Variations

Chapter 12: The Story of the Servant

"Dobby is needing to hurry up with those kippers," Mirri squeaked over the general clang and clatter of the kitchen, rushing past with a huge plate of dinner rolls balanced in the air in front of her.

Dobby dutifully heeded her command, although there was really very little he could do to prepare his dish any faster. He was certain that Mirri knew it too, but she often treated him to small reminders such as that. If she did not, then the other house-elves would eventually take it upon themselves to make sure Dobby's mind was on the food and not where he was going to spend his next day off, often to the detriment of their own dishes. Once it had gotten so bad that they had not been able to hear the orders about the food over the shouts to Dobby, and lunch had been presented to the students almost thirty seconds late. Mirri had given them such a telling off that day.

Ordinarily, house-elves were to answer to their masters and their masters alone. In no other place had Dobby ever heard of a house-elf leading her fellows, but he also knew of no other place that kept a hundred house-elves at once. Mirri had risen as leader some time before Dobby came to Hogwarts. She took orders from Mistress McGonagall and was their voice when speaking with the Headmistress. Mirri had as much wisdom as Dobby had ever known a house-elf to possess and he was happy to carry out her interpretation of McGonagall's orders.

The shouts grew increasingly frantic over the next few minutes as dinnertime approached, and not all of them came from Mirri. This was the most hectic part of the day, but also the one Dobby liked the most: all of them working together to get dinner finished on time. They were a sight to see, in his opinion, and, furthermore, it was only during this time that the other house-elves forgot to disapprove of Dobby's freedom.

With hardly a second to spare, a final plate of chips was placed on the Slytherin table, and, as one, the house-elves lifted the meal to the Great Hall. After that there was very little for them to do except for clean whatever dishes they could, enjoy their own dinners, watch for the familiar glow that meant on of the platters above had gone empty, and wait for a student to leave the table, returning his or her dirty dishes to the kitchen.

After the noise and chaos of preparation, the quiet and calm was almost stifling, but conversations began to creep in soon enough.

Dobby let them wash over him as he nibbled at a chip with one hand and swirled soapy water around his frying pan with the other. Two of his companions nearby were bartering about who would clean the Ravenclaw Tower that night and another, a few burners over, was warning those nearby about a rumor he'd heard of a mishap in the Potions classroom. Dobby rarely joined in these conversations, for by now the other house-elves had remembered their distaste for him. It was somewhat lonely, but Dobby didn't mind. He cleaned the Gryffindor Tower every night without complaint, accepting whatever help another house-elf happened to volunteer, but never expecting assistance.

"Winky is putting Butterbeer in the pumpkin juice again," someone shouted from across the kitchen and everyone immediately fell silent.

Mirri hurried past to investigate and Dobby sighed and followed. This was an old argument and one he was not looking forward to having again.

"Is she putting any in the juice that was meant for the students?" Mirri asked the accuser, who, most unfortunately, happened to be Kreacher.

Dobby sighed again from his place and Winky's side. Knowing Kreacher, his allegations were almost as likely to be false as they were to be true.

"Kreacher is not knowing," the foul elf replied, leaving no doubt in Dobby's mind that Kreacher knew that Winky hadn't contaminated anything.

"I is not putting anything in the students' juice," Winky confirmed with a hiccough and a sob.

"But you are putting Butterbeer in the pumpkin juice?" Mirri pressed, fixing Winky with a stare.

"Yes," Winky admitted, looking away.

"You see?" Kreacher exclaimed, "I is telling you!"

"I was thinking it was mine!" Winky sobbed, losing all control.

Dobby glanced to Kreacher, who smiled openly, and had to stifle a groan himself. Dobby had served the Malfoys long enough to know a foul plot when he saw one, and Kreacher, senile as he was, had served the Blacks long enough to concoct one. Winky was prone to mistakes such as that, but Dobby wouldn't have been surprised to discover that it had been her juice when she put the Butterbeer in it, and that Kreacher had switched their cups while she wasn't looking. However, the house-elves distaste for Winky's admittedly foul habit was so deep seated that they were likely to side with Kreacher, who had garnered at least some of their approval by doing a minimal amount of work, even though he only did that because he was bound by oath.

"Kreacher must not be picking on Winky," Dobby said in a low voice. Everyone but Winky turned to look at him, surprised, as though they hadn't realized he was there.

"Kreacher is not picking on anybody," he hissed. "Winky is putting Butterbeer in the pumpkin juice."

"You is never liking Winky," Dobby replied, looking to Mirri for support. She was turned the other way, distracted, so he carried on by himself. "You is never liking any of us and you is trying to get Winky in trouble."

"I is telling the truth," Kreacher maintained, glaring at him.

Dobby paused, struck, seeing no way to win the argument without the support of the other elves, who were looking torn but ready to take any side that wasn't Winky's. His only hope was to get Mirri's support, but she seemed to have forgotten the dispute entirely. Her whole attention was on the tables.

"Winky is making a mistake," Dobby began, but that was as far as he got, for Mirri cut across him before he could continue.

"They should be wanting more by now," she said, sounding lost and shaken.

Dobby desperately wanted to continue defending Winky, but Mirri's words demanded respect and her tone demanded concern, so he turned with the other elves to investigate what had upset her.

"No platters are needing refilling, no plates are needing washing," Mirri breathed, and now that he'd noticed, Dobby had to agree that there was cause for concern. The students were generally light eaters during the evenings after Hogsmeade visits, but never in all of Dobby's time at Hogwarts had a meal gone on this long without at lease one student leaving, sending his or her dishes down to be washed.

The dispute between Dobby, Winky, and Kreacher was immediately forgotten and everyone turned their full attention to the tables, watching for any glow in tense silence.

"Was Mistress McGonagall forgetting to tell us she was planning something?" someone asked edgily after a few minutes.

"I was speaking to her this morning," Mirri replied. "She was saying nothing about this."

They waited the allotted dinner hour without observing any change, then an extra five minutes, just in case, but Mirri finally conceded that they had to bring the food back. When they did, it didn't take long to notice that not a single morsel of it had been touched.

"This is not liking our food!" Mirri cried.

The kitchen fell silent. No one spoke, they hardly even breathed as the horror and enormity of what had just happened sank in.

Slowly, elf by elf, they ventured forward, still not speaking, making sure that things truly were as bad as they looked, bantering feeble theories as they went.

"Perhaps we is mistaking the time."

"Maybe Mistress McGonagall is changing the time and forgetting to tell us."

"Maybe all the students is leaving the school today."

"Perhaps they will be hungry later."

"We must be saving this!" Mirri commanded with sudden authority, latching on to the one suggestion with any pertinence.

Within seconds, a massive operation was underway. Never before, to Dobby's knowledge, had the Hogwarts elves been required to save so much food, and they didn't have the space, but they set about the task with their usual diligence.

Before long, the food from the tables had been placed in containers, subjected to every magic of preservation the elves knew, and stacked in twelve piles that reached from floor to ceiling. After several near disastrous episodes as the elves busied themselves with straightening the kitchen, the stacks were also fitted with spells to keep them from falling.

Dobby busied himself with the cleaning, but he had one distraction that the other Elves seemed to have forgotten. Winky may have gotten off easily in her disagreement with Kreacher, but the encounter seemed to have entirely unhinged her and she was now completely finished for the evening. She was teetering dangerously on her stood, her attempts to hide her Butterbeer in pumpkin juice forgotten along with the stack of dirty dishes she was to clean.

Concerned, Dobby quickly completed his cleaning, then Winky's, knowing that he'd have to wait to confiscate her Butterbeer until she was too far gone to protest, which didn't take long.

Gently, Dobby pulled Winky's latest bottle of Butterbeer from her limp grasp, noting that the other elves were expressing their disapproval by ignoring the both of them entirely. Dobby ignored them back, knowing they would be so disinterested if they hadn't witness this spectacle so many times. He gathered up Winky's semi conscious form, and, with a slightly hampered snap, disappeared.

This same situation had occurred several dozen times since Winky came to Hogwarts after she was dismissed by Master Crouch and Dobby had taken care of her the same way each time, by bringing her up to the Come and Go Room. However, never in any of those times had Dobby encountered a setback like the one that now faced him: there was already a door in the wall. Someone was using the Come and Go Room.

Dobby paused, debating. The Come and Go Room was a little known secret in Hogwarts. He'd long harbored the hope that Harry Potter and his friends would resume using the room to practice their Defense Against the Dark Arts, but it was far more likely that someone had happened upon it by accident and had not idea about the true nature of the room. Additionally, Dobby had been made aware of how Draco Malfoy had used the room during the previous school year, and had to concede the troubling possibility that it could again be used for nefarious ends. Harry Potter probably wouldn't mind a visit, anyone who'd come upon the room by accident would probably believe that Dobby had been as mistaken in his destination as they were, and if the room was being used for evil, then the least Dobby could do was discover it.

His mind made up, Dobby lowered Winky to the floor near the wall, snapped his fingers, and appeared inside. Standing there was the one wizard he'd hoped never to see again: his former master Lucius Malfoy. Dobby felt a sudden chill. There was no longer any doubt that the Come and Go room was being used for terrible things.

"What is you doing here?" Dobby demanded, staring up at Malfoy.

"Get rid of him, Jugson," Malfoy replied, hardly even looking at Dobby.

"Dobby will not be going," the house-elf growled.

"You will leave," Malfoy said.

"Dobby will not."

"You've been a very bad elf," Malfoy added.

Dobby wilted, the habits of his long servitude drawing him toward the nearest wall, but he forced himself to ignore them. Malfoy was no longer his master.

"I am your master," Malfoy growled.

"Dobby is a free elf," he countered. "He has no master."

"If you don't leave," Malfoy threatened, "if you tell anyone that there are Death Eaters in the castle, I will go down to the kitchens and kill every last one of your fellow elves."

Dobby froze, Malfoy's terrible threat echoing through his mind. There was no doubting his sincerity. If Dobby disobeyed his former master, Malfoy would kill all of his fellow house-elves just to punish him. He had no choice but to obey, and disappeared with a snap of his fingers.

Dobby reappeared in the hallway, visibly trembling, and rushed to Winky, hoping to get her away from this place as quickly as possible.

"What is you doing here?" someone asked when Dobby and Winky appeared in the elves' quarter adjacent to the kitchens a moment later.

Dobby didn't answer and brushed past the elf on his way to Winky's bunk. He got her settled in, but then wasn't sure what to do next. Ordinarily after dinner he was to clean the classrooms on the east side of the third floor, but he simply couldn't return to his duties as usual when he knew that something terrible was happening in the castle. On the other hand, Mas- Lucius Malfoy had been quite specific in his threat, and all the punishments in the world wouldn't be enough if Dobby brought harm to the rest of the elves.

For the first time in memory, Dobby found himself completely frozen, with no idea what to do, and he remained that way, watching Winky sleep without really seeing her, until Mirri came by.

"Dobby must be doing his cleaning."

This was no obligatory reminder to appease the other elves, there was necessity and a bit of anger in Mirri's tone this time. But Dobby didn't stop to wonder how long he'd been standing there nor how many elves word of his dereliction of duty had filtered through before they reached Mirri, he hardly even thought at all, and only acknowledged Mirri's order by trotting promptly to the supply closest, gathering up his cleaning things, and disappearing to the first of his assigned classrooms without a second's delay.

It was so much easier this way, Dobby mused as he began cleaning the chalk board of the Charms classroom, taking orders without thought or question, completing a task and moving on to the next without knowing or caring about the eventual goal. It was what his ancestors had done for a thousand years before him and what he hadn't realized he'd miss when he left all that behind with the Malfoys. He'd forgotten what it meant to be an elf, to take pride and pleasure in helping another without any thought of personal gain. No wonder the other elves didn't care for him. They didn't begrudge him his freedom; they disrespected him for his selfishness. Well no more, first thing in the morning he'd go up to see Mistress McGonagall and tell her that he no longer wanted wages or days off, and ask if he could get one of the elves' tea-towel uniforms. Harry Potter and his friends might not approve, but they did not know what it meant to be a house-elf.

Before long, Dobby had cleaned the chalkboard, checked the undersides of the desks for gum, and cleared away some feathers left by the charms club. He was scrubbing at an ink stain when the door opened unexpectedly. Dobby jumped to his feet and scurried out of sight, it was the mark of a good house-elf to be noticed only by his work, after all. However, his mind, so accustomed now to curiosity, began to question the situation before he could stop it. The time was now well after curfew and the Charms classroom several floors away from the nearest House, so it was unlikely that a student had just entered. The teachers usually confined themselves to their offices at this time of night, but perhaps one of the Aurors who'd taken to patrolling the castle had come to check on things, although that didn't explain why they didn't leave now that they'd seen that the room was deserted.

Wishing he could just let whoever it was finish their business and leave, Dobby once again bowed to his curiosity and leaned out from behind the teacher's desk. What he saw froze him more effectively than even Lucius Malfoy's threat against the house-elves. Dobby had never heard a description of the creature who used to be a man, but he didn't need one, there was simply no mistaking him. He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named was standing there in the Charms classroom, not two meters away.

For perhaps the first time in his entire life, Dobby had no idea what to do. He had no orders for situations like this, no experience to fall back on, just shock and fear that coursed through his entire body before finally settling in his brain, halting all other thought.

He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named was speaking to two other wizards, but not looking at them: his terrible red eyes were sweeping across the entire room, and Dobby was still only half hidden. He couldn't move, he was going to be discovered, those red eyes would fall on him any second, and then, suddenly, he wasn't in danger anymore. Somehow, without even realizing it, Dobby had disappeared from the Charms classroom and appeared somewhere else. He hardly cared where he was, he simply fell to his knees in relief and heaved a huge sigh, only realizing then how oppressive the air in the Charms classroom had become while He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named was there. With breath came thought and with thought came the realization that Dobby had to tell someone that He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named was in the castle, someone who would know what to do, someone who could tell him how to keep the other elves safe even if Lucius Malfoy tried to make good on his threat.

Thinking of Mistress McGonagall first, Dobby transported himself to the outside of her office door. He raised a shaking hand but knocked so weakly that he could hardly hear it himself and was hardly surprised that there was no response from inside. However, when a second try revealed that, in his present state, he was incapable of knocking any louder, Dobby decided to simply transport himself inside.

Mistress McGonagall's office was completely deserted, and the brief hope Dobby had gained when he thought he would soon get her advice was dashed.

Dobby left quickly, not really caring where he wound up and not quite recognizing the place when he first got there. He had to find someone, tell them what was happening in Hogwarts, but as far as he'd seen so far, the only people left inside were Dark Wizards and house-elves. He could try to fight back, or leave the castle and tell someone what was going on, but no matter what he did he would be putting the other house-elves in danger, which wasn't a thought he could allow and, in his terrified state, he fell back on old habits and began to punish himself for it.

He meandered up the hall, banging his head against the wall as he went, until he heard his name, looked up and saw the most beautiful sight he could ever have imagined: Harry Potter.

"Harry Potter, sir," Dobby said, his voice especially squeaky with relief. Suddenly, he found everything he'd seen that night tumbling out of him. "Dobby has been watching the Death Eaters, and he has seen that a terrible plot is afoot..."

But he found himself unable to continue, to say any more would have put the other house-elves in danger.

"What kind of plot, Dobby?" Harry Potter pressed, but Dobby kept his mouth shut tight. "Did Mr. Malfoy order you not to tell us? He's not your master anymore; you don't have to listen to him."

Dobby shook his head. Harry Potter didn't understand.

"Did the Death Eaters do something else, then? Did they threaten to do something to the other house-elves if you told us?"

Surprised that Harry Potter had guessed his conundrum so easily, Dobby stared straight at the wizard, eyes wide.

"I can't promise to protect you and the other house-elves," Harry admitted, and Dobby felt a great sinking in his stomach. "But you all have much more power than you tend to use. Why don't you try telling the others that McGonagall gave them permission to defend themselves."

Dobby stared at him. That would mean lying to the other elves, but if it saved them, if Harry Potter suggested it, then it must be alright. He nodded.

"Great," Harry replied. "If you know, it would really help us if you can just point us in the direction of Voldemort."

Dobby paused, then made up his mind, looked around the hallway and finally got his bearings, then pointed in the direction of a passageway that would lead them to a place on the second floor very near a stairway to the Charms corridor. Harry nodded his thanks and Dobby walked away in the direction of the kitchens, still occasionally throwing his head against the wall.

It was amazing. Not half an hour ago the thing Dobby had wanted most in the world was orders. Now he had them but wished he didn't. Harry had given Dobby his solution, but it wouldn't be nearly so simple to implement it. He needed time to think but had none, he needed the respect of the other elves but had not time to earn it, the only thing he had time to do was act, and fast.

Dobby had never sent the kitchen in such a state before, not even when they'd had to prepare that magnificent and huge meal for the Yule Ball. It seemed that many of the elves had set out on their cleaning duties and returned with similar stories to Dobby's only with no idea what to do. Reports were being shouted back and forth, tales of terrible wizards in dark robes, Aurors and teachers fighting, students cowering in their dormitories. Even the normally unflappable Mirri looked overwhelmed, and it was obvious that Dobby alone had any idea what to do.

"I is seeing Mistress McGonagall!" Dobby said impulsively, shouting to be heard over the din, though only those closest to him seemed to notice. Three more tries it took before the rest of the kitchen grew silent and every eye fell on him.

"I is seeing Mistress McGonagall, and she...and she is telling me that we must be helping the students to escape the castle. She is also telling me that we must use our magic if we are needing to defend ourselves, but they is much stronger than us, and she is not wanting us to be getting hurt. Also...some of us must be visiting the Come and Go room, because bad things is happening there and the good wizards is too busy to stop it."

A brief pause followed this speech until, finally, Mirri asked, "Mistress McGonagall is telling you all of that?"

"You is not seeing her?" Dobby replied in an inelegant dodge of the original question.

Mirri did not reply, nor did she demand an answer to her own question, she simply turned and addressed the group at large.

"We will be taking the students to Hogsmeade and sending them to Saint Mungo's with floo powder. We will break into shops for their fireplaces and steal floo powder if we need to."

She then assigned three elves to each House, five and Dobby to the Come and Go room, and the rest to search the school for any remaining students or teachers who need help.

At Dobby's urging, those destined for the Come and Go room left with hardly a moment's delay. It had been more than an hour since he encountered Lucius Malfoy, and if the terrible things he'd been working on weren't finished yet, then they were probably very nearly complete.

Dobby had been expecting a rather violent reunion when he returned, so what actually happened when he and the other elves entered the Come and Go room was somewhat anticlimactic. Malfoy looked up when they appeared and watched as the other Death Eater present dropped to the floor at the snap of Dobby's fingers, but instead of carrying out his threat, Malfoy simply stared at them, actually looking a bit afraid. Dobby snapped his fingers and Malfoy collapsed as well.

"Go and help the others!" Dobby ordered the other elves, who all left at once.

Dobby, however, stayed behind, suddenly worried about whatever it was that Malfoy had been working on. If he stood on his toes, Dobby could just see a model of Hogwarts surrounded by many colors of bands of light. Dobby hoped that hopping up on the table for a closer look would help, but his increases in elevation and proximity did not give him any answers. Dobby was a house-elf, he'd never been to school, he'd learned to cook and clean and that had been the extent of it. These lights and what they meant were quite beyond him. Not quite sure what he thought he would accomplish, Dobby cautiously reached out for the nearest beam of light. The moment his hand passed through it, there was a sudden flash and the lights changed: some glowed brighter, some dimmed, some appeared where they hadn't been before and some disappeared entirely. Dobby pulled his hand back immediately and jumped off the table, but it seemed that the damage was done. Supposing that he couldn't make things any worse, Dobby climbed back on the table and reached out again, but this time the lights remained as they were and he began to wonder if Malfoy had changed these lights and Dobby had somehow set them to rights. Resolving to tell the first witch or wizard he saw about this, Dobby turned and left.

He elected to take the long way back to the kitchens, but Dobby's journey was largely uneventful all the same. Winky was still asleep in her bunk, exactly as he'd left her, so Dobby gathered her up and transported both of them to the lobby of Saint Mungo's.

It was utter chaos when they arrived and it was all Dobby could do to keep from being stepped on by one of the hundreds of feet around them. Eventually, though, he found the edge of the crow and a witch in Healer's robes pointed him in the direction of the room where the House Elves had been sent. When Dobby located it and opened the door he was accosted almost immediately by Mirri.

"You is a very bad elf, Dobby."

Dobby winced and lowered Winky to the floor, supposing that he should have known this would happen eventually.

"You was not seeing Mistress McGonagall. You was lying to us."

Dobby wasn't quite sure what to say, but all the elves were looking at him now.

"I is sorry?" he offered uncertainly.

"You should not be apologizing," Mirri replied, catching Dobby off guard, "because Mistress McGonagall is thanking you. She was saying that she should have been thinking of asking for our help herself."

"Oh," Dobby replied, not sure what else to say.

"But you should not be lying to us," Mirri continued.

"You would not have been listening to me if I hadn't been lying," Dobby pointed out, finally finding his tongue.

Now it was Mirri's turn to not know what to say.

"Then you should not be lying again," she said. "We will be remembering to listen to you, now."

"Then maybe we should be asking the Healers if they is needing any help," Dobby suggested.

Mirri nodded and they set to work.