[V8] Weird burnt thing

[Mark Kalbskopf]

My daughter cam home today (no, she's not the weird burnt thing!)
but she did bring  home the V8.
So, I was looking under the hood to check the engine was still there,  
and there I was, poking around the hydraulic fluid reservoir and  
noticed something that had almost caught fire, but fortunately had  
simply melted instead.
In between the reservoir and the fender is a little black electrical  
junction box with 4 wires leading to it.
Two of the wires come out and join at this weird burnt melted thing.   
I don't think it was melted before she left, so unless they had a  
micro barbeque it must have been some kind of electrical earthing  
problem.
Does anybody know what it is?  It looks like it might have been a fuse  
or capacitor or something.
(I checked that the Audi hyper-drive time-warp booster still worked,  
and otherwise I can't find anything else malfunctioning.)

Mark. K.