Signing On
Summary: Upon returning to Hogwarts for his sixth year at Hogwarts Harry is confused to find that Dumbledore has somehow adapted Muggle tablets and wifi to work at Hogwarts off magic alone. In fact, the aging Headmaster has gone so far as to, somehow, create a chat room app. How will this change the outcome of the war? How will this change Harry? What happens when some of the extra tablets are sent off not only to a few on the Light side of the war, but the Dark as well?
Warnings: MUGGLE TECH AT HOGWARTS! Yaoi! Evil and Manipulative Dumbledore! Evil and Manipulative Molly! Evil and Manipulative Ginny! Alive Sirius! Free Sirius! Good Voldemort! Good Dark Side! Dark Harry! Dark Sirius! Dark Remus! Dark Ron, George, Fred, Charlie, Bill, and Arthur! Dark Hermione, Neville, and Luna!
Ships: Tom Riddle x Severus Snape! Remus Lupin x Sirius Black! Lucius Malfoy x Arthur Weasley! Bill Weasley x Hermione Granger! Charlie Weasley x Luna Lovegood! Fred Weasley x Draco Malfoy! George Weasley x Neville Longbottom! Ron Weasley x Harry Potter!
A/N: Yes, I realize there was nothing even close to tablets in 1996; however, this idea of the chat rooms kinda slapped me in the face and the screens of a tablets are big enough for them to be useful for chat rooms and homework, but small enough to no take up too much space and becoming heavy and cumbersome to carry around.
*Messages in the Chat Rooms look like this!*
~Let the Story Begin~
Chapter One: The Welcoming Feast and New Tech
Harry Potter sighed as he sat heavily on one of the seats in their newfound compartment on the Hogwarts Express. He was joined by Ron and Ginny Weasley, Hermione Granger, Neville Longbottom, and Luna Lovegood. All of them, save Ginny and Luna who were a year below them, were about to begin their second to last year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Harry looked out the window and smiled when he saw Sirius Black, his godfather, and Remus Lupin waving goodbye at him as the train left, tears in their eyes. Most 16-year-olds would roll their eyes at their godfather and their godfather's boyfriend for nearly crying as they left for school, but Harry understood, and actually felt rather close to tears himself.
You see Sirius Black had been wrongfully imprisoned from November 1st, 1981 to July 1993, when he escaped Azkaban Prison (being the first to do so in history of the feared prison), and had at the end of Harry's fifth year not only nearly died, but was given the trial he'd never received and declared innocent, sane, and given full custody of Harry, who up until then had live with the Dursleys who abused Harry for having magic.
They had spent the entire summer, regardless of the war that they knew was starting to pick up momentum, being the family, they always should have been. Now, Harry was returning to Hogwarts and wouldn't see the men he was coming to see as fathers until Christmas.
"Harry?" Hermione asked gently, pulling the dark-haired teen from his thoughts.
Harry turned to look at the girl. Hermione had changed a lot from their first year, instead of a bushy and wild golden brown haired, tan skinned little girl with a small bit of baby fat still clinging to her and big front teeth while being bossy, nosy, and arrogant she was now a curly chocolate brown haired, pale skinned young woman who had a beautiful womanly figure and perfectly sized front teeth while being intelligent, caring, and at times slightly bossy. Yes, Hermione Granger is a perfect real life ugly duckling who grew into a gorgeous swan. Harry smiled at his best friend, "yes, Hermione?"
"Are you alright?" she asked worriedly, reaching across the small space of the compartment and placed a gentle hand on his knee.
Harry placed his hand on hers, "I'm fine, Hermione, I'm just realizing what it feels for the rest of you to leave home after the summer every year." Hermione smiled, nodded, squeezed his knee, and pulled away from him, sitting back in her seat beside Neville.
"Hey, Harry," Ron asked, "they made you Quidditch Caption, right?"
"Yeah, Professor McGonagall wanted to make it up to me that I couldn't play last year," Harry said, "even if you don't make the team, Ron, I hope you realize you're going to help me strategize. I'm not letting you waste your talent on chess these next two years."
Ron smiled brightly, "really? You mean it, Harry?"
"Of course!" Harry smirked, "and you really should think about becoming a professional coach, it'd probably be a better fit for you than an Auror and you wouldn't need a potions N.E.W.T."
"I dunno," Ron frowned, "with the war starting…"
"You could always change careers after the war," Harry said, "Mum was planning to get her mastery in charms or healing after the war, Dad wanted to play professional Quidditch, Sirius wanted to be a stay at home dad, and Remus has always wanted to teach."
Ron nodded at that, "I'll think about it, you might be right, Harry."
"Maybe we could be on the same team!" Ginny squealed.
"What about me, Harry?" Hermione smirked, "what job should I look into?"
Harry hummed in thought, "I know you want to work in the Ministry, but really you'd be much better suited as an Unspeakable, Professionsal Researcher, or even a Spell Creator."
"And me?" Neville asked.
"I can see you taking over for Professor Sprout one day," Harry smiled.
"What about me?" Luna asked, tilting her head to one side as she smiled dreamily at him.
"Well muggles have this thing called a zoo," Harry said, "I can see you opening a magical version in an effort for others to better understand magical creatures, and maybe prove the existence of the ones e veryone makes fun of you for believing in, but you'll never stop helping your father with the Quibbler whatever you do."
"What about yourself, Harry?" Ginny asked.
Harry frowned and thought for a moment, "I can see myself either replacing Binns, becoming the Defense Professor who breaks the curse, or becoming a stay at home father."
"I didn't know you liked History that much, Harry," Neville said.
"I've always loved history, Muggle or Magical, I just can't stand Binns as a teacher," Harry said, "to be honest I can become like Hermione's long lost twin when it comes to history, and to be honest I fell in love with teaching the DA last year."
"You'd be an amazing teacher, Harry," Ron said softly and reached behind Ginny's head to squeeze Harry's shoulder.
Harry blushed, "thanks, mate."
The conversation turned to their hopes for the coming year, and before they knew it the train was pulling into Hogsmead Station. They took a carriage up to the castle after being joined by Seamus Finnagin and Dean Thomas.
They all, save Luna as the only non-Gryffindor of the group, sat down at the Gryffindor table. Almost as soon as he sat down next to Harry Ron started muttering about how hungry he was. Harry laughed, "we still have to sit through the sorting, mate." Ron groaned and hid his face in Harry's shoulder. Harry, still laughing, pulled his last chocolate frog, and waved it in front of Ron's face, "here, Ron."
Ron's eyes widened at the sight, "b-but that's your last one!"
Everyone at the Gryffindor table froze. The Gryffindors all learned early on that chocolate frogs were like gold to the Potter Heir; he hoarded them, and if someone took one there would be hell to pay. Some of the smarter Gryffindors had even learned that offering chocolate frogs for a favor from Harry got you want you wanted almost every time, Collin Creevey had gotten Harry to pose for 100 pictures last year for a case of the things so long as Collin swore to only use them in his portfolio when he graduated. So, for Harry to offer up his last one, even to his best friend since his first year at Hogwarts, was a big deal.
Harry smiled at him, "I'll just ask Sirius to send me more. Besides Remus's chocolate stash was running low, so they'll end up at a candy shop by the end of the week anyway."
Ron frowned, "still…"
"Take it, Ron," Harry smiled. Ron couldn't help but to smile back and take the candy, quickly opening it and handing the card to his best friend before eating it.
Harry smiled brightly at the card, "it's mum! I knew they were coming out with them, and one for dad too, but I thought they weren't going to be out until Halloween!"
"They're putting your parents on chocolate frog cards now?" Seamus asked.
Harry nodded, "they've wanted to since their deaths, but they had to have permission from their next of kin. I was too young to give them an answer, but right after I got my heirship ring, and got my inheritance sorted with the Goblins, Sirius and I ran into the head card maker, well more like he ran into me…anyway, as soon as he realized who I was he apologized profusely and then he asked if we would like to join him for lunch, his treat of course, after he made his deposit and we agreed. While we were having lunch, Sirius asked why they hadn't started making cards of not just my parents but myself as well. He told us that by law they couldn't make one of anyone underage without parental concent, and that they had never gotten the chance to ask me about my parents since I'd returned to the wizarding world. I, naturally, agreed and Sirius was able to send them enough information for the cards."
"What about you?" Dean asked.
"I struck a deal with him about that," Harry smirked, "see as a living 'Card Member', as they call it, I'd get a free crate of chocolate frogs a month for life as a thank you for helping them sell more."
"What was the deal?" Neville asked.
"They had to put my parents' cards out first, they didn't put it out until I was 17, and I got to choose the picture and what goes on the card, and I get 20 copies of it" Harry said, "oh, and it'll be one of the rarer ones."
"That's awesome, mate!" Seamus gapped.
"Yeah," Harry smiled, "did you know Dumbledore thinks getting his own chocolate frog card his biggest accomplishment?"
"Really?" Dean asked in surprise. Harry just nodded as the first years were led in by McGonagall.
As this year's group of first years was so small the sorting passed quickly, but before the feast appeared Dumbledore stood and sighed sadly, "Student of Hogwarts, I am pleased to welcome you all for another year of learning. However, let's not get ahead of ourselves. This year we have a new way to hopefully not only encourage house unity, but with any problems and questions about your classes. Many of you will be indifferent to this, some will be excited, and some will despise it. This year we are excited to introduce some muggle technology that, from what I and the Ministry understand, is a great help in muggle schools. They are called tablets, and everyone will find one on their beds when you enter your dorm rooms later tonight. When you open it up you will find a screen on which is a picture of Hogwarts and these little pictures called icons. When you touch your finger to one of the icons you will open a certain app. There's one for the library, one with copies of notes and homework assignments for all your classes, and one called Hogwarts' Chat Rooms. In Hogwarts' Chat Rooms you will find a list of chat rooms, now these aren't real rooms they are like the message boards in the common room. There is a chat room for each house, each year, and each class- though those in the chat room for your classes will only be those in your year, whether you have class with them or not. These chat rooms are public, meaning should say Mr. Potter send a message in the Gryffindor chat room everyone from Gryffindor can read that message. You will also find that there is a private chat room for your head of house, myself, and all your other professors. Now these are private meaning should Mr. Potter send a message to Professor Sprout in one of these chat rooms only Professor Sprout can read it. All house, head of house, and year chat rooms will have a password, which will be given to you in your common rooms by your head of house after dinner. Now, before I say anything else please note that you should only message me should you either have an emergency- and I mean a real emergency-, have problems with one of your professors, I message you first, you have something of great importance to tell me- something to the effect of your parents wanting to have a meeting with me-, or one of your professors tells you to talk to me about something you were talking to them about." He stopped then to let everything sink in for a moment before starting again, "there will also be chat rooms for extra-curricular activities, but we forgot to add four chat rooms for the Qudditch teams, so after try outs the Captain of each house team will create a private chat room for the team, Madam Hootch, and their head of house. Everyone will be able to create both public and private chat rooms. There will also be a little icon within the chat room app in the shape of a question mark where you can get help on how to work the app. Outside the app you'll find the same icon and there you can get help on how to work your tablet. Now, students, on a final note please keep in mind that any professor, including myself, can take your tablet and look through it in its entirety at any time. Also, these tablets are a privilege, and just like going to Hogsmead it can be taken away, though you can earn it back. Now, I think I've given you all enough to think and talk about, so let's eat!" Dumbledore clapped his hands and sat down, the five tables of the Great Hall filling with food.
"Huh, I'd never thought I'd see the day that we moved out of the Middle Ages," Hermione hummed.
Dean nodded, "Mum's going to be really happy. We just got two tablets at home, and I should be able to get the IM app we have on my school one to talk to them more often."
"So, you three will teach us how it works…Right?" Ginny asked.
"Of course," Hermione nodded.
"I've never used one myself, but I think I've seen Dudley use one before," Harry nodded.
Dinner passed quickly and they all went up to the common room. Just after the prefects had finished explaining where the dorms were to the first years when Professor McGonagall stepped in. She smiled at them, "welcome to Gryffindor, and for those of you not in your first year, welcome back. Tonight, I will be explaining to all of you how to use your new tablets, and go ahead and give you your time tables. The password for your year chat room, my head of house chat room, and the Gryffindor house chat room are written on the bottom of your time tables in red, though the Gryffindor house chat room password is simply the password to enter the common room and will update as the common room password updates. First years go get your tablets from your dorm rooms and then come back down. The rest of you can start unpacking. I'll send a student from the group before to get you when I'm ready for you. We'll go by year, starting with the first years and ending with the seventh years. Please do not try to do anything with your tablets until I've showed you how to use them."
The Gryffindors all went to do as told. Harry was the first into the room and went over to his desk where his tablet was sitting. He picked it up and looked it over, it looked just like the one he'd seen Dudley using the summer before fifth year.
"What's this?" Seamus asked loudly.
Harry turned to look at the Irish teen to see him playing with the corner of the red silicon case on his tablet. Dean reached over and smacked his hand playfully, "leave it alone, it's a case."
"What's that?" Neville frowned as he traced the golden lion's head on the back of the case.
"It protects it," Harry said, "so it you drop it or drop a book on it or something it'll be alright."
"Then what's with the lion's head?" Ron asked.
"The case's main function is to protect it, but they're also a decoration," Dean said.
"It makes it more fun," Harry said, "they also probably made the cases match each house, so they don't get mixed up."
"Oh!" Ron nodded and put his tablet back on the desk. Harry laughed and did the same, starting to unpack.
About an hour or so later Collin knocked on the door and poked his head in, "Professor McGonagall's ready for the sixth years. Take your tablets down to the common room."
"Thanks, Collin, we'll head right down," Harry said and stood.
"Hey, Harry," Collin started, biting his lip, "are we going to continue with the DA this year? I know we have a different Professor, but still."
"Well, since tomorrow is Saturday, I was going to have everyone meet in the RoR tomorrow after lunch to figure that out," Harry said, "if we decide to continue it I'll make a private chat room for us all on the tablets too." Collin nodded and went to his own dorm room.
Harry and the others grabbed their tablets and headed down to the common room, finding the sixth year girls already there. Harry sat down in his chair, and wasn't too surprised when Hermione plopped herself down into his lap. Hermione smirked up at him and Harry just rolled his eyes.
"Alright, now that everyone's here," McGonagall began, "to power on your tablets there's a small button on the right side." She pushed hers to show them. Harry powered his on and smiled when he saw a picture of Hogwarts was set as the lock screen. "As you can see there is a password you have to type in to get into it; right now, that password is set as your last name. You can change it later, but even if you change it I have a self-updating list of your passwords in my office, so I will always be able to get into it," McGonagall said. Harry typed in his password and smiled even brighter when he saw a picture of the DA as his home screen.
McGonagall then showed them how to change their password, how to take pictures, how to change their home and lock screen pictures, showed them where the help app for the tablet was, and then showed them the library app- which had a list of subjects to choose from and then a list of titles under each subject. They could even check the book out after curfew and then pick it up when the library opened- and the app which had all the classes to choose from and then the professors would add the notes and homework assignments under their subject after each class.
"Alright," McGonagall smiled, "now onto the Hogwarts' Chat Rooms app." They all opened the app. "As you can see before you can even look at the list of chat rooms you have to set up a profile including your house, year, and a username- which is kind of like a nickname that will show up with whatever messages you send. After you do that you'll be taken to a screen that has all the chat rooms already created. I'll read them off for you: Year Chat Rooms- when you click on that you can find the chat room for all the sixth years-, House Chat Rooms- when you click on that you can find the chat room for all the Gryffindors-, Head of House Private Chat Rooms- this is where you'll find the chat room only you and I can look at-, Headmaster private chat room- only you and the Headmaster can look at that, Professor Private chat room- you'll find a list of all the professors and whichever one you choose only you and that professor can look at-, Extra-Curricular Activites chat rooms- all the extra things like music are under that except Quidditch which Mr. Potter will create and make it so only the team, myself, and Madam Hootch can read it-, then you have all the classes listed in alphabetical order, then the options to add either a public or private chat, the chat room app help button, and an update settings button. Any questions?"
Everyone shook their heads. She nodded and handed them their time tables. "Alright off to bed then. Mr. Thomas, Ms. Brown, if you would send the seventh years down?" McGonagall asked. Dean and Lavender nodded and went to do so.
Hermione hugged Harry, "I'll see you in the morning."
"Alright," Harry hugged her back, "send a notice to the DA to meet in the RoR tomorrow after lunch. We need to decide if we're going to continue it this year."
"Good thinking!" Hermione nodded, stood, and ran up to her dorm. Harry stood and went up to his own.
Harry showered, changed into his pjs, and laid down on his bed. He grabbed his tablet and re-opened the Hogwarts' Chat Rooms app after changing his password to "Prongs". "Right, let's see," Harry frowned and started to fill out the profile:
Name: Harry J. Potter House: Gryffindor Year: Six
Username: Chocolate_Frog_Killer Date of Birth: July 31, 1980 Age: 16
Sex: Male Sexuality: Gay Significant Other: None
Favorite Subject: Defense Against the Dark Arts Least Favorite Subject: Divination Dream Job: DADA Professor
Favorite Food: Chocolate Frogs Least Favorite Food: Curry
Harry nodded to himself and hit enter. He was taken to the screen holding all the chat rooms. He scrolled down and created a private chat room with just him, Hermione, and Ron.
Raven-In-The-Lion's-Den: Really, Harry? 'Chocolate_Frog_Killer?' That's the username you chose?
King of Chess: Like you have any room to talk, Hermione. 'Raven-In-The-Lion's-Den', really?
Chocolate_Frog_Killer: Oh, and 'King of Chess' isn't bragging, Ron?
King of Chess: Okay…we all choose usernames that are a bit…extreme…
Raven-In-The-Lion's-Den: It isn't extreme if it's true, and the sorting hat nearly did put me in Ravenclaw.
Harry was about to reply when his tablet dinged, letting him know he had a message in another chat room. He backed out of his current chat room and scrolled down until he found a small red dot on the top right corner of the icon for Ancient Runes. He opened the chat room.
Professor_Bathsheda_Babbling: Mr. Potter, I was impressed to see your O.W.L. grade after only a few months of self-study. I can't wait to have you in class. If there is something you, or any of my students, have questions over please ask them here or in class so everyone can have the answer because someone else might have the same question. I hope everyone had a great summer and you're all ready to get back at it on Monday!
Harry smiled at the greeting and wrote a quick reply.
Chocolate_Frog_Killer: Thank you for the welcome, Professor, and I can't wait to learn from you.
Professor_Bathsheda_Babbling: Mr. Potter, would you mind explaining your username to me?
Chocolate_Frog_Killer: *Laughs* Right, sorry… It's something Oliver Wood once called me as a joke, and I figured that it'd make an alright username until I thought of a better one.
Professor_Bathsheda_Babbling: alright then. Well, I wish you all a good night and good luck in the year ahead.
Harry smiled, backed out of the chat room app, locked the tablet, placed it on his bedside table, placed his glasses on top of it, and went to sleep.