CyberTech Worlds Clash

Chapter XIV

School Improvements

Cordelia Cline hummed herself a tune as she sat behind her new desk in the head office typing away at the holographic screen in front of her. They had broken into the office pretty easily. Then they threw out all of the crap that they didn't want, and she didn't need

She had already gotten some new upgrades, such as the necessary holographic emitters and computer system that was linked to the Seraph Network.

Her desk was larger than Dumbledore's was, black and curved like glass around her comfy black leather high backed seat, so she could have holographic screens around her to still be neat and tidy without monitors and the like.

The office had changed quite a bit as all of the bookshelves, and books had been removed, (well the books she had no interest in), and new bookshelves taking their place, and magical 'whatever's' had been taken away for study in Wonderland as some of them scanned as dangerous.

The only real things that she kept was this oddly chatty hat, and Ashe's new pet phoenix, Fawkes. Ashe though letting the phoenix hang out in their office was more impressive and since the ceilings were so high there was plenty of room for him.

His perch system was where they placed Ashe's similar desk on the upper platform where the giant telescope used to be. The perches and platforms rose up to end at a high window that he used to fly in and out. Ashe's desk was out to the left of the platform while facing the front door, and to the left of that on the lower level was a small kitchenette.

It had been just over two months, and everything seemed to be ahead of schedule. It was amazing how CyberTech went above and beyond. The school classes were back to normal with extra lessons set to start after the Christmas holidays.

However, it was the interviews with students that brought a chill to Cordelia's spine. Students had been reluctant, but with some coaxing they got hard truths about parents and other family members, and arrest warrants were issued. It was no wonder so many students didn't want their parents involved.

Unfortunately, even some male students were taken into custody and removed from the school. Once they were charged if found guilty, they would be expelled and imprisoned. She felt sorry for those kids. They had been taught to do what they wanted. It didn't help matters when parents were at it too, and certain teachers let it continue.

Severus Snape would never see daylight again, and if Cordelia ever met that old man Dumbledore, she would take him to a Wonderland far greater than anything the Magical World could come up with. She had a sister who would likely enjoy experimenting on him until he died a terrible, used and abused death.

Cordelia almost growled while thinking about it and paused as she had been writing a report using the holographic keyboard. It had left a large part of Slytherin House missing as they had arrested forty-three students from Slytherin alone, and seventeen from the other three combined.

Shaking her head clear, Cordelia grimaced. It wasn't just female students who needed therapists but male too, for all sorts of weird programming. Some of the students really believed that the muggles (as they called them) weren't as human as them. That was one of the weirdest things she had ever heard come out of anyone's mouths, and it wasn't just one kid either, and it wasn't just Slytherin students.

Cordelia she still wasn't sure whether some of the kids 'non'-serious issues were funny or not they were that ridiculous because of the magical world's propaganda 'programs'. However, she was startled as she heard the buzzer on her office door ring.

"Come in!" Cordelia called, and the system unlocked the door and it swished open into the wall. The main doors in had to be changed as they had been damaged breaking in, and they figured that it was a good idea to renovate as much as they could when the choice prevailed itself; as long as they didn't destroy anything unnecessarily.

"Umm… hi, Professor Cline?"

The young blonde woman asked uncertainly as she entered. She looked shy as her grey eyes took in the room in shock and awe. She jumped as the frosted glass door slid closed behind her and locked into place. She was wearing a black robe left open to show a blue skirt suit with white blouse and short tie that somehow looked uncomfortable on her even though it looked well made. It showed that she made a big effort to try to do things right while still being witch about it.

"I-I'm Daphne Greengrass," she said nervously. "Professor McGonagall wants to hire me and said that you have to i-interview me to a-approve my appointment."

"Oh course," Cordelia said with a grin. "Please; take a seat," she said as she gestured one of the three short backed leather chairs in front of her desk.

Daphne nervously took the offered seat while shifting uneasily under the older woman's blue-eyed gaze. "Thank you," she replied while sitting on the edge of her seat as if she was ready to bolt at a moment's notice.

"Why are you so nervous?" Cordelia asked in surprise. "Professor McGonagall recommended you replace Professor Granger, since she kind of quit out of nowhere and I tried to get her to at least fill in until we get a replacement, but she can be stubborn, and we've been without a runes teacher for a while now.

"Anyway, I'll trust Professor McGonagall's judgement on this matter, but I have a few questions for you before you begin. Some may be a little personal, so I'll understand if you choose not to answer. All I ask is that you don't lie about it."

"Okay," Daphne agreed while chewing on her lower lip. "But I'm not in trouble, right? I've never been a Death Eater and I've never been tricked into following, Dumbledore. So, I'm not going to jail, right? I don't think I would last in jail. I was in Slytherin but I-."

"You're not in trouble," Cordelia interrupted while rolling her eyes. "Were you victimised by any of the male students?" she asked straight to the point, catching Daphne off guard.

Daphne's eyes widened before they narrowed in fury. "Fuck no. I would have cut off their fucking tiny pricks if they came near me or my sister! I made sure those bastards knew they would die if they came near me, my sister, or my best friend!

"And before you ask, yes, I bloody told my mum what was going on with some of them!" she hissed, and Cordelia felt warmth towards the younger woman at seeing the real her. "She went to Dumbledore and he did nothing but tell Snape on me! That greasy bastard attacked me. I got away. My mum sent that bastard to St. Mungo's magical hospital for thinking he could touch me. Didn't go near us again.

"Probably the same reason he didn't try anything with Amanda Potter… I mean Avalon! Mum used to be friendly with Lily Evans at school. Or maybe he feared whatever happened to the Dark Prick happening to him because I bet Dumbledore wouldn't have given a shit."

"I see," Cordelia replied slowly and thoughtfully. "And why not go to the ministry?"

Daphne snorted. "Mum did," she replied. "But those filth control the place. Have dipshits like the Minister eating out of their arseholes! Figuratively of course… probably."

Cordelia smiled sadly as the young woman deflated. It had been nice that Daphne opened-up. It was also awesome to hear that English accent. The girl could play queen with that tone, which made the cussing all the more 'interesting' to listen to.

Daphne was surprised as Cordelia offered her hand and slowly reached out and took it. "We are going to be great friends. I have a psychiatric degree. If you would like to talk, anytime," she said holding Daphne's small hand tightly between her fingers. "It will be completely off the record any other time. You can vent and cry any time you want, okay, sweetie?" she said and asked gently.

Smiling slightly, Daphne nodded her head. "Yes. Yes. Thank you. But there is one thing I would like to ask first," she said softly.

"Of course."

"Is it okay if my sister and best friend come to stay with me?" she asked hopefully.

"Of… of course you can visit with friends and family-."

"No, I mean…" Daphne said thinking of the words. "To stay. It will be safer here than out there; until everything is safer. I would worry-."

"Ah," Cordelia said nodding thoughtfully. "How is your sister for work?"

"Umm… unemployed," she said slowly.

Cordelia nodded. "Well… okay," she agreed with a small smile. "Would your sister be qualified as a librarian? We have two and we're looking for a minimum of three for the time being. She would be under Miss. Pince with the other girl and have a fair few things to learn," she said while gesturing holo-screens floating either side of her above the desk.

"Umm… yeah, she loves books," she agreed eagerly. "Well… she likes adventure books and things like that but-."

"You know the library doesn't just have magic books?" Cordelia asked and Daphne did look surprised.

"Okay. But what about, Tracey?" Daphne quickly asked.

Cordelia only smiled. "You can't bring your siblings to stay with you, but you can bring your partner."

"Partner?" Daphne looked more confused.

Cordelia laughed slightly. "Partner and children."

Daphne started. "Oh… you mean like boyfriend, girlfriend, husband, wife, partner?"

"Yes."

"Tracey and I aren't together like that."

Cordelia shook her head as Daphne's pale cheeks darkened red. "Just pretend you are for the records and we'll see if there's something she can do here that needs another witch. The new dorms for year fives up will be ready sometime after Christmas, so the girl's apartments will need a den mother or whatever the hell you would call that."

"O-okay, I think we can pretend to be together," Daphne said while taking a deep breath and blushing as she looked down and realised, she was still holding Cordelia's hand and quickly let go. "Umm… when do we start?" she asked quickly.

Cordelia grinned. "Monday morning, so I suggest you, your sister, and your girlfriend be sorted and get set tomorrow; then you can spend Sunday preparing your classes. Though, Hermione was nice enough to prepare some reading material and she was pretty prepared so you can use her notes as we left them in the new runes class."

"Umm… great," Daphne said in relief as she stood. "I best go and tell them; thank you; thank you very much."

"You're welcome, Daphne," she said with a grin as Daphne walked to the door and it slid open, she walked out. "By the way, you're the new head of Slytherin House," she quickly added just as the door slid closed.

"What?" Daphne asked the door quietly and sadly looking as if she had just realised she had been screwed over and given more work than she expected, but McGonagall had told her how much she was going to get paid so she shrugged and stepped off the moving staircase and through twin frosted glass doors as they swished open into the walls.

Cordelia smirked as she watched the pretty young woman leaving down the corridor from the security cameras.

"Seraph! It seems that Laurel Greengrass maybe a useful asset," she said thoughtfully.

"Would you like her to be brought to HQ?" Seraph asked as she appeared next to her still in her fantasy wind spirit cosplay and leaning over the desk with her hands on it.

"What? No!" Cordelia said quickly. "If she's as hot as her daughter; one word: Cornelia!"

Seraph grimaced. "Yeah… would you like her for yourself then?"

"Hahaha!" Cordelia said while rolling her eyes as Seraph was holding in a giggle. "But… meh, you can bring her here anyway – or explain all this to Harry and ask him to do something."

"Oh, I've already done that," she replied with a shrug. "He just said that you can deal with it and you're totally being mean to that poor noob teacher by making her head of a whole house."

"Well, she was a Slytherin!" Cordelia said coolly. "Ask him what else I could do?"

Seraph sighed for a moment and whistled a tune while looking uncomfortable before she finally spoke. "Okay, he says why are you both communicating through me rather than talking over the comms.? Then said, never mind, tell Cordie that its her problem, not his, just don't be mean to the sexy young blonde chicks unless they're bitches, and Amanda and Ginny nodded in agreement and said they totally agree."

"Hey; I'm a hot young blonde!" Cordelia complained as Seraph laughingly fizzled away.

Yawning, Cordelia stood up and stretched as she walked over the fluffy cream carpet that now covered the floor to where she kept her shoes and slid them on and snapped her buckles closed. She looked down as she was wearing a black dress that accentuated her bust a little too much for a head teacher, but she shrugged it off.

Cordelia glanced around the room as she walked towards the door. The walls had been re-plastered and painted white. Then there were posters on science and magic in frames including the periodic table which was growing by the day with the few magical elements they had already found, and there was only more to fill in the gaps of the table.

Smiling; the door slid open while the holo-screens behind her blinked off. Taking the moving stairs down, Cordelia was in fair spirits as she finally found someone trustworthy and capable of teaching runes. She had begged Hermione to leave Wonderland, but it was Wonderland; the only good thing would be escaping her boss.

However, that was a moot point now, Daphne would be great, and to top things off they had the final library assistant, and a spare for whatever she needed.

She got to the bottom where the gargoyle had been broken beyond repair during the break in and was replaced by frosted glass doors that now had magical protections. The twin doors slid open as she reached the bottom and she stepped out, and they slid closed behind her.

Cordelia was quick to choose her destination and thought she would trek to the Entrance Hall and take a lovely walk by the lake as it was such a nice day outside.

It was pretty-humorous that during their occupation and control of Hogwarts that the Ministry of Magic had not shown up. To be honest with all the CyberTech and military forces all over Hogsmeade and Hogwarts protecting the people (until Voldemort and the Ministry were no longer a threat), and most importantly protecting the children there was little they could do.

Cordelia, the school, CyberTech, and the government had to hire quite a few psychiatrists for too many students at the school because of abusive families, bullying, and other kinds of abuse. She dealt with a few of them herself as she wanted all her children to have the best care possible. That also meant separating many students, some of which had to be moved from one house to another.

It was unfortunate that Cordelia couldn't adopt any of the broken souls and put them back together as many students were now wards of the state while family members were arrested and charged, and open warrants for those who went underground or worked with Voldemort were issued. But those students were being allowed the opportunity of staying at Hogwarts and getting help to find homes of their own once they were nearing time to leave Hogwarts.

The students who were state wards would be under constant watch and monitored while taking therapy; partially as they could be at risk of kidnap attempts by their abusers, or they could be at risk of running away to their abusers, or even at risk of suicide. The children deserved better than that; they needed to understand they deserved more.

Cordelia shook away those horrible thoughts as she reached the Entrance Hall doors and exited. It was a Friday evening, so there were only a few students wandering about outside too. It had taken the majority of them a little time to accept that there were soldiers patrolling the whole of the castle and grounds constantly. She hoped they would feel safe from Death Eaters now the school had a military presence.

The distortion rods had been moved, and distortion field generation engines had been carefully erected around Hogwarts and Hogsmeade for protection against magic. There were nine huge smooth round bridges floating in the sky facing multiple directions as they span, but they were covered in a stealth field so though they could be seen; they were like a ripple in the air allowing the light to shine through them, and they were connected to a rounded nonagon they span over the castle and created ripples outwards from the castle to outside the gates in a rippling dome through the air.

The school had a modified distortion field. It was more than just an anti-apparation barrier. It was a force field, and magic detection field too. It was a little over kill, and the design was somewhat more barrier heavy than CyberTech HQ had as the school couldn't use a similar system as it could interfere with magic within the school, and break magics they didn't want broken.

Cordelia looked to the left, thirty or so metres from the lake shore where new dorm accommodations were being built by plenty of workmen with all manner of machines. The new accommodations were going to be state of the art, male and female blocks separated with security systems, and other than an adult to watch out for them; it would allow them to take care of themselves and learn self-sufficiency.

The new blocks were like apartments where up to four people would share together with friends without having to worry about being separated by house. They even came with all-electric kitchens, and their own private bathrooms. However, two separate giant bath houses were being built behind them, one for the boys, and the other for the girls. Though, if they were deeper and the water was going to be much colder you could call them small pools.

However, theses pools were essentially huge baths, and separate sex so no clothes needed, (but they do have large communal showers to have a quick wipe down first). Anyway, a huge Olympic sized swimming pool was being built around the side of the school.

Harry was really trying to win over the sorcerers. Cordelia would totally have been won over too with all these cool things.

The apartments were only for year five through to year nine as two extra years of study were being added to account for the extra classes as the week schedule would soon be two-week schedules.

In addition, around the side of where the pool was going, nearest to the apartments were more huge buildings being built such as a gym with stands, for non-magical sports, and teams. Also, many new state of the art classrooms, where lessons would soon take place rather than in the castle as it was easier to install all the knew equipment.

However, the castle would be used to house first to forth years (separated(ish) by house only in sleeping quarters as the common room would be all houses), and the school classes on the first three floors were being adapted for that while lessons were now temporally on the higher floors, while construction took place.

In addition, the Great Hall would still be used as the dining hall, and for special occasions, though all of the large tables (minus the teachers, as that would still be used), lined the walls where food would appear for students to collect for them to go and sit at multiple round tables scattered throughout the hall.

Also; the upper rooms in the castle would be used for school club rooms. Then sports clubs would have some rooms at the back of the castle on ground level converted (for more space), where they could use a few courtyards for outdoor activities once they reinforced windows.

In addition, all the restricted section of the library had been taken to Wonderland, and all of the old shelves replaced with new ones with a computer database system, with holo-screens built into all of the new work desks.

New, non-magic books had taken up a lot of free space, and two new levels were being added to accommodate more, along with a coffee 'shop' where kids could use vending machines to buy snacks, or use the free hot drinks machine, along with a huge section to sit, talk, surf the net, and eat snacks away from the books. Though, with magic books could be cleaned back to perfection if they were dirtied, or someone spilt on one. The snack bar idea had even been taken to a huge chamber near the Great Hall and set up where kids could get a free hot drink whenever they wanted, and at certain times a sandwich or cake.

In the library they had already finished categorising the books, and already had copies of the books the library had so left them, but when the extensions were in place more copies would be supplied.

The librarian had a desk similar to Cordelia's, and she was already receiving instruction by a CyberTech archivist on how to use the computer systems, (along with some seriously studious students that seemed to live there, and her new assistant).

However, the kids were taking to the computer a lot faster than the librarian as she was a lot older and more stuck in her ways, but as long as the kids knew how to browse the net, use the system, and search the growing Hogwarts archives, she didn't really need too. It would help once the new Private Network and AI was built into the school.

Also, the Quidditch stadium was getting rebuilt to fit in with Hogwarts Academy's renovations. In addition, many new top of the range brooms had been bought for the school to train new students, and top of the line racing brooms for the school Quidditch teams.

Shaking her head clear Cordelia smiled as she turned to the lake. It sure was a nice and peaceful spot. She just hoped things settled down soon, and the children got used to the new changes to the school they had to push on them.

It had come to her attention that a lot of graduates from Hogwarts left school to realise they really weren't prepared, especially the Muggleborns as they got looked over in the magical world for less talented purebloods.

Therefore, the Muggleborns (some of them) ended up having to go back to school in the scientific world to get a proper education.

Then they were still dealing with the merfolk that lived in the lake. That didn't seem too difficult as they had a few people on staff who spoke mermish and they were quite reasonable people. Unfortunately, the centaurs were nowhere near that easy to deal with. The merpeople were excited at the prospect of getting to trade and be a part of the world again, since they weren't given a choice when mage chose to hide magic from the world and force it into becoming nothing but myths of faded memory.

The merfolk experts when it came to water-based charms built into jewellery and aqua based magics as a whole. Therefore, they knew they had something to trade, and were coming to understand that they – meaning the new controllers of Hogwarts wouldn't try ripping them off like they knew mage had tried for centuries.

Shaking her head in wonder, Cordelia wondered where Ashe had gotten too. Though, she did say something earlier about a douchebag supposedly allowing shady happenings to happen in his shady pub.