A/N: Apologies for the spelling mistakes in the previous version of the first chapter. I was halfway though writing this one when the power went out, and I lost both. I had to retype everything from memory before I forgot, and it was late in the night when I finished, rather sleepy at that. I do have spellcheck, but it was set to Spanish. Rereading after a good's night sleep, I was quick to notice them. While the first chapter is unchanged, this one is quite different from that first draft, which I was not very happy about even as I wrote it. The magic of iteration. Rest assured the elf-speak is intentional.
Using the map and a couple secret passages, they make it to the kitchens without dealing with any unpleasantness on the way.
They find an enormous, high-ceilinged room, large as the Great Hall above it, with mounds of glittering brass pots and pans heaped around the stone walls, and a great brick fireplace at the other end, what must be a hundred house elves busying to and fro, and four long wooden tables that stand there. Each of these tables, Harry notices, is positioned exactly beneath the four House tables above, and the elves are busy plating and placing the last few main dishes on them.
The elves are beaming, bowing, and curtsying at them. They are all wearing the same uniform: a tea towel stamped with the Hogwarts crest, and tied, as Winky's had been, like a toga.
Harry brazes himself for the eruption of mount Hermione, and she doesn't disappoint.
"There are house-elves here?" she says, staring, horror-struck, at the elves bustling about. "Here at Hogwarts?"
One of the house-elves, who has just placed a steaming dish on the Hufflepuff table, turns to her with a polite but puzzled expression. "Yes, Miss," the elf replies. "Hogwarts has many of us, over a hundred, it does."
Hermione frowns, her mind racing. "I've never seen one of you before," she admits.
The house-elf smiles kindly. "Well, we is not liking to be seen much. We come out at night, mostly, to clean and tend to you and so on. You're not supposed to see us, you know. A good house-elf is being one you don't know is there."
Hermione is taken aback. "But you get paid?" she asks. "You get holidays, don't you? And - and sick leave, and pensions, and everything?"
The house-elf gives a small, melodic, rather high pitched laugh. "Sick leave and pensions, Miss? Oh no, we is not wanting such things."
Hermione frowns and looks at the tables of food and the elves surrounding them.
Hermione's eyes flash with determination. "Slave labor," she says, her voice firm. "That's what made this dinner. Slave labor."
"Hermione!" Harry says.
"It's slave labor and you know it, Harry!"
Harry turns to the elf.
"Are you happy at Hogwarts?"
"Yes, sir. Flibby is very happy at Hogwarts. We all is." is the reply.
"Do you have your needs met?"
"Yes, sir. We is having a warm place to sleep and food to eat and clean towels to wear and anything else we is wanting."
"Do you have to punish yourselves?"
"We is being good elveses, not doing bad things, we is doing as we is told, so we is not needing to punish ourselves, sir. Teachers and other staffs is not ordering elves to punish themselves since Dumbledore is being headmaster."
Hermione looks ready to interrupt, so Harry is quick to slide in a last question.
"If you wanted to be freed, what would you do?"
The elf looks offended and upset.
"Flibby is good elf, sir! Flibby is not wanting clothes."
"I know that, you are a great elf, Flibby. Just pretend for me. If a Hogwarts elf needed to be free, and I know you don't, what would they do?"
Flibby calms down a bit at the compliment, and thinks it over.
"Flibby would be asking the headmaster, Flibby would."
"Why do house elves dislike the idea of being freed so much, Flibby?"
"Would you likes it if you is being cast out of your family, sir? Not wanted, told to leave and not come back? Is same thing for elveses."
Harry turns to Hermione.
"How much do you pay your parents, Hermione?"
Hermione frowns at him, quickly catching on. "You know I don't, Harry."
"What would you feel like if your father up and left you and your mother, just abandoned you?"
"It's not the same thing, Harry!" But it sees he finally gets though to her, and she gets a pensive look about her.
"Of course it's not, Hermione. They are not house elves. But you can see the parallel, right?"
"It's still not right. Sure, they are happy and cared for here at Hogwarts, and I am sure Professor Dumbledore would free any that asked for it, but you know it's not the same elsewhere!"
"Flibby, why do house elves need clothes to be free? I know an elf that was treated very poorly and I know for a fact that it was not his fault, but he could not quit his family until he got clothes."
"Is sir talking of Dobby?" Flibby asked back, twisting his ears.
"Yes. You know Dobby? How's he doing?"
"Flibby is not knowing Dobby. Flibby is knowing of Dobby. Is not common elveses get clothes, and when they do elveses talk about it. But Dobby is also refusing to join family unless he is getting paid sir! This is never heard before of house elf! As to why elveses is freed by clothes, it is part of the spell put on elveses of old. It is a long and sad story, elveses not like to remember, but we is tells it to young ones so they is knowing our great shame."
Hermione perks up at this. Their history classes have covered little other than goblins, and of those only the wars wizards have waged against them.
"If you would tell it to us while we dine?"
"Of couse sir. But would sir wait for Flibby's grandfather? He is knowings it better than Flibby."
"We would be delighted to meet your grandfather, Flibby." Hermione replies. In her head, the gears are grinding. She hadn't noticed before, but there's no young or very old elves in the kitchen. Where are they?
They sit at they regular places at Griffindor table, and serve themselves. As they are waiting for Flibby to come back, the elves form neat lines around the tables, parade like. Once they are in position, they have their heads slightly turned, as if they were listening for something. As one, they rise their arms and snap their fingers. All the food and tableware, with the exception of their own, vanish. Then the elves go busy themselves cleaning the pots and pans.