Disclaimer:

I don't own anything related to the rights of Harry Potter or Warehouse 13.

Author's Note:

There's a new poll on my profile to vote on which story you think should be getting the most focus.

And here is the next chapter of Endless Wondering, enjoy!

Publish Date: Feb. 28th, 2014

Update Date: N/A

Chapter Two

Light Reading

It had been a week, and Claudia still hadn't done more than prod at the device and look it over it detail. She hadn't determined anything about it, and didn't want to push any of the buttons just in case there happened to be a self-destruct feature. The last thing she needed was for this... Thingy to go boom and leave her with a hell of a mess to clean up.

"I think I've been working at the Warehouse too long," Claudia said suddenly at breakfast one morning, shocking the rest of the crew into silence.

"What do you mean, Claudia?" Arthur asked cautiously. "I thought you loved working at the warehouse."

At everyone's nod, Claudia huffed and responded, "That is not what I meant." She rolled her eyes and continued, "I meant that I'm becoming as paranoid as Artie, here." She ignored Arthur's indignant 'Hey!' and continued on, "Before I wouldn't have gone nearly this long without pushing at least one of the buttons." With that, she picked up the vambrace and looked it over for a second before shrugging and pushing a small button on the side of the key panel at random.

When nothing happened, she pushed the button again and held it this time, causing a small red light to begin blinking on and off on the top of the device in the corner.

"Well, that can't be good," Claudia muttered.

"It's not."

The new voice from behind Claudia caused her to jump clear of her chair and land on her backside next to it. Everyone turned to see a woman with chestnut brown hair pulled back in a ponytail, with warm hazel eyes and a smile that seemed to put Claudia at ease. The redhead stood from her spot on the floor and asked, "Who are you?"

The woman smiled wider and replied, "My name is Hermione. I'm an associate of Harry's."

"And what is it that you do?" Myka asked curiously.

Hermione turned and answered evasively, "I'm a department head."

Steve immediately questioned, "What department?"

Hermione sighed and responded flatly, "I'm the head of the Science Research and Development Department. In fact, a good friend and I invented what the lot of you have been so charmingly calling a 'Thingy'."

Claudia blushed and replied, "Sorry about that. We didn't know what to call it."

Hermione sighed and shrugged before saying, "That was the point. You weren't supposed to know anything about the device. It's called an Omni-Comp, by the way. It's called an assessment for a reason, though." She tilted her head to the side and continued, "Speaking of, why did it take you a week before you pushed any of the buttons?"

Claudia's blush deepened and she muttered, "I didn't know if there was a self-destruct or something and didn't want to destroy it and get in trouble."

Hermione smiled at her and said softly, "While being cautious is a good thing, there comes a point where all you can do is just push the big red button and hope for the best." She shrugged and added, "It took me a long time to learn that." Hermione chuckled and muttered, "Harry, on the other hand, loves pushing buttons when he has no idea what they do." She shook her head fondly and continued, "As a side note, you happened to activate the panic alarm. If we hadn't known what was going on we would have sent two full squads of armed soldiers instead of just me, all appearing just as suddenly as I did."

The woman shrugged and ignored the panicked looks, continuing, "Your first assessment is finished." At Claudia's startled look, Hermione reached in her bag and pulled out a thick book. She handed it to Claudia and said, "This is the manual for your Omni-Comp, and your second assessment will be sometime soon."

"Wait, what do you mean my Omni-Comp, and what second assessment?" Claudia asked, absently accepting the manual.

Hermione huffed and rolled her eyes, responding, "You didn't think we would let you make do with what you had on hand, did you?" She pointed to the item in Claudia's hand and continued, "That's the basic model, it's up to you to figure out how you want to modify both it and the coding," she said with a grin. "There's some information about that in the manual, along with a number to call for help if you need it." Her grin turned slightly wicked as she added, "And if you pass, you'll likely never even know the second assessment happened." She seemed to remember something else and continued, "Oh, and the dimensions of that manual aren't the same as the dimensions of the space it's occupying, so expect a bit of light reading."

With that, she disappeared just as suddenly as Harry had when all this began.

"Well, this is going to be interesting," Claudia muttered, sitting down at the table and opening the large manual for the device in her hands.

That evening, the rest of the Warehouse crew walked into the dining room to see Claudia hunched over the manual, the device, a notepad, and several stacks of post-it notes that she was using as bookmarks, all scattered about the table with various tools and gadgets here and there in between the paper piles.

"Haven't made it very far into that manual, Claudia?" Steve asked curiously, seeing the book only open about one-quarter of the way through the contents.

Everyone stopped approaching the covered table at the weight of the glare the young technician leveled at them. Finally she asked blandly, "How many pages do you think are in this manual?"

Everyone looked at Myka, the biggest reader in the room. She stuttered a bit as she looked at the book on the table and made an educated guess. "Five hundred pages or so?"

Claudia nodded and replied, "That's what I thought at first, too." She flopped back in her chair with a sigh and continued, "And then I opened it. At first I didn't notice anything odd, but after about four hours I needed a bathroom break, so I looked at the page I was on to mark it and found myself looking at page four-hundred, thirty-eight." She pushed the book away from her, slightly petulantly and muttered, "That was six hours ago."

Myka huffed in disbelief and commented, "There's no way that book has that many pages, it's just not possible."

Claudia grinned humorlessly and exclaimed, "That's exactly what I said!" She sighed and went on, "So I called the number, just to make sure my leg wasn't being pulled. I'm sure it was that Hermione woman on the other line because when I asked, she just laughed and told me to remember her parting words."

Everyone looked confused for a moment when Claudia answered, "She said, 'the dimensions of that manual aren't the same as the dimensions of the space it's occupying, so expect a bit of light reading,' Remember?" She sighed sadly and muttered, "It took me five minutes to completely translate what she meant and then I felt like an idiot because she's obviously British." At the confusion she was seeing, she answered blandly, "It's bigger on the inside." When the joke didn't seem to translate, she threw her hands up in frustration and exclaimed, "Doctor Who reference!"

"So what page are you on?" Steve asked cautiously, not wanting to raise the ire of the redhead with screwdrivers in easy reach.

"One-thousand, three-hundred, seventy-two," Claudia stated blandly. "If this is that woman's version of 'light reading', I shudder to think of what heavy reading is."

Pete looked at the book in front of the redhead and muttered, "I don't think we want to know what that kind of horror could be."