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Hogwarts
–Damian Hawthorne–
"Food?" Elara spoke, confused at first and then surprised before shaking her head, "There's no way you can get us food at this hour."
"What if I can?"
Even as he spoke, he saw the way the heads of all five students behind them perked up, as Cassian looked at him with rising interest, as food was clearly an important topic here.
Hook, line, and sinker.
Benedict looked behind him, saw the interest and made up his mind, before flinging his wand in the general direction of the people behind him, "Let's go, then. We all know we won't be able to do anything else anyway."
"Not with this juice bait in front of us, no, we can't," Elara concurred as they both gestured at him with a go on gesture. He grinned at the success, before turning around and leaving the dorm.
"Follow me,"
As they went down the floors, he could feel the uncertainty among them increase. Even so, he kept silent and kept on walking, to the place that was the holy grail for anyone who had the sense of talking to House Elves and could survive the enigma that was Tommy without running for the hills or calling for the faculty to exorcise the weird House Elf.
"We're headed to the Puffs' Dorms," Elara spoke at first, recognising the path they were taking. He did not do anything beyond nodding and confirming her thoughts, which was met with even more exchanged looks between the group.
Reaching the basement, he stopped just shy of the last turn they had to take before reaching the Hufflepuff Dorm and looked at the painting of the fruit bowl.
As he extended his hand towards the painting, he heard and ignored the, "What is he doing?" and…tickled the pear.
A sentence he never thought he'd have to form, even in his thoughts. The process was slow, requiring a significant amount of time spent tickling before the pear even moved at all. Until then, it looked like he was a crazy person who was tickling a painting. Before anyone else could question him even more, he grinned at the magical feedback that finally came from the painting and then stepped back as the wall on top of which the painting of the silver fruit bowl was mounted slid inside, before the stone door swung inside, revealing a scene of utter chaos.
A gaggle of House Elves, all dressed in clean, crisp pillow cases, paused in the middle of their organized chaos, and just stared up at them with their big, beady eyes. It was as if they were looking at a realistic painting, such was the freeze they had imposed upon themselves.
See, the House Elves were a hardworking bunch, everyone knew that. What they didn't know was that Elves literally could not relax without work. It was a relaxation activity for them, to work for someone else. Someone must have truly hated them for them to be cursed with something like that.
But the fact of the matter was that with Hogwarts being as big as it was, the House Elves always had something to do, some odd job that needed doing, and they never said no to that.
One of those jobs that was basically never ending was food. Hogaewrts had thousands of students, on top of the fixed staff. Now, if the meal plan was 2 times a day, then it might have been possible to run the kitchen in just two 8-hour shifts.
But no, Hogwarts had a five course meal plan for every single day, including the Weekends, since the House Elves did not understand the concept of relaxing on the weekends. Also, they made everything from scratch, every single time.
Nothing was preserved, stored for the next use. Leftovers were stored properly, to be sent outside, and everything was cleaned before moving to the next course of meals, which is why no matter what time of the day you came here, you will find the House Elves busy, cooking something or preparing something for the next meal.
That was the reason why the House Elves, about a dozen or so who were visible to them, all had kitchen tools in their hands, sized appropriately, of course.
"Merlin's balls!" He heard someone curse behind him as all seven of them, excluding your's truly, froze upon seeing something most students at Hogwarts went their entire lives without seeing. He was not sure if any student, save for maybe the Weasley Twins, knew of this place, but he wouldn't be surprised if the Golden Trio came to know of it, as was decreed by Fate herself, apparently.
Slowly turning around, he spread his arms wide apart and grinned, "Tada! As if presenting the kitchen to them.
That sound was enough to set the House Elves off, as the sound of utensils crashing into the ground and the Elves panicking made him wince in guilt.
Before he could turn around and say something, there was a pop before the familiar voice of Tommy began barking at the House Elves, whose names he knew by heart.
"Willy! Tilly! Go stand in the corner for 2 minutes. I told you to inform me when someone opens it. Everyone else, go clean the upper floor armours! I will call for you," Tommy rattled off before he snapped his fingers, vanishing the flour that had spilled on the floor.
"You!" Tommy turned around and pointed an accusing finger at him. He smiled apologetically, not anticipating such a drastic reaction from them. Some of them actually looked distressed, as if they did not know what was about to happen and were expecting the worst, which was just heartbreaking in his opinion.
"What do you want?" It looked like Tommy was warring with himself when he asked the question, which further proved his theories regarding Tommy and also raised more questions at the same time.
Tommy, as blasé as he appeared to be in terms of the conventional House Elf behavior, was still bound by the core House Elf Principles. As such, he could not outright tell us off, though his facial expression was expressing his thoughts out loud enough.
Technically, they were guests in Hogwarts, the entity Tommy was bonded to, which meant he would much rather die than be rude or fight back against us. Suddenly, he realised what a terrible mistake he'd made.
Tommy and his friendship had been genuine, at least he liked to think so. Tommy had backed off when told, gave him food whenever he asked, told him some interesting information, confirmed his suspicions whenever he could, and all around had been a good guy.
And what had he done to repay that generosity? He brought along seven other people, majority of whom were pureblood, to a place that could be considered sacred for the House Elves, where they could not remain hidden and had to agree to most requests from the students.
He had no idea who they really were, beyond what was publicly known, had no idea how they would react to House Elves and this place, how they treated House Elves previously, if they even consider them as living beings, if they would treat the Elves with dignity and respect, or would they just order them around, expecting an entire race to scurry around to finish their orders.
Exactly like what had been happening for centuries.
His eyes narrowed, as he made up his mind. He made the mistake of showing them this place; he will clear it up. Keeping his cover intact was one thing, but for some reason, he felt the stealth was cheap compared to his very first friend that he made in Hogwarts.
"We just wanted some food," Elara said, putting one hand on his shoulder and squeezing, trying to pull him back, but failing as he held his ground. Making eye contact with Tommy was hard, as the anger was clearly visible as he snapped his fingers, multiple plates appearing in front of them.
"Take them. If you need anything, there really is no need to come down here. You can call for any House Elf, and they will be happy to take care of any tasks you might have."
Translation : Take the food and get lost. Don't come here ever again.
Seven plates for seven people. None for him. He ignored that as he turned around and left with the others, the door slamming shut behind them.
"Damn, how did you find out about this place?"
"Oh, my brother told me." He casually lied as the seven talked with each other, joked, whispered, and entered their dorm after answering the riddle.
All this time, he was walking on autopilot, his mind on the actions he was about to take in the next few minutes. He really was an idiot to take them there.
There really was only one way to undo his mistake. His eyes sharpened as he did something he never thought he would do, not this soon anyway.
"Hey, firstie, you want some?" Benedict asked him, eyes widening, almost in slow motion, to him, as he focused on all the practice he did in the weeks leading up to the train ride here, casting the spell in the most unexpected of situations.
"Obliviate."
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