A/N: Quidditch League Fanfiction Competition - Kenmare Kestrels Keeper
Prompts: Trio-era (theme), S.P.E.W. badge (item)
Hermione sat at a table in the empty common room, chin in her hands, looking at a full box of S.P.E.W. badges miserably. She'd done everything she could think of to make people interested in helping the oppressed house-elves earn their freedom, but not one serious supporter had joined. Equality, it seemed, wasn't worth two sickles to some people.
S.P.E.W. was only four members strong, and the other three—Harry, Ron, and Neville—she'd had to bully into buying a badge. They weren't acting members who were actually doing anything to further the cause, she thought to herself bitterly. They'd only bought badges, so she'd stop nagging them about it.
Hermione sighed heavily and shook her box of badges glumly, feeling sorry for herself. She'd run out of ideas to make people see things her way, and now people avoided her in the corridors.
At least the house-elves were being supportive, she reminded herself. They'd taken every hat that she'd left around the the common room. It didn't seem as though it was accomplishing what it was supposed to, though. She probably didn't have the magical authority to actually free a house-elf herself. She'd have to go to Dumbledore tomorrow and make him see that the house-elves were trying to free themselves, but the clothes would probably have to come from him instead. Dumbledore would see reason, she thought. He'd free the elves if he could see it's what they really wanted.
Hermione heard a rustling noise nearby, and it pulled her out of her pity party for a moment. She looked in the direction of the noise and realized that it was coming from under one of the over-large armchairs near the fireplace where she'd hidden one of her hats. Excitement blossomed in her chest as she heard the pleased titter when the hat was discovered. She waited in anticipation of seeing the house-elf who had found her present. If she could only see the delight on a single house-elf's face, she thought, she knew she could soldier on, despite what everyone else thought. If only one house-elf...
The budding self-congratulatory speech Hermione was preparing in her head came to an immediate halt as she saw the house-elf who had claimed the knitted hat beneath the chair. Dobby—for she would recognize his eclectic wardrobe anywhere—stood up from the floor and placed the hat atop a stack of more than a dozen other hats he was already wearing.
"Dobby!" Hermione exclaimed, trying to keep the annoyance out of her tone with little success.
Dobby jumped, startled, and had to reach up to steady his tower of hats before it could topple over. He looked cautiously around for the person who had said his name so crossly, and his large, watery eyes landed on Hermione, who was looking uncharacteristically angry.
"Dobby, are those all the hats I've made for the house-elves?" she asked, sounding upset. "Dobby, those are supposed to be for everyone."
Dobby takes a moment to find his voice before saying in a shaky tone, "But... Dobby is the only house-elf who cleans the Gryffindor common room, Miss."
Hermione looked instantly appalled and apologetic. "Well, I'm very sorry, Dobby," she said, "but that's just awful. How can they make only one elf clean the entire common room? It's positively barbaric. Well, I mean, you should have to do it in the first place, but why don't they assign anyone to help you?"
Dobby smiled at this, though his nervousness didn't entirely leave. Hermione didn't seem to be angry with him anymore, but she was still being quite vocal. He puffed out his chest and said, "Dobby is volunteering to clean the common room by hisself, Miss. The other house-elves is not liking it, so Dobby is saying he will do it all," he told her proudly.
"Not liking it?" Hermione repeats. "Why is they..." She stopped herself and corrected her own grammar. "I mean, why don't they like cleaning here? Is it Fred and George?" she asked. "I told them they shouldn't be making such messes. They should be setting better examples for younger students, and definitely not turning them into canaries."
Dobby shook his head. "The house-elves is not minding the messes, Miss," he said. "They isn't liking—"
Dobby make a slightly strangled sound and stopped talking, clapping both hands over his mouth.
Hermione narrowed her eyes at him suspiciously, and Dobby's great, protruding eyes glanced from side to side in an attempt to avoid her gaze.
"What isn't they liking, Dobby?" she asked, not bothering to correct herself this time.
Dobby lowered his hands from his mouth and shook his head slowly. "You isn't liking what Dobby is having to say, Miss," he said, looking at the floor. "Dobby is sure you isn't liking it."
"Why won't I like it?" she demanded. "Is it something bad, Dobby?" she asked him. "Is it something you're not allowed to say? Is someone threatening you, Dobby?"
Dobby reached up and grabbed both of his ears, tugging them down over his eyes. He shook his head stubbornly, and Hermione's concern grew, but she could see that her tone was only making him more nervous.
"Dobby," she said, lowering her voice and softening its edge. "Please," she pleaded.
Dobby peeked at her from behind one ear and she smiled encouragingly.
"It's important that you tell me if something is wrong."
Dobby said nothing at first, but he soon released one of his ears, then the other. The house-elf looked her over for a moment, seemingly determining whether he should tell her the truth or not. Finally, having made a decision, he climbed up onto the chair next to her and onto the table to meet her eyes more easily.
"Miss is certain she is wanting to know?" he asked, sounding worried.
Hermione nodded firmly. "I am."
Dobby bit his lower lip once before finally coming out with it.
"The elves is not liking the hats, Miss," Dobby said, his voice small.
Hermione said nothing to this. His answer was so far from what she expected that, at first, she was sure she hadn't heard him correctly. She blinked at him, and Dobby shied away slightly, preparing himself for the worst.
When Hermione had parsed his answer fully, she still couldn't believe it.
"They don't... They don't like the hats?" she asked, sounding as though it were the craziest thing she'd ever heard.
Dobby shook his head. "At first we is thinking the hats is students' laundry, so we is washing them, but now they is thinking the hats is a trick. They is thinking the hats is an insult to house-elves, Miss."
Hermione's mouth popped open a fraction, and her bottom lip quivered slightly.
"But... house-elves should be free," she insisted, voice straining as the weight of his words began to leak into her reality. "I'm only trying to help. I'm the only one trying to help. H-House-elves... should be fr... be free…"
Her protest came to a halting stop, punctuated by deep, painful breaths.
Dobby didn't say anything for a very long time; he just watched Hermione struggle silently with herself. The muscles in her jaw and neck tightened ferociously as she fought to keep herself from crying, but it wasn't enough. A single tear, pregnant with self-abasement, rolled past her lashes and down her face.
Hermione hardly noticed when Dobby reached toward her, wiping the tear away with a surprisingly delicate touch.
"Don't cry, Miss," Dobby said softly, sounding a little choked up himself, as though he felt her sadness.
Perhaps he did, on some subconscious level she couldn't understand, Hermione thought.
"Dobby knows Miss is a good and noble witch," he said. "You is generous of spirit and kind of heart. You is one of Harry Potter's truest friends."
Then, for a moment, he looked uncomfortable. He removed the topmost hat from his stack and wrung it in his hands nervously. One of Hermione's S.P.E.W. badges was pinned to it.
"But..." Dobby began uncertainly, "Dobby doesn't think Miss is fully... is completely... is entirely..."
Hermione waiting patiently while Dobby fought against years of conditioned behavior to complete his sentence. She once again felt the outrage she felt when she considered how house-elves were treated by wizards, and her face flushed, but she didn't interrupt him.
Dobby took a quick breath, then rephrased his observation into something less offensive to himself.
"Dobby thinks perhaps Miss is misunderstanding house-elves," he said slowly, as though pacing himself. His voice had come out in a tiny squeak, and he'd flinched slightly upon finishing.
When Hermione neither said nor did anything in response, Dobby relaxed slightly. His confidence increased by a bare increment, and he continued.
"Dobby thinks Miss is doing the right thing," he told her, "but... perhaps in a not-right way. Forgive Dobby for saying so, Miss, but... you is trying to force house-elves to do something they is not wanting, which... Dobby thinks is just what you is trying to stop."
Hermione took in a deep breath and let it out slowly, the color draining from her cheeks as she did. She lay her forehead gently on the table in front of her, fingers linked behind her neck. She looked as though she were trying to force her head through the tabletop for a moment as she digested what Dobby had said.
With her head still down, she asked him with a muffled voice, "So, what should I do?"
"Dobby isn't knowing, Miss," Dobby said. He reached over and unraveled her hands from her hair gently. "Dobby is only knowing that Miss is very, very clever, and that Harry Potter would not like it if he knows she is punishing herself."
Hermione lifted her head from the table to reveal that she had finally lost her battle against her tears. Her cheeks were blotchy and her eyes shone against the firelight. Dobby pulled a stained—but meticulously cared-for—handkerchief from one of his pockets and offered it to her. She took it wordlessly and began to dab at her eyes.
Dobby looked down at the knit hat in his hands where the S.P.E.W. badge was pinned, and he rubbed one long, spindly thumb over its surface.
"House-elves is born to work, Miss," he said, still looking at the badge, "but we isn't born knowing how to clean or cook or iron the sheets."
He leaned forward and placed the hat on Hermione's head, smoothing the wild hair underneath.
"We is having to learn," he told her. "We isn't always getting it right the first time."
Dobby tapped the S.P.E.W. badge pinned to her hat, its mirrored surface reflecting his kind—and unexpectedly wise—features. Hermione realized that she didn't have any idea how old Dobby really was. She supposed she had always considered house-elves to be like children, but, in truth, she was the child.
With that epiphany, Hermione suddenly realized how childishly she'd been behaving, and how selfishly she'd been pursuing what should have been a selfless cause. Overcome with remorse and regret, she quickly snapped Dobby up into her arms, hugging him fiercely. Dobby shrank away from her, but was unable to avoid her embrace. When it became obvious, however, that she wasn't going to strike him, he patted her back somewhat awkwardly and waiting for her to release him.
When she did, she looked properly scolded, but less miserable than she had before.
"I'll do it better," she vowed. "I... I don't know how yet, but I will do it better."
Dobby smiled his lopsided smile at her.
"Dobby thinks Miss Her-mine-y will do great things," he said, "but irons is hot, Miss, and you is probably going to scorch the linens a few times first."
Dobby hopped down from the table, holding his pile of hats firmly on his head, and scuttled out of the common room through the portrait hole, leaving Hermione with her thoughts. She stared a while longer at her box of badges, before picking it up and walking to the fireplace. Taking a resolute breath, she upended the box over the fire. The tin badges didn't take long to melt into tiny, silver puddles that eventually burned to nothingness.
"Scorched linen," she told herself. "That's all it is."