Newt awoke the next morning with a start to a glowing golden orb that looked none too solid still managing to smack up against his forehead. Blearily he blinked and sat up and his mother's locator spell finally relented and stopped bopping him. Well, that was a nostalgic way to wake up. Newt yawned and realized that he'd spent the whole night sleeping with his face mashed against the hard surface of the ornate wooden desk they kept up in the owlery for posting letters. This was not at all how he intended to start the day, but at least he knew that he'd got that letter off to the midwife. He counted owls, just to be sure he actually had sent it. Yes, one was still gone. The location spell disappeared, and Newt realized that meant that his mother would know where he was, so he thought he ought to get moving.
He started to heft his case, but then thought better of it. The four owls still in the owlery were mostly sleeping, but they'd be sure to send up an alarm if anything happened to escape from his case. Also, noone but his mother knew he'd slept up here, and so they'd be far less likely to try to come and find his case. Tina especially wouldn't even know how to find the owlery, so she'd probably be far safer with it stowed up here. Looking around, Newt saw that there were a few sacks of feed in the corner. Carefully, he covered his case, and went downstairs in search of Tina and breakfast.
Newt went through the family corridor and knocked on the door of the Rose Room, but there was no answer. Downstairs he followed his nose to the kitchen where a pile of eggs and sausages was waiting in chafing dishes on the counter. Queenie and Jacob looked up from where they were finishing up what looked like a week's baking for the entire village. Neat rows of loafs levitated and slotted themselves into the oven after Jacob finished brushing them with melted butter.
"Good morning Newt!" chirped Queenie. "Coffee?" she held up a silver pot.
Newt blinked, and looked over to the table, where his mother and father sat, sharing sections of the Daily Prophet. Glorianna particularly looked pleased.
"Mother! You asked Queenie and Jacob to help with meals when Theseus' guests come." He frowned at her, but was not too proud to take a plate and fill it with the eggs and sausages on the counter. He'd only had a few bites of the suspicious pie the night before, after all. Newt accepted the cup that Queenie poured him and slumped into a chair at the breakfast table across from his parents. "You weren't to put them to work immediately."
Gloriana paused and gave him a look.
"I told them it wasn't necessary, but they insisted," she said. "And before you bolt all that sausage and run off looking for her, know that Salsify is showing Tina around the greenhouses. She'll be perfectly safe."
"And I don't think any of us are sorry to escape my turn for breakfast," said George, returning to the previous topic with a small smile. "No matter how much I try to tone down the broiling spell everything comes out at least a smidge crispier than I intend."
"We truly are lost without Mrs. Simmons and Katy. I can't tell you how fortunate we were to find them after we lost our house elves," said Gloriana.
"Lost your house elves?" asked Jacob, wiping his hands on a dish towel and turning toward the table. "How'd you do that?"
Newt focused his entire attention on his breakfast, rightly guessing that trying to give his own answer to that question would cause more trouble than hearing his mother's version of events for the umpteenth time.
Queenie sat down next to Newt and looked at Gloriana. "I didn't want to say, but with a place this size it's a little weird to be relying on no-maj help to take care of the place. I thought all the old castles in Europe came with at least a couple of house elves to keep them up."
"You're not wrong."
George eyed Newt, hiding a smile behind the sports section of the Daily Prophet.
Newt sunk further down.
"We needn't get into all that.." He sighed. "It's too early."
"You don't get to decide who hears this story, Newton," Gloriana said crisply. "When the children were small, we had three lovely elves that had been with Blethering House since the days of George's grandfather Ellory. Montefort, Gimsby and Mittens were their names. I miss them every day..."
"You miss never having to confront a housekeeping spell, you mean," grumped Newt despite his best intentions of keeping his mouth shut. What was it about this place that undermined his will?
"Watch your tone, son," said George. Gloriana continued.
"I'll freely admit that Gimsby and Montefort were a little grumpy, but Mittens was an absolute dear. And so what if I do miss not having to devote half my time to household maintenance? The horses and hippogriffs alone could keep a full stable staff busy, let alone all the livestock and gardens and groundskeeping...we are up to our ears in chores every day. A place like this is more than four witches and wizards can cope with, even with Sikes the gardener, Mrs. Simmons and Katy. But the elves managed it beautifully."
"What happened to them?" asked Queenie.
"Well," began Gloriana, "about twenty years ago, despite his having lived a life of ease and luxury, due in large part to the tireless efforts of our house-elves, a very sulky boy decided that it was unfair that they have to slave away in the house while the rest of us did nothing—never mind that we were all slaving away outside of the house—and that he would nobly release them by giving them clothes without telling any of us."
"I can still remember coming home to the wailing," said George.
"Oh no!" said Queenie, "Those poor elves! If they'd been here that long they must have been devastated."
"Oh they were. Mittens and Montefort had been born at Blethering, and had never known another home," said Gloriana.
"Wait, so they couldn't leave?" asked Jacob. "If they were stuck here, then freeing them just made them able to leave. You guys wouldn't have kicked them out, right? And you probably could have paid them. I mean, you pay the housekeeper, don't you?"
Jacob looked a little nervous, and Newt couldn't blame him. He'd just signed up to do a job for his family and Newt was willing to bet his mother had glossed over financial remuneration. But Jacob needn't be worried, his parents would make sure that they were all properly compensated.
"Of course we tried everything to get them to stay," said Gloriana. "But they were grieviously offended by the whole thing and won't come back for love or money. Montefort and Gimsby went to live up north with the Loch Laflan Scamanders, and Mittens is still with my brother Ashley. I thought Mittens at least might come back to us, but no. Even she is too deeply traumatized by the cruelty of it all."
"Moth-er," said Newt. "I was thirteen! When will we be able to put this in the past?"
"You know exactly when this will all be over," Gloriana said. "You're the one who freed them, so you're the one who needs to make it right."
"I tried! Not a one of them would talk to me."
Queenie and Jacob looked a little chagrined that what had started out sounding like an amusing annecdote had quickly turned into more family bickering. That was apparently the law of the land around here, however. Gloriana explained to them,
"When Newt left school, he had to pick up some of the slack around here, but then Ashley found him a position at the House Elf Relocation office, thinking it would teach him a lesson. But to this day, he won't properly fix his mistake with the elves."
"That's—you can't possibly ask me to do that. I'm not going to enslave any creature!" Newt said fiercely.
"You freed them, offending them to the limits of their sanity the poor dears and they'll only come back if you bind them again."
"And I won't!" said Newt hotly. "It's not right..."
George sighed and turned to Jacob and Queenie, still a little stunned at how this story had taken a turn from childish escapades to a present-day argument, even if it was a very familiar one to all parties.
"As you can see, Newt holds extremely strong views on this."
Newt crossed his arms, aware that it made him look every bit the sulky boy who'd traumatized the house elves on principle. "I would have thought that you of all people would agree with me, Father."
George held up his hands and smiled a little. "It's not that I don't understand your argument. But in all things the welfare of the creatures should come first. Yes, the relationship between house elves and wizards is a complicated one, and its origins seem to be lost in time. Scholars make much of the tales of immoral and trouble-making imps and elves, suggesting that only ended once wizards bound them as servants to stop them snatching babies and souring milk. But that's only a theory. There's no real evidence. And no spell that I know of could possibly bind an entire species of creatures throughout the millennia. House elves today are every bit as intent upon serving as they were in the days of Delphi and Zoraster. It's their nature now, whether or not it's always been so."
Newt frowned. He knew this was true. But it still didn't sit well with him. Guiltily he could admit to himself that if the elves would agree to his father or Theseus rebinding them to Blethering, he wouldn't actually object. Doing it himself, however, was too great a compromise of his morals. Why should he rule over any creature, when all any of them wanted was freedom? House elves had always bothered him. Every other creature he'd ever encountered had only wanted to conduct their daily life without outside interference unless it became mutually beneficial to do otherwise, like the hippogriffs and winged horses who vastly preferred having a warm stable to sleep in and humans to wait on them hand and foot. A little work was worth it to them. But house elves were not entering into the servant-master relationship of their own free will—there was a clear magical compulsion that made them crave the subservience. It was unnatural, and still bothered him to this day.
"In any event," George said. "This is all long ago, and we've done our best under the circumstances. Though I wish you could have tried Montefort's kippered herrings, Jacob. He was truly an artist with anything smoked or pickled. Anything fermented at all for that matter. His hollyberry mead was legendary."
George sounded a bit wistful.
"Well, we'll certainly lend a hand while we're here, said Queenie, trying to improve the mood. "I bet we can help fix up the part of the house you don't use any more. It's not good to keep things shut up—it lets the dust mites breed. Tina and I always aired out the summer cottage together. I'm sure now we could help."
"Thank you Queenie," said Gloriana. "I truly appreciate the offer."
Newt gulped down his coffee and continued to attack his eggs and sausages.
"Careful not to offer too much, Queenie, or Mother will keep you hopping like the rest of us. Except for Theseus, of course."
Again, Newt cursed himself. It was like every time he opened his mouth around his family, something awful and designed to provoke would fall out. He rubbed his face.
Gloriana rose from the table and rolled her eyes. "Someone woke up on the wrong side of whatever surface you ended up on last night. Your brother has a highly complex job of international importance. We all have our roles here. Today yours will be looking at the pigpens after you visit the stables. It seems like something's been getting into their feed."
Newt merely nodded. This was par for the course. His mother had an epic job trying to run the estate, and he could admit that he hadn't made it any easier by freeing the house elves or refusing to come back home. His stubborn streak at times overrode his sense of duty, and he wasn't certain whether or not that was acceptable. It had certainly made things harder on his parents. If only George had not officially retired, maybe it wouldn't have chafed so to help them out. But even then, Newt would still have Theseus' inheritance of the land and title hanging over his head. Or worse, the danger that both brothers had worked against their whole lives: the chance that Theseus would be passed over for Newt. Being so socially awkward had been a blessing on that front, and once Theseus had made a name for himself in the war, it had seemed settled. At home though, it seemed all was not going perfectly smoothly.
"I'm going to go check on the Aetherion stable while George does his chores. Tina and Salsify are already out in the gardens, so they can help Sikes with pest control. And then, Queenie," said Gloriana, "It will be time for your first lesson."
"Yes ma'am," said Queenie, looking as if she shared with Newt somewhat the feeling of being thrust back into youth. It was like being back at school at the mercy of parents and teachers whose interference you may not want and certainly hadn't asked for, but still could not escape without disastrous consequences for the future.
A/N: I hope you are still enjoying this! There's quite a bit to go, so let me know if anything seems slow to you. Please vote and drop me a comment if there's anything at all you'd like to say or know!