The Boy in the Cupboard

Chapter 8

Hermione looked scandalized as hundreds of Hogwarts elves bowed and curtsied and rushed to serve food. She asked a few whether they liked working at Hogwarts. They squeaked that they loved it, but appeared scandalized themselves when she asked how much they were paid.

"Drop it," Ron told her through a mouthful of cake, a true cake, not Hagrid's rocks. Luna shared a story of a house-elf band who entertained their human masters with break-dancing and ballet, but the wizarding family was too secretive to allow the elf ensemble to go on tour.

Hermione looked particularly distraught when one Hogwarts elf popped back with the elf in the dirty pillowcase, who introduced himself as Dobby. "Why don't you have a towel?" she asked Dobby, looking around for a spare.

Dobby's large, round eyes were fixed on Harry. The elf scampered over, grabbing Harry's hand. "Hogwarts is not safe for Harry Potter, sir."

"Because of Malfoy?" Ron asked. "Yeah, he's a prat, but we've got him covered. If he insults Harry again, he's going to eat slugs."

At Malfoy's name, Dobby flinched slightly and shook his head. "Harry Potter is in grave danger."

Luna started to guess what would happen, clearly more curious than frightened. Dobby looked as if he wished Luna's ludicrous predictions were accurate, but was annoyingly tight-lipped about what the actual threat was.

A growl rumbled in Padfoot's chest, but Sirius was sure the elf would vanish if he shifted into human form again.

Dobby let slip that there was a plot, then began hitting his head, hard. "Bad Dobby! Bad Dobby!"

Harry stopped him before Hermione could. Padfoot, Neville, Ron and Ginny all stared in shock. Colin captured the moment on camera, which made Dobby panic again before snapping his fingers. Smoke billowed out of the camera's film compartment.

Angry. Harry scratched his chest vigorously, and hit himself for the first time in a while.

Tears welled in Dobby's huge eyes. "Harry Potter must not punish himself!"

"Like you're one to talk." Ron said, then rounded on Harry to demand. "How come you stop an elfbut not yourself?!"

"Neither of you should be hurting yourselves!" Hermione was oddly shrill. "This world can be so backwards sometimes! I can't believe there's slavery at Hogwarts!"

"I had proof," Colin was far less excited than usual as he looked down at his smoldering camera. Like Colin, several of the surrounding elves had stopped smiling.

Padfoot whined and wriggled under Harry's hand. Harry tangled both his own hand and Dobby's in the fur, but Dobby popped out of sight.

Padfoot barked. Hermione repaired Colin's camera, but the film was surely still ruined.

They left the kitchen with their pockets stuffed with sweets, except for Hermione, who was given only a rather frosty farewell.

Hermione and Ron bickered as they walked. Ron stated that it wasn't slavery, and Hermione argued that Dobby was clearly being abused and the wizarding world obviously wasn't good at recognizing abuse. She cast a rather long look at Harry, who still climbed the stairs on all fours.

Ron agreed that Hermione had a point about Dobby, but didn't budge on his position that the Hogwarts House-elves were happy.

The following day, Sirius had tea with Remus, filling him in on everything that had happened. Remus promised to keep his eye out for any dark plots, and they swapped theories and talked about life in general. Even at Hogwarts, Sirius didn't see Remus nearly as much as he had a few years ago, especially since he spent most of his days as Padfoot, looking after Harry.