Chapter 12

Harry logged into MWO that night determined to discover more of Hogwart's secrets. He'd spent the day getting feedback on the game with the rest of the staff in the Department of Magical Integration. That meant reading through messages sent by players, and being talked to by apparently everyone he met about how great the game was, or how weird it felt to be in a virtual world. There was some fallout of course - not everyone was happy about the design of the game, or the inclusion of non-magical people, or the representation of the Magical World or the Blood Wars.

Harry didn't much care for those sorts of opinions though - especially since most of them seemed to come from people who had supported the Pureblood agenda.

Naturally, the office had been busy as hell during the day - not everyone had decided to play it during the night after all, and the game ran constantly so players could continue. Though the number of players online dropped dramatically after 9am or so, there were a few others online - people with strange sleep schedules, as well as a good chunk of the DoMI staff who had been working the previous night from outside the game. Only a few had gone inside the game in a guidance or monitoring role, many had been awake the whole night fixing any issues that came up. The system that ran the game was very versatile so thankfully nothing major had come up, but human oversight was still important.

The success of the first day boded well for them though - Harry himself knew a few people were planning to wait and see how well the game did before taking a look themselves. Given how much noise there was about it there was sure to be even more players joining in if only to see what all the fuss was about. Harry approved of that – it was important that people know what was being shown and told to everyone. He didn't think that there were any mistakes but it was worth fixing it early if there were any, not to mention gauging the responses from the different factions.

So far the purebloods had been fussing of course, if only because of their prejudice and fear against having muggles see their world, and having the sordid truth of magical history coming out. The fear wasn't entirely unwarranted – it was a calculated risk to let people know the truth of the mayhem from the last few decades, and even before that with Grindelwald's war. Owning up to their mistakes may gain them negative attention from many corners, but hiding the truth would be worse. Magical people were far too used to getting away without consequences, especially for some of their worst actions politically. Not to mention how, by releasing the information themselves, it prevented others digging it up and putting a slant on it – like how Dumbledore had been smeared after his death because of what happened in his youth.

(Harry was pretty sure even those truths could be found in the game, for those who wanted to read a biography about Dumbledore.)

Unfortunately that all meant that the truth of the last war and Harry himself were available within the game. He avoided anything to do with that, but when he'd stopped into the library there had been a fair number of people around the biography section, most likely looking him up. Hopefully it'd keep them away from him in reality though, if they could get their answers from there. He was aware that people were looking for him in-game, aware that he was a player, but he wasn't about to come clean with his identity. He wasn't impressed with their motive to be here, but hoped that they would come to enjoy the game on its own merit, regardless of their initial reason for playing.

Right now though, none of that stuff mattered. Because right now, Harry was UNO, and he had an important mission to complete.

He was going to find the House Elves.

Harry knew that they worked in the kitchens, so he started there. He hadn't seen any of the Hogwart's elves so far, though he knew they maintained the cleanliness of the castle, especially the student dorms. He'd never seen them in real life either though, so he had to start at the one place he knew they worked in the open.

The kitchens looked just as he remembered them, and they were bustling full of elves as they always were in reality. Harry wasn't entirely sure why – it wasn't like they had set meals or anything in game. You could eat and it tasted just like the real thing, but it wasn't a requirement at all. During the intro he'd eaten a little and gotten a small buff for it for intelligence – which made sense, since it was a school. Food could help recover magic power too, but he'd hardly been spending enough to need it, bar his little adventure in the Chamber.

The house elves were cooking as though they had an army to feed, but that didn't stop a few from splitting off at the sight of him, coming over with squeaking greetings. UNO waved at them in greeting and knelt down to be closer to eye-level to them, much to their shy pleasure.

"How can wes be helping Master UNO?" One of the elves asked him, twisting its spindly hands together and looking at him with bulbous eyes. The other elves around it chipped in with their shrill voices, agreeing and offering help.

"Well uh- you see I was hoping to uncover the Hogwarts Map." Harry told them a bit sheepishly, bringing it to the fore in his UI. "And I realised I hadn't come down here yet to uncover the kitchens."

With the map pulled out fully, the elves crowded around it, exclaiming in curiousity. The map was pretty typical in that it gave him a minimap in the corner of his vision, but had a full map he could pull out. Since it was part of the UI, it couldn't be unequipped but did have a physical form when he pulled it out to look at it.

"Master UNO is missing the house elf dormitories!" One elf squeaked, only to be shushed by the others. Curiousity piqued, Harry looked at the elf that had spoken up. "Oh? Well that makes sense I suppose. I've only ever seen house elves here or when they were called for – but it makes sense that you guys have your own dorms." He hadn't given it much thought in the past to be honest, even with Hermione's S.P.E.W. he'd not given thought to such things as where they slept.

He wasn't sure why he was so surprised to find that the elves would have their own Hogwarts dormitory. It wasn't like the elves could all live in the kitchen after all, and they weren't mistreated here so of course they had to have their own space. He could tell by the expression of the elf that had spoken and the silence of all the elves around him that their dorm was something private though, so he gave a wide smile and backed off the subject. "You don't have to tell me about it – its okay. You guys are entitled to your own privacy, you know?" It seemed simple to him – he wouldn't want someone rummaging around in his space either.

The elves seemed to breathe a sigh of relief and looked amongst themselves as Harry leaned back. As he did so a notification came up indicating he had gained reputation with the Hogwarts House Elves and was now on friendly terms with them. Following that was a quest to befriend the elves, along with a help window explaining how reputation amongst non-human factions could be earned or lost. Unlike with reputation for humans, non-human reputation was more difficult to gain because it required an understanding of what those creatures valued, their customs and expected behaviours. Harry's respect towards the house elves had gained him reputation with them, but he could just as easily lose it by treating them like humans or making a mistake because of his ignorance towards their culture, something he'd not given much thought towards before.

Harry considered himself – and was considered by others given how he'd been asked to help with the real Hogwarts house elves in including them in the game – to be among the most accepted by elves at the moment. Which really was a sad state of affairs when you took into account how little he knew about them truly, their culture and history. He understood them on a different level to most, but he didn't really know them, something he was just now realising.

Backing off from potentially intruding on their privacy seemed to bolster the house elves in front of him though, and the one who had spoken of the dormitories straightened up to face him. "Wes would be honoured if Master UNO wanted to visit the elf-spaces of the castle." It said, and wasn't contradicted by any of the others. "But!" It continued, sticking a pointed finger into the air. "But! He must bes accompanied by an elf!"

"I've got no problem with that." Harry replied bemusedly. "As long as it's not a problem for one of you to come with me. If there are times when you're too busy to, I don't mind coming back when its not so busy." He had no idea what house elves did with their days aside from work, which he knew they enjoyed. As much as he wanted to uncover the map it wasn't like he couldn't take his time a bit if he had to. Besides, elves were always so helpful and he was the one asking for a favour here, so it was only right.

Unfortunately his consideration towards them sent the excitable elves into a tizzy and he could barely untangle the squeaky assurances and words of awe over his kindness that the little creatures wailed at him. Harry did appreciate house elves, but they certainly were an enthusiastic bunch. They took some getting used to, and even he fell into certain traps with them, especially until they got used to him. He treated them like people, but tried to be respectful towards them as another race and culture. It wasn't easy though – Harry had a lot of respect towards those who were able to interact with other races and also humans from other countries. Being able to understand another person and be respectful was much harder than he'd once thought. There was a natural assumption that everyone else followed the same thought processes and had the same history as oneself- no matter knowing intellectually that it wasn't the case, it was still difficult to imagine the world in a whole other perspective. And an entirely different perspective was entirely what non-human magicals had.

In the meantime, the house elves rarely took offence to his slip-ups, even if they did sometimes treat him like he was a bit slow to understand some things. As far as interacting with another race, they were perfect because they were very forgiving of his mistakes.

"Blinky can show Master UNO the way." One of the elves spoke up, indicating another, shy-looking house elf stood beside them. The volunteered elf squeaked but didn't disagree, though it did twist its ears in spindly fingers. Knowing better than to say anything, Harry just nodded agreeably and tried to offer a reassuring smile for the nervous elf.

Apparently satisfied with this arrangement, the elf that had volunteered Blinky began corralling the loitering elves back to their duties. There was what amounted to a mass exodus from where they had all congregated around him, until he was stood in the entrance to the kitchens with just Blinky by his side.

The small elf looked up at him with the bulbous eyes typical of house elves and Harry looked down to meet them. The elf's thin fingers were now held poised close to its chest as Blinky hesitated so Harry took initiative and reached his own hand out. "Ready to show me the way Blinky?" The wizard asked with a reassuring smile.

Though still clearly nervous, Blinky's fingers gripped at his own and gently pulled him towards the door to the kitchens.