nervously "I'm not-a sure how it'll work with a Oculus Quest-a 4D."

"My grandma has one with some homebrew retro games installed, and it seems to work alright. You'll be fine." Theo sat down on the couch and handed the laptop back to his girlfriend's mom.

She and her brother discussed their week's events(she was a housewife so there wasn't much new on her end. Her brother went into extreme detail, though ultimately an incident with a woman attempting to ruin her pizza for a refund was the only notable event that week) for a while until Peppino checked the time and jolted up.

"It was nice-a talking to you Mirtillo, but it's-a almost time to close up shop."

"Yeah, it's about time for me to start on dinner. Honey's been pestering me to make terimayo japadogs again after last week, but don't worry. I won't put any leftovers in the care package next time." She chuckled a little as her older brother heaved a sigh of relief. "And don't overwork yourself too much next week. Remember your little buddy's got your back."