Harry and Ron exchanged a nervous glance, hands dropping instinctively to their wands.
Hermione took a deep breath. No more hesitating.
She reached out and tickled the fat green pear in the painting. The pear giggled, squirming in place, and transformed into a bright green door handle. The door slid open without a sound.
A smell hit them immediately.
It was layered: the rich caramel sweetness of butterbeer underneath, a sharp scorched stench cutting through it, and something else beneath that. Something harder to name. Like the fur of a small, frightened animal. Like panic. Like dread.
The sight behind the door stopped all three of them cold.
The Hogwarts kitchens had always been the warmest, tidiest, most comforting place in the entire castle. Tonight, they were a disaster. The four long tables, identical to the House tables in the Great Hall, stood bare, stripped of every ingredient that should have been laid out for dinner. Several copper pots and pans had tumbled from the ceiling and lay crooked on the stone floor. One was still leaking black smoke, which explained the burnt smell. And not one of the hundreds of House-elves was working.
They'd broken into clusters , huddled near the enormous brick fireplace, or half-hidden in the shadows behind tall cupboards , whispering toward the center of the room with eyes full of shame and something close to fear.
One elf was working. Just the one. It was scrubbing a scorched cauldron with a rag, muttering furiously under its breath, moving so fast its arms were nearly a blur. That was the source of the grating noise.
And at the center of all of it , Winky.
The former Crouch family House-elf sat slumped beside an overturned wooden stool. The tea towel she wore, stamped with the Crouch family crest, was crumpled and stained beyond recognition. She had a half-empty butterbeer bottle clutched to her chest with both arms, gripping it the way a drowning person grips driftwood.
"Hic—"
A single hiccup, thick with alcohol and misery, echoed out of her small body.
Dobby stared at her. His tennis-ball eyes were wretched with distress.
"Winky!"
His voice cracked like a snapped string. He shot forward from behind Hermione, ears trembling with agitation, and grabbed for the bottle. Winky held on with everything she had. She just shook her head, over and over, mumbling into the glass.
"Bad Winky... is bad Winky... poor Master... he needs Winky..."
Hermione shoved the party plan out of her mind entirely. She crossed the kitchen in quick strides and crouched down beside the elf.
"Winky." She kept her voice as gentle as she could. "Don't do this. We're here to help."
Winky's eyes, bloodshot and swollen from crying and butterbeer, slid toward her. Then she turned her face back into the bottle.
"This isn't helping... Miss is pitying Winky... Winky doesn't need pity..."
A ripple of agitation moved through the elves watching from the corners.
The older elf at the cauldron stopped scrubbing. It fixed Winky with a look that was equal parts disgust and shame.
"It's her!" it announced, voice sharp as broken glass. "All her! The misery she dragged in here ruined tonight's pudding , every last bit of it turned sour! Even the yeast refused to rise!"
"Her sadness is poisonous," hissed another elf from behind a cupboard.
"A freed elf," a third spat, "drunk like this , it's a disgrace to every House-elf in existence."
"Dobby is freed too," a younger elf murmured, almost to itself. "He's never like this."
Dobby's huge eyes snapped toward that elf. They filled, instantly, with tears.
"Dobby... Dobby is understood!"
The young elf looked away at once, suddenly very interested in the wall, and shuffled back into the crowd.
Then a new figure stepped forward. This elf wore a tall white hat that looked exactly like a chef's toque. It walked with the careful deliberateness of someone in authority. This was Qian , head of the Hogwarts kitchens.
Qian's face was etched with worry and poorly concealed frustration. It bowed deeply to all three of them, posture impeccable, then straightened and leveled one long, thin finger at Winky on the floor. Its voice was high and thin but taut with suppressed anger.
"Honored guests, please forgive the disorder here." A beat. "Is there anything we can do for the three of you?"
Hermione shook her head. Her brows were drawn tight.
She genuinely could not understand it.
How could they , fellow House-elves, the same kind , look at a companion's pain with such revulsion? Such contempt?
Harry leaned toward Dobby and kept his voice low. "Why hasn't anyone brought her to Professor Holmes? He always figures something out."
Dobby shook his head slowly. Something settled in his small face , a heaviness, an old knowing that had no business being there.
"Mr. Holmes knows about Winky, sir." He paused. "He said the first lesson of freedom is learning to face your own ugliness alone. He said he cannot be Winky's crutch, or she will never learn to walk by herself." Another pause. "He said , some wounds can only be tended by one's own kind. Outside help only makes them fester faster."
Dobby looked down.
"Dobby... Dobby walked this road too."
And then Douglas's voice cut through Hermione's mind like a bolt of lightning.
You cannot force-feed a whole bottle of honey to someone who has never tasted candy.
Learn to cast a brick to attract jade.
She understood.
She finally, completely understood what he'd actually meant.
He hadn't been teaching her a tactic. He had been teaching her something older and harder , a wisdom that went by the name of respect.
Respect for a people. Respect for their dignity, however warped by centuries, however bent into something that looked almost like sickness from the outside. It was still theirs. It had to be honored as theirs.
Hermione's expression shifted in the span of a single second. The confusion and frustration dissolved, replaced by a steadiness that hadn't been there before , something clear and certain and firm.
She stood up. The smile that returned to her face was the real one. The Hermione Granger one: warm, confident, and fully committed.
"Harry, Ron , could you help Winky over to that corner to rest?" Her voice wasn't loud, but it carried cleanly through the entire kitchen. "And get her a glass of water, please."
Then she turned. To Qian. To the hundreds of wary, suspicious eyes watching her from every corner of the room.
Her voice came out bright and clear and alive.
"We didn't come here to cause trouble."
"Actually, we came to announce something good."
She let the pause breathe, making sure every pair of eyes in the kitchen had found her face.
"We came to throw you all a grand tea party. Drive out the bad mood. Cheer everyone up."
The elves looked at each other. The suspicion in their eyes was thick enough to cut. Not one of them moved. The older elf at the cauldron actually snorted through its nose, turned its back on her, and went back to scrubbing.
Hermione wasn't discouraged. She'd known a plain brick wouldn't be enough.
Her voice shifted, carrying just the right note of mystery. "That's only an excuse."
"The truth is , Professor Holmes sent me."
The name landed like a spark.
Every elf in the kitchen went still. The whisperers stopped whispering. The scrubbers stopped scrubbing. Hundreds of enormous eyes, every color imaginable, turned toward her all at once.
The air seemed to solidify.
Hermione knew: the jade had surfaced.
"The professor has an idea." Her voice filled with a warmth that pulled people in, each word landing with weight and precision. "He wants to hold an event at Hogwarts — something that has never been done before—"
She let the silence sit for exactly one beat.
", a Culinary Competition!"
"Every student in every House, cheering for your creations. Calling out your names."
"The winning dish becomes Hogwarts's signature recipe for the entire following year , recorded in the history of this school, permanently and forever."
"And the winner..."
She smiled. Slow and deliberate. She let the last piece fall.
"Will receive a one-of-a-kind Honorary Golden Spatula , presented personally by Professor Holmes himself."
---
PS: Daily Question , Answer.
Answer: C
Analysis: The core principle of the Rights Protection Act is "House-elf freedom of choice takes priority" , option C is correct. Option A is incorrect: giving clothes is only one method of terminating a contract, and requires the elf's active acceptance. Option B is incorrect: traditional custom cannot override established rights. Option D is incorrect: age is not a qualifying restriction for applying for freedom.
➤ Next: Not Exciting Enough? Hermione Adds More Fuel to the Fire!
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