cxxxiii. mably the good elf
After much deliberation, it was decided on the last night of their holiday that Harriet and Elara would take the train back to Hogwarts—though Harriet would bypass the gate and the Dementor posted there by Flooing into the Headmaster's office from the hearth in the Three Broomsticks. It meant waking at an indecent hour to catch the emerald train back to the Platform Seven and One-Quarter, Mr. Flamel going with them to ensure they made it onto the Hogwarts Express. They had time for a quick breakfast at the Leaky Cauldron, Harriet blearily stirring far too much brown sugar into her porridge, then they returned to Kings Cross, and it was time to depart.
Mr. Flamel surprised Harriet when he bent at the waist to embrace her, the shoulder of his robes smelling of pipe smoke and salt, the clamor of the platform dimmed by the arm wrapped about her shoulders. "Be safe, petit oiseau," he whispered.
"I will."
"Be mindful of your surroundings. Keep your wand with you, and write your letters."
"I will."
His grip tightened. "Do not worry so about other things. They do not matter. Only you and yours. Comprenez vous?"
"Yes, I promise."
He released her. "Then off you go."
Harriet boarded the scarlet train just as the whistle began to blow and great white plumes came issuing from the engine. She settled in a crowded compartment with Elara, Hermione, Draco Malfoy, and his malcontents, the blond boy making his surprise at their presence plain.
"Didn't you both stay at Hogwarts?"
Elara answered him, but Harriet didn't hear; she leaned closer to the window, peering through the crowd to find the alchemist in his brown robes waiting on the platform still, and when he raised his hand in salutation, Harriet did the same. The trained pushed itself into motion, and the station disappeared.
Harriet didn't move for several minutes, not seeing the Muggle streets as they flashed by or the whirling, incandescent glimmer of the wards surrounding the tracks.
"Are you all right?" Hermione asked.
Harriet sat back on the bench and turned away from the window, smiling. "Yes," she answered, "I'm fine."
If anyone noticed how tightly she held her hands together, how they shook, no one chose to say a thing.
xXx
Hermione was miffed with Harriet and Elara. She was miffed for the entire train ride, the feast, and throughout their first day back in classes. Harriet knew Hermione had been genuinely frightened and worried, that'd she spent enough of her own holiday consulting the Marauder's Map to check up on them—but that didn't stop jealousy from rearing its head when she learned where Harriet and Elara had spent the last week of break.
"Beauxbatons," she muttered under her breath for the thousandth time, flipping through a tome with a bit too much fervor, the sound echoing in the Aerie's strange, muffled halls. "Beauxbatons. You went to Beauxbatons!"
"Just the once. Hermione, it really wasn't that big of deal—."
The frazzled witch shut the book and slotted it back into its space on the shelf, checking the spine of the one next to it before taking it down. "It is, though!" She hopped off the rolling ladder and stomped back into the lounge where the Founders' portraits resided. Neither Salazar nor Rowena were present at the moment, a black dog sprawled on one of the winged armchairs, Elara either too tired or bored to continue perusing the volumes Hermione dropped on the table. "They don't just let students from others schools go wandering about their halls! Durmstrang won't even allow outsiders to know where their school is!"
"Er, well, we weren't exactly allowed to go inspect things—."
Hermione huffed as if this was the worst crime of all. "You ate dinner there—dinner! Sitting by Master Maxwell Henchizo, one of the world's most renown Arithmancy scholars—."
"Honestly, he was a bit of a berk—."
"And you don't understand how rare that chance is! You're friends with Nicolas Flamel, for Merlin's sake! He's a legend the world over, and you once hexed him off a dock!"
"He's just a person like any other, Hermione." Harriet felt a mite peeved with her best friend. This was part of what made Hermione a Slytherin, whether she recognized it or not: her drive to take advantage of opportunities, to recognize others by their achievements and skills and to make connections. "I did get you those glass lenses while we were in France."
Some of the frustration went out of Hermione's expression as she glanced at the lenses gently set on cloth in the table's middle. "Yes, yes you did," Hermione said. "That was very thoughtful and just what we needed for the Protean Charm. Oh, I'm sorry for being so intolerable, Harriet. I've been all out of sorts, thinking about how I left things with my parents—."
"I know," Harriet soothed, sitting down next to Hermione on the dusty sofa. "I know, it's okay."
"And I can't stop fretting over what happened to the two of you in the dormitory over the break. I could hardly stand to sleep there last night—."
"Dumbledore pulled us aside and said Snape added a new ward to the door. It only lets in the witches of our year and a handful of adults."
"That's something, I suppose." Hermione released a harried breath and pushed the cloud of her hair back from her face. "It's all so mad, isn't it? The Ministry has barely said a word on Black, and they've made no headway at all into catching Greyback—but I read in the Muggle paper about a man who appeared to have been mauled by a wolf, left in the street for all to see! It coincided with the last full moon and was in Banffshire. That's not terribly far away."
Harriet patted her arm despite her own stomach twisting. "But there's no reason for him to come here."
"But that's the thing; he's not of his right mind, Harriet, neither him nor Black. The Ministry inspections of Azkaban are confidential, naturally, but rumors get around in the gossip columns, and apparently, Greyback hasn't been wholly lucid for years. He doesn't need a reason for anything he does." Her gaze lingered on the French lenses, the Marauder's Map, and the pages of Harriet's careful drawings. She kept fiddling with a thin, gold chain hidden under the collar of her shirt.
Harriet decided they needed a change of subject. Talking about escaped werewolves in the Aerie gave her the creeps. "You know, you could write a letter to Mr. Flamel, if you wanted," she said, trying to cheer her friend up. "You could ask him all the questions you want, then, and I know he'd be pleased to meet you."
"Oh, I couldn't possibly," Hermione rejected, stuttering. "No, I couldn't take up his time like that!"
"Then give me a list of your questions and I'll send it. Honestly, he loves answering questions about magic."
A small woof brought their attention to the armchair as Elara startled herself out of her own dreams and sat up, ears swiveling as she blinked at them and then the carriage clock on the mantel. She changed forms—only, her leg didn't quite have enough space, and her shin slammed into the table's edge, the items on top of it jumping in the air. "Hell and damnation!" Elara gasped, paling. "That hurt!"
"Are you okay?"
"Fine," she coughed, still rubbing at the injured spot. "What's more important—can't either of you tell time?" She pointed at the clock. "It's past curfew!"
Harriet gaped. "We missed supper?"
"Supper?!" Hermione squawked, snatching up her satchel and shoving her things into it once more. "Supper?! Harriet, if we don't get back into the dorms, Professor Slytherin is going to murder us!"
"He's going to murder us anyway. He knows when people cross the barrier into the common room."
"Oh, that's a myth the older students tell! He doesn't really know." Hermione didn't look convinced. If anything, she looked more frazzled than ever, and Elara had a definite limp when she stood and grabbed her own bag. They hurried to find a Moon Mirror out of the Aerie—but Harriet hadn't been kidding with her dejection over missing dinner. She'd spent much of the morning outside, running to burn off nervous anxiety, so she'd skipped breakfast and had only picked over her lunch. She was starving.
They exited into the outer corridor beyond the Aerie, stopping at the portrait of the shepherdess and her gaggle of honking geese, knowing that beyond that point, they'd be fair game for any of the patrolling professors. Harriet could see night beyond the windows now, and it made her shoulders feel heavy, having not realized how much time had passed while they researched and chatted in the Aerie.
"Could we say we got locked inside the library?"
"We've used that excuse half a dozen times by now. Not even Sprout will buy it."
Harriet reached into her empty pocket. "Shit. Hermione, do you have the Marauder's Map?"
"No, I left it on the table. Don't look at me like that, I didn't realize we'd need it!"
"Should I go back for it?"
"I—no, don't be silly. Let's just be quick about it, shall we?"
Gathering her resolve, Hermione crossed the invisible boundary, and Harriet and Elara fell into step behind her. They'd gone perhaps a full meter before a door creaked open on ancient hinges and a squealing green blur slammed into Hermione's legs, taking them out from under her.
"Ah!" Harriet crumpled under Hermione's weight, and though Elara managed to dodge Harriet's failing arms, she tripped on her robes and still landed on her backside with a yelp. The green blur resolved itself into a house-elf, who jumped on Hermione's knees and positively trembled from head to foot.
"Miss Herme-ninny, Miss Herme-ninny!" he chirped, high voice bouncing in the stone hall. "It is Dobby, Miss Herme-ninny! Dobby is so happy to see you again!"
"D-Dobby?" Hermione asked, a bit dazed by her sudden collision with the floor. She sat up and stared at the creature, wincing at the volume of his squeals. "Dobby, what on earth are you doing here?"
"Dobby is working here, Miss Herme-ninny!" The elf stopped bouncing to puff out his skinny chest and gesture at the badge pinned to his toga. The clean white toga appeared to have been a pillowcase in a former life, and the Hogwarts crest had been sewn into place above a little pocket. He had on a pair of meticulously cleaned Quidditch gloves. "After Dobby is leaving the Malfoys, he came to Hogwarts! Mr. Headmaster Dumblydore is paying Dobby a Galleon a week and a day off every month!"
"A—a Galleon?!" Hermione was aghast. "Dobby, just because you left the Malfoys doesn't mean you have to settle for such a low stipend!"
The house-elf calmed somewhat, ears drooping, and he fixed Hermione with a serious look. "Dobby is very proud of his wages, Miss Herme-ninny! Mr. Headmaster Dumblydore offered Dobby ten Galleons a week and weekends off, but Dobby isn't wanting that at all!"
"But—."
"Dobby likes being free," the elf asserted. "But Dobby likes work! And he is liking having a big home to take care of."
Hermione had more to say, her mouth pursed in a dangerous line too much like McGonagall's, but she reigned herself in and exhaled. "So long as that's what you want," she muttered. "Don't settle for anything less, Dobby."
"No, Miss!" He cheered—too loudly in Harriet's opinion, and she peeked toward the thicker shadows, swearing she'd hex Snape if he popped out of nowhere and scared the life out of her again.
"Er, Hermione?"
"Yes?"
"Who is this, exactly?"
"Oh!" the witch exclaimed, blushing. "Oh, I'm sorry, Dobby, how rude of me. These are my friends Harriet Potter and Elara Black. Harriet, Elara, this is Dobby."
"Hello!"
"Hullo, Dobby."
Elara grunted, still miffed at having been thrown to the floor. "How did you two come to be acquainted?"
Hermione's embarrassed blush deepened. "I, erm, may have had a hand in freeing him? He used to belong to the Malfoys."
"But this is a secret Dobby isn't telling! Miss Herme-ninny could be in trouble!"
Elara looked between the two still sitting on the floor. "For goodness' sake," she finally said, "Hermione, don't ever try to free Kreacher."
"What? How could you say that?! He's a living, sentient being and deserves freedom—."
"The last time a Black house-elf was let go, my great-aunt Lucretia got stabbed apparently. Kreacher would literally burn down the house with us and himself inside. You can't be flippant with a house-elf's life, Hermione. I'm quite serious about this."
"I—." Grinding her teeth, Hermione shooed Dobby back a step so she could stand, accepting Harriet's hand in getting up. "I think you're wrong, but yes, I hear you. I wouldn't do anything rash—and I've never met Kreacher, I'll have you know."
"Be thankful for that. I have yet to break him of the habit of calling Harriet an 'it'."
Harriet's stomach chose that moment to announce its displeasure, the resulting growl nearly as loud as Dobby's blathering. It was a wonder no professors or prefects had come upon them yet with how much noise they were making. "Sorry."
"Is Miss Harry Potter hungry?"
"A bit, yeah. Wait, Miss what—?"
"Dobby can take you to the kitchens!" the house-elf hollered, hopping from one foot to the other. "He can lead you there, past mean Mr. Filch and his nasty cat. He'll be here soon and Dobby wanted to tell you!"
The mere mention of the crotchety caretaker had the three witches scrambling to gather their things and chase Dobby away from the library, the clatter of their footsteps ringing loud and incriminating in the enclosed space. The house-elf—either through magic or instinct—knew exactly when to change passages and showed the trio various odd shortcuts behind tapestries or statues, leading them ever downward. They reached the dungeons finally, but instead of heading off toward the lower stairwell where the Slytherins resided, Dobby elected to take a higher corridor, this one well-lit and limned with bright torches. Most of the portraits seemed to be of food for some reason or another, and Harriet could only look on with confusion as Dobby stopped in front of a picture depicting a large fruit bowl.
"You have to be tickling the pear!" Dobby explained with an excited head bob.
Exchanging glances, Hermione reached up to tickle the green pear resting in the silver bowl—and it giggled, wiggling under her persistent fingers until a doorknob appeared. Hermione took the knob in hand, twisted, and the portrait fell inward.
Dozens of large, ogling eyes swiveled in their direction as the three witches stepped through the revealed entrance and froze, the heavenly smell of leftovers making Harriet drool. It seemed silly after spending nearly three years in the castle that she hadn't considered how many house-elves must live there with them; she knew of them in the abstract, having had Rikkety feed them at Grimmauld in the summers, but she'd never considered how the classrooms and common room stayed so tidy, how their laundry got washed, little tears hemmed and darned, her shoes always neatly placed by her nightstand in the morning. Guilt swelled and dimmed Harriet's hunger.
"Is the Misses needing anything?" one of the house-elves asked, hopping down from her wooden stool. It seemed most of the elves were enjoying an evening break, it being after supper but too early to go clean the common rooms, though a few congregated about counters and chilled drawers, preparing food to be made in the morning. There were walls of old-fashioned ovens carefully tended, large open hearths, great crates of picked vegetables, and dozens upon dozens of tiny little shoes on a wooden rack, some still dotted with mud or snow. Four replicas of the House tables stretched across the middle of the room, and Harriet wondered if they were directly under the Great Hall here.
Dobby bulled his way in front of them, puffing himself up with inexplicable pride. Harriet noted a couple of the elves grimaced at his presence. "Miss Harry Potter is hungry!" he announced.
A sudden flurry of movement overtook them, Harriet cursing under her breath as tiny hands pushed and shoved her over to one of the tables—the Hufflepuff replica. Hermione was forced onto the bench across from her, her face gone red and apocalyptic. A teetering stack of sandwiches slid into place between them.
"This is slave labor," Hermione hissed, her hair seeming to swell under the force of her indignation. "How can Hogwarts condone this?! How can anyone?!"
Elara took a seat next to her. "It's not slave labor. No, thank you—," she added to a house-elf trying to push a tureen of potatoes toward her. "Tea would be lovely, though."
The house-elf jumped in recognition—and Hermione glared. "Explain yourself."
"Hogwarts belongs to the house-elves just as much as it belongs to the wizards. Morse-so, even." She accepted a steaming cup of Chamomile tea with another word of thanks. "What would you do, Hermione? Would you have them leave their home?"
"I would have them fairly compensated for their work!" She crossed her arms and refused to so much as glance at the saucers and plates of edible treats being piled on the table. "I would have them demand wages and equal rights and to be treated fairly!"
"And if that's not what they want?"
Hermione narrowed her eyes. Harriet considered taking the platter of sandwiches and making a run for the dormitory, Professor Slytherin be damned. She hated when her friends bickered. "'Birds born in a cage think flying is an illness.'"
"Don't presume to lecture me." Elara sipped her tea, brow furrowed. "I am not advocating for cruelty; having been raised in it, I can assure you being struck and beaten with a cane is a miserable experience I would wish on only the most perverse of souls. You simply shouldn't assume you know what's best for house-elves or any other magical being because you think they're downtrodden or lesser. They don't view themselves as lesser, and they shouldn't. Half the wars we've had against the goblin nation can be traced back to the wizards attempting to exert their will over them."
"This is different."
"Is it?"
"Yes," Hermione snapped, turning her glower onto Harriet for a moment when the shorter witch dared reach for a goblet of pumpkin juice. "I'm disappointed in you, Elara Black!"
"I—."
"…Elara Black?"
The dry, reedy voice of one of the house-elves cut across their conversation—or, well, their argument—and the three witches turned to look at an elf peering up into Elara's face. She was old, given the abundant wrinkles on her squashed face and the cataracts forming on her bulbous eyes. Uncertain, Elara said, "Yes, I'm Elara…?"
The elf burst into tears.
"See, now look what you've done!" Hermione gasped. "You've made her cry!"
"I didn't mean to!" Elara rushed to find her handkerchief and turn on the bench, facing the elf. "I'm terribly sorry, I—."
The elf accepted the handkerchief and dabbed at her wet eyes. "You is kind," she warbled. "Like Miss Marlene."
Elara stiffened. "Pardon?"
"Miss Elara isn't recognizing Mably, but Mably knows Miss Elara." The house-elf—Mably—smiled, holding the damp handkerchief close to her chest. "Mably knew Miss Elara when she was just a baby! I is missing Miss Marlene very much. Mably was a McKinnon elf, before. Many years ago now."
"A McKinnon elf?" The question came out soft, breathless. Harriet and Hermione glanced at one another, tense, while most of the other house-elves begun to shuffle off toward their own tasks. Only Dobby remained, standing close to Hermione's side. Past discussions had revealed how very little Elara knew about the matriarchal side of her family; the McKinnons had all perished in the war, and even those friends of Marlene that Elara had learned of—namely Lily Potter and Alice Longbottom—had passed on. "And you…knew my mother? Marlene McKinnon?"
"I is knowing Miss Marlene her whole life. Mably was there when Miss Marlene was born." Mably blew her nose again, and when Elara gave the bench next to her an uncertain pat, the house-elf surprised Harriet by actually taking a seat. "You is looking a lot like Mr. Sirius, Miss, but I see Miss Marlene in you, too!"
The mention of Sirius Black had Elara stiffening again, and in the bright glow of the cooking fire, hate flashed through her colorless eyes like a knife in the dark.
"I is being there when Miss Elara was born, too!" Mably patted Elara's clenched fist. "Mably watched Miss Elara after she came to live at the manor. Mr. Sirius left her with Miss Marlene to keep safe. There was many bad wizards in those days. He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named was everywhere, and Mr. Sirius was scared."
Harriet blinked, wiping her mouth of crumbs. That's…odd. Worse than odd, it doesn't make sense.
"Mably," Elara said, her voice still soft but now insistent, intense. "Mably, if I was left with Marlene—how did I end up at the—the orphanage? The Muggle orphanage?"
The old house-elf wrung her hands. "Mably took you there, Miss Elara."
Elara stared. Somewhere deeper in the kitchen, a glass shattered, and an elf sighed.
"Mably is a good house-elf, the best! She served the Noble House of McKinnon and did exactly what Miss Marlene told her to do. Miss Marlene was worried—she did not trust the rat-man. No, no, not at all!" Mably gave her head a vigorous shake, ears flapping. "Miss Marlene had a plan, a just-in-case plan. When the bad wizards came to the manor, Mably was to take Miss Elara to the Muggle place! It had to be secret, secret! So the rat-man wouldn't know, so no one would know! Miss Marlene was supposed to go after Miss Elara, but—." The hand wringing increased, silver tears beading in the corner of Mably's milky eyes. "Miss Marlene couldn't leave. The bad wizards changed the wards. Only Mably could leave, and when Mably came back for Miss Marlene—there was no more manor. There was being only fire, and no Miss Marlene."
Silence followed Mably's story, the kind of silence that came upon a person in a wave, roaring in their ears until the whole world seemed leagues and leagues away. Elara was upset; Harriet couldn't see much of her face, but she could see how hard her shoulders shook with restrained emotion.
"I is not knowing what to do. Mr. Sirius said not to go to the Black house no more, to not talk to Kreacher. Miss Marlene only said to take Miss Elara to the Muggle place. They took care of babies there, and it was secret. Safe from the rat-man. Mably had no home. No family. I came to Hogwarts, it being where a lot of homeless elves go." Mably finally sensed something was amiss with Elara and hesitated, tiny hand touching her arm. "Is Miss Elara okay?" A pause. "Is Mably a good elf? Did she do the right thing for Miss Elara?"
For a long moment, Elara didn't speak. Had she, Harriet was certain she would have shaken herself to pieces, a sob escaping on a choked breath before she covered her mouth and jerked her head away from her friends, hiding the tears. "You did brilliantly, Mably," she managed. "You saved my life. My mum would have been proud."
Mably smiled.
As Elara continued to cry silent, angry tears and the house-elf sat gently patting her hand, Harriet couldn't help but think of what Mably had said. She gazed toward the fire and felt the heat of it against her face, a yawn building in her chest, her eyes dry and tired behind her spectacles.
Rat-man, the elf had said—and Livius had called the intruder in their dormitory the rat one, hadn't he? The coincidence there seemed too big to ignore, but what was the correlation? Was that Sirius Black? What did it mean?
Who is the rat-man?
A/N: Thanks to RedKitsune2016 for being my 1000th review! That's a huge milestone! And thanks to everyone who takes the time to read and to favorite or leave a review. I very much appreciate it.
The quote, "Birds born in a cage think flying is an illness" is by Alejandro Jodorowsky.
Dobby: "Ah, yes, the witch I hold in highest regards and must greet most respectfully."
Also Dobby: *bodyslam*
