Betrayed [Harry Potter]

Chapter Twenty Six

Chapter 26: House Elves

Lily's Point of View

We were all gathered in the common room for a celebration party put together by Fred and George. Now that Harry was in the lead, suddenly everyone in Gryffindor was on his side and supported him. Everyone saw how dangerous this was and Harry got more people to believe him. The Gryffindor House was more than happy with him. Fred and George brought loads of food in from the kitchen, where is the kitchen anyways? There was cake, ice cream, cookies, and chocolate frogs, anything you could have wanted. "Open it Harry!" Fred called, motioning towards the golden egg. "Come on!"

"Yeah go on Harry!" Several other people called. Harry reached for the golden egg sitting next to him. He hesitated but everyone continued chanting. He smiled and then opened it. Then, the most awful shrieking noise I've ever heard in my life escaped the egg. It was like twenty screaming Pansy Parkinson's combined. I covered my ears, what was that supposed to mean?

"Shut it!" someone screamed. Harry managed to get it shut and everything silenced.

"What was that?" Seamus cried. "It sounded like a Banshee...oh my god that's what you're going to face!"

"It sounded like someone being tortured by the Cruciatus curse!" Everyone started shouting out their ideas. I didn't know what to think, what could this mean? It had something to do with the next task. Whatever that noise was, it didn't sound good.

The next few weeks passed. Everything just got worse with Nikki and Bella. Nikki was closer to Malfoy than before. I swear I've never seen them apart. Bella was becoming Britta's clone. They even dressed alike on weekends. Classes didn't get any better either, just harder. Hermione's SPEW thing was sadly not getting popular either. I only bought the badge because she was my friend. The only ones who wore them were her and Alaina mainly. I was sitting outside by the lake with Harry and Ron. Hermione was off somewhere. "Hey!" I heard Alaina call as she was running towards us. "Come on!" I stood up brushing the grass of my robes.

"Why?" I asked her.

"Just come on!" We all shrugged and followed her quickly towards the school. Hermione was there waiting for us at the entrance. We followed her down the hallway.

"Where are we going?" Ron asked.

"Don't ask questions!" Hermione said and we followed her down a bunch of hallways. We came to a stop at the end of the hallway facing a large painting of a fruit bowl.

"I know what this is about..." Harry said staring at the bowl of fruit. I had no idea what was going on.

"Is this spew stuff again?" Ron whined, not wanting any more part of it.

"No," Hermione responded quickly. "Just come inside." She tickled the pear and the entire painting swung open. I didn't expect that to happen. She pushed Harry and Ron into it while Alaina and I followed them in. Wow, was all I could think, this place was the size of the Great Hall but with hundreds of those creatures we saw at the Quidditch World Cup. They were cooking and carrying food all over the place. A small, green, house elf began running towards Harry.

"Harry Potter! Harry Potter, sir!" the house elf squeaked. The house elf tackled Dobby into a hug that nearly knocked Harry over.

"Dobby?" Harry gasped. Oh, so this is Dobby? The one that Harry said was rather weird.

"It is Dobby, sir, it is!" the house elf squealed. Dobby and Harry talked for a while. Dobby explained that he wanted work for pay and Dumbledore gave him that. Hundreds of little house elves were all coming up to us and bowing, offering us food. Hermione went around trying to convince the house elves to accept freedom, but most of them burst into tears and ran off. I understood how she wanted them to not be treated like slaves, but they liked it, so I probably would have just left it the way it is.