"Not all that wander are lost, nor are all who are lost are willing."
"Just because you're lost, doesn't mean you're alone."
"Lost and found… but what if they were never found?"
The children were gone.
Vanished.
Lost.
Disappeared.
Whatever word you'd like to call it, everyone would agree on the sudden increase in kidnappings. They were random. Not just random, but almost insanely daring. A boy was taken from his crib when his babysitter had gone downstairs for five minutes. A girl walked into an alley and was never seen again. A pair of twins were gone from a party without anyone noticing but later.
The police, and the parents and guardians of the lost children, called the cases 'kidnapping'. For no child could simply... disappear. One moment there and another second not. There was no signs of struggle evident at the scenes of crime, but instead of being seen as suspicious, the officers of Scotland Yard and the magical Aurors simply explained it away that the kidnappers used a drug so that the children would go without struggle.
At first, the kidnappings weren't included as one big case. Kidnapping happened all the time, but rarely, if ever, there was a link to them.
But time after time, as no marks were left of the scene of the crimes (unlike most scenes where anything, something was found, whether an abandoned car or purse or footprints) people began to speculate that maybe, just maybe, it was the same person, or group of people, that were taking the children.
There were no leads, no evidence to figure out the pattern of where they would strike next.
Different ethnics, hair colours, body size, personality, race, society standing, it didn't matter. The only thing the Aurors and police found, was that all the children were under the age of fifteen.
But that left them even more puzzled before.
Why only fifteen and under? Why were they stealing the children? What was going to happen to the kids?
And most importantly,
Why?
"The machine is ready, My Lady."
"Start the process immediately. I want this batch better then the last one."
"Yes, My Lady."
Juniper Krossesgor was a flirt. And not a small one, but the biggest flirt at Hogwarts in her century. She enjoyed twirling her hair around her fingertips when talking to boys, and always made subtle double meanings to her words that one could take as "Let's go to the bedroom". She winked at the boys- and sometimes, even girls- who caught her eye, and if anyone ever saw Juniper alone, it meant that she was just about to tell the news to her latest conquest that she was breaking up with them.
She was a heartless, winking flirt.
People began to call her 'Winky' because she constantly winked at her peers.
So one night, after spending time with her latest boy-toy, Winky found herself outside, wandering the school, after curfew had started. It was not a very big deal, a lot of the older students did the same thing, and multiple times before Winky had been stuck outside, scrambling around trying to get back to her Common Room before any of the teachers found her.
It was dark in the corridors as she tried to find her way down deeper and deeper into the castle. Her Hufflepuff Common Room was calling for the fifteen year old, with promises of warmth and Butterbeer and just relaxing and talking to her friends since it was finally the weekend. Although, that daydream was popped when Winky found herself in an dusty classroom with no candlelight to guide her back to her path. She must have taken the wrong turn.
The sixteen year old Hufflepuff growled to herself as she wracked her brains to think how she had gotten to the abandoned classroom, but her thoughts turned blank whenever she tried to re-imagine her path.
Winky sighed and walked back towards the door, prepared to wander endlessly in the always changing hallways, when she pulled on the knob of the door and found it stuck.
No big deal.
The long brown haired girl pulled out her wand- (eight and a half inches, oak, supple and flexible, unicorn tail for a center)- and whispered, "Alohomora."
She heard the familiar click of the lock being undone, and smirked in victory. Now all she had to do was get back to her common room, and no one (besides her friends) would have noticed she was missing.
Winky twisted the knob and pulled, but the door stayed firmly shut. She pushed. Still shut. She began pulling in random directions trying to get the unlocked door to open.
Why won't it open? Winky thought, desperately trying to get out of the dark and gloomy classroom. The place was beginning to creep her out, and now she couldn't get the door open?
The girl repeated the spell again, and tried to open the door, before firing more and more spells, trying to obliterate the wooden obstacle that wouldn't allow her to leave the confines.
Nothing would affect the door. Every Bombarda would make a small crack, but nothing more.
"Let me out!" Winky screeched, giving up on her wand and throwing the piece of wood on the ground. "Someone, get me out of here! I'm stuck!"
The teachers must still be patrolling, and Winky was willing to face a detention as long as she got out of the weird classroom.
Winky was so focused on the door, in her terror, that she didn't notice a shadow moving in the corner, inching closer and closer to the unsuspecting girl until it was right behind her. Winky felt the cold breath of air on the back of her head, and turned around sharply, but she was hit roughly over the head with a large metal box, and fainted at the shadow's feet.
No one could find Winky. Her friends, family, and professors searched high and low for the Hufflepuff, but the only thing they found was a door with a chair in front of it. The door was locked tightly from the inside, and no one paid any mind to it, continuing on with their search to find the girl.
Winky was declared missing, and was never seen again.
"We have the latest batch, My Lady. One of them came from Hogwarts."
"Oh, the Headmaster must be furious that one of his students was taken from right under his nose. Prepare the machine."
"Yes, My Lady."
A decade past, and Winky was long forgotten by everyone except her parents. No one remembered the flirty Hufflepuff that was taken from Hogwarts. Meanwhile, everyone was focusing on the strange noises heard in the Forbidden Forest. Aurors had skimmed the forest, but had not yet found the source of the noise. The Centaurs were strangely tight lipped about the screams, and none of the other creatures in the forest would tell even a drop of information.
It was frustrating.
"My Lady, the last batch is complete."
"Finally, Alberto. Are you ready to unleash pain into the Wizarding World?"
"Yes, My Lady."
"Hmm. Good. The idiots wont even see it coming. They will allow their downfalls into their houses without even realizing it, and from there we can take control of their weak little minds."
"Indeed, My Lady."
"Alberto! Send orders to General Hughes. The first batch will be sent out at midnight. Let's see how the Wizarding World will deal with my little children..."
"Of course, My Lady."
"Did you hear?"
"Last night, one of the Aurors finally caught something they believe was making the sound!"
"Really?"
"Yeah! They didn't get a really good look at it, but it's small and leathery like a bat, and makes the strangest noises!"
"Sounds like a freak, or something really strange."
"Yeah, sorta."
"Where is it being taken?"
"The Ministry of Magic, they're hoping to question the thing and get information out of it, like what it is and if there is more like it!"
"We will ask you again, who are you?"
"Winky, sirs!"
"And what are you?"
"An elf sir!"
"You're not an elf," the inspector frowned, staring at the small little creature with distaste in his eyes. "Elves are fair folk who never show their faces to humans. You don't look like one, act like one, speak like one, or even could remotely be related to one. So tell me, what are you?"
"Winky is an House Elf, sirs! Winky is a good elf! Winky will help her masters!"
"Masters? House Elf?" the other man in the room, who was writing down everything Winky was saying, looked dumbfounded. "What on Earth is it going on about!"
"Winky is not a 'it', sirs, Winky is a House Elf!"
"Alright, er, Winky. You're a House Elf. What do House Elves do?"
"Us clean and cook and are bonded to our Masters for eternity! We mustn't disobey Master or punishment shall happen." Winky looked mad at herself when she revealed this information. To the men's shock, the elf (which was clad in a makeshift dress of leaves that left dirt all over the glossy floor), hopped off the table she had been placed on and grabbed the clipboard from the man writing down everything.
"Bad Winky! Bad Winky!" she started hitting herself on the head with the board. "Winky disobeyed Master! Bad Winky!"
"H-Hey! Stop that!" the man finally came to his senses as he grabbed his board back from the House Elf. "Stop hurting yourself!"
Winky obeyed, but with a look of pain on her face. She disobeyed Master!
Bad Winky!
"A House Elf?"
"That's what it called itself! It's like a servant, or that's how it described itself. They have masters and do chores for their masters. Sounds nice eh?"
"But it's not right..."
"Well, I don't see anything wrong with it. If they enjoy serving people then why keep them from doing something they love?"
"Yeah! Listen to Jesse. Anyways, they found a whole bunch of them, like two hundred or something, hiding out in the forest. People are saying that after the Ministry is done testing 'em that we can buy them and have them help take care of chores!"
"They're going to be expensive though, aren't they?"
"Definitely, like a hundred galleons or something, but it'll be worth it. Think about it! No more chores!"
"...It does sound rather nice..."
A smirk appeared on a beautiful lady's lips.
"Alberto, phase one is complete. Prepare the collars."
"Yes my lady."
"The House Elves are soon going to be in every house in the Wizarding World, and as soon as they are, we'll strike. The fools wont know what hit them."
"Yes, My Lady."
For Quidditch League (Final- Puddles VS. Bats D: ((BUT MY BABIES ARE ON THAT TEAM)) round one) using prompts: freak, candlelight, lost and found.
Please forgive my rantings. This was the hardest thing I've ever written, and that's saying something.
Review if you'd like, favourite if you ever need a scientific approach to house elves, or PM me if you want to debate the existence of house elves I'm always ready to reply to a debate.