Dial-Up Dementors

DISCLAIMER! This Harry Potter story was written for fun. All rights belong to the wonderful lady (JK Rowling) who gave the world Harry Potter to read and enjoy. Looking forward to the next movie! Yeah, fanfiction is a great place to stretch your imagination and enjoy someone else's creativity! New Movie is coming in April! Hurrah!

Chapter 9: More House Elves

"Dobby maybe knows elves who need family."

"Great! I need four more house-elves. We need to pick one to take care of Remus and Padfoot because I want you here with me at Hogwarts. And then three more so I can have one elf dedicated to working on my project for each Hogwarts house."

Harry explained his idea of providing essays and other homework to the other students and Dobby didn't pretend to hide his confusion when he asked, "But all students being nasty meanies to Mr Harry Potters. Why you be helping them?"

"I want to show everyone that they're lazy bums. And if they don't study, they'll not pass their OWLs, NEWTs, and regular exams."

"Now Dobby's understand. Likes all wizards who would starve if no house-elf to cook and clean. Wizards without house-elves get sick cause they don't clean dishes or cook foods good."

"I don't want to use anything from Hogwarts. The castle isn't involved with this – just Harry Potter versus everyone in the school. Uncle Moony will provide all the paper we need."

It was two days before Dobby took Harry to the Come-and-Go room to meet four new elves. His elf introduced, "These be Fleadip, Flowers, Oakleaf, and Pinemeedle."

Looking confused, Harry asked the last elf, "Is your name Pineneedle?"

"No, Pinemeedle be Pinemeedle. Brother be Pineneedle and he works at Ministry's Magical," the elf insisted.

"Yes, you know your name," Harry agreed, not wanting to hurt the elf's feelings.

He turned to another of the elves and asked, "Fleadip, do you like dogs?"

"Fleadip knows dogs. Once-upon-a-time Fleadip worked for wizard what raised krups and puppies."

"Great!" Harry replied. "Dobby, go ahead and take Fleadip to No.13 Fulford Road. Introduce him to Remus and Padfoot."

"Does Fleadip knows gardens and yards, too?" asked Dobby.

"Yes," the little elf said before they vanished with a pop.

"Now, let me talk about computers, printers, and the Teacher's Compendium," Harry said. He felt the magic from the three elves touching him and learning about the computer, the operating system, the files he'd stored inside and the printer. All three elves exclaimed with excitement when they learned/felt Mr Harry Potter's spells for converting paper into parchment and then converting the printing into quill-work.

"Mr Harry Potters did this?" Pinemeedle exclaimed before she and the other elves began learning/feeling about the mirror scanners. Harry was pleased that the house elves bonded so easily with him and without other distractions and duties were able to assimilate Harry's knowledge of using the keyboard, accessing the Teacher's compendium and printing out essays. They all managed to use Harry's spells to scan files with the magic mirror and to convert the muggle paper with block printing into parchment with quill script.

Oakleaf sighed and said, "Magics be brilliants and Mr Harry Potter be making magic betters."

While Harry was showing the elves the computer and how to load paper in the printer, the Hogwarts head elf popped into the room and frowned. Shaking her finger at Harry, the elf asked, "Mr Harry Potters be bringing wild elves into Hoggiewarts? What's be you doing?"

Harry got down on one knee and explained that he was going to treat the other students like they had been treating them. Listening to the teenage wizard's words, the elf asked, "Youse not make nobody bleed or die?"

"No! I won't injure anyone like that. I'm going to show them why they should do their own schoolwork."

The elf frowned and appeared to be listening to another voice for a time before she continued, "Lady Hoggiewarts not happy, but she not unhappy with youse plan. She understands and be sad but will allow for this years only. She wants you to gets old professors and Whiskers out of castle. They all listens to Whiskers Greater Lemon Drops and forgets to be helping baby wizards and witches."

The elf walked over to each elf and bent over to touch her head to their heads. "Now youse be in the wards easy. Does not get caught by Whiskers or blind professors."

"Thank you," Harry said. "And thank you, Hogwarts."

The head elf listened again for a minute and then added, "She says youse owe her. There be much for Mr Harry Potters to do at Hoggiewarts next years."

"What's we do first?" asked Flower.

"I need you to get a sample of writing from each student beginning with the fourth-year students and go all the way to the seventh-year students. We'll catalogue each student's handwriting."

CHANGE SCENE && New Potions

After thinking and debating with himself for an hour, Harry decided that his elves would not provide essays for students taking Potions. He made certain that Flower slipped a copy of the essay about Snape destroying the careers of potential healers and brewers for more than ten years to the new potion's professor. And it had not taken long for Professor Andromeda Tonks to discover the poor level of education in Hogwarts regarding potions. It was only three days before there was an eruption at the staff table during dinner.

Everyone stared as Andromeda Tonks stood and demonstrated why only a fool would irritate a witch from the Black family. Her wand threw every professor's chair back from the table and she glued them to their seats before she shouted, "You dolts! You clods! These children couldn't mix a martini, let alone a potion!"

"They don't understand chopping versus mincing, shrivelled fig leaf versus robust leaf figs, simmer versus boil, and they can't even decant a potion from a cauldron into a potion jar! And you sat here and let it happen!" Andromeda declared. "You are failures as professors and human beings."

"Flitwick isn't…" Dumbledore tried to interject but fell silent at the glare the potions professor directed at the headmaster.

'Merlin, she does look just like Bellatrix…at least she's on our side…I hope,' the headmaster thought.

Eventually, the professors got loose from their chairs and in the resulting spell exchange, Dumbledore lost most of his beard for a week, McGonagall lost the ear and hair on the left side of her face for three days, and Flitwick hobbled with one foot in a cast for the same three days. (The infirmary was out of skelegrow so Poppy couldn't heal the wound in a single night). Professor Sprout was tearful and cried for a day but then the head of Hufflepuff turned into a taskmaster with her older students to make up for poor potions tuition. Professor Sinestra remained silent but led her Slytherin students into mandatory extra classes for potion revision. That witch wondered if it was time to cut her losses with Hogwarts and travel around the world.

'I hear the States are welcoming of smart, intelligent witches,' Sinestra remembered.

When asked about the late Professor Snape, Professor Sprout said, "Severus Snape couldn't teach a Satyr to drink wine!"

CHANGE SCENE && Elven Assignments

There was one argument between Harry and his elven operatives. When the five met to decide who would deliver the essays to the students, Dobby immediately spoke up and said that he wanted to be one to deliver papers to the Lazy Lions. But Harry said, "No…you can't do Gryffindor, Dobby."

The elf looked crushed, and the other elves looked afraid for a moment before Harry explained, "Dobby, you're the bestest elf in the world but we have to keep secrets this year. And several people in Gryffindor know you. Hermione…" (The elves all shivered in horror to hear the name of the witch who wanted to kill all of the house elves in Britain.) "…Ron, and his sister all have seen you with me. I can't assign you to Slytherin for the same reason. Sooner or later Draco would smack your head and then I'd have to tear his arm off for daring to touch my friend."

Nodding his head in understanding, Dobby replied, "Mr Harry Potters thinking like a smart wizard. Dobby will listen and do."

"Dobby, I want you to take care of Hufflepuff. All the students in fourth-year through seventh-year get essays in everything except potions. I want Professor Tonks to see how bad everyone is in potions because of Snape."

The elf nodded as Harry continued, "Pinemeedle is to be the elf for Gryffindor essays. Oakleaf will work in Ravenclaw and Flower is to be the Slytherin elf."

He told all four elves, "Don't let any student cast any spells at you."

"Mr Harry Potter tells Flower to hide?" asked the elf, curious what the wizard meant.

The wizard smiled and said, "If anyone casts a spell at you, use a shield and deflect the spell away from you. Let it hit the caster's bed or desk…maybe hit another student if it's not too bad so it'll start a fight."

Dobby asked, "Mr Harry Potters, can we's do that for all houses?"

Harry paused for a moment, his face showing his surprise at the question. "Dobby, do you think the students from other houses will try to hurt you and the other elves?"

Pinemeedle squeaked, "Purebloods don't cares about house-elves. Many throws clothes to terrifies all house-elves to being made free and dies."

His face turning sour, Harry declared, "All of you, shield yourself from their spells and if they throw clothes at you, it doesn't count. You're my house-elves and no one is going to set you free to die."

Pinemeedle hesitated for a moment but then she said, "Mr Harrys Potters, Pinemeedle knows how wizards think and…they not like free things much."

"What do you mean?" asked Harry gently, surprising the new elves who expected their wizard to get angry with them.

"Theys all think that they be better than all other creatures because theys be wizards! Theys proud and even if poors, they refuses to admits."

Thinking about Ron who was obsessed about being poor, Harry said, "What do you think we should do about that?"

Pinemeedle said, "We's should charge sickle for each essay."

"Some of the students don't have money." Harry continued with a sarcastic tone, "I wouldn't want Ron to be left out."

We's tell them scholarships but not to tell anyones else," Oakleaf said.

"And rich wizardses pay more maybe for bestest essays?" asked Flower, thinking about how rich wizards and witches wanted better things than the average ones got.

Harry shrugged and said, "You'll be the ones dealing with the students in the different houses. Just don't get in trouble or aggravate them."

"Not even She-Who-Wants-to-Kill-Us-All?" asked Oakleaf.

Shaking his head at the name that the elves had given Hermione, Harry smiled and said, "Hermione means well but she won't listen to anyone else. She thinks she knows everything. Now, let's finish up. Oakleaf will take Ravenclaw, and Dobby will be responsible to deliver essays to the students in Hufflepuff."

The elves all nodded that they understood the assignments and Harry sat back, determined to follow the example of Severus Snape to weaken Magical Britain.

CHANGE SCENE %% Essay From a Friend

Before the middle of January, Harry heard from his elven operatives about the general reactions of the students in the four houses when elves delivered the latest 'Essay From a Friend'. The students were pleased when the parchment appeared in their own handwriting, so they didn't have to copy it again. The ones with extra coins paid their knuts for essays each week and the richest ones paid a sickle for them. All the money went into a Hogwarts fund to pay for socks for the house elves to wear in winter when the stone floors were terribly cold.

In Gryffindor, most of the students in Years 4-7 used the essays without question. In the first week, Ginny Weasley heard Ron bragging about the 'castle doing his homework'. With her wand stuck in his face, she demanded Ron get them for her or she would turn him in for cheating.

To prevent problems, Pinemeedle talked with Mr Harry Potters who shrugged and said, "Third-year stuff is there. Give 'em to her but only her. I'm working with the other third year students on homework."

As expected, Hermione never asked about the essays that the other students 'found'. Something in the witch had changed after last year. She did her work for Hogwarts, but Harry saw her reading other books and working on essays with biros and muggle paper too. Fred and George leapt onto the bandwagon of easy homework but discovered their pranks seemed to fail more and more in the autumn and spring terms. (Pinemeedle objected to the pranks that hurt other students). Harry was pleased that his friend, Neville Longbottom, only used the free homework twice before using the essays and homework to revise his own work the next day.

In the dungeons, most students seemed to expect the Essay From a Friend as their due because of their membership in Slytherin. Two witches in the fourth year, Daphne Greengrass and Tracy Davis continued to complete their own work but also used the essays to revise their knowledge. Depressed and gloomy, Draco chose to conserve his funds and handed over knuts to pay for Acceptable essays.

The Hufflepuffs in another part of the dungeons also adopted the practice of taking the Essay From a Friend and submitting them to the professors. Dobby told Harry. "Missy Susans Bones reads the essays but does her own work, and she makes Missy Hannah Abbots do too. And Mr Ernie McMillian only uses them in transfiguration and still tries to study."

"Can you look in the computer for anything that might help Ernie with his transfiguration?" Harry asked Dobby who nodded and hurried to the computer.

At the end of the second week in January, Harry'd sent a letter to Remus begging for three more computers and printers. Each elf needed their own keyboard to keep up with demands to subvert the education of the students at Hogwarts. Uncle Moony came through with four more computers, keyboards, and Quill printers. Dobby patronized a shop in Diagon Alley that sourced the muggle paper and toner cartridges needed for the printers.

Harry Potter kept a low profile in January as many of his school mates proved to be lazy and willing to let the 'castle' provide their homework to them.

In a major magazine in continental Europe, Headmaster Karkaroff gave a very detailed interview that was damaging to Dumbledore's reputation internationally. He provided photographic proof of the bullying, spell casting, and problems every student at Hogwarts faced. The reporter wasn't surprised when the headmaster announced that he and his students would not return to Scotland in January.

"I'll escort Victor there for the second task in Black Lake in February. Oh, forgive me, I wasn't supposed to leak that tidbit of information. Yes, Albus Dumbledore thinks that the student body and visitors should sit in the cold on a February afternoon and stare at the surface of a lake while the champions chase after something in the frigid waters."

Headmaster Karkaroff shook his head slowly and sighed sadly, "I can't imagine how that wizard's mind works. And they let him be headmaster of a school of children!"

The same issue of the magazine carried Madame Maxime's letter endorsing Karkaroff's decision and echoing it for her own students. She listed multiple cases where Hogwarts staff sat back and ignored bullying and pranks that caused injury to students in the school. 'Students deserve to be safe from bullies and pranks. The families pay much gold for their child to attend Hogwarts – they don't get value for their galleons! I shall take Mademoiselle Delacour to Hogwarts for the second task. And the headmaster Dumblefools needs to change his plans – no student of Beauxbatons will be the hostage at the bottom of the Lake Black!'

CHANGE &&& Pricing for Essay From a Friend

One sickle for Outstanding essays.

Five knuts for Exceeds Expectations essays.

One knut for Acceptable essays.

There are 17 Sickles in a Galleon, 29 Knuts in a Sickle, and 493 Knuts in a Galleon.