“They might not count as clothes. They didn’t look anything like hats to me, more like woolly bladders.” – Ron in OoTP Ch13.
Finally, all of the Gryffindors had found their way up to their Dormitories and the Common Room could be cleaned. Elfreda surveyed the mess carefully, trying to think of the most efficient way to go about the cleaning; they still had Slytherin and Huflepuff to do after all.
Soon enough everyone was busy with something and their tasks divided. Elfreda bent over the stinky mess on the carpet. It was, apparently, spilled stinksap. The student had cast a Reparo on the bowl, which was now sitting mended on the small table. “How kind, they is,” Elfreda muttered sarcastically. The simple repairing spell the students knew obviously did nothing to clean up the spilt contents of the bowl, and now that the bowl was repaired, she could not use the proper spell that would return the contents to the bowl while repairing it. Resigned to the fact that she’d have to do this the hard way, she put her hand in the air above the stain and began siphoning it off slowly.
Suddenly she was aware of a commotion near the fireplace. Where a few moments before only two elves had been working on cleaning that area, most of the others were now gathered around the low table and whispering loudly. She was curious and she told herself they’d be waking the students if someone didn’t bring them back to their senses, so she abandoned her task temporarily and walked over to the group.
“What is it?” she asked, but the answer was obvious before she had even finished asking. A number of small furry…things were lying on the table, half concealed by papers and other rubbish the students had left. What they actually were, however, was open to speculation. They didn’t look like anything Elfreda had seen in all her years.
“Aleda thinks it is potions ingredients, she does,” Aleda piped up, “They is dragon Bladders.”
“Silly,” Boris continued, “They can’t be bladders, they is wooly and itchy.”
“Maybe Dragons doesn’t mind?” Mickey suggested. That one was always one for wild theories.
“No,” Aleda said thoughtfully, “The students was practicing for Transfiguration and couldn’t do it. Aleda knows the humans thinks Changing things is hard.”
Elfreda stared at the disgusting mess on the table. Aleda was right; they did look like large, wooly bladders now that she studied them more closely. Mickey was poking them with the edge of a heavy book.
“Mickey must be careful!”
“Must not touch it!”
Mickey ignored the warnings and kept studying the strange things until it was clear that they weren’t all that interesting. Nothing was oozing out even after several sharp jabs and nothing drastic happened to any of them so they couldn’t be cursed. Eventually someone levitated them all into the rubbish bin and Elfreda heard Aleda giving clear instructions for the trash to be burnt today – just in case.
She went back to her carpet stain, her hands working idly while her mind was occupied with the next step, the next stain, the next mess. The work was so much easier if you put in a little thought ahead of time. But there was a distant sort of nagging way at the back of her brain, like an idea or a thought that wasn’t yet fully formed. She pushed it to the furthest corner of her mind and turned her full attention to the night’s task.
The wooly bladders did not seem to be going away. Elfreda did not have duty in Gryffindor tower the next night, but when the others returned she heard many whispers as she stood over the light meal she was preparing.
“Disgusting!” the whisperers said.
“Doesn’t even know what it is and Boris has to burn the stupid trash again!” Boris was something of a mumbler, but this time he had an excuse. It was well past midnight, in fact the sun would be up soon and they had yet to eat and then go to bed; she didn’t envy Boris his job.
“Doris says we goes to Professor McGonagall and tells her,” young Doris suggested, “She is knowing how to teach them and she is certainly knowing if it is dangerous or not.”
“Bladders isn’t dangerous, Doris.”
“Who says that’s what they is?” Mickey asked, “Doesn’t look like Bladders to me.”
Dobby entered the kitchen with a huge smile and something hidden behind his back. Many heads turned away in disgust and others watched with narrowed eyes. It must be his salary; he had to torture them with his silly rants every time, acting as if it was something good. It was an insult to all the House Elves and they did not take kindly to it.
“It’s clothes!” Dobby looked excited, “The nice students is leaving clothes for us to find. You can all be free like Dobby!”
Elfreda let out a deep sigh of exasperation and began to turn around, she had better things to do than waste time listening to Dobby, but just as she picked up the knife once more she saw Dobby reveal his ‘surprise’ from behind his back, only it wasn’t his salary or clothes.
It was one of the blasted bladders…and he was touching it.
The knife fell back onto the table and there was a loud outbreak of noise. Finally, Dobby restored the silence by placing the thing on his head. “See!” he beamed at them all, “It’s a hat. The students must have knitted them all by themselves.”
“They insults us!” Elfreda finally spoke, “They insults us and puts clothes for us. House Elves is not serving the students, they is serving Albus Dumbledore and they is honored to do it. Students insults us, putting disgusting wooly bladder-hats out for us!”
“And they hides them too!” Boris said from the doorway where he was leaning against the doorpost, “They hides them under rubbish, they tries to trick us!”
Elfreda turned back to her chopping and finished up the sandwiches quickly. She levitated them to the table and her eyes, like all the others were turned to the head of the table.
“They doesn’t mean to insult the Elves,” Dobby said desperately, “They tries to help us. Look at Kreacher, this happens to him because he is not a free Elf.”
“His masters wasn’t Albus Dumbledore!” Boris said sharply, taking a seat, “Bad Elves serves bad Wizards.”
“They doesn’t have a choice to serve good wizards if they is born in a bad wizard’s service!”
Elfreda felt a tightness at the back of her mind and the thought nagged at her, but she refused to let it form into words in her mind. “Enough!” she said loudly.
A long silence followed in which they all picked at their food halfheartedly still glancing at the head of the table every once in a while. Finally, as the plates began to clear and everyone began preparing for bed the oldest and wisest House Elf in all of Hogwarts spoke. “They insults us,” Grandmother said with finality, “They insults us.”
The next night the Gryffindor Common Room was the last one to clear up. By the time they got there the House Elves were all very tired and eager to get it over with. Elfreda began cleaning an area near the fireplace and glanced over at the table by the fire. It looked like the usual rubbish. She turned back to her work, but soon there was a frightened squeak from near the windows and she looked up, startled.
One of the young ones was staring in horror at the small table she had been cleaning. Peeking out from under one of the old books was another one of the stupid bladders. No one moved except Dobby who walked over and put it on top of the “hat” he was already wearing with a smile.
Elfreda shared a look with both Aleda and Boris and they moved closer to each other. She stared at the two in front of her. Aleda had taken refuge in Hogwarts after forcefully being freed by her horrible masters a few years ago and she had pledged her allegiance to the kindhearted Dumbledore willingly. Boris was the one that had allowed Mickey to keep messing with toad-woman’s food a while ago, he reasoned that since she wasn’t asked here by Dumbledore, but rather planted by the Ministry, that they’d actually be doing their duty towards their master to make her life her time in Hogwarts hell and drive her away. Aleda and Boris would certainly understand.
“Why should we have to deal with this?” she whispered to the two.
Boris was looking at her thoughtfully and Aleda was shaking her head very slightly. “Aleda doesn’t want to think about this, she just wants to do her job and go to bed.”
Upon turning around however, she accidentally pushed a book off a stool uncovering another one of the wooly horrors. She gasped and turned back to the other two, her face set in a grim line. The bladders were not going away and they could not be avoided.
“House elves wasn’t always serving humans,” Boris, who was the oldest of the three said, “They was free once, but they was not safe or happy so they pledges their services to the good humans who helps them against the evil ones. They did it willingly. It is an honor.”
Elfreda remembered the old stories about their great-grandmothers and grandfathers. They were tales that every House Elf was told as a child because they spoke about loyalty and honor and morality. They spoke how a good House Elf is trustworthy and never betrays their trust no matter what. She looked up at the other two.
“And we isn’t serving the students anyway, we serves the headmaster.”
Boris nodded and Aleda smiled, looking thoroughly relieved. Elfreda then took a couple of steps forward and spoke loud enough for everyone to hear. “We isn’t cleaning Gryffindor Tower anymore!” she announced the dumbstruck room, “We is serving the headmaster not students who insults us.”
“But they isn’t meaning to insult the House Elves,” Dobby said predictably, “They is only trying to help us. Dobby will clean the Common Room of the great Harry Potter and his friends.”
“Dobby can do it by himself.”
It was a big load lifted off all their chests and Dobby did not seem to mind doing it all by himself. Elfreda smiled to herself a week later, thinking of it as a job well done. They had all lightened they night-time work load now, which was very refreshing and the problem of the woolly bladders was solved for good: they were all balanced on Dobby’s head.
Over the net few days, however it became quite clear that the dilemma wasn’t really solved. Not for her anyway. Elfreda wondered if she had fallen ill or something, she was unable to complete her work as efficiently and felt a little frightened by the level of resentment and laziness she could feel in the evenings. What had begun as a shadow of an idea the back of her brain and turned into the solution to the Bladder problem was now becoming a disease. She could no longer wipe down a table or clean a carpet or tend to the fires in peace because strange pictures kept popping up in her mind’s eye and unwelcome thoughts were consistently worming their way in and finding words.
The messes and rubbish were becoming more unreasonable and unbearable and the same sentence kept popping up in her mind whenever she was faced with a particularly stinky mess. “Why should we have to deal with this?”
The worst thing however was the constant daydreaming. She would find herself immersed in a beautiful dream with a small, tidy house on the grounds and a school for young House Elves and a heavenly smell coming out of the kitchen window and ensnaring her senses. She would find herself turning dreams into plans…plans of slow gradual building, of hard work. And there was nothing wrong with planning a little hard work, of course, was there?
