The following afternoon, after their final class of the day, Hermione pulled Harry down to the kitchens with her to meet the Hogwarts house elves.
Arriving at the portrait the twins had told her about, she tickled the pear, causing it to turn into the door handle she needed. Opening the door, she and Harry stepped inside, taking in the enormous, high-ceilinged room. It was a prefect replica of the Great Hall above it, only with mounds of glittering brass pots and pans covering the walls, a great brick fireplace at the far end, and house elves bustling about cooking and carrying food and drinks to the four long tables that sat directly beneath the tables in the Great Hall above, and apparently magically transferred the food up to said corresponding tables.
They had barely had time to look around and take it all in before house elves were bustling up to them offering them trays of food and drinks, and asking them what they could get them. Then as Hermione tried to explain that they didn't want anything and were just there to talk (not helped by Harry taking a chocolate eclair one of the house elves offered and a flagon of pumpkin juice offered by another), there was a loud squeal from the other side of the room, and one of the house elves dashed across the room and threw themselves at Harry, hugging him nearly as tightly as Hermione did when she hugged him.
"Harry Potter, sir! Harry Potter!"
Harry immediately recognized the house elf as none other than Dobby, who he'd liberated from the Malfoys a year and half earlier.
"Dobby!" he gasped, both in surprise and the fact the house elf was still hugging him so tightly he could barely breath.
"It is I, Harry Potter! It is Dobby, sir!"
"What are you doing here, at Hogwarts?" asked Harry. "Last I heard, you were trying to find a job."
"Dobby has found a job at Hogwarts, sir!" squealed the house elf excitedly. "Professor Dumbledore gave Dobby and Winky jobs, sir!"
"Winky?" exclaimed Hermione. "She's here too?"
"Oh yes!" replied Dobby, seizing both Harry and Hermione's hands and pulling them through the kitchen to the fireplace.
On the hearth sat Winky on a stool, looking miserable.
"Winky?" said Hermione quietly, squatting down next to her. But Mr Crouch's former house elf merely burst into tears, something it looked like she'd been doing quite frequently based on the state of her clothes.
"So how long have you been here?" asked Harry to Dobby as Hermione tried to get Winky to stop crying.
"Only a week, Harry Potter, sir!" answered Dobby.
Hermione soon gave cheering Winky up as a lost cause, and stood back up. Looking down at Dobby, she said, "It's really nice to finally meet you, Dobby — Harry's told me all about you. I know Winky said you were having trouble finding a job that paid — is Hogwarts paying you?"
"Oh, yes ma'am! Dobby gets a Galleon a week and one day off a month!"
"And is that what you want?" asked Hermione. "I don't know much about wizarding money, being a muggle and all."
It was a lie, she knew everything there was to know about the wizarding economy just as she knew everything she could about everything magical, and it seemed like a very small amount of pay to her, but the little guy seemed to be extremely happy, so she wasn't about to judge before she'd heard his side.
"More than enough, ma'am!" exclaimed Dobby, before shuddering slightly. "Professor Dumbledore offered Dobby ten Galleons a week, and weekends off, but Dobby beat him down, miss... Dobby likes freedom, miss, but he isn't wanting too much, miss, he likes work better."
Hermione nodded, adding this to her knowledge about house elves, or at least this one in particular. Then looking around at the rest of the house elves bustling about the kitchen, including the four still standing with them holding trays of food and drinks in case either her or Harry wanted anything, she said, "Forgive me for being naive, but it seems to me like this is a rather hard, tedious job for the rest of you not to be getting paid anything."
"Oh, no, ma'am!" exclaimed a dozen or so of the house elves at once. "We enjoy the work we are doing! We do not want payed!"
"I've heard Dobby's former masters didn't treat him very well. And I know you can't speak badly about your masters, but are they fairer than Dobby's former masters?" pressed Hermione.
She knew if they were poorly treated that they wouldn't be able to say so, but if what Harry had told her about Dobby was anything to go by and her own brief interaction with Winky in the Top Box at the Quidditch World Cup, she thought she should still be able to tell if they were having to keep themselves from saying anything negative, or if their answer was genuine.
"We are very well treated!" came several voices at once, all seemingly completely sincere.
Hermione nodded again, knowing she had as much of an answer as she was going to be able to get from the house elves themselves. So looking at Harry, she said, "You know, it's really getting close to supper time, so we should probably head back up towards the Great Hall, and not take up any more of the house elves' time." Looking around at all the house elves, she added, "And thank you so much for your time and the snacks, and Dobby, it was really nice to meet you."
The house elves bowed Harry and Hermione out of the kitchen, practically begging them to return any time they wanted.
As Harry and Hermione climbed the stairs back up to the Great Hall, Hermione said, "As impossible as it seems, it looks like house elves really do like their lives, and that most of them aren't as poorly treated as Dobby and Winky were."
"Does this mean your campaign against house elf-ism is over?" teased Harry.
"I'll still fight for those like Dobby and Winky who are abused, but yes — I seem to have been wrong in my initial belief that all house elves are helpless little creatures in need of rescuing," admitted Hermione playfully, causing Harry to chuckle.
"Well that's a relief to hear, because as a helpless little creature in need of your rescuing, I was beginning to get worried you wouldn't have enough time to spread between them and me."
Hermione slapped him playfully on the arm, laughing herself. "Don't you worry — I will always make time to rescue you."
By this point they'd arrived at the Great Hall and entered, still laughing and joking and teasing each other.
A week and a half later, in the first Care of Magical Creatures class of December, Hagrid announced that they were going to try to hibernate the blast-ended skrewts.
But as it turned out, the strange, now six feet long, and very menacing creatures did not in fact hibernate, at least not in pillow-lined wooden crates. Instead, they preferred to lay havoc on the boxes and anyone near them, causing the vast majority of the class to lock themselves safely in Hagrid's hut, watching the few brave enough to remain outside do battle with the rampaging beasts.
But Harry and Hermione were among those few brave souls who had remained outside, helping Hagrid restrain and re-tie up the magical, and very irritable, creatures. And they were finally down to the last skrewt, which Harry and Hermione were trying to hold it's attention so Hagrid could sneak around behind it. The beast was backing Harry and Hermione into the wall of Hagrid's hut as they tried to hold it off with sparks from their wands, when a cheerful voice said, "Well, well, well...this does look like fun."
Too focused on not losing their lives or limbs to Hagrid's pet project, neither Harry nor Hermione looked over to find the source of the comment, but Harry had instantly recognized it and muttered out of the corner of his mouth to Hermione, "Rita."
Once Hagrid had leapt onto the back of the skrewt and flattened it a few moment later, Harry and Hermione both turned to look at the 'journalist' with matching looks of derision. Neither of them had forgotten Rita's work of fiction after the wand weighing ceremony, and while surprised, stunned even, that she hadn't published another similarly lacking in truth article about the first task, especially as they'd seen her milling about afterwards, they were still feeling less than friendly towards the self-proclaimed reporter.
But Hagrid apparently was less than aware of who the intruder was, as once he'd climbed off the back of the skrewt and slipped a rope around it, turned to Rita and asked, "Who're you?"
"Rita Skeeter, Daily Prophet reporter," smiled Rita brightly. "So what are these fascinating creatures?" she asked, nodding towards the skrewt Hagrid was trying to drag over to its mates.
"Blast-Ended Skrewts," answered Hagrid with a grunt as he tied up the creature and walked back over towards Rita.
"Fascinating," replied Rita with great interest, before saying, "I've never heard of them before...where do they come from?"
Hagrid flushed slightly beneath his wild beard, and Harry and Hermione gave each other significant looks — given Hagrid's past record with magical creatures, who knew where these things had come from. Then again, Hagrid had yet to get in trouble for any of his illegal animals (the incident with Aragog and Tom Riddle not included), so what was the likelihood he would starting now? Being Dumbledore's favorite really had its advantages.
"They're, er…they're highly specialized," mumbled out Hagrid after a second, but Rita didn't seem to either notice or care about his hesitation, instead asking, "Been teaching long?"
As Rita's eyes glanced over at the few students who'd remained outside with Hagrid and all their various injuries, and then towards Hagrid's hut where the rest of the class (including all of the Slytherins) were cowering away, Hagrid answered, "This is o'ny me second year."
"Lovely," replied Rita, sounding every bit as if she hadn't payed a bit of attention to a word he'd said, which after her interview with Harry a month earlier, was probably true. "I don't suppose you'd like to give an interview, would you? Share some of your experience of magical creatures? The Prophet does a zoological column every Wednesday, as I'm sure you know. We could feature these — er — Bang-Ended Scoots."
"Blast-Ended Skrewts," replied Hagrid eagerly. "Yeah! Why not?"
Harry and Hermione both could think of several reasons why not, but held their tongues. There was no way Dumbledore didn't keep up with what was going on in his school, and not know that Hagrid was raising these creatures and using them as the focal point of his classes. Which in turn meant that they couldn't be too illicit, or Dumbledore himself would also get in trouble with Ministry for allowing one of his professors to have an illegal creature should anyone find out, which based on the number of injuries sustained so far by everyone in the class seemed very likely to happen sooner or later, if it hadn't already. And Hagrid was clearly excited to talk about his creatures, so who were they to deny him that opportunity?
So as they walked back up to the castle a few minutes later, after the bell had rung and Hagrid and Rita had set up a meeting for the interview, Harry asked, "What do you think is going to happen? Hagrid didn't look too eager to share where those things had come from, and knowing his propensity for collecting creatures of questionable character, it might not be of the most legal nature in the eyes of the Ministry."
Hermione shrugged. "Rita will twist his words to suit whatever her narrative is, Dumbledore will protect Hagrid from any punishment like he always does, and if we're really, really lucky, Hagrid will be required to kill those things in exchange for not facing any Ministry action."
Harry laughed. "Wouldn't that be great — but forgive me if I don't hold my breath."
"Speaking of holding your breath and the death that follows that, since you gave up caring about Divination a long time ago, you should incorporate the skrewts into your weekly death you have to predict for whatever nonsense method of predicting the future you're studying at the moment," suggested Hermione as they walked into the Great Hall for lunch.
"Is the great Hermione Granger actually suggesting ways for me to half-arse my homework?" gasped Harry in mock aghastness. "Who are you, and what have you done with the studious bookworm I know and love?"
"I know, I know," chuckled Hermione. "Normally I would never suggest giving anything less than your best for — well, anything, to be quite honest — but this is Divination we're talking about. It's a load of crap, and the few times there seem to be real predictions, like with Trelawney and Pettigrew last year, it wasn't in the least bit influenced by anything that can be taught in a classroom. You've either got the gift and occasionally get prophecies you're in no control of, or you're just making up vague nonsense that's bound to occur in some form or fashion if you really believe it, because it's so vague it can be fit to mean anything. And while I sincerely doubt you're a true seer, even if you are, Divination class isn't going to make a hill of beans difference on any future prophecies you may or may not make. So I just might be a hair bit more lenient on that class than any others."
"So just to be clear, you're suggesting I completely throw out any pretense of caring about that class, and just make everything up from this point on?"
"Since you can't drop the class and pick up Arithmancy or Runes like I'd prefer — yeah," answered Hermione seriously. "It's a waste of everyone's time, so as long as you promise to use the time you used to spend half caring about that homework to either work on other homework or the tournament, then yes. I'm suggesting you completely stop caring, and I'll even start helping you make stuff up to get it done quicker. What is it you're doing in there now, anyway?"
Harry and Hermione proceeded to spend the entirety of lunch laughing over new and creative ways to cause Harry's horrific untimely demise based on where random balls of fire happened to be in respect to the planet earth at different times of the year. Several of those around them who were also less than enthralled by the study of Divination joined in on the fun, but one person who'd sat down near them did not.
Ron had taken a seat several spots away from where Harry and Hermione were, but was still close enough that he couldn't help overhearing them, and sat scowling the entire time as they laughed and joked about star charts and predictions — Hermione Granger, the know-it-all bookworm, not only not scolding Harry for not giving his best in a class, but actively helping him make stuff up. Make stuff up like he himself used to do with the Boy-Who-Lived before said attention-whore refused to tell him how he'd entered himself into the tournament, hoarding all the fame and attention and money of competing in the tournament for himself. And now Hermione, who used to scold him for not taking his homework seriously, was helping Harry do exactly what she used to scold him about. It was enough to make him wonder if they'd ever really been his friends at all, or if they'd been lying about that, too.
So when he and Harry had Divination later that afternoon, he sneered the hardest when Professor Trelawney said death was circling ever nearer to Harry. But Harry was too busy not caring about Professor Trelawney's predictions or Ron to notice, pleasantly daydreaming instead about the upcoming Christmas holiday, and all the work he wouldn't have to do during it and the fabulous girl he'd not being doing said homework with.