Ch 30 The Meeting After The ICWW
Minor but very good additions by Deb.
The first Tuesday after the International Conference of Witches and Wizards, right after dinner, a group gathered in the drawing room of Twelve Grimmauld Place to discuss the conference. Harry and Ginny were there, along with Hermione and Ron. The four MELL students, Albus, Rose, Cleopatra and Scorpius were there. Elves were represented by Dobedo and his mate Harriet Tubman, Mitzi and her mate Fritz.
Harry and Hermione explained what had taken place at the meeting of the Magi. Ron added, "From what I and the other shopkeepers heard, there was more than the usual amount of grumbling, because everyone knew major Elf and Goblin meetings were going on at the same time. Many Magi were furious that Magi were not leading these meetings or even allowed to attend.
"Everything blew up Friday after Mary's talk to the meeting. Everything became increasingly tense Saturday as Elves and Magi started to talk, negotiate, fight. We have had Elves slowly and at times secretly buying things from Weasley's Wizard Wheezes, not that they are very good customers, but they are doing it more openly now."
Fritz interjected, "Elves do not usually buy silly toys."
"We are working on that," Ron kidded.
Fritz shook his head. You could tell he did not have much use for "silly toys."
Harry asked the Elves, "What did happen at your meetings?"
The Elves looked at each other, trying to figure out who should speak. Finally, Harriet started, "Very complicated. Very complicated.
"Secrecy will be lost soon. All the Elfish people will be revealed to the No-Maj world. We have to decide what we will be. Leaders tell us that if some of us are slaves some of the Magi and others will consider all of us slaves."
"Slaves a very harsh word," Fritz interjected.
"Slaves, or former slaves. Not equal beings," Harriet insisted. "It is a harsh word. It is a harsh treatment of beings not considered fully human. We can all be equal to humans or none of us can be confident we will be treated as equal."
"All did not agree, but the leaders did," Fritz confirmed. "We must all be equal to humans, not slaves but not gods, just equal beings."
"Galadriel and Thorin mating this week, and they will take their place as head of the High Elves," Harriet informed the group. "Not back at Hogwarts, but staying at Switzerland and traveling around the world talking about freedom and responsibility."
"That sounds simple enough," Ron thought out loud.
Everyone looked at him like he was crazy.
"Goblin wives met and many decided that they did not want to be called a 'Goblin wife,'" Harriet said. "They want to be an Elf instead. They want their mates and themselves to be High Elves, not Goblins. To many there is an undesirable history connected to being a Goblin."
"How did that go over," Harry wondered.
"Like a failed levitation spell," Harriet replied as she brought her hand up and let it fall flat on her lap. "The Goblins thought they could out shout the Goblin females, but the females did not bring clothing or food to their mates. The females ended up more or less unified, and the Goblins were fighting among themselves. The females won a battle, but there is a long and painful reconciliation ahead.
"Mutneset and a rather large group of females that acknowledged her as their leader were at the heart of the controversy. She rose to the top of the Goblin hierarchy by being very smart, by being an immense help to Zefenslot, and by arranging marriages or mating's between her many children and other Goblin families. Females Goblins have always worked in important back room roles in the banks and businesses, but have been treated as slaves by male Goblins all too often.
"Right now Goblin wives are mostly calling themselves Elves, not Goblin wives or Goblin mates or Goblins."
"Did some of the Elves want to stay house elves?" Harry wondered.
"Some do, but none that attended the meetings," Harriet grumbled crossing her arms. "No changes for happy happy slaves like Winky."
"Are some Elves going to stay house elves?" Harry wondered.
"Not next generation," Harried insisted, shaking her head. "All will go to school and learn to be free within an Elfish community."
Fritz shook his head no and insisted, "Not so simple, Harriet. You named yourself after an ex-slave, and think we should all behave like humans."
"Not humans!" Harriet insisted. She then said something in Elfish that caused the four MELL students to grin very embarrassing grins.
"We do not need to talk about the sexual differences," Rose mumbled, getting very red in the face and showing by her posture just how embarrassed she was. "Saying humans are like Bonobos' is very insulting, and not particularly scientifically accurate either."
"Too much sex," Harriet muttered, looking down and away from Harry and Ginny, who's rumored sexual appetite was well known.
Fritz sighed, and started again. "High Elfish society has to be different than human society. The need to belong to each other, to other people, is stronger. That need has been perverted in house elves, sublimating the need to belong to belonging to a human person instead of belonging to a group of Elves. In the Goblins there are no individual Goblins. Even the smallest Goblin office has at least four Goblins, at least partly because they do not trust each other. They do need to live in community.
"The abuse of Goblin females by Goblin males came from the patriarchal humans, and is just wrong."
"Goblin patriarchy is not going to go away easily," Harriet grumbled.
"You arranged to leave China and come to work with Hermione," Harry told Harriet. "That does not sound like a house elf thing to do."
Harriet bragged, "It is not! It is very "Goblinish," except it is really not that either. It is very human, and in Elfish society, what I did is human in a not good, not appropriate way, according to the stupid house elf standards.
"Dobedo and Kreacher accepted me, and then other elves did. To my surprise I found out even an Elf like me needs to belong to a group. The non-magical room in San Francisco, where we were surrounded by that magical stuff that keeps magic out, that was a hard lesson for Harriet Tubman. All Elves are connected in a way humans are not."
The discussion continued for a couple of hours.
The next day Harry peeked into Hermione's office, and offhandedly remarked with a smirk, "All you have to do is knit the Elves little caps."
"For every problem in the world there is a solution that is simple, obvious, and wrong," Hermione suggested, sticking her tongue out at him then putting her nose in the air. "Life isn't that simple when you grow up."
Harry burst out laughing. "We were so naive at Hogwarts."
Ginny and Hermione were sitting in the Potter's drawing room after dinner. Ron had gone back to work in the store, and Harry was in his private office next to the potions room, in the area under the kitchen level they called the dudgeon. Ginny was nursing Minerva, who showed no interest in weaning, something that was perfectly acceptable to Ginny.
Rose and Cleo came into the room, and Ginny could see Rose had something on her mind, so she wondered, "Is something bothering you, Rose?"
"Boys have it easy," Rose grumbled. "They do not bleed every month. Their body doesn't get pushed all out of shape. A boy goes INTO your body, and, you don't even have to let them. They can RAPE you, and you will still get pregnant.
"At least Elves have to agree; they do it together. I don't understand it, but they only do it when they want to make a baby. It is different than the way humans do it. The females, they still have to, I don't quite understand how, let the male part in, but it is more deliberate. They don't do it all the time. But humans do it all the time. At least some humans do."
Ginny had the biggest grin, really a grin that extended to her whole body. "I remember after James was born," she reflected. "I thought boys had it better. I was always the little girl, I though over protected by my brothers, but then I had adventures like the boys. And it is complicated being female. But when Harry gets me way beyond thinking, and my body is just responding in a way I cannot even begin to describe, and I can see him doing and thinking, I am so glad that I am a female.
"There is, there should be, a joy in being pregnant and giving birth. It is complicated, and hard, and even painful at times, but when you are done you have created another human being. Nursing is messy, and ties you down, but you are giving life out of your own body." Ginny gave a big pleasant sigh. "It helps that Minerva is an easy baby."
Minerva let go of Ginny's breast and smiled. "Eess aabb," she sighed as she latched on, thought about it, and let go again, snuggling up against Ginny.
Ginny covered herself up as Minerva snuggled.
"It really should be enjoyable," Hermione told Rose. "It is like anything else physical. You have to practice to get good at it, but if you are doing it together, trying to please each other, at a minimum it should be enjoyable. At its best it should be a lot more than enjoyable."
"It should be wonderful!" Cleo exclaimed.
"I guess," Rose sighed, not convinced.
Harry called Sidney Stanford, the Defense against the Dark Arts Professor at Hogwarts, and asked him, "Sidney, do you have time this summer to teach dueling to my son Albus, Rose Granger-Weasley, Cleopatra Smith, and Scorpius Malfoy?"
"Albus is scary good already," Sidney replied, "but I will be delighted."
For the rest of the summer the four students had dueling practice with Professor Stanford. Harry occasionally joined in the practice sessions. Albus was extraordinary, and if she could concentrate Cleopatra was very good as well. Both Rose and Scorpius became much better as the lessons continued.
2020