Order Only: Last Night

[alt_poppy]

As Paracelsus is my witness, yesterday was an awful day.

First there was that dreadful business with young Marvolo's broken arm. He had suffered a great deal of very nasty bruising, but I can tell you no more of the Bludger's effect because that imbecile Lockhart vanished every bone in the boy's arm. Vanished them! I hope never again to have to dose a child with Skele-Gro: it is an utterly brutal thing to regrow bone within living tissue. He was very, very brave, and under exceedingly difficult circumstances. As you know there were crowds of well-wishers, and even when I succeeded in evicting all of the young folk, the Malfoys insisted on staying close by, which meant the poor boy was forced to keep up a steely exterior all afternoon and evening.

When his visitors finally took their leave, my patient collapsed into a deep, much-needed sleep, and I thought to hear no more from him until morning. Alas, he was granted no such reprieve. Just as I began my two o'clock rounds, I heard the boy call out, so I cast a silencing spell to keep the rest of the ward from being troubled. But it was not, as I first believed, that he had been woken by excruciating pain in his arm; as I approached, I realised he was not alone! I was appalled to think that someone should have crept past me to trouble him in the night, but I was completely unprepared for what I saw and heard next.

Just as I put my hand out to pull aside the curtain, Marvolo said, 'It was you! You made that Bludger try and kill me?!'

I put my eye to the gap in the curtain and received quite a shock. Sitting atop Mr Marvolo on his bed was an elf, the most hideously misshapen elf I've ever seen.

'Indeed yes, sir,' said the elf, his great ears flapping madly.

'You'd better get lost before my bones come back, Dobby, or I might strangle you.' I believe the boy was trying his best to sound fierce, but the elf was unmoved.

'Dobby is used to death threats, sir. Dobby gets them five times a day at Buckingham. You know that's true, sir. And Dobby isn't the only one He tortures, no. And you know that, too.'

I pulled the curtain ever so quietly aside until I knew that my young patient could see me, but he gave me a look that said I should wait, and so we allowed the elf to go on.

'Calls himself Protector, but does He protect? No! Say it, sir!! You must say it!!!'

'What?'

'Harry Potter must say he knows that He Who Must Not Be Named is not his father,' said the elf. 'Not his father! Oh, Harry Potter knows it, I can see it!! He knows!'

It went on like this for some time, all of it quite mad, but very true. And I believe the elf was right: the boy accepts that Voldemort is not his father, truly. He didn't deny knowing his birth name, either. But he was shaken when the elf's ravings became a litany of the horrors Voldemort has committed--Voldemort and Amycus Carrow. The elf seemed well aware that the boy condemns Carrow for his violence. It was very clever and equally cruel, what the elf had to say. Perhaps I should have cut it short, but it seemed to me that these are truths the boy does need to hear.

He himself brought it to an end when he had heard all he could stomach.

'What do you want from me?' he demanded.

'Harry Potter is the One, the Chosen. He Who Must Not Be Named knows this. That is why he stole Harry Potter and murdered his parents. And Harry Potter must not join Him. No! He must fight. Fight for us, the lowly, the enslaved, we dregs of the magical world! We who are treated like vermin! And Harry Potter knows, knows it is evil to treat creatures like vermin and people like animals. That is what Carrow does. And He Who Must Not Be Named! Harry Potter knows! And he must choose! He must say it!!! And if he will not--'

The boy seized the elf's arm with his one good hand.

'What! What will you do if I don't say-- what? What do you want me to say?'

'If you will not fight Him, you must die!! Fight or die!!!'

I moved as the elf shrieked these words, as quickly and quietly as I could, and caught hold of him. Only then did I see the long, vicious blade he held at the boy's throat, but the knife clattered to the floor as I dragged the elf backwards off the bed.

'Say it!!!' he screamed. 'Say it or die!!!'

I tried questioning him, but he was far beyond reason. When I asked how he could have come here if he served at Buckingham, I got only elf gibberish about being unable to answer things his master forbids and frantic efforts to punish himself, though it was a sign of his madness that he did not punish himself at any point in his conversation with the boy. However he has rationalised it, the elf has convinced himself that his mission to Harry Potter is beyond his master's will. I've never seen anything like it. I did try to persuade him that I agreed that Harry Potter is important to us all, and I suggested that the boy must be allowed to grow wise and strong, but it did no good. The elf lapsed back into his raving that the boy must choose now to fight or he must die. He grew frenzied and suddenly broke my grasp, disapparating from the room the moment he squirmed free.

In the silence after his departure, the boy looked at me wide-eyed, but even as I asked if he were all right, the alarm sounded on my fire. He nodded, said he was fine, and turned his head away.


He was asleep when I returned from seeing to Mr Boot. And this morning when I asked after him, he seemed disinclined to discuss what happened in the night.

Comments

[alt_sirius]

Listen, you'd be surprised what an elf can consider to be 'serving his master's interest' - our elf at home used to take it into his head to toss our rooms for 'contraband' periodically, to curry favour with our mother. And if he found anything in Reg's room, you can bet he'd plant it in mine, because he decided it'd 'break Mistress' heart' to learn Reg had any secrets.

It's possible that, knowing Harry is not Voldemort's real son, this elf has decided that Harry is in no way its own master, and therefore it is not bound by the laws of its enslavement.

Another question is why now? What's set this elf off this year, when it had access to Harry all his life? I wonder if Harry left something where the elf saw it, to suggest that he's not entirely loyal to Voldemort? That might have convinced the creature to go after Harry.

[alt_poppy]

Now I've had a good sleep and a chance to run back over it all, I must say that I think this is the least likely scenario. It doesn't square with what I saw and heard. (Not that an elf can't take it in his head to do the wildest things in the name of serving his master--or mistress. I do not doubt your experience at all.)

However, this elf was in clear rebellion against Voldemort. What he demanded was that the boy should fight the Protector to save the lowly, meagre vermin slaves of the realm (there was a lot of language like that). If Voldemort is the elf's master, then, as you said last night, even if he has conceived the idea of rebelling, he cannot attack his master directly. It would appear that he's latched onto the boy as a champion, as the one with access and opportunity to strike a killing blow inside Buckingham.

Frankly, he appeared to have a rather more mystical notion about the boy's qualifications than that: there was quite a lot of raving about the boy's having been Chosen as The One (trust me the capitalisation was there in his voice).

On the other hand, I am not merely reaching for rhetorical effect when I tell you the elf was mad. I would guess that he has had every bone of his body broken many times in his life; his form is bent into the most grotesque posture; and his character is equally misshapen. By turns, he slavered over the boy, in anticipation of what he could achieve, and then threatened him with the most outlandish gestures I've ever seen any creature offer. He has been broken by his treatment, darkened and twisted into something unrecognisable. He does not behave as elves do, which means we cannot count on what we know of elves to help us understand this one's scheme.

[alt_sirius]

Well, if that's the case, then it sounds more like some sort of ... psychedelic break. It's been abused to the point of delusion, and you're right, there's no judging it by even the maddest elf I've known.

I dunno whether it's better or worse, though, that it sees Harry as a force for good. On the one hand it means it'd prefer for Harry to participate in whatever deranged vision it has of defeating Voldemort; on the other, I don't think much of anyone who threatens Harry, no matter what the perceived provocation! And if Harry doesn't acquiesce to the creature's wishes, if indeed we could even interpret how he is supposed to perform to expectations, well, the elf may come completely unhinged. How do we stop that kind of force?

[alt_poppy]

A psychotic break, you mean to say? Or, oh. Sirius Black! (Were there many elves in that 'scene', then? I'm sure I wouldn't know.)

Perhaps it's as simple as telling the Protector his creature came here to murder the boy.

Honestly! I can't believe I'm even considering such a thing, but the safest course would surely be to see the elf put down. And yet, I really couldn't live with my conscience if we simply become agents of Voldemort's violence.

Perhaps we should be thinking what more the elf might tell us if we were able to capture it.

[alt_sirius]

Er ... psychotic, then. Sorry. Psychedelic is the other kind, isn't it? Hah! (And don't worry, I've never gone in much for the more ... hallucinogenic substances. They'll kill you, that stuff will.)

As would telling Voldemort about this creature. I don't think there's much danger in not telling him - I mean to say, I don't get the feeling Harry tells him more than he has to do, about how things are for him. Hermione might have better information on how often they correspond.

I can't help thinking that if this elf does know something about why Harry's so important to Voldemort, we've got to work out some way to try to get it to tell us. That might be expressly against its binding, but who knows? Nothing ventured, nothing gained.

But we surely won't get a chance if we hand the creature over to Voldemort without even an attempt to set it straight.

[alt_poppy]

Oh, I hadn't even thought... what if the boy tells his 'father' about the elf? Then we'd really be in a pickle if we hadn't reported what I witnessed.

Minerva?

Hermione? Do you know whether the boy has talked or written to the Protector since he left my charge? Has he told anyone else about what happened with the elf?

[alt_hermione]

Well he certainly won't tell his Father, Madam Pomfrey, he hardly talks to him any more. Except to complain about things, only I don't think he would about the elf, because he wants to sort things out for himself, it sounds like, and anyway he doesn't really think his Father does much. For him, I mean, not in general. He doesn't think that the Dark Lord takes him seriously. Which is reasonable I suppose. I mean, I don't think I would take him seriously if he told me about a deranged house-elf and I didn't already know, would you??

[alt_poppy]

That's reassuring, I suppose. I do feel for the boy; he has not had a happy upbringing.

Well then, Sirius, as long as Minerva agrees, I think you may be right that our better hope is to keep the elf's secret and to hope that he does not make another murderous attack on the boy. I wonder if there is any way to lure the elf into a trap so he could be questioned.

Or. Hermione, I should have asked before: were you aware of this elf while you were at Buckingham? Have you spoken with it before? I wonder if we could think of a safe way for you to question it whilst you are in the Palace over the holidays.

At the very least, we need to consider whether you and Mr Marvolo will be safe there during Christmas if that elf is on the loose.

[alt_hermione]

I haven't spoken to him. Outside of Hogwarts house-elves don't talk nearly so much, and when they do it's not always very nice, or very helpful. But I suppose I could have and not known it. I'm not very good at telling house-elves apart, unless they wear different things, and all the elves at the great houses wear uniforms, and of course they do at Hogwarts too, only at Hogwarts they get to customise them some.

[alt_mcgonagall]

I concur, Poppy. Simply put, I trust that Miss Granger can predict Mr Potter better than any of us might do; and I do not believe that it would suit any of our plans if the Lord Protector decided to come to Hogwarts and investigate my mind. I am always uneasy when I am put in such a position, and I believe the chance of the Lord Protector discovering the incident is slim.