Getting a House elf

Penelope was not being mind influenced by anyone. He was good enough in the mind arts that he would have known if someone had tampered with hers but there was no outside mental influence in her mind.

That was a good thing.

But she only allowed him access to her mind on the condition that he would attend dinner with her in the great hall for the next five days.

That was a bad thing. And he doubted that he was going to like being stared at while eating his breakfast either.

—————

House elf were wonderful creature.

Show them a little bit of love and respect and they'll stay loyal to you until the end of your days.

They were pretty much like puppies in that regard.

Both looked at you with huge adorable eyes and both jumped around you when excited.

Bitty was an house elf who had been serving at Hogwarts ever since the family she was serving was wiped out in the last war.

She was also the elf who had been devotedly serving him his meals and other necessities since the start of his term in Hogwarts and he had rewarded her by bonding with her.

She was his house elf now.

And despite being rather sensitive to magic, he was not able to tell any difference in his magic once he was bonded to her.

Only once he talked with Selena did he realized how there was not a thin, almost invisible line connecting the two of them.

How Betty looked far more bright in her vision than before when she was connected to the castle.

How whenever she used up a lot of her magic in some household task, the thin line connecting them would glow and his magic would get transferred to her in small amounts.

After that explanation from Selena, he had decided to not bond with any other house elf.

He did not know if the bonding would harm his magic development in the long run but he was not willing to risk it.

So the plan to bond with a dozen or so house elf and turn them into an army for his future plans would definitely need to scraped up now. Not that there was really much of a plan in that regard. Just a few thoughts here and there. He knew too little about house elves to make any plan regarding them.

Regardless, Betty was now, for all intents and purposes, his family member.

Just like Selena.

And he would make sure to treat her as best as he could.

And when he introduced her to Hermione, he would make sure to do it in a good light.

He could tolerate a lot of things from the girl but he doubt he would have much tolerance for her SPEW.

For now, he had simply told Betty to go back and continued to serve the castle as him as she used to do before the Bonding.

Betty had told him that elves couldn't tell when another one of their race was bonded with a human or not so there was not much of a problem with that plan.

Maybe he could even use her to spy on other Professors.

Hmm… that thought thought definitely merited some consideration.

—————

Harry had not wanted to come to the classes. But once again, Hermione and Penelope had tricked him into joining them for a week.

He did not even knew how it had happened.

One minute he was telling Hermione to eat more because she was clearly missing some of her meals in order to spend more time studying and then next moment she had told him that she ate more than him. Things had escalated from there and in the end, Penelope had told them to hold a food eating competition.

The loser will have to the winner's demand for one week.

He never even knew that Hermione could eat that much.

He knew that if he used human transfiguration or some other kind of spell to vanish the food from his stomach, then he would win. But his stupid pride and his fondness for the bushy haired girl had held him back which had resulted in his humiliating defeat in the food eating competition.

Selena had snickered at his foolishness and had told him how he would have easily won against the little girl if he had the capabilities to eat like a snake.

Hermione had looked a little embarrassed and a little smug because of the victory.

Betty had jumped up and down with all the excitement that her little figure could hold at feeding her master properly.

Penelope had simply smirked at him which had given him the suspicious feeling that she and Hermione had planned all of this.

Shame, that he would never know.

Hermione had asked him to attend all the classes with her at first but had taken pity at him after a while and told him that he could choose to not attend Potions, History of Magic and DADA classes.

Thank gods for the small mercies.

And now he was here. Once again. Sitting with her in the Transfiguration class in the first row wondering if this is what Karma felt like.

It was a waste of time, true, and in a way, Hermione knew that as well because she looked rather apologetic after the first Herbology class but she had stayed firm in her decision and he had allowed her to lead him this one time.

If it made her and Penelope happy then he was willing to waste two hours out of 37 hours every single day.

After all, he might be an anti social guy by choice but even he knew that proper and long terms relationships takes a lot of compromise.

Thankfully, there was some good that came out of this whole drama, which was that he was once again in talking terms with his transfiguration teacher.

Minerva Mcgonagall.

"Is there anything else you want Mr. Potter?" she asked as he approached her along with Hermione after the end of the class.

"Yes Professor Mcgonagall." He said with a borderline bored expression that came rather easily to him. "I was very interested in that animagus transformation of yours. I don't think there's any mention of it in any of the transfiguration books. Not even the 7th year transfiguration book."

"That's because it isn't taught in the school Mr Potter. Animagus is a difficult and complicated branch of transfiguration. It takes more than a year for a person to achieve their animagus form and despite all that hard work, quite a few people fail in their endeavor. On top of that, not every one want to turn themselves into an animal so this rare art of transfiguration was never added to the syllabus."

"However…" she continued "If a student is very good at transfiguration then he or she can definitely try their hand in this branch of transfiguration. In fact, successfully completing their animagus transfiguration before their NEWTs exam can provide you with bones points."

Hermione's eyes shone at that bit of information while he held the urge to sigh.

He himself never held the NEWTs exams with high regard. And why should he, when the ministry itself was filled with corrupt officials who could destroy yours years of hard work simply because you pissed them off somehow.

The Knockturn alley itself is filled with examples of such people whose life had been destroyed by the system and now they have no other choice but to work in that dark and dingy alley.

In fact, quite a few muggleborns and halfbloods leave Britain after they are not able to advance in their careers because of pure blood prejudice.

And that's only about people who are wizards and witches.

The fate of Werewolves vampires and other such creatures is even worse to the point that they had to resort to day to day jobs in the muggle world in order to sustain themselves despite the fact that they're just as capable as any of person he'd seen here.

But it would be pointless to have such a conversation with Minerva. She was just as powerless as anyone else who wanted to change the system.

That was why Voldemort was a necessity.

He kept his expression in check and spoke "Can you tell us more about Animagus transformation Professor. About how to check if an animal or insect is truly an animagus and I'm also curious about how people stop an animagi from running out of prison."

Minerva looked a bit askance at his line of questioning and he realized that she must have thought that the 'prison' part was meant for her. But regardless, she replied to his inquiry. In fact, she answered every single question he asked after that as well.

He could clearly see Dumbledore's hand behind her willingness to give such information to him but for once, the old coot's actions were helpful for him.