Professor Remus J. Lupin (galarusblaidd) wrote in breaking_point, @ 2010-05-08 17:10:00 |
|
|||
Entry tags: | *complete, 2025 05, character: remus lupin |
RP: Remus
Who: Remus Lupin
Where: A Muggle University
When: Saturday, 08 May, 2025
Rating/Warnings:
Summary: Remus experiences the changes in information gathering firsthand
It had been easy to pass as a prospective student on the various university campuses in Britain during the late seventies and early eighties when Remus had first been building contacts in the academic world. He looked the part and there was little security a wizard couldn't bypass easily. It opened up some of the finest libraries in the country to him.
Forty years had wrought quite a change, however, and when Remus watched the students of today on multiple campuses using special cards and passes for everything from obtaining food to getting access to special collections in the libraries, he knew he was going to have to rethink his strategy for getting the information Stephen would need to determine if he could even begin researching the possibility of adapting the muggle processes to magical means.
He managed to get into one of the libraries to start researching the process himself. But, he was stymied when he went searching for the card catalogue only to find the familiar cabinet full of small drawers with their index cards had been replaced by a row of screens with flattened typewriters attached to them. Blinking at the contraptions for a moment, he was unsurprised to find a young librarian bustling over to see if he needed assistance. Remus fell back on his upbringing, blaming his farm-bred upbringing for his lack of understanding of how to use the "computers" to find the books he was looking for.
Still, this was only the first of the readjustments he had to do in his thinking that day. Once he'd located the section he needed and several example titles, he had to do some research of his own. He wanted to be as familiar with the subject as he could get in a brief overview so he didn't spend too much time and effort on the wrong research materials, which meant he spent a few hours research what he could on muggle reproductive sciences and fertility methods. By the time he had amassed several small spiralbound notebooks (which he was now surprised still existed even at the small off campus shop he'd bought them at) worth of notes from his own research, including a list of titles to procure for Stephen, he was left with the dilemna of how to go about that when the photocopiers he was somewhat familiar with from the seventies now all seemed to be run off those little ID cards and he couldn't check out the books themselves without one either.
Well, he likely could, but it would require magic he wasn't quite desperate enough to risk in the Muggle world.
As it happened, an overheard conversation between two students in the next aisle presented him with the solution. It seemed there was a bookshop within the city that catered to the university students and carried a large selection of textbooks.
Replacing the books he'd used for his own research and armed with his list of titles, Remus left the library and the university to make his way to the bookshop. It took some time to locate the bookshop. But, once he did, it was a simple matter of handing the clerk his list of titles. The clerk looked them up on yet another "computer" and led Remus right to the proper shelf, where all but two of the dozen or so titles were missing. After making his purchases, Remus was left with something he knew he could do.
Apparate back to the school and ponder what the world had really become in forty years of "progress".