Courage

-56-

"Winky must not talk like that to Harry Potter's friend!" said Dobby angrily.

"They are nosing — hic — into my master's — hic — private and secret — hic — Winky is a good house-elf — hic — Winky keeps her silence — hic — people trying to — hic — pry and poke — hic—"

Winky's eyelids drooped and suddenly, without warning, she slid off her stool into the hearth, snoring loudly. The empty bottle of butterbeer rolled away across the stone-flagged floor. Half a dozen house-elves came hurrying forward, looking disgusted.

One of them picked up the bottle; the others covered Winky with a large checked tablecloth and tucked the ends in neatly, hiding her from view.

"We is sorry you had to see that, sirs and misses!" squeaked a nearby elf, shaking his head and looking very ashamed. "We is hoping you will not judge us all by Winky, sirs and misses!"

"She's unhappy!" said Hermione, exasperated. "Why don't you try and cheer her up instead of covering her up?"

"Begging your pardon, miss," said the house-elf, bowing deeply again, "but house-elves has no right to be unhappy when there is work to be done and masters to be served."

"Oh for heavens sake!" Hermione cried. "Listen to me, all of you! You've got just as much right as wizards to be unhappy! You've got the right to wages and holidays and proper clothes, you don't have to do everything you're told — look at Dobby!"

"Miss will please keep Dobby out of this," Dobby mumbled, looking scared. The cheery smiles had vanished from the faces of the house-elves around the kitchen. They were suddenly looking at Hermione as though she were mad and dangerous.

The house-elves crowded around Harry, Layla, Ron, and Hermione and began shunting them out of the kitchen, many little hands pushing in the smalls of their backs.

"You couldn't keep your mouth shut, could you, Hermione?" said Ron angrily as the kitchen door slammed shut behind them. "They won't want us visiting them now! We could've tried to get more stuff out of Winky about Crouch!"

"Oh as if you care about that!" scoffed Hermione. "You only like coming down here for the food!"

By breakfast the next day Ron's and Hermione's bad moods had burnt out, and Ron's dark predictions that the house-elves would send substandard food up to the Gryffindor table because Hermione had insulted them proved false; the bacon, eggs, and kippers were quite as good as usual.

When the post owls arrived, Hermione looked up eagerly; she seemed to be expecting something.

"Percy won't've had time to answer yet," said Ron. "We only sent Hedwig yesterday."

"No, it's not that," said Hermione. "I've taken out a subscription to the Daily Prophet. I'm getting sick of finding everything out from the Slytherins."

"Good thinking!" said Layla, also looking up at the owls. "Hey, 'Mione, I think you're in luck—"

A gray owl was soaring down towards them.

"It hasn't got a newspaper, though," she said, looking disappointed. "It's... wait, it's not coming to me. It's going to—"

To their bewilderment, the gray owl landed in front of Layla's plate, closely followed by four barn owls, a brown owl, and a tawny.

"Blimey, Layla, who have you been talking to?" said Ron, amazed.

"Just my dad and Padfoot," said Layla quietly, staring all of the letters in confusion. "And they use the same owl."

She took the letter from the gray owl, opening it, and starting to read.

"What a joke!" she sputtered, going rather red.