Chapter 15: 15 A Massive Headache

Harry left Padma with her sister and went back to the Ravenclaw common room. He had some things to work out and needed some time to think. He entered the Ravenclaw library and went to the spot he had stopped at the night before. There were several other students browsing the books and he couldn't store them like he wanted, so he started doing it the way he used to, by hand.

It took a lot longer to do it that way and Harry didn't mind, because it gave him the time he needed to think. He spent the remaining time before supper there and barely levelled anything. He met up with Padma once more and made it through supper with only a small headache.

After supper, Harry and Padma gathered with the other Ravenclaws in the common room and they did their remaining homework for the week. A few of them joked about doing his assigned homework and he laughed with them. It really had been a bit pretentious for him to ask them for homework, except he was emulating the other professors he had watched during the week.

They finished up and it was getting late, so he bid everyone a good night and went to bed. Unlike before, he chose to take his four hours right away. When he woke, no one else was up, so he went down into the common room and into the Ravenclaw library. He had about a third of it left and he knew that unless he took a drastic step, he wasn't going to complete his sorting quest in time.

So, despite how big of a chance he was taking, Harry walked along the remaining length of the library and stored every book that he hadn't touched yet. He made it to the very front of the library beside the niche entrance and felt the weight in his mind. He dropped to his knees and accepted every popup that appeared. His vision started to blur as every single one of his magical world skills maxed out and upgraded.

The mass of confirmation popups, XP gains, bonuses for each skill topping out, and each changing to the Master version, made his barely coping mind blank out and he collapsed onto the floor, unconscious.

*

“Harry?” Padma's soft voice came to his ear. “Hey, Harry! Why are you asleep on the floor among a pile of books?”

“Huh?” Harry asked and opened his eyes. “Uhhhh.” He groaned as a headache pounded inside his head. He tried to sit up and he couldn't do it.

Padma helped him and Harry blinked his eyes several times at the stacks and stacks of books around him. The popups burned his eyes and he closed them and took several deep breaths. When he opened his eyes again, he was able to dismiss the popups and realized that half of the books he could see were actually his.

Oops. Harry thought and slowly stood. He gave Padma a sad smile. “I started sorting them and fell asleep.”

“Oh. Okay.” Padma said and looked at the piles. “Do you want help putting them back on the shelves?”

“No, thank you. I made the mess, I'll clean it up.” Harry said. “You go on and get something for breakfast. I'll be down later and we can spend the day doing whatever you want.”

Padma gave him an odd look. “What if I want to help you sort out the books?”

Harry chuckled, even though he didn't feel like laughing. “You and Parvati have been planning on going around the castle to check out the different grounds all week. I'm not going to make you change those plans.”

Padma gave him a smile. “Yes, all right. I'll go eat and meet up with her. You better meet us at in the Entrance Hall at 9am sharp, mister!”

“I wouldn't miss it.” Harry promised and accepted the quest and dismissed it.

Padma left and he waited for her to go through the door before he quickly took out a headache potion and downed it. When the pain in his head disappeared, he stored all of his own books and then filtered out the Ravenclaw Library books and put them back onto their shelves using his inventory.

Just in case anyone had been watching, he took out his wand and pretended to flick it at each stack and then at the shelves he was putting them on to explain them disappearing and reappearing. He didn't sort them, though. He really would have to wait until tonight to do that.

Harry was done twenty minutes later and he left the common room to go to the Entrance Hall. He ate some food on the way and he wasn't surprised to see Padma, Parvati, Lavender, Morag, and Lisa waiting for him.

“I feel so honored to be surrounded by such pretty girls.” Harry said as he approached them.

Several of the girls blushed and Padma laughed.

“I told you he was a charmer.” Padma said and took Harry's hand. “We're heading over to the greenhouses first to check all five of them out. After that is the Black Lake and then the Quiddich Pitch. We won't be allowed to enter the Forbidden Forest and the mountains are too far away to reach in a single day; but, we can still look at them.”

Harry nodded in agreement and their day of adventure started when they left through the large oak front doors of the castle. He looked at each popup as the group went to each new area. Apparently, he was exploring the grounds with each new spot and there were nine things in total. The Greenhouses, the Black Lake, the Forbidden Forest, the Quiddich Pitch, Hagrid's Hut, the Pumpkin Patch, the Whomping Willow, the Boathouse they arrived in, and the Animal Paddock.

Congratulations! You have completely explored the grounds of Hogwarts Castle! 10,000 XP, generic map of the area, Reputation with Hagrid increased.

“I'm beat!” Lavender said and leaned heavily on Parvati. “I don't know if I can go on any farther without an infusion of a Harry Picnic!”

That had a few of the girls giggling.

“You're lucky I always pack a huge lunch.” Harry said and pointed towards the black lake. “There's a nice spot over there for the blanket.”

“Yes!” Lavender said and they all went over to the spot and Harry put the blanket down and pretended to pull a bunch of things from his backpack.

“I love expansion charms!” Parvati said and accepted a nice plate of roast beef cutlets.

Harry smiled at her and passed a large jug of pumpkin juice to Lavender.

“How did that not spill?” Lavender asked and carefully placed it down.

Harry shrugged and handed out enough goblets for everyone, then handed out more food, bread, and a large bowl of stew and a stack of bowls. When everything had been laid out, the girls stared at the banquet that was all theirs.

“Don't be shy. Dig in.” Harry said and dropped a handful of silverware and a block of real butter in the middle of the blanket.

“Where did you get the butter?” Lisa asked.

“I bought a pile before coming to school.” Harry said. “When I moved in with Amelia, I noticed a few things that the wizarding world was missing food-wise and I bought a bunch of things from a muggle grocery store.”

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“Oh? Like what?” Morag asked.

“I'll save it for dessert.” Harry said and they all started eating.

It was a great meal and they all enjoyed it and talked about how school was for everyone all week. When it was time for dessert, Harry pretended to dig deep into his backpack for something. When he pulled out the large package that looked like a large sausage and had the picture of chocolate chip cookies on it, the girls that knew about muggle things made surprised sounds and Lavender drooled a little.

“There's no raw egg in it, so don't worry about getting sick from it.” Harry said and unwrapped the end of the package of raw cookie dough. He held it out towards the girls and it was snatched from his hand and then fingers, mouths, and tongues were all over it and it was quickly consumed.

Harry chuckled at them acting like vultures and handed each of them some paper towels to wipe off their hands. He packed everything up while the girls sat there and rested and then he sat beside Padma and she put her arm around him.

“You're amazing, Harry.” Padma whispered and kissed his cheek.

“I can't refute the empirical evidence.” Harry said with a grin and she laughed.

“Humble, too.” Parvati joked and Lavender giggled.

The group settled down and eventually laid down in a kind of pile as they let the food settle. They looked up at the clouds and no one said anything for quite some time. It was a bit of a lazy day after a week of working hard, so none of them were in any rush to get up and do anything else.

Harry was emulating them, so his own tasks and worries were muted while he was with the group and he was okay with that. It let him look at his problems objectively and he went over what he had done the night before. He knew without a doubt that he had taxed his inventory and paid for it with a huge headache and then there was some spillage.

Because he had been unconscious, his inventory dumped 'books' from his inventory and not 'recent books' or 'new books'. That meant his inventory had been nearly full and his 'do a few shelves at a time' technique had been the proper one to use to save himself from a headache and he hadn't realized it. The thing was, when he picked up the dropped books with his inventory and put the right ones back onto the empty shelves, it felt like he had more room.

Harry needed to find somewhere to drop off his things before he could complete his quest to sort the entire Ravenclaw library at once. He wasn't sure why he felt trepidation about it, though. He looked through his own feelings and realized that if he dropped off everything that he carried, he would no longer have access to everything he owned.

His things would no longer be at his beck and call, even if he almost never used anything that he had collected from years ago. He was so used to always keeping everything that it never once occurred to him that he was wasting so much space with everything. Then again, having it filled occasionally without realizing it, might have let it expand as he gained personal levels, too.

Harry mentally nodded at this and made his decision. He was going to sneak off later in the day, perhaps even tonight, and pretty much empty his inventory of everything except the essentials. He didn't need to have everything on him, even if it was very convenient to do so.

The group of friends eventually decided they needed to get up and do something, like go inside the castle and have supper. It was getting late and they had enjoyed the day of exploring and then lazing around. With a promise to hang out again next week, as long as Harry had more food to share, they laughed and went their separate ways in the Great Hall.

*

Amelia had always been a light sleeper. After years of Auror work and sleeping when you could during extremely long shifts at work and taking care of an infant, even the slightest noise startled her and she was up and out of bed with her wand at the ready.

So, when she heard a soft crack sound from two doors down the hallway from her bedroom, she was up and out of her room with her wand held firmly and a curse on her lips. She crept down the hallway towards the room and then she heard another soft crack, which she quickly identified as apparition, and she ran the rest of the way and magicked Harry's locked door open... and froze.

It was full of things. Toys of all kinds, games of all kinds, packages of muggle cigarettes by the thousands, muggle and wizard newspapers, and books. Tons of books. From ceiling to floor, there were stacks of them stuffed everywhere. From what she could see close to her, she estimated there was at least a thousand of them in various sizes and thicknesses.

Amelia didn't dare touch anything, lest it topple over and cause a cascade and knock everything else over. She could see published periodicals for nearly every subject stacked in their own stacks off to the side and they were braced with several large metal containers. She wasn't sure what they were until she stared at the closest one and realized what it was. A muggle garbage dumpster.

She carefully closed the door and locked it with her wand once more. Her mind whirled as she thought about what had just happened. She had heard two distinct sounds that she knew was apparition. She also knew that Harry's room was always neat and tidy and it had been a normal room just last week when she had asked Mipsy if she had been bored because she barely had anything to clean with the kids in school.

Amelia's eyes squinted and she nodded to herself. She had a call to make in the morning to Filius Flitwick and another visit to Hogwarts tomorrow, because she had several more pointed questions to ask her son about what exactly he had been doing lately.

It had been bad enough that he was engaged already and he didn't really know what that meant. If he had also been apparating around Britain without a license, she was going to strangle him... right after she ordered him to tell her how the hell he learned to apparate in the first place.

*

Harry felt light as a feather mentally. He hadn't realized exactly how many things he actually had in his inventory. He knew it in the abstract, thanks to his high Intelligence and Wisdom; but, actually seeing it all manifested in front of him in his room, had been a real shock. He had even dropped off most of his clothing into his closet at home and his school things into his trunk. He only kept out some parchment and a calligraphy pen.

He was now ready for the daunting task of sorting the entire Ravenclaw library. He went to the far end of the room and turned his inventory's auto-loot option and set it to books, periodicals, and scrolls. Then he walked at a fast pace straight towards the front of the library. He could feel his inventory space quickly fill up until he reached the end of the room and the weight was significant.

That wasn't the best part, though. It was that he had been mentally sorting them automatically, just like he had sorted his own books inside his head. He sorted them by subject and then by name, wrote everything down in moments, then turned off his auto-loot feature and slowly walked back across the empty library to put the books back in a proper order.

When the books were back in place, he added in the periodicals near the back of the library, also sorted by subject and then by author, because the names didn't always match the contents. When he was at the very back of the library, all he had left were scrolls and he did the same thing. He sorted by subject and then by name. Some of them didn't have an author, so they were usually the hardest to search through.

Congratulations! You have sorted an entire library's worth of books to help your fellow students find the information they are looking for much easier than having to browse the entire library.
Reward: Magical Library Index Card generator (cabinet included), a General Encyclopedia for each subject, 25,000 XP, maxed Reputation with Ravenclaw House students. Child Bonus x2 XP!

You have gained a level! You are now level 40 and 5 free stat points have been awarded.

Harry had to cover his mouth with both hands so that his nearly hysterical laughter wouldn't wake up the entire House. The rewards were ridiculous and he loved them! A magical index card cabinet? Really? He thought happily and looked on the floor where he had dropped several sheets of parchment with the various lists on them. I'm keeping them, too!

The general encyclopedia for every subject inside the library was also going to be invaluable, because he could feel his mind eagerly wanting to activate each of them to boost his recently upgraded Master skills. He wasn't sure how many levels he might get out of them, until he concentrated on one. It was bigger than the huge reference books Flitwick had in his office!

Unlike a reference book, this one didn't have to be read and could be used as a skill level book. Harry might get more out of it if he read it, though. Then again, it was over six inches thick and had thousands of pages inside. It would take a long time to read them all, even with his Speed Reading almost maxed out.

Harry took several deep breaths and let them out. He needed to calm down and finish his work. He stored the parchment on the floor and put his pen into his pocket before he went out to where the statue of Rowena Ravenclaw stood on a plinth. There wasn't a balanced item on the other side of the niche's entrance, so Harry chose there to put the index card cabinet.

The thunk as the cabinet appeared was very loud in the completely silent common room. In fact, the sound echoed and seemed to spread out like waves in a pond. Lights all over the dorms came on as people woke up and Harry cursed mentally for not putting a rug or something down on the stone floor first, then remembered the rugs were inside the dumpsters he had dropped off at home.

I knew I would need something as soon as I didn't have it. Harry thought with a sigh and waited patiently for whoever had woken up.

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