Ether walked into the bank and like promised looked over the system with a fine-toothed comb. Aside from a few viruses that were easily taken care of, the system was working perfectly.
"You're all good. Aside from a few minor viruses, there aren't any problems. If any show up, feel free to owl me at any time," said Ether.
"We are in your debt, Lord Hikari. Thanks to you we have become more profitable than ever!" said Ragnarok.
"It's not a problem. I couldn't stand by with how behind England was. I'm actually planning to create an entire system that should connect you to all the banks world wide, instead of just Europe."
"That would be quite a boon. We have many branches around the world, but connecting to them, even with our new system, is quite troublesome."
"Connecting the system to the main internet was the biggest issue. Since you run in a magic exclusive environment it means that we have to use an older model, which is notoriously unreliable unless you continuously upgrade the software. Fortunately I have a large team of people who know what they are doing, so while it's difficult it is doable. If you need any help or a virus attacks the mainframe, owl me as quickly as you can. The longer a virus stays in the mainframe, the worse the damage will be. Especially if they happen to be a rogue Navi bent on destruction."
"There are rogues?" said Griphook.
"Quite a few. One is Shademan, though recently we managed to tie him to Snape so he isn't nearly as annoying."
"Could we get a list and description of these rogues?" said Griphook.
"Better yet, I'll upload a program which will e-mail me if one shows up by tracking it's digital signature. After the fifth time SciLab was nearly taken over, I created one that could track digital footprints. Saved us a lot of trouble figuring out who we were dealing with," said Ether.
An hour later he left the bank and went shopping.
The first thing he ran into was the owner of Flourish and Blotts. Apparently he wanted in on the new digital books in order to add to his bank account.
Despite being a pure blood, he wasn't a fool. The gold he could make off of Ravenclaws renting the books during the school year for something to read alone... It made his inner business man salivate!
Ether immediately put in an order for another set of equipment like he gave the goblins. He promised to install it by Christmas, since it wouldn't be nearly as hard to configure another internet installation now that he had an idea of what to do.
The second person to come to him was the owner of the Apothecary. Apparently Snape had some orders and heard Ether was in the Alley so he asked the boy to pick them up for him since he was in the middle of restocking the Infirmary.
Considering Ether had managed to create a passable relationship with the potionsmaster and gotten the number of points taken from Ravenclaw to drop like a stone, he was more than happy to help.
His final task was to pick up the newest copy of the Quibbler, since he rather liked it.
Hermione was squealing when she saw the new course list. It had far more subjects on it than last time, some of which she thought she would have to wait until third year to take. And then there was the temporary mainframe Ether had set up with Flourish and Blotts until he could get a better one up and running.
If it wasn't for the fact she had a limited amount of funds to work with, Ether would have bet his inheritance (from his dead parents, not that he knew who they were in order to keep a certain mind reader from learning who he was) that she would have bought it out in a day and bogged down her internet connection while crashing her PET.
That being said, Ether borrowed her PET and immediately upgraded the memory and RAM as much as he could without getting her a new one. At least until he could convince Chaud that she was an acceptable candidate for one of the prototype versions.
Ether couldn't wait to spring her on him at Christmas. His dad had already agreed to let her come visit, since the Grangers had done the same every time he came to England.
Hermione tackled him in a hug for updating the classes available. Ether chuckled as he filled up his rather lackluster schedule with classes he actually wanted to take and narrowly kept Hermione from trying to take them all.
"Relax Hermione. Most of these you can take in college."
"THERE'S A MAGICAL COLLEGE?!" she said loudly.
"Several," said Ether, cleaning out his ear.
Hermione looked like she was about to faint from information overload. Ether whocked her upside the head.
"Chill 'Mione. If you can keep from trying to overwork yourself for the rest of the year I'll see if you can't join me in SciLab for the summer working with dad. Kami knows he's been complaining about not having many good assistants these days..." said Ether.
"What about you?"
"I rank colleague and we work in different departments since he's non-magical. Plus there's the fact that the last time I was tricked into an IQ test I ranked higher than dad. Chaud found it funny that dad's adopted son was a better battler and had a higher IQ than his biological."
"You're adopted?" said Hermione. She never knew that...then again, there was the fact he looked nothing like the Hikari family...
"I may be adopted, but my dad and mom love me just as much as they do Lan. Though I do wish dad didn't have a thing for computer names..."
Hermione giggled. She still found it amusing that Ether's full name was Ether Net.
"Anyway, we have to pick up the few books that haven't been converted. That being said, any and all Lockhart books will be picked up from a second-hand shop and not at whole sale. For some reason wizards have yet to pick up the concept of renting books...well, except Mr. Flourish and that was only because of me making an offhand comment about the practice."
Hermione's eyes gleamed. She had a tendency to rent books often, so this was great news for her.
The two split up and hit the stores individually in order to maximize their time spent at the bookstore.
Because of how old the model was that Ether had given Flourish and Blotts, the only way to rent books was to do it in the store, and the owner quickly capitalized on that fact by charging for the time spent downloading the books which would vanish back into the main server by the end of the school year.
If that man wasn't a Slytherin back in school, Ether would eat that tacky hat he had been forced to buy.
When Ether tried to get onto the platform, he found a problem.
It was closed off for some odd reason. He pulled down his visor and found that someone had set the barrier against his specific magical signature. He growled when he recognized the signature behind it.
He swore in French, German and Japanese.
Dumbledore clearly wasn't happy about the paperwork Ether had caused him. He was trying to get the boy in trouble!
Fortunately Ether had other methods of getting to school. Plus he knew for a fact Professor Flitwick had a goblin-PET (which meant his Navi had real goblin armor which he had always thought he would never be allowed to have, even in that way) so any wards Dumbledore tried to set would be useless.
"Ether, what the bloody hell is going on?" demanded Hermione.
"Someone set up a magic ward specifically against me. I'm alerting Flitwick about our inability to make the train and that we are taking the Knight Bus to Hogsmeade instead," said Ether.
One quick E-mail sent via Fukurou later, and he reappeared a minute later.
"Mr. Hikari, while I find it infuriating that the Headmaster dared to block the way to the platform, rest assured neither you or Miss Granger shall lose any points for taking the Knight Bus to Hogsmeade. Also, Professor Snape said that he will be the one to await your arrival. I should warn you that riding the bus to the school is very similar to that of a Gringotts cart, so please brace accordingly to avoid falling. Flitwick."
"How do we summon the bus?" asked Hermione.
"Follow me," said Ether, leading her to a small side alley that had muggle repelling charms on it. He still had his visor on so he knew about the wards.
Ether held up his practice wand (he was a technomancer by trade, but he had a wand to keep the English from properly freaking out about using non-magical ways to cast magic) and waited a moment.
With a loud bang, the violent purple bus appeared.
Ether handed over a galleon and accept the change from the porter. Griphook had explained the conversion rate to the boy when he admitted that he didn't know it. Considering the fair was just shy of a galleon, it was easier to just get change.
The two were soon very happy that Flitwick had warned them... the ride was bumpier than a roller coaster and hitting turbulence while free falling from the sky. (According to Ether anyway.)
Still, they made it to the school relatively intact, even if their lunch didn't.
Ether was just glad he knew the cleaning charm.
The first thing Ether did when he saw Snape was hand the man a large box that had been fitted with a proper expansion charm. Snape checked the contents, nodded, and the lead the rather sickly second years up the school, their trunks floating behind them.
He had told them that since they were technically on school grounds, they were legally allowed to use magic. He would later regret this decision since it allowed Ether to see the loophole in the rules.
The rules clearly stated no magic in the halls. However, that only applied inside the school walls. Since Hogsmeade was technically school ground, that meant that they were allowed to cast there as well.
The first thing Ether and Hermione did when they managed to get to the Tower was crash for a full hour. After that they more or less explored when Madam Pince politely informed them that the library would not be open until tomorrow morning at the earliest.
Though Ether still had something to keep Hermione occupied, as he had recently received a shipment of scanners that ran exclusively on magic that would put the Ravenclaw library into Nevermore.
Needless to say Hermione immediately started on that project while Ether wandered around the school. Computer nerd or not, even he needed a break from code more than once a blue moon.
It was because of this that he ran into a small problem. And her name was Myrtle.
"Ugh!" cried Ether. His sandals were soaked, and not for the first time he was glad that he had decided to wear them rather than his regular shoes.
Even if it meant his socks were now almost certainly ruined.
He pulled on his visor and found the water trail started in the girl's bathroom. Scowling in displeasure from having to walk in the water which he could only hope came from the sinks and not the toilets, he went in and came face to face with the still wailing Myrtle.
Once he got the story out of her (Peeves apparently had been making his yearly round of taunts before school...usually Filch or one of the house elves would have cleaned up the water by this point) Ether decided to focus on what he could do. So, in order to calm the girl down, he asked her how she died.
Most ghosts would willingly tell how they died if only so the living could help them pass on. There were a few rare cases like Nicholas, the Gryffindor ghost, who were terrified of passing on mostly because they weren't exactly saints in life.
In Myrtle's case, she had seen a pair of glowing yellow eyes in front of her stall, and she ended up floating out of her body before she realized what had happened.
Ether's frown only grew as he pressed the girl for any details.
Mostly because that description sounded far too much like a basilisk for his comfort.
(Ether knew he was a parselmouth, but since it wasn't looked down upon like it was in Europe, he had spent years focusing that ability to the point that he had actually made a dictionary on his PET in the event that the ability left he would still know what was said. Needless to say he did this in private because he got tired of his parents looking for a leaking gas main.)
So Ether investigated the pipes, finally stopping at the only one which appeared bone dry.
According to Mrytle, that one had never worked even when she was alive. Closer inspection revealed a stylized snake etched in the metal.
Considering there was a very high probability of a basilisk existing in the so called Chamber of Secrets (keeping up with Salazar's fascination with serpents), there wasn't a chance in hell Ether was going down there alone.
It was a good thing he had found out who was teaching this year with the addition of new classes. Three of them knew him by name and were going to have him as a teacher's aide for the other students so he could keep up with his own studies since he worked at a college level anyway.
(Lan studied at a high school level, magic wise. Mundane wise he was still at Middle School, but then again he was a technomancer like his brother.)
"What can we do for you Ether?" asked Professor Yukiru, on loan from the Tokyo University until her curiosity of third-world magical societies was satisfied or her thesis was complete.
"I have reason to believe that a basilisk is living under the school inside a hidden chamber. I interviewed a local ghost and the signs indicate a high probability of a basilisk," said Ether bluntly.
"Quote me the probability rate please," said Professor Lloyd, who was the temporary Arithimancy teacher until Professor Vector came off her sabbatical to relearn her subject.
"Probability ratio of 72 percent with a margin of error being 10 to 12 percent. The victim said that she floated out of her body before she realized what was happening until afterwords, that sounds of hissing was heard before the incident, and that the eyes were yellow. All signs of a basilisk," said Ether promptly.
"Local folklore indicates that Salazar Slytherin had a fetish for snakes, and a basilisk can be controlled by a parselmouth if they get their early enough. And according to history Slytherin was a parselmouth," said Professor Summer, the new history teacher.
All three of them knew Ether personally, as he had attended their classes and passed them with high scores.
"Further investigation revealed a pipe that has never been in use, even before the incident, and that there is a stylized snake etched in the metal. I believe this is the entrance to the fabled Chamber of Secrets," said Ether.
"Unfortunately the chances of the passage being protected by parselmagic are high. The fact that previous searches have yet to yield the entrance only proves this fact," said Summer.
"I have access to a parseltongue dictionary," said Ether.
"I forgot you specialize in that branch," said Yukiru.
What they left unsaid was the fact that Ether had published that book via the internet, which lead to quite a few people using the translators on their PETs to avoid poisonous snakes.
Considering he had only made it because his father had banned him from any technology until his magic calmed down after a certain incident in which Ether was nearly lost in Cyberspace, it was an unexpected boon to his bank account.
Though what most people didn't know was that as a result of retrieving the boy, Dr. Hikari had used the incident to create Megaman, the amalgamation of years of research and the use of his dead son's DNA to give Hub new life.
Megaman knew that he was the reborn version of Hub, he just didn't care. The fact that he couldn't exit cyberspace without a specialized area was the only reason Dr. Hikari hadn't been charged with Necromancy, which was a frowned upon art except in special cases.
That being said, it never stopped Lan from learning summoning from Ether. Unfortunately he could only sustain Megaman for a few hours at a time.
Professor Lloyd frowned.
"As long as it is contained, we shall have to leave it alone. There is no reason to stick our noses in a mythical Chamber just to remove a snake from it's territory. However if it becomes a problem, rest assured we will be calling in reinforcements to relocate the thing."
"So I should start ordering the specially treated goggles just in case?" said Ether.
"I would say no, but prudence demands that we should be prepared for anything," said Professor Yukiru.
"I'll send out the order," said Ether.
"In the meantime, bring your little friend down here. I believe she's spent enough time digitizing that library for one night," said Professor Summer.
Ether gave her a salute and proceeded to drag an irate Hermione down from the tower to eat. Needless to say the Ravenclaws were pleased to hear that the library would be digitized before Christmas, since Ether had brought ten scanners and the Ravens planned to work in shifts to get that library into Nevermore.
Ether was a firm believer in Ravenclaw's philosophy that knowledge should be shared with others, not hoarded like goblins did their gold.
Which was why he was offering four copies of each book for the other houses to rent.