Written For: QLFC Round 8
Team: Kenmare Kestrels
Position: Chaser 2 – K-drama (theme: someone else is not the same species)
Prompts:
(phrase) on his/her knees
(colour) aquamarine
(theme) falling in love with the wrong person/thing
Notes: This was fun! I quite like Hinkie.
Beta-checked by: my glorious captain, roseusvortex!
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But I'm only human
And I bleed when I fall down
I'm only human
And I crash and I break down
- Christina Perri's "Human"
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Hinkie is No Free Elf
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Hinkie likes Hogwarts. It's big, and beautiful, and filled with children. Hinkie's mistress has ordered Hinkie to stay at Hogwarts and look after Missus Cole Venna madam, and to make sure she eats her greens, cleans behind her ears, and is not too lonely, "for she is so young; my sweet little girl – only eleven, with so much to learn."
Hinkie does not mind one bit, because Missus Cole Venna madam is a good little girl. Hinkie has changed her diapers and played with her and cooed over scraped knees. It is not a burden to keep on caring – she does not think she could stop, anyway.
Hinkie sighs. Now she is sad. The missus is growing up so fast – too fast. Will the missus no longer need her? Does she simply walk off the pain of her scraped knees? Has she made friends? Hinkie twists her ears, pained and anxious. She hopes the young missus needs her! She hopes Mistress Venna needs her!
"Ah," she begins to whine, twisting and twisting and twisting at her ears.
A hand touches her shoulder. It's Dobby.
Her whines increase. It's Dobby – he is such a bad elf. He has abandoned his family! He is free. Oh, she shudders violently. To be free! How awful.
"Is you okay, Hinkie?" he asks, staring at her with his big, bulbous eyes.
Hinkie is a polite elf, with manners aplenty, so she merely sniffs, "I is fine, Dobby. I is thinking of Missus Cole Venna madam."
His eyes brighten. He sets his rag down on one of the many kitchen tables. "Your missus? Dobby is meeting her once. She is very much appreciative of the great Harry Potter sir. Dobby is thinking she is sweet." He sniffles violently and then wails, "Harry Potter is a great wizard! Harry Potter sir freed Dobby and has made Dobby so happy with his greatness and his goodness."
Hinkie pats his hand awkwardly. "Sir Harry Potter is the Missus Cole Venna's favorite," she allows. All this talk of her missus is making her sad. It is no good for an elf to be away from their family for hours each day. When will she see her missus? When will her missus call for her? She pats Dobby's hand again – poor Dobby, to be bereft of his wizarding family. She pats him again. Poor Dobby!
The portrait to the kitchen abruptly swings open.
"Miss Hermione Granger," Dobby shouts in delight, bounding across to her. "What can Dobby be doing for Harry Potter's friend Hermione Granger?"
It is odd – except it's not odd at all – but suddenly all the other kitchen house-elves have disappeared, except for Hinkie and Dobby.
Hinkie squeaks. It is the dreaded Granger. What an awful, awful girl.
"Perhaps a sandwich, Dobby. I'm afraid I missed dinner." The girl smiles ruefully as she takes a seat. "I got a bit carried away with this wonderful new book – The Peculiarities of Specialized Magic's Peristaltic Force and Pendulum Anomalies." She pauses, taking in the empty kitchen. "Where is everyone?" she asks Dobby, who has set a sandwich down before her.
"They is busy, Miss Hermione Granger," he offers, and it is not entirely true, but Dobby is a sneaky elf.
Disappointment clouds her features. "I was hoping to offer a few knitted hats."
Hinkie squeaks – terrified – and frantically attempts to shove herself in a cupboard. Logic has escaped her. To be free! To be free! How awful and wretched. She twists at her ears and then relaxes. The dreaded Granger cannot free her. Madam Venna is her mistress! Oh, she could weep, and so she does. She weeps loudly in relief.
"Hello?" Granger calls, twisting on her chair. She takes a bite of her sandwich and approaches, eyes searching. "Oh, hello, there," she greets Hinkie. "Are you alright?"
Hinkie glares. The dreaded Granger, her mind spits. But Hinkie has manners aplenty. "I is fine, Miss Granger," she sniffs (ooooh, she has such gall).
The Granger girl hesitates. "May I ask your name?"
"You may," Hinkie says (such gall).
Surprisingly, Granger smiles. Hinkie does not understand this dreaded girl. To be freeing perfectly good elves – what a nasty girl.
"My name is Hermione. It is a pleasure to meet you … ?"
"Hinkie," Hinkie grinds out grudgingly.
"Please, sit with me," the dreaded girl says, and gestures to a stool as she reclaims her own one.
Hinkie hesitates. "I is a good elf," she says proudly, "and I be doing my work with much dedication."
"I don't doubt it," Granger says without blinking. "But I am lonely."
Dobby – the traitor – has made himself scarce. She can hear him singing his 'Cleaning Song' somewhere further down. "Suds, suds, you are such buds; soap, soap – we cannot cope without some soap, soap!"
"Fine," Hinkie manages. She joins the dreaded girl. You cannot free me!
"Have you worked here long, Hinkie?" Granger asks, polishing off a sandwich crust.
"No," Hinkie says quickly. "I is not working for Sir Headmaster Dumble-door. I is working for my Madam Venna's little girl, my missus Cole Venna. I is being very happy and very pleased to be doing so," she announces proudly.
The Granger girl's eyes widen. "Oh." She hesitates. "Do they … treat you well?" she ventures.
Hinkie's aquamarine eyes narrow quickly. Those eyes spear Hermione, because their color is so strong and so oddly cold, and because they are so unusual and demanding. They capture her attention, those eyes, and then the elf's lips part, and Hinkie says – in a tone as cold as those eyes – "They is treating Hinkie better than Hinkie deserves!"
"Alright," Granger replies, wary of that powerful gaze. "I'm very glad. You seem like such a sweet girl," she says sincerely, "and you deserve to be treated well. You have just as much humanity as the rest of us – if not more," she says passionately.
Hinkie regards the girl with suspicion. "Humph," she says.
And then something is tugging at her, insistently. Tug, tug, tug. That something whispers Hinkie's name – not the name with letters, but the name within. The name that has no letters, and no boundaries. The name that is Hinkie. The whisper is a fierce one. It says come! Come now.
"It is my Missus Cole Venna!" she cries gleefully, hopping up and twisting away from the dreaded Granger girl's wide eyes – gone, gone, gone.
She pops into existence before her missus and immediately falls on her knees in servient supplication. She presses her forehead to the floor. "Missus," she breathes happily, "what can Hinkie be doing for Missus Cole Venna?"
"Is it true?" the little girl asks crossly. The dorm room is empty but for the two of them.
Hinkie raises her eyes and clambers to her feet. "What is the missus needing to know?" she asks eagerly. "Hinkie will search the whole library for the answer." She waves her hands giddily.
The little girl stomps her foot, black curls flying wildly. "Is it true that you're … you're not normal?"
Hinkie stills, confused. "I is Hinkie," she offers.
"But you're not human," Cole Venna says. "You're not like me."
"No, missus," Hinkie replies blankly.
"They say you're some sort of elf."
"Yes, missus. A house-elf," she proclaims proudly, puffing her chest out.
The little girl has stilled. No foot stomping; no waving curls; no furious lip twitches. "Mummy said you were just like me." She raises her eyes to Hinkie's unusual ones. "But that's a lie. You're subhuman," she sneers, "a monster. All this time, I'd thought you were just ugly. But you were never my friend" – she sounds almost … betrayed? – "you were my servant."
Hinkie has no words. Does she even have a tongue? Does she breathe? Does she live? But yes, she must be living, because her chest is very sore. Her heart is very sore. A monster? Subhuman?
"I is yours," she says gingerly.
The little girl is not appeased. "Mine? You are nothing," she says crossly. "Victória was right. House-elves are nothing. You are nothing, you disgusting … thing."
Why does the missus look sad? How can the missus be sad when it is Hinkie that is crying? When it is Hinkie that is twisting at her poor, abused ears? When it is Hinkie that cannot breathe properly?
"Leave," Cole Venna demands, turning her nose up and fluttering those black lashes, which are perched delicately on top of smooth eyelids. Her green eyes match so well to that newly-green tie, Hinkie thinks briefly, admiringly. Missus Cole Venna has only been at Hogwarts for two days. Hinkie cannot help but admire the missus – she cannot help but love the missus.
She cannot.
"As Missus Cole Venna wishes," Hinkie murmurs, and falls on her knees again. She presses her forehead to the ground – but the missus is not pleased at her humble servitude, and snorts, and it cuts Hinkie deeply, like a knife. It is only two days into the term. What has changed?
She spins away, forcefully squeezed through space. She cannot think. Where is she? When is she? Is she, at all?
Dobby is a free elf.
Hinkie is no free elf. Hinkie will never be free of her missus and her mistress.
And that ... feels so good and so bad and she is still spinning and still crying and everything is wrong but oh-so-right.
No, Hinkie is no free elf.