Merlin Decimal System

Draco had recently discovered the concept of "sharing" but had interpreted it in a uniquely Draco way. For him, sharing meant that everyone shared with him, but he didn't necessarily have to share with anyone else. This led to quite a few comical incidents around the manor. One time, I had called Dobby over to prepare a plate of cookies and a cup of tea when I had been working on my circuits. Draco, being the bloodhound he is for treats, had entered the room not long after. He had just recently begun to put together sentences and was ready to put them to the test. "Draco, Share," he said towards me with a smug grin on his face. I was more than willing to give him a cookie, so I replied back, "Sure, take one." Draco proceeded to pick up the entire plate of cookies and try to leave the room as fast as his little legs would take him. I was initially in shock, but the strengthening of my body gave me the boost I needed to catch my robbing brother before he reached the door. I stood between him and the door, when the little guy did something I wasn't expecting. He licked all of the cookies on the plate except one. He then proceeded to give me one of the few he didn't lick, repeating "Draco, share," his signature grin once again appearing. I had to repeat to myself that I was an adult and that physical abuse wasn't the best way to discipline a child quite a few times in my head. I was so concentrated on trying not to kill the bugger that I didn't even notice him slip away.

Our second birthday was a little over a month away and the first showing of "Magical Mates and Merriment" was going to correspond with the end of the Hogwarts year. I was technically going to be a published show writer before hitting the age of 2, which easily beats out the writer of "Fast Five" who was 5 years old. The name of the program had not been my decision. I wanted "Hocus Pocus Pals" but my father stated it sounded too Mudblooded. He really loves that word.

Over the summer I would be going to Snape's personal laboratory to work. He stated that I now knew enough of the basics to be thought of as an apprentice and not just a tag along. We had managed to cover nearly three years of a heightened Hogwarts curriculum in this art. Individual classes with an instructor of his caliber that meet every other day easily led me to blow past first years in the subject. I was starting to wonder what would happen when I became a student at Hogwarts. At this rate, I would probably finish potions up to an O.W.Ls level by the end of next year and N.E.W.T.S a year and a half later. Maybe I could be a TA for my Uncle, but that would be a foreign concept to the wizarding world. Snape actually said I could call him Uncle Snape in private. It still felt a little uncomfortable despite my feelings already being at that level.

My most recent research project has been in magical cartography. I recently realized how much I hated searching through the Malfoy library looking for specific books. In a library such as Hogwarts, you would simply ask the librarian. The closest thing to a librarian for our home library was Narcissa, and if the book wasn't about art or a cheesy romance novel, she wouldn't be able to find it. I had been initially shocked by the number of romance novels that we owned. The market for them was booming among teen and adult witches, with titles such as "Bewitched by His Charm," "Potions of Passion," and "The Wizard's Whisper." They most likely didn't differ much from the ones of my past life. I started to brainstorm solutions, and that's when I noticed in one of the cartography books I had been researching for tracking charms that maps could notice magical signatures in the area. If I used a numeric number system for books almost like an SSD and created a scroll that would allow me to find them based on different parameters, I could save an enormous amount of time researching in the future. I would, of course, have to invest half a month just to make the searching system and another two categorizing the books, but this would give me a greater idea of what our library had within it and might spark quite a few new ideas.

I had set up the outlines for my system. The magical map had been affixed with all of the preservation runes that I had learned trying to keep my blackmail painting as safe as possible. This would show him who to steal cookies from. I put this map on a large table that had just been lying in the middle of the library. It may have been some family heirloom, but it was now something much better. I would eventually affix zoom features and maybe some form of cursor instead of relying on a touchpad, but that was for the future. I then began to categorize the books into my system. I set up a nine-digit code with both letters and numbers. The first letter told the type of book, whether that be potions, herbology, or romance. The second letter would be used for more specifics, B for beginners, M for masters, S for smut, and so on. There were then two more letter positions for additional tags that I could search for like ancient or modern. Finally, there were five digits for the book number in that section. I didn't need five more letters for any specific subject as there were not 99,999 books that were all highly similar about cartography or anything else, but hopefully one day I could have use for it, especially if I could make the system expand and become some form of uniform. I would add these codes in runes onto the bottom of each book, and then the magical map would be able to find it due to the magical signature of the runes. When you were looking for a certain book, it would show up on the map, as well as a magical trail that would go to the exact location. For people without magical eyes, the map would give enough detail of the section, but until I could find a way to create a light-up trail, that would have to be good enough.

My mother was incredibly interested in this version of finding things in the magical library. A database of books would be very helpful for her as she would no longer miss titles she had bought and placed on the shelves. She was even kind enough to do all of the romance books that I had found, something about not letting her little girl see anything impure. My father was very interested in how we could try and market something similar as an inventory system in Birken and Botts and other stores. The minute I figured out how to create an illusionary spell that would make me look older, I might have a contract at any number of stores. The "quick" trip around the library had also completely rejuvenated some of my more outlandish ideas.

I may have even made it so that Draco entered the library for the first time. I had set up a filter I called "Draco books'' that I would update as he got older. Right now, it was mainly just picture books about dragons, random quidditch photo books, and a couple of books on how to read that he and mom could work on together. Much like an I-Pad kid, he was immediately stricken with the touch screen. He loved showing off how fast he could find a "Draco book" using the map. I realized that producing a version of moving Where's Waldos as a picture book would probably be a huge hit. This may be a project for the next month as it would be a great birthday present for him as I knew on good authority that mother planned to surprise him with another seven of his quidditch figures. He would finally be able to watch full games that he controlled from the corner of his room. If I could convince someone to make a children's book with basic quidditch tactics, he might also enjoy that. I still haven't got very interested in the sport itself, but with Draco as my brother, there's no way I wouldn't.