Written For:
Hogwarts Houses Competition: Round 5.
- Gryffindor
- Themed piece: Discovery
- Underestimated Character: Winky
Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry: Assignment #2
- Gryffindor
- Class: Home Economics and Domestic Magic
- Prompt: Write about a house-elf working at Hogwarts
September Back to School Challenge:
- Quote: "I didn't even know that you were sexually active"
Word Count: 669
Thanks to AJ and CK for beta'ing.
"The Dark Lord has been defeated!"
Outside, there is cheering. Bottles pop open. Something exploding - it sounds like fireworks. A girl is gasping and laughing. Sometimes there's sobbing and sometimes there's celebration and sometimes it's both.
But inside? There is no time to waste. No time to be sad, or happy, or relieved, or tired, or anything at all. Not that Winky wants to be any of that. It's not even as if people underestimate Winky, because she knows she's nothing.
All Winky wants is to find Dobby.
Sometimes an elf will start sobbing, which means it's time for that elf to knead the bread. Cry into the bread and it comes out soft and tender. Winky has done that sometimes. She would cry for Mistress Crouch and feed the soft bread to Master Barty. He loved that bread. He would eat it and smile and for a few moments he was free.
Free. Winky has pondered and pondered what that word means. It was something Dobby discovered, and so did Master Barty, and all the other Masters and Mistresses. Or maybe they just knew. Is it something she wants? Once, long ago, she knew the answer.
Now it's only Dobby who cares for her. Dobby. The elf who wears clothes and is payed wages and calls himself free.
Fight for Master Regulus! Defender of House Elves!
Whoever Master Regulus was, Kreacher loved him, and Winky can understand that. He's taken to his work with a new kind of happiness. Winky can understand that, too.
She was drunk during the battle. She slipped on her own butterbeer and fell into some scary man with an evil tattoo. That tattoo stole Master Barty from her.
Winky is drunk right now too. She vomits, and is hurled to the back room, behind the kitchens. Can't have that smell in Masters' food. But Dobby will take care of her!
Where is Dobby? Winky has been waiting for days. Where is her Dobby? She fights of the nausea, and the sleep. She needs to find Dobby.
She leaves the kitchen, finds a group in red and gold. Maybe Harry is there. Or the strange ugly girl. Or that other boy. Maybe they will help Winky.
"Masters…"
Winky's voice trails off. She is nauseous and can't think straight. What is she doing, talking to Masters? She should be ashamed.
Dobby wouldn't have been ashamed.
One of them looks at her, and not kindly. "What do you want, Elf?"
"Winky...Masters, Winky is wondering...where is her Dobby?"
The group starts laughing. There's almost something maniacal to it. Winky is reminded of Master Barty before that terrible Fudge….
The same boy responds first. "Your Dobby? What in Merlin's name is a Dobby?"
"I didn't even know you were sexually active!" A girl with a broken look in her eyes spits this at Winky. Winky thinks she vaguely recognizes this girl. "Your kind, I mean. Can elves even do that?"
"Maybe her Dobby is a dildo!"
They fall on each other, laughing.
Then she sees them. The three that might help her. They look as shattered as she feels, hair matted with sweat and dirt, the ugly girl and the redhead holding Harry up.
"Master Harry!"
The three look at her. Only the redheaded boy manages to smile. "Hi, Winky."
"Masters! Winky is wondering. Where is her Dobby?"
Nobody speaks. Winky is acutely aware of her throbbing headache.
"Oh. Winky." The ugly girl's eyes fill with tears. "Winky. I'm - I'm so sorry…"
She knows what Harry will say. Winky is used to grief; grief has been her life for years. But this grief is different. This is a grief which racks her body, shakes it with sobs, fills it with pain. This is the loss of the one elf - person - who believed in her.
Now Winky will have to believe in herself. Because Dobby is dead, but everything he was, everything he believed in, will have to live on.
And in that moment, Winky discovers strength.
