CHAPTER 1:
WHY WOULD A HOUSE ELF STEAL MY LETTERS?
Harry didn't understand what was going on. His Aunt (well, great-aunt) Caroline had disappeared a few weeks ago, leaving him in the care of a young woman who couldn't talk, save for using an electrolarynx. Big sis Chell was nice and all, but Harry missed Caroline.
He had been told that she had passed on, that she was dead, but there was some instinct screaming within Harry that they were lying. Harry didn't trust any of these adults, or at least few of them. They followed the orders of a dead madman, a madman that Harry only barely remembered. A jolly madman…but a dangerous one. His aunt liked the madman…but she had been cursing him in the last few days before she disappeared. She had been crying too. The night before she vanished, she had told Harry, tearfully, that she would always love him.
And then, one of the scientists had come and asked Chell to bring Harry to a big room, where a strange structure hung from the ceiling. For some odd reason, it seemed almost like a giant metal woman, trussed up and hung from the top of the chamber. Distantly, he heard Barney the security guard ask, "Why did you bring a kid in here?"
"We've tried everything to calm her down, including those damn Cores. Maybe this might help. She was attached to him, remember?"
"Yeah, she was his great-aunt. And you took her from him, you bastard."
"Keep your voice down, moron!"
Those words hadn't registered with Harry at the time. It was only later, when he looked back on the memory, that he realised what they had meant. However, the man who had brought him and Chell indicated the massive structure. "Isn't she beautiful? The Genetic Lifeform and Disk-Operating System. The world's true artificial intelligence."
Harry was better read than most kids his age: it came from being brought up in Aperture Science. "An AI?"
"Yep. So, let's switch her on!"
Harry felt the hand on his shoulder, Chell's hand, tighten, in support and in tension. The massive structure about them shuddered, shivered, even seemed to convulse slightly. A whine that gently built up in pitch permeated the air. Then, the structure unfolded, and what could have been a head with a single, yellow eye peered at the gathered scientists. "Initialization of Genetic Lifeform and Disk-Operating System complete," the structure spoke in an eerie, lilting, electronic tone that sounded horribly, horribly familiar to Harry.
"GLaDOS?" the scientist who had made those comments to Barney asked. "How are you this morning?"
There was a pause, before the voice spoke again. "How curious, how simple, asinine questions have complicated answers."
As the scientist blinked, wondering whether he had been insulted (he had been), Harry had a flash of recognition. That voice…it couldn't be. "Auntie?" he asked, in a quiet, lost voice.
GLaDOS froze, before the massive body turned to face Harry, the baleful yellow eye narrowing, Harry recoiling like a rabbit in the headlights. The head of the structure tilted slightly, almost quizzically.
Distantly, Harry heard Barney say to the scientist, "I'll use technical terms to describe this situation, Doc: you done goofed."
"Who…are you?" That's what GLaDOS said, her lilting voice having a strangely plaintive element to it. "Who…are you?" Suddenly, she shrieked, doing a good imitation of a Dalek, "ANSWER!"
Harry recoiled from the scream, and Chell made to bustle him away, only for part of the floor to become a wall, obstructing their way. She fumbled around in her jacket, and fished out her electrolarynx, and snarled, in her buzzing monotone that nonetheless conveyed her anger at the situation, "You're frightening him!"
"I'M frightening HIM?!" GLaDOS retorted. "HE'S frightening ME! WHO IS HE?"
"Shut her down!" yelled the scientist.
"No! She's Great-Aunt Caroline!" Harry yelled. "What did you do to her?!"
"She's not Caroline Evans," the scientist snapped. "She's the Genetic Lifeform and Disk-Operating System."
"I know that voice, that's Great-Aunt Caroline!" Harry yelled, struggling to free himself from Chell's grasp.
"No…no…no…I AM GLADOS! I AM AM AM AM GLAD TO BE HERE. GLAD TO BE MAKING SCIENCE."
"Sir, the systems, they're being taken over! GLaDOS is taking over Aperture Science!" someone yelled, understandably panicked.
"Indeed I am," GLaDOS purred, her voice far more feminine and sultry. Her yellow eye turned into a demonic, diabolical red. And then, it became a masculine, if sibilant, voice, cold and high. "Foolish Muggles. I have become immortal. And soon, I will be rid of Harry Potter…"
Pipes poked in through holes in the walls and ceiling. Sickly-looking green gas hissed in. Almost instantly, Harry began choking, as he heard the high, cold laugh from the supercomputer that was once his great-aunt…
It's a fallacy that people who have nightmares sit bolt upright in a panic, at least most of the time. But it can still happen, and Harry Potter, a few days short of his twelfth birthday, did so, screaming loudly, before his panic died down slightly. The room, whose systems were keyed to tell when he was awake, gently lit up. A few seconds later, the distinctive lilt of his great-aunt's voice emanated from the speakers. "It is now 5:34 AM Eastern Time on the 27th of July, 2002." Then, rather more softly, GLaDOS' voice said, "Harry…I heard you screaming. And as much as I love to test the decibel and hertz range of human voices under various stimuli including stress and fear, I must admit to concern."
"A nightmare," Harry said. "Thank whatever deity exists…"
"You're welcome."
Harry scowled half-heartedly at GLaDOS' habitual display of hubris. "It was about that day. When you woke up, and Chell and I were there, and you panicked, and it all went south…except it was worse this time," he confessed. "You broke out the neurotoxin early…and then you started speaking like Voldemort."
GLaDOS, for a time, was silent. Then, she said, "While I have many treatments at my disposal for nightmares, I believe a hug would be one you appreciate most. Would you like one?"
Harry nodded. Then, suddenly, with a loud crack!, GLaDOS appeared in the room, or rather, her proxy gynoid. Slender, buxom, dressed in a figure-hugging skinsuit, with short silver hair, a beautiful if stern face, and golden eyes with black sclera, this was the body GLaDOS used whenever she wanted to physically interact with humans.
The gynoid gently knelt down next to Harry's bed, and hugged him, the robotic body surprisingly soft to his touch. As he returned the embrace, she said, her voice now less lilting and more human-like, "You remember how the day truly went. You saved me that day, Harry. You did more for me than any of those scientists with more years of experience. They sliced my skull opened, and diced my brain as they uploaded it. You gave my soul back to me, twisted out of shape by their science though it was. I am both more and less than Caroline Evans now. But I will always be your great-aunt, Harry."
Harry nodded. It was rare that GLaDOS was so candid, so human, like she was being now. Usually, she had a dark sense of humour, a tendency to pile on the hubris with a trowel, and a very loose sense of morality and workplace health and safety. But there was someone who loved Harry Potter deep inside her, and indeed, the rest of the loose little family that had sprung up around them both. Like Chell, daughter of a scientist, and now Harry's big sister and fellow test subject. Or Rattmann, a schizophrenic whose relationship with GLaDOS varied between paranoid fear and bemused collaboration. Or Wheatley, the Personality Core who was well-meaning but rather stupid. And there was Atlas and P-Body, a pair of testing droids.
And over the past year, they had been joined by more people. The first was Doctor Gordon Freeman, formerly of Aperture's rivals, Black Mesa, made to take the fall for sabotage, albeit necessary sabotage to prevent an invasion from another world. Freeman, while paranoid, egotistical, and an abuser of painkillers, was a decent enough guy. Harry had grown to like him, and vice versa.
The second and third additions to the family were, in a way, part of Harry's family from his birth, but circumstances had prevented them from being there for him. For Sirius Black, it was being framed for the murders of his parents and the real traitor to the Potter family. For Remus Lupin, it was the fact that he was a werewolf, and thus despised by much of magical society.
The latest two additions were somewhat stranger, even by Aperture Science standards. They were both ghosts, spirits of a sort, that Harry had captured during his first year at Hogwarts. One was a ghost by the name of Myrtle Warren, better known to students as Moaning Myrtle. Harry had asked her if she wanted to be captured, and she agreed, rather more swiftly than he had thought, simply because she was bored of haunting the same castle. Thanks to GLaDOS' experiments, she now had a gynoid body of her own. Wheatley, after some insisting, got his own android body, and the two had been dating.
The last addition, however, was not a pleasant one. In fact, he was Harry's self-appointed nemesis, Lord Voldemort. Harry had captured the twisted man's spirit in a split-second decision that he was surprised had worked. Said spirit had been possessing a teacher at the time, who didn't survive, and despite Quirrell being a willing helper of Voldemort, Harry still suffered occasional nightmares of that incident.
GLaDOS had transferred Voldemort's spirit into a Personality Core, plugged up the access ports (in the unlikely event that Wheatley got persuaded by Voldemort to hook him up to any computer system), and wired it into a potato battery. Aperture Science boasted that all equipment would be functional at 1.1 Volts, and with Personality Cores at least, stripped of anything superfluous, this was true. Though if Voldemort ranted, raved, or stressed out too much, his Core would short out and shut down temporarily. Harry sometimes went down there, usually to taunt his nemesis, though he sometimes just sat there and glared at Voldemort.
Harry then realised something. "GLaDOS, have you found out anything about why my letters and parcels are going astray? Hermione and the Weasleys said they sent things, but…"
"I believe I have found the culprit at last. They were a tricky little customer, managing to avoid my cameras. However, as you know, I have found a way to emulate Will-based Transmogrification Force in this body, or magic to those too lazy or unscientific to recite the full name or acronym."
"I know, you've been practising Apparition with that body. You used it to come in here."
"Exactly. Apparition causes a brief but acute distortion in local space, as opposed to the longer but less-straining influence of portals. I have calibrated sensors around Aperture to separate the two, and have found incidents of acute transient spatial distortion outside of my own use of Apparition. I have also excluded Mr Lupin and Mr Black, as they have not used it, outside of a few tricky Test Chambers, which I still maintain is cheating. I have spotted a brief silhouette of our intruder. The outline conforms to a magical creature known as a House Elf."
"A House Elf," Harry mused. He had read about those last year, and nearly caused some trouble when he discussed them with Hermione. Only the revelation that they were engaged in a symbiotic relationship with the wizards they served to gain magic to maintain their existence stayed her hand, though she was still far from happy about it. Instead of freeing them, she was striving to find a way to give them rights, or at least protection against abuse. "Why would a House Elf steal my letters?"
"I do not know. However, House Elves are generally owned by rich families, particularly those of a Pureblood persuasion. It is possible that this House Elf was sent to disrupt communications between you and your friends. However, said House Elf is unaware that Hermione can use email, and the Weasleys have been using the hologrammatic projector. Unless he or she is listening in." She stiffened, and then, her arm, quick as a striking cobra, suddenly lashed out and grabbed a hold of something just underneath the bed. Harry heard whimpering as GLaDOS pulled out a diminutive figure with large eyes, large ears, and wearing a rather ratty old pillowcase as a makeshift gown, which was how GLaDOS was holding him.
As the House Elf cringed away, GLaDOS said, almost conversationally, "Good morning. If you wish for it to remain that way, you will introduce yourself, and explain what you are doing here. Otherwise, I may consider vivisecting you like I did to Mr Pettigrew a few days ago."
"Vi-vi-vi-vivisecting?" the House Elf whimpered.
"In layman's terms, I will cut you up while you are still alive. Anaesthetic is optional, as is survival."
Harry leapt to the House Elf's defence, partly because it was the right thing to do, and partly because he was sure that GLaDOS was doing a 'good cop, bad cop' routine, where she was the bad cop. GLaDOS would never vivisect someone unless they had done something truly bad, and Peter Pettigrew had not just betrayed the Potters, but left Sirius to rot in Azkaban, and had murdered a number of people, a dozen alone when he framed Sirius for his own death. "GLaDOS, calm down! He's just a House Elf, he's not a Death Eater!" he protested.
"Harry Potter!" the House Elf whimpered. "So long has Dobby wished to meet you…such an honour…"
"So, your name is Dobby," GLaDOS said. "We are making progress. As you have introduced yourself, and you know my great-nephew, I will introduce myself. I am the Genetic Lifeform and Disk Operating System, or GLaDOS for short. Keep in mind that I have the ability to become your worst nightmare, though at the moment, I have little of the inclination. If you explain what you are doing here, then that won't change."
"GLaDOS!" Harry snapped. He knew GLaDOS was bluffing, but he could tell how terrified the poor House Elf was. "Put him down."
Dobby, after a moment, looked at Harry, refusing to look GLaDOS in the eyes. GLaDOS rolled her eyes, but allowed Dobby to stand on the bed, though her hand still remained on his pillowcase gown. "You can sit, Dobby," Harry said. "I know House Elves aren't always treated so well, but as long as you're truthful…"
"Sit down…never…never ever…" Dobby began to sob loudly, even as he did so, GLaDOS shifting her hand as she did so to allow him to sit comfortably. "Dobby has never been asked to sit by any wizard, like an equal…"
"Dobby, let us get back to the point," GLaDOS said, her voice having a kinder tone than earlier. "Are you the one responsible for stealing Harry's mail?"
After a moment, Dobby reluctantly nodded. "Harry Potter must not go back to Hogwarts. He will be in great danger! Dobby thought…if Harry Potter thought his friends had forgotten about him…he would not go back."
GLaDOS sighed. "That is on par with one of Wheatley's ideas. Have you two been in correspondence?"
Harry groaned, and said, "Dobby…why do you think I shouldn't go back to Hogwarts? Is there something new happening?"
Dobby, reluctantly, nodded. "Dobby will have to punish himself later, but…Dobby knows of a plot, a plot to make most terrible things happen this year at Hogwarts…Dobby has known it for months, sir. Harry Potter must not put himself in peril. He is too important, sir!"
"And who is behind it?" GLaDOS asked, only for Dobby to suddenly break free, and start hitting his head on the wall.
"BAD DOBBY! BAD DOBBY!" he shrieked.
GLaDOS rolled her eyes, and hauled the House Elf into the air again by his pillowcase gown. "I presume it is your master, given your enthusiastic attempts to give yourself brain damage. House Elves are meant to protect their masters' secrets, and some punish themselves if they reveal them, or contravene their orders. You can't even reveal who your masters are, can you?" Dobby shook his head. "Are they Death Eaters?" Dobby, after a moment, nodded, only to wince in pain. "Well, you have done well enough warning us against their orders, Dobby. But I will put it to you bluntly. Harry will be returning to Hogwarts, and I will be going with him."
"But he mustn't! The great Harry Potter mustn't go back to Hogwarts!" Dobby protested. "He will be in mortal danger!"
"Perhaps. But so will anyone else who crosses him, and by extension, me. Your warning has been heard, Dobby, but as a man by the name of Frank Herbert once said, knowing that there is a trap is the first step in avoiding it(1)." GLaDOS stood, lowering Dobby to the ground. "You will come with me, Dobby, and you will see the consequences of crossing myself and my great-nephew."
"What are you going to do, GLaDOS?" Harry demanded, before she put his fears at rest.
"I am going to show him a certain potato battery, and what is attached to it…"
Dobby's usually big eyes were now ridiculously wide as he saw the entity now informally known as Potatomort by the residents of Aperture. GLaDOS believed that he was torn between being afraid of Potatomort, being afraid of her, or being impressed by her. As Potatomort raged and raved, GLaDOS then turned to Dobby, and said, "Do you understand, Dobby?"
Dobby nodded. "Dobby understands, Miss Gladys. But how did Miss Gladys manage such a feat?"
"Harry captured him with Aperture technology. I was the one who made him into a potato. You are not to speak of it to your master, but then again, I doubt you will. You wouldn't want him to know you warned Harry, after all. However, you did so, and I thank you for it. If you will kindly return the letters you stole in your badly thought-out plan, I will let you go without attempting vivisection."
Dobby promptly fished a thick wad of letters, and laid them down with both fear and reverence, which appealed to GLaDOS' god complex. "He Who Must Not Be Named…is a potato. That thought will warm Dobby's heart for years to come."
"I WILL ROAST YOUR HEART ON A SPIT, ALONG WITH THE REST OF YOU, HOUSE ELF! THEN WE'LL SEE HOW WARM IT IS…!" Potatomort roared as loud as he could, before his Personality Core shorted out and deactivated.
GLaDOS rolled her eyes, though she had to admit, the threat was halfway decent. "We will take care, Dobby, and ensure that this plot will be stopped. And if I find out who your master is, I will endeavour to free you if you wish."
"Miss Gladys would do that for Dobby?" Dobby asked.
GLaDOS nodded. "Now, go back to your master."
Dobby nodded, before disappearing. GLaDOS bent down and picked up the letters, before she turned back to Potatomort, who had just reactivated. "Incidentally, Voldemort, how is potato-based immortality working out for you?" GLaDOS asked conversationally.
Voldemort's scream of fury could be heard across much of Aperture, though he deactivated for a lot longer that time…
CHAPTER 1 ANNOTATIONS:
So, here you have it. The first chapter. It's quite a bit darker than the original, but I wanted to start with Harry's memory of GLaDOS activating. I decided to turn it into a nightmare. A bit clichéd, but effective. This flashback turned nightmare was born from waytodawn0's request in one of the reviews for Is Your Great-Aunt an AI?! to show something of when Harry met GLaDOS. Unfortunately, I didn't do the whole thing, as it degenerated into a nightmare.
I also wanted to show a more conventionally loving GLaDOS, one who occasionally does do these maternal things for Harry. Not often, but enough that his love for her is very real. Hopefully, the next chapter will have more humour in it. Incidentally, more will be made of how she came to be able to use magic later, although I did say it was possible at the end of Is Your Great-Aunt an AI?!
1. A quote from Dune.
