Chapter 32: Library - Search Stations

Hogwarts Castle, Somewhere in the Scottish Highlands

November 23rd, 1992, 2:31 PM

"The idea of these five levels is interesting, and I have to admit, our atual security measures to the restricted section does not restrict the access to it all that much. We could use an upgrade on it."

Madam Pince said. Selena chose not to say anything back and went directly to help sort the books. She decided to start with the bookshelves that were already full of books. With the 'summon' of the lost books, the books went back to any open spot that they found, and that mixed some books in sections that didn't belong to them.

Selena was picking books, opening them to read and look at the first pages and then tossing them over her back. The tossed books would start floating and drop on organized piles that were divided by disciplines. Doing the sorting this way, she was the fastest in the group, managing to cover two bookshelves in the time that a normal witch would use to cover half a bookshelf. After sorting her first bookshelf, Selena saw that Leona and Joan started helping too. Leona was sorting books. While she was not a witch, Leona could identify the disciplines very well. Joan was vacating unsorted sections. She would go to unsorted sections and remove all books from the bookshelves, opening space for the already sorted books.

At the start of the sorting, they were not a well oiled machine and some confusion occurred. But soon they started to understand what each other was doing, the sorting flowed well and the group started to work as a well oiled machine.

Time flowed too, and the group were about eighty percent done with the sorting when they heard the doors of the library being opened. The group stopped and looked at the direction of the door. They first heard some footsteps, then they heard the doors being closed again. More footsteps and Joan was the first to see the invasor, and recognized him immediately.

"Erik!"

Joan said and walked to him, giving him a hug and a kiss.

"Hey Joan, how is the work?"

Erik greeted and asked Joan.

"It's good, but I can't help too much unless it is about moving books to their sections."

"It is helpful enough, Joan."

Joan replied to Erik and a second feminine voice commented after. It was Selena. She gave Erik a hug and kiss, just in time to see a blond missile impacting Erik's side. Leona was the missile's name. Erik smiled at her and caressed her head, giving Leona a kiss too.

"I don't want to disturb your work too much. The staff meeting just finished, and I came to see what you were doing."

Erik said, while looking around the library.

"Well, first we 'called' all the books back. Then, while the house-elves were starting to check the books, I installed the Index for the library. Now we are sorting the books in their specific sections."

Selena said to Erik and saw Madam Pince approaching them.

"Erik, this is Madam Irma Pince, the librarian."

Selena introduced Madam Pince.

"Nice to meet you, Madam Pince."

"Nice to meet you too, Lord Ravenclaw."

Erik greeted the librarian, who greeted him back.

"Erik, we are in the final phase of the sorting, so could you be a dear and secure the area for the restricted and prohibited section?"

"Sure, honey. What kind of 'secure' do you want?"

Selena asked Erik, who accepted and asked her back.

"The normal secure. No entrance without authorization, no book removal from the area, and logged alarm for unauthorized entrance. That is for the restricted section. The prohibited section I think that no entrance without being authorized and logged alarm for unauthorized entrance would be enough. It will be an area exclusive for Masters of the castle, so if they wish, they can borrow the books."

Selena replied to Erik, who nodded his head.

"The entrance to the sections will be allowed via Index, like you did in the Nexus?"

Erik asked, and Selena nodded, giving him an affirmative reply to his question.

"Ok, I will start right now."

Erik said and gave Selena, Leona and Joan a quick kiss each.

"Good work."

He said again and walked to the area where the current restricted section was located. Selena went back to sorting books, followed by Madam Pince, Leona and Joan.

Erik looked at how the area was organized and secured at the moment, and was thinking about what he should do with it. Having decided, the first thing he did was to remove the screaming book curse from the shelves. It was a smart curse, but it could not stop a determined person; a silencing spell in the area around would be enough to give the person that took the book the time necessary for the curse on it to end.

It was almost two hours later when Erik finished the two areas. And he could say that he did a very good job with them. He had summoned and used a lot of steel, wood and glass to build the new areas. At the entrance of the restricted section he had positioned a ticket gate with enough rune-work inside it to turn it into a 'perfect' door. It allowed only the people authorized by the Index to enter, and any person that tried to jump it would be found being flung back and having his name logged in the Index system. For the prohibited section, he had chosen a door made of wood with inlaid steel and a glass window on its upper half. The very heavy rune-work on it turned it into a 'perfect' door too. It would not budge no matter what was done to it, only opening to authorized people inside the Index system.

He was looking at his work with a proud look when he heard Selena calling him.

"Erik. Finally done?"

"Yes. It is as heavily guarded as the castle walls itself."

He proudly said.

"Your mix of steel, wood and glass did give it a look of safety and luxury at the same time. Good work, dear. But the areas are very plain in terms of decoration. I will have to ask the carpenter house-elves to engrave some decorations in the wood later."

Selena said to Erik, and received from him a big smile.

"The doors' wards are just waiting for you to link them to the Index system."

Erik spoke, turning to Selena, who nodded at him and walked to the librarian desk, where the Index system was installed. Erik followed after her, and watched as Selena accessed the administrator level of the Index system and used it to pick up and take control of the doors' wards. Five minutes later the restricted and prohibited sections were under total control of the Index system.

"And that is done."

Selena said while opening the scan command that she had prepared earlier.

"I will start the scan of the book to the Index."

Selena announced and ran the command. The crystalline pyramids in the vertices shined for some seconds and shot beams of light to its neighbours, drawing with it the edges of the rectangular box that make the library room. In the system's monitor, a window appeared showing a progress bar, an elapsed time display, an estimated time left display and a counter of books scanned. The counter in the last one was growing by the second and could be read '154 books of 16248 books scanned'.

"Madam Pince, you would like to know that Hogwarts' library, right now, contains a little more than sixteen thousand books in its collection."

Selena said to Madam Pince, who had approached them just before the scan started. The woman smiled at that.

"That is five thousand more books than I had counted this last summer. Five thousand books were recovered."

Madam pince commented. She had, this last summer counted the books in the library collection, just like shad done in the past years too since she took over the librarian post. Every year her count showed that some dozen books were nicked. Students took the books home and they were never returned. Now that will not happen anymore, and she was very happy with that.

Erik took a look at the time that the system clock showed and checked it with his wrist watch.

"It's almost six and a half. I have a meeting to 'let go' of the Board of Governors in one hour and a half."

He said and turned to Selena.

"Do you want some help preparing the search stations?"

Selena looked at the system monitor for an instant, and got up from the chair.

"Yes, I would like that. The system estimates that the scan will take three more hours, and I want to be present in this meeting."

She said and walked to her briefcase, from where she took three thin red books from inside. Selena walked to Madam Pince and handed her the three thin books.

Madam Pince took them and read the front cover title of the first book.

'The Index: Librarian's Manual'

She then looked at the other two and saw that they were the same book.

"The three books are for you to keep inside your desk's drawer. They have instructions on how to use the Index system. Things like how to add a new book, how to give someone temporary permission to another level, how to give someone access to the restricted section, etc. The extra two books are for the Headmaster and his Deputy. They are the only ones who have the same access to the Index system as you, the librarian, have. After they have read it, the books have to be returned back to you. But don't worry too much about them being taken, they are marked as library property already."

Selena explained to Madam Pince, who nodded her head at it.

"After you have read it, if you still have any doubt about the system, you can ask me about it. Understood?"

"Understood, Lady Ravenclaw."

Selena finished. Madam Pince replied and walked to a reading table and started reading the instructions.

"Good. Woody!?"

*pop*

Selena called and with a small pop, a robust looking male house-elf, that had some sawdust in its hair, appeared by her side.

"How can Woody help Lady?"

"Hello Woody. The rest of the bookshelves that I asked can wait a little. Right now, I need some artistic engraving work to be done to the wood in the new sections. Lord Ravenclaw is not very good with that. Could you do this for us?"

Selena asked Woody, and Erik let out a harrumph when she talked about his low artistic sense. Woody, one of the two house-elves of Hogwarts specialized in carpentry, nodded his head with enthusiasm at the request.

"Woody will tell Nally. She is better with engraving than Woody."

"Good, and tell her that she is free to engrave whatever she wants, provided that it fits a library."

Selena complemented her orders and Woody disappeared with a pop.

*pop*

Selena went back to her briefcase and took a bag from it. It contained the crystals necessary to link the search stations to the Index system.

"Erik, do you know the number of current students in the school?"

Selena asked while starting to take shrunk monitor and keyboard sets from inside her briefcase. Erik gave her a deadpan look and answered.

"Seven hundred and twelve. You could have checked it yourself, since you have the same access as me to the wards."

Selena didn't care for Erik's nip, and continued to take shrunk monitor and keyboard sets from inside her briefcase.

"So we will need about twenty search stations."

Selena spoke. She then stopped taking out shrunk monitor and keyboard sets when her count reached twenty sets.

"Lecterns?"

Erik asked Selena, who nodded and replied.

"Lecterns."

Selena then put her hand inside the briefcase and took a miniature lectern from inside it. She left it on the floor and, with a wave of her hand, the lectern went back to its normal size. It would be a normal looking lectern with thin legs, wide base and thick top if it isn't for the hallowed space on its top.

"Woody!"

Selena called. Some seconds later, the robust looking house-elf from before appeared by her side.

*pop*

"How can Woody help Lady?"

"Hello again, Woody. This lectern here, how much time do you need to build one equal to it? No engravings needed for now, just the standard enchantments."

Selena asked the house-elf, pointing to the lectern that she had just turned back to normal size. Woody looked at the piece of furniture, measuring it with its eyes and looking more around it.

"Without Nally, five minutes with standard enchantments, seven minutes with the robust enchantments."

The house-elf spoke after finishing looking around the lectern. Selena nodded at the time. House-elf magic was that good, even more when it had all the material ready.

"I need twenty lecterns equal to this one made. The robust enchantments and artistic engravings can be added after the order is completed. You can take this one with one as a reference. Before giving it back after finishing all the asked lecterns, be sure to save instructions on how to build one of these in the school archives. Name the project as 'Lectern - Index Search Station'. Send the lecterns here to the library as you finish them."

Selena said to Woody, who was excited with the amount of job that it would have.

"These lecterns will be good training material for the young elf apprentices."

*pop*

Woody said before touching the lectern and disappearing with a pop. Selena then turned to the table where the necessary stuff was, and took the small bag in her hands. She opened it and started to retrieve small crystalline cubes from inside. The cubes were made of a smokey quartz and had about two centimeters of edge each. She retrieved and counted twenty cubes from inside the bag, before closing it and putting it back inside her briefcase.

"Come on, dear. You know the drill, un-shrink the monitor and keyboard sets and link a cube to each set."

"Yes, honey."

Erik droned an answer and started with the job.

'At least it is just twenty stations…'

He thought while remembering the hundred that he had helped set for the nexus.

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