“Death, my dears.”
Parvati and Lavender both put their hands over their mouths, looking horrified.
“Yes,” said Professor Trelawney, nodding impressively, “it comes, ever closer, it circles overhead like a vulture, ever lower… ever lower over the castle…” She stared pointedly at Harry, who yawned very widely and obviously.
“It’d be a bit more impressive if she hadn’t done it about eighty times before,” Harry said as they finally regained the fresh air of the staircase beneath Professor Trelawney’s room. “But if I’d dropped dead every time she’s told me I’m going to, I’d be a medical miracle.”
“You’d be a sort of extra concentrated ghost,” said Ron, chortling, as they passed the Bloody Baron going in the opposite direction, his wide eyes staring sinisterly. “At least we didn’t get homework. I hope Hermione got loads off Professor Vector, I love not working when she is…”
But Hermione wasn’t at dinner, nor was she in the library when they went to look for her afterward. The only person in there was Viktor Krum. Ron hovered behind the bookshelves for a while, watching Krum, debating in whispers with Harry whether he should ask for an autograph—but then Ron realized that six or seven girls were lurking in the next row of books, debating exactly the same thing, and he lost his enthusiasm for the idea.
“Wonder where she’s got to?” Ron said as he and Harry went back to Gryffindor Tower.
“Dunno… balderdash.”
But the Fat Lady had barely begun to swing forward when the sound of racing feet behind them announced Hermione’s arrival.
“Harry!” she panted, skidding to a halt beside him (the Fat Lady stared down at her, eyebrows raised). “Harry, you’ve got to come—you’ve got to come, the most amazing thing’s happened—please—”
She seized Harry’s arm and started to try to drag him back along the corridor.
“What’s the matter?” Harry said.
“I’ll show you when we get there—oh come on, quick—”
Harry looked around at Ron; he looked back at Harry, intrigued.
“Okay,” Harry said, starting off back down the corridor with Hermione, Ron hurrying to keep up.
“Oh don’t mind me!” the Fat Lady called irritably after them. “Don’t apologize for bothering me! I’ll just hang here, wide open, until you get back, shall I?”
“Yeah, thanks!” Ron shouted over his shoulder.
“Hermione, where are we going?” Harry asked, after she had led them down through six floors, and started down the marble staircase into the entrance hall.
“You’ll see, you’ll see in a minute!” said Hermione excitedly.
She turned left at the bottom of the staircase and hurried toward the door through which Cedric Diggory had gone the night after the Goblet of Fire had regurgitated his and Harry’s names. Harry had never been through here before. He and Ron followed Hermione down a flight of stone steps, but instead of ending up in a gloomy underground passage like the one that led to Snape’s dungeon, they found themselves in a broad stone corridor, brightly lit with torches, and decorated with cheerful paintings that were mainly of food.
“Oh hang on…” said Harry slowly, halfway down the corridor. “Wait a minute, Hermione…”
“What?” She turned around to look at him, anticipation all over her face.
“I know what this is about,” said Harry.
He nudged Ron and pointed to the painting just behind Hermione. It showed a gigantic silver fruit bowl.
“Hermione!” said Ron, cottoning on. “You’re trying to rope us into that spew stuff again!”
“No, no, I’m not!” she said hastily. “And it’s not spew, Ron—”
“Changed the name, have you?” said Ron, frowning at her. “What are we now, then, the House-Elf Liberation Front? I’m not barging into that kitchen and trying to make them stop work, I’m not doing it—”
“I’m not asking you to!” Hermione said impatiently. “I came down here just now, to talk to them all, and I found—oh come on, Harry, I want to show you!”
She seized his arm again, pulled him in front of the picture of the giant fruit bowl, stretched out her forefinger, and tickled the huge green pear. It began to squirm, chuckling, and suddenly turned into a large green door handle. Hermione seized it, pulled the door open, and pushed Harry hard in the back, forcing him inside.
He had one brief glimpse of 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, when something small hurtled toward him from the middle of the room, squealing, “Harry Potter, sir! Harry Potter!”
Next second all the wind had been knocked out of him as the squealing elf hit him hard in the midriff, hugging him so tightly he thought his ribs would break.
“D-Dobby?” Harry gasped.
“It is Dobby, sir, it is!” squealed the voice from somewhere around his navel. “Dobby has been hoping and hoping to see Harry Potter, sir, and Harry Potter has come to see him, sir!”
Dobby let go and stepped back a few paces, beaming up at Harry, his enormous, green, tennis ball shaped eyes brimming with tears of happiness. He looked almost exactly as Harry remembered him; the pencil shaped nose, the batlike ears, the long fingers and feet—all except the clothes, which were very different.
When Dobby had worked for the Malfoys, he had always worn the same filthy old pillowcase. Now, however, he was wearing the strangest assortment of garments Harry had ever seen; he had done an even worse job of dressing himself than the wizards at the World Cup. He was wearing a tea cozy for a hat, on which he had pinned a number of bright badges; a tie patterned with horseshoes over a bare chest, a pair of what looked like children’s soccer shorts, and odd socks. One of these, Harry saw, was the black one Harry had removed from his own foot and tricked Mr. Malfoy into giving Dobby, thereby setting Dobby free. The other was covered in pink and orange stripes.
“Dobby, what’re you doing here?” Harry said in amazement.
“Dobby has come to work at Hogwarts, sir!” Dobby squealed excitedly. “Professor Dumbledore gave Dobby and Winky jobs, sir!”
“Winky?” said Harry. “She’s here too?”
“Yes, sir, yes!” said Dobby, and he seized Harry’s hand and pulled him off into the kitchen between the four long wooden tables that stood there. Each of these tables, Harry noticed as he passed them, was positioned exactly beneath the four House tables above, in the Great Hall. At the moment, they were clear of food, dinner having finished, but he supposed that an hour ago they had been laden with dishes that were then sent up through the ceiling to their counterparts above.
At least a hundred little elves were standing around the kitchen, beaming, bowing, and curtsying as Dobby led Harry past them. They were all wearing the same uniform: a tea towel stamped with the Hogwarts crest, and tied, as Winky’s had been, like a toga.
Dobby stopped in front of the brick fireplace and pointed.
“Winky, sir!” he said.
Winky was sitting on a stool by the fire. Unlike Dobby, she had obviously not foraged for clothes. She was wearing a neat little skirt and blouse with a matching blue hat, which had holes in it for her large ears. However, while every one of Dobby’s strange collection of garments was so clean and well cared for that it looked brand new, Winky was plainly not taking care of her clothes at all. There were soup stains all down her blouse and a burn in her skirt.
“Hello, Winky,” said Harry.
Winky’s lip quivered. Then she burst into tears, which spilled out of her great brown eyes and splashed down her front, just as they had done at the Quidditch World Cup.
“Oh dear,” said Hermione. She and Ron had followed Harry and Dobby to the end of the kitchen. “Winky, don’t cry, please don’t…”
But Winky cried harder than ever. Dobby, on the other hand, beamed up at Harry.
“Would Harry Potter like a cup of tea?” he squeaked loudly, over Winky’s sobs.