'What is this?' Grindelwald asked, holding up one of the hats she'd just finished with two long fingers. It was a purple one, with a brown bobble where she'd run out of wool. It was very lumpy and the stitches were uneven but she was very proud of her accomplishment.

'A hat.' She said primly, focusing on counting the stitches in her row. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw him turn the finished one the right way up and splay his hand inside it to spread it out.

'Are you with child?' Hermione choked and the ball of wool rolled off her lap and under the opposite chair. She scrambled for her wand to freeze it before it rolled into the fireplace.

'What?'

'These are children's hats.' He plucked at a loose stitch and she felt her cheeks heat slightly.

'They're for the house elves.'

'The what?' Gellert asked, sounding incredulous.

'The house elves; they have over a hundred working here.' She explained and he made a strange huffing sound.

'They don't want hats.' He said scornfully and she abandoned her rewinding of the ball of wool in favour of staring at him indignantly.

'They need them...'

'House elves don't feel the cold.' He dismissed and disbelief flared up inside her. How could he know elves well enough to know that but not realise they were little better than slaves?

'Of course, but don't you think they deserve better than this? They're slaves, an entire species subjugated by wizards and forced to live in terrible conditions. Did you know they're forced to punish themselves if they even insult their masters.'

'Hermione, elves don't want to be free.' Ron argued from behind Gellert, he had also picked up a hat and was inspecting it.

'That's because they've been indoctrinated into believing slavery is a good thing.' She argued passionately and Gellert snorted. She turned furious eyes on him.

'They serve us because they cannot support their own magic.' He informed her and she frowned in confusion. 'Unless they have a witch or wizard to draw on, an elf cannot perform more than simple magic.'

'But Dobby... He does powerful magic.' Pointed out Harry from next to Ron.

'I strongly suspect that elf draws off you, which is illegal without a formal agreement.' The dark wizard moved to that he could see them all. 'The agreement between an elf and a witch or wizard is that in exchange for serving them, the elf can draw off the witch or wizards magical power. To give an elf clothes – in effect ending the contract, is a punishment for the elf not fulfilling his end of the contract.'

Hermione paused, her thoughts stopping in their tracks as she took in this new information.

'Now, to achieve change, you must work with both sides of the conflict – do they not teach you anything at this school?- What is it about house elves that makes you find wrong?' Gellert sounded completely reasonable as he sat opposite her and Hermione gaped in surprise. He was the first wizard to take her seriously on this.

'Their living conditions I suppose...' She trailed off, so surprised that he was willing to listen and help her that she couldn't come up with all her usually organised arguments.

Over the next half an hour they narrowed down her vague arguments to a neat list of five bullet points. Harry and Ron surprised her with their helpful and meaningful insights and comments and they quickly found themselves with a list of solutions. Gellert had finally left for his usual night time wanderings by the time they came up with a name – they'd scrapped her initial idea of SPEW with Ron arguing that it would be a PR disaster, so instead they had settled on ElfAid.

By the end of the evening, it was with great pleasure that Hermione threw her knitting needles into the fire, watching the thin wooden sticks twist and split into glowing strands. She couldn't bring herself to throw away the hats, having put almost the entire summer into them but Harry kindly offered to gift them to Dobby next time he saw the elf. With her hand aching but a glow in her chest every time she looked at her completed manifesto, she sat back. Tomorrow she would create the badges for the charity; Gellert had suggested she make them stylish, so she'd have to consult Ginny on that, maybe even Dean.

Then she would need to get someone influential wearing one, then hopefully it would take off from there. Sirius knew the who's who of modern magical society; he would be able to help her with that, especially if he could be persuaded to implement the changers with Kreacher.

'Where do you think he goes at night?' Ron asked suddenly, making her jump. She glanced at the spot that Gellert had recently vacated. 'You don't think he's doing anything bad do you?'

Truthfully, Hermione had no idea where he went at night but she doubted it was anything they should be concerned about. Dumbledore seemed to trust him and she voiced as much. Besides, in all the time that she'd known him, she'd never seen a hint of a man who could commit the atrocities he'd been famous for.

'Why don't you check the map?' Ron pointed out and Harry nodded, rushing up to the dormitory to grab it. Hermione began clearing the ElfAid stuff from the table, neatly gathering it into piles and stacking it beside her chair. Ron almost helped, then remembered that she didn't like anyone else touching her notes and added some logs to the fire instead.

Harry returned with the map and they spread it out across the table. He tapped it with his wand, muttering the password and the familiar lines scrolled out across the page. The trio leaned over eagerly and began searching; he wasn't in any of the commonrooms and the library was deserted. Snape was patrolling the ground floor and Filch was on the third but otherwise the corridors were completely empty.

'He's not here.' She meant it as a statement but it came out sounding more like a question.

'Are there any missing rooms?' Ron asked, scouring the map again.

'The chamber isn't here, but you need to speak parseltongue to get in there right?' She asked and Harry nodded.

'He'd not in the castle.' The boy-who-lived pointed out what they had all already realised. Ice settled in her gut as her concern was voiced. He could be doing anything outside the castle and even Dumbledore wouldn't know about it.