Ch.12 Jam-Jam
Authors note: Hope you enjoy, thank you for visiting!
The green goblin-like figure rested his bulbous chin overtop his large candy cane walking stick, looking at them up and down, scrutinizing them. The intimidating effect was lessened as to look them up and down he had to crane his spindly neck.
He looked at their terrified confused forms for a long while before barking out a laugh and coughing, causing some kind of green fairy dust to shoot out and his grey hairs to tremble.
The green figure shakily raised his knobby toad like finger at them, "Just wee ones you are! spewing more nonsense than a boxed muggle recipe!…."
He laughed hard at his own little weird joke and slowly took shaky steps towards them,"Muggles…..a packet of dry crumbly messes and a egg….the nerve to think they could replace….My name is Jam-Jam, and you three wee ones might be?"
Jam-Jam peered up at them dusting off some specks from his specs.
Hermione seemed to shake off her shock first,"Hermione Granger sir….but….boxed recipes were made because-"
A green shaky hand silenced her,"Were made because they enjoy taking something good and making it worse for convenience I will accept no other answer." He scoffed.
Hermione tried hiding her disappointment at not being able to give the real answer. And failed miserably.
Neville blinked, "B-boxed….?"
Jam-Jam went over slowly and patted him on the shoulder, "Your family brought you up good and well!"
He turned to Arthur, "And you boy? You look like youre all for coming in after all the hard work and doing the last step...how 'bout it?"
Arthurs face turned red at the insult sputtering, "What!"
Jam-Jam shrugged sadly, "Alas…..an egg cracker…at least one of you has it right.."
Hermione and Arthur shared an incredulous look while Neville was still confused.
Neville raised his hand as if asking permission to speak,"Uh- I haven't...baked anything sir...from a ...box.. or ...not.."
Arthur looked at him surprised mouthing,'Nothing?'
He nodded back blushing. Arthur had a plan for what they could do after Hagrids now, all he needed was a way to start a fire in the woods without anybody noticing. And possibly a village.
And maybe a few pounds of flour. And a job to get the flour.
Jam-Jam looked ready to keel over, "Anything! I'd take an oil adder over that!"
He sighed, clutching his heart muttering.
"All three of you up so late...I'll have to notify someone.."
Arthur,Neville and Hermione all blanched.
"We were just locked out of our dormitory! Please sir!" Hermione begged, looking about to faint at the prospect of getting in trouble.
"You're about two halls away from the nearest dormitory.." Jam-Jam pointed out raising a bushy grey eyebrow.
Hermione blushed at the fallacy in her alibi and wrung her hands, "We heard noise and went to see what it was , we found out it was hi-"
She stopped in the middle of her sentence looking carefully at Arthur who was silently accepting his fate to be cleaning out Professor Trelawney's tea cups for the next seven years, "...hitting…"
Jam-Jam raised the other eyebrow making it look like a seagull decided to nest on his face with its wings out ,"Hitting?"
He turned to Arthur squinting,"I knew it…"
Arthurs eyes widened and Hermione waved her hands frantically,"No no sir- It was peeves hitting. He was hitting the wall you know, making loads of noise for fun…"
Arthur stared at her, impressed, she was lying?
She refused to look at him and Jam-Jam laughed his chow chow laugh once more, "I'm older than the first brick laid down here at Hogwarts! I know a lie when I see one!"
Hermione deflated looking like a prisoner finally accepting arrest.
Arthur in a moment of idiocy stepped closer grabbing Jam-Jams attention.
"She's got no reason to be in trouble I was the one-"
Jam-Jam banged his Candy cane hard on the ground, "Alright, quit it. I was yanking your gumdrops, I don't go around handing detentions like they're candy."
Neville finally breathed, almost having turned purple. Hermione looked ready to collapse to the floor in ecstacy.
"You, licorice head." He said pointing at Arthur, "Your dorm is on the way to the kitchens correct?"
Arthur nodded, before realizing what he got called, "Hey!-"
Jam-Jam hit his legs with his cane,"Come on then- You two follow as well, want to show you something…rare I get to talk..."
They all slowly inched behind him trying not to get far in front of him as he walked slowly with his tiny legs.
Hermione looked to be running on pure adrenaline, "Detention….we almost got detention.."
"But we didn't...no punishment! none!" said Neville, feeling his face as if he couldn't believe it was still there.
Arthur looked at them weirdly and snorted,"What would he have done? Feed us boxed brownies?"
Something minty and sweet and very hard hit his head.
A thousand young Jam-Jams stared at them,all bunched together they looked very much like a bunch of nervous sea cucumbers.
One clutched their tea-cup terrified, the other with a tiny broom in their hands.
Jam-Jam took no mind to this, and led them over to a metal table with chairs.
Neville, Arthur, and Hermione all awkwardly waved at them all, as the elves gaped and readjusted their thick tunics, some of them trying to comb the little amount of hair on their heads.
"Jam-Jam! Hurry- you can use my comb, we have guests! I'm so sorry you have to see him like this sirs and misses!" apologized a potato-headed elf, who was ironically peeling potatoes.
Jam-Jam rolled his eyes motioning for the three of them to sit down, "That comb is better off being used for smoothing sheet cakes." he guffawed, pointing at his shiny head.
The potato elf scowled and shook his head apologetically at Hermione like he was embarrassed for her that she had to be around Jam-Jam.
Neville seemed to recognize who they were and Arthur looked at the elf in front of him confused, as she was fumbling over herself trying to flatten her ears.
"You look fine the way you are...You don't have to, I'm covered in muck anyway you know, and they're in their pajamas!" Placated Arthur showing his dirty hands and face, concerned as she began to have tears form in her eye when it kept sticking up.
She bursted out in tears and tripped over herself grabbing a towel, handing him it completely tearstained, "I'm so sorry sir! Here you go, I should've given it to you when you came in!"
Arthur grimaced unintentionally, the fact that they were near hysterics over these things creeped him out.
He tried giving the towel back so she could wipe her face off but she stepped back as if it were fire.
Hermione ran over and tried to soothe her, "It's alright- he's always a bit dusty."
Arthur shot her a look and the elf cried harder wailing about how much of an awful it was.
Hermione looked up at him indignantly with her hand on the elf's shoulder, "Well it's true! In diagon alley it was smeared all over, and the train-"
Jam-Jam cleared his throat, "If you're all done making fools of yourselves…."
The elves all stared mutinously at him and one stuck a paring knife in the table,"Just because you're the oldest doesn't make you right!"
The elves all agreed loudly, "Yeah! Not the maturest not at all! Always rebelling, no treating students with respect, talking back to the headmaster! always sneaking pudding things into the main course!"
The elf with the potato head looked ashamed, "I can't believe I let that get past...peppermint humbugs….a mockery…"
Jam-Jam rolled his eyes,"Don't blame yourself, you were too busy making sure you kissed the ground Dumbledore walked on to notice…."
The potato elf stuck a peeler in his face threateningly, "You don't deserve to speak his name!"
He ignored the potato elf entirely smacking the peeler on the ground, sitting down next to Neville, setting what appeared to be hot candy cane sticks.
"Shape them please, I want to see how you lot do…"
The elves gasped," It's one thing to bring them here- but to make them work!"
"Ignore them…."
Nevilles candy looked for some reason perfect, Arthurs wobbly.
"Woah.." Whispered Arthur looking at Neville's elegant twists as he blushed.
Hermione's was completely flattened because she slammed her hands on the table.
She looked extremely curious and outraged, "Why are they all acting like that? Sir- I mean,They said Dumbledore, Has Dumbledore done something….Sir?"
Jam-Jam looked at her tiredly and continued forming perfect canes, "Finish yours….then we'll talk. This is for Christmas coming up….like to make half the stock a few months earlier for the back of the trees..."
Hermione lifted her hand and looked down embarrassed at the state of it as Jam-Jam reprimanded her.
"I said finish yours, not finish it off…yours is not good but a bit better.." He said disappointedly at Hermione's and complacently at Arthurs.
"I was right about you, always am!" said Jam-Jam sounding so proud that Neville ducked down embarrassed.
Arthur rolled his eyes at the hopeless expression on Hermione's face too exhausted to care much for anything happening.
Hermione was still busy trying to somehow unflatten the candy cane as Jam-Jam leaned in intimidatingly.
Arthur barely patted her back, "Hagrid flattened a tree too you know...Could hang ours there.." he offered trying to hide his laughs at her steamrolled candy cane and his wobbly looking one.
She half glared as Jam-Jam made a hurling noise.
They stared at him in shock as he continued faking noises, but another noise arrived cutting the embarrassing sentence about to come out of his mouth.
They heard a cough, "Um- excuse me, don't think we are ordering you sirs and misses around but…..It's time for bed...and you needn't be working at such hours! Or in any case!"
The elves had rallied once more and tugged at their arms pulling them to the door, "Good night! Please come again when this disgrace has finally left us!"
Hermione looked down bewildered as she got dragged,"Are you sure? We can stay and help-"
"No!"
The doors to the kitchens slammed leaving them staring at the door in shock.
"What in the name of Glinda was that." Breathed Arthur bewildered.
Hermione turned to them both like she was going to pry answers out of their heads with a big scary machine, "What was wrong with them! What did Dumbledore do? They acted like we'd go and hit them if they didn't meet every need!"
Neville winced and wrung his hands, "Uh-" he took a step back as Hermione zeroed in on him.
"Well-they're Houselves…. they um….they cook for Hogwarts I think, they've always served wizards you know...they go hysterical if they do something wrong or forget.."
Hermione looked horrified, "Serve? They don't get paid at all do they!"
Neville mumbled a small, 'no.'
Hermione stomped to the door not breathing correctly as Arthur and Neville grabbed her arms pulling her back as she struggled to open it.
She glared at him, "Arthur- Let me go! I can't believe you two-"
"Blimey Hermione! I know it's wrong, but that elf with the peeler kept twitching at everyone saying how it was tired of peeling potatoes!"
Hermione rolled her eyes, "Oh come off it-"
"I'm being serious Hermione!"
Arthur thought he heard something being muttered that sounded vaguely like licorice head.
"They really do act badly if you talk about freeing them-" Neville interjected.
Hermione gaped at him and so did Arthur, "Freeing? So it is-"
She narrowed her eyes and stepped forward to Neville who was sweating buckets, "Neville...do you have one."
Neville flailed his hands around, "No way! Gran didn't want me going more soft than I already am!"
Hermione looked ready to pass out and Arthur stood by her incase she really did.
"Why do they...serve… wizards anyway?" Asked Arthur confused.
Neville shrugged uncomfortably,"I don't really know...It was a really long time ago…...I know goblins don't like them….something about them giving up so easily.. ?"
Arthur made an 'oh' shape with his mouth, "Oh- So we won or something? That's why?"
He nodded not looking at them in the eye,"Yeah? Maybe?"
Hermione crossed her arms at Arthur,"So you think just because we won it's okay? that we can just forget about it?"
Arthur felt grossed out by the entire thing, "No... I dunno but it's definitely creepy... do you think they sleep there?"
Hermione's face went blank.
Arthur had walked them back to their dorm not wanting to deal with getting sprayed by vinegar for forgetting the password, the portrait slowly waking up as Hermione was coldly silent.
"Oh…. hello dearies! Ah- another Weasley?" Asked the tired portrait.
Arthur stared at her amazed, "No ma'am...just a Dewey.."
The lady laughed, "No such thing as just someone dear! But just as well, they've never had hair as long as yours. "
He held his hair protectively, reaching his eyes and curling around his neck.
"What are you three doing up so early?"
They all looked at eachother confused and Neville continued, "Don't you mean late?"
She raised an eyebrow,"I think i'd know! Besides, you can always tell It's past the witching hour when Peeves gets riled up…. he likes to wake every portrait up so rudely, the ruffian!"
The sound of swishing scissors and maniacal laughter filled the hall.
