Molly pulled the door to and she, Harry, Hermione and Ron walked quietly downstairs and Apparated into an alleyway in London. From there they made their way to the Order of the Phoenix headquarters. They tiptoed through the hall so as not to wake the horrific portrait of Mrs. Black, sleeping in her frame behind the curtain, and entered the double parlour that the Order used as their meeting room.
Kingsley greeted them and said to Molly, "I have a message from Arthur. He's going to be late. It seems someone's created a counterfeit defensive amulet that makes your toenails fall off, so Arthur's trying to round them up."
"Thank you, Kingsley," said Molly. She shook her head and sighed. "He's been home so seldom lately, I'm starting to forget what he looks like."
The bulky form of Hagrid approached. He glowered down at them. "First you drop my Care of Magical Creatures class, then you don't show up at school at all! Very nice!"
They looked uneasily up at him. "Sorry, Hagrid," said Hermione meekly. Ron and Harry echoed her. "Yeah, sorry Hagrid."
Hagrid smiled and wrapped the three of them in a hug that made their joints creak. "It's good to see you all again," he said.
"It's good to see you too, Hagrid." Harry grinned and punched him in the shoulder.
"We've missed you, Hagrid," said Hermione.
"Only we had to skip school this year because--" began Ron.
"I know," said Hagrid. "I'll bet your mum wasn't too thrilled."
"No, she wasn't," said Molly, "and she wasn't all that excited about their induction into the Order either. But what could she do?"
They waited until all the available members had trailed in. Mrs. Figg was absent, being a Squib and unable to Apparate or otherwise make her way magically to headquarters on such short notice. Nymphadora Tonks and Mad-Eye Moody were at St. Mungo's, still too ill to attend. Charlie Weasley, being in Romania, was beyond Apparition range. With Arthur's absence, that left fourteen people seated about the long table that had once belonged to the Blacks.
Professor Minerva McGonagall rapped her knuckles on the table, stilling the conversation, and said, "This meeting will now come to order." Following the death of Albus Dumbledore, the Order had been left bereft of a leader. As the new headmistress at Hogwarts, and given her take-charge, no-nonsense personality, Minerva had been the natural choice to follow in his footsteps.
"We have been called here tonight by Mrs. Molly Weasley. Molly, please explain the reason for this emergency meeting."
Molly told the group about the five elves that had shown up at her door and the story they had told, as well as her misgivings about it.
Minerva smiled. "I believe I've already met these... wild elves." She described their arrival at Hogwarts. Smiles broke out around the table.
"They do seem genuine," said Molly, "even down to their confusion about what is correct behaviour in our society. Still, I felt the Order should discuss this issue before we take any action."
"Quite right," said Minerva. "As you say, these wild elves are unknown to us. Can we trust them? They may have persuaded Dobby and Pokey, two trustworthy elves in the employ of Hogwarts, but does that mean we too should be persuaded?"
"The children and I discussed--" Molly began.
"Mum!" Ron groaned.
Molly sighed again, heavily. "The newest Order members and I discussed the possibility that Dobby and Pokey are under the Imperius curse."
"And the Imperius curse can be difficult to detect," noted Minerva, "especially when the victim lacks the strength to fight it. I am not aware of how elves react to the Imperius curse. They are generally so eager to obey that the issue does not come up. In any case, Molly, I believe what you want to discuss is how the trustworthiness of the elves can be determined?"
"That," agreed Molly, "and if it can't be determined, what shall we do then? Shall we go to Tom Riddle's old orphanage?"
"A question that will obviously have to wait until we have discussed the first: is there a way that we can guarantee the elves' trustworthiness?"
Elphias Doge, a tiny, eldery wizard, wheezed from the depths of his chair, "Obvious, isn't it? Give them Veritaserum."
"Indeed," said Molly. "What a shame that we no longer have a Potions Master working for the Order."
An awkward silence followed. Sturgis Podmore said, "Perhaps, then, there's another way we can procure Veritaserum." He turned to look at the man sitting next to him: Mundungus Fletcher, the Order's resident thief. Mundungus he did not react. His head was on his chin and he seemed to have drifted off.
Sturgis poked him. Mundungus stirred. "Eh? What?" He opened bleary, bloodshot eyes.
Sturgis leaned over and said loudly, "Can you get us Veritaserum?"
"Me? Why... I prob'ly could, for the right price. You can get anything, if you know the right, you know, channels." He nodded proudly.
"So what's being suggested here," noted Molly, looking at Mundungus with ill-concealed distaste, "Is that we use stolen Veritaserum against guests in my house."
"S'what it sounds like to me," Mundungus concurred with a nod of his head.
"Molly, this is a war," said Sturgis severely. "In times of war, unpleasant actions must be taken."
Minerva broke in. "I do believe we're overlooking the obvious here. We don't have a Potions Master in the Order, but a Potions Master is still employed at Hogwarts. While I would not entrust Mr. Slughorn with any sensitive information, if the headmistress of Hogwarts," she laid her hand upon her chest, "approached him and said she needed Veritaserum, for some unspecified purpose, I can't think that he would say no."
"If Veritaserum, stolen or not, could really give us the assurance we are looking for, I'd put aside my misgivings and use it," said Molly. "But as you all know, a powerful wizard can block its effects."
"Powerful wizard?" Bill Weasley chuckled. "Mum, I thought we were talking about house-elves!"
"Excuse me," Hermione said loudly, "but only two of them are house-elves. The other three are free elves."
"Yeah, but--"
"Elves have their own magic, don't forget," Hermione continued.
"Yes, well, cleaning spells, cooking spells, food service..." Sturgis waved a hand dismissively.
"Wizards take elves for granted, don't they?" Hermione ploughed on. "You think of them as a convenience that you can just ignore..."
"Hermione," Ron interrupted, "this is no time to talk about Spew."
"Ron, it's not Spew," Hermione retorted hotly, "it is S.P.E.W., the Society for the Protection of Elvish Welfare, and I am not talking about S.P.E.W. My point is that since wizards ignore house-elves and take them for granted, they may not know how magically powerful elves are."
"Hermione's right," said Harry. "Is there anyone here who knows whether elves can block Veritaserum?"
Silence ensued. "Yeah, that's what I thought," Harry said.
"So what we have concluded is that even if we do procure Veritaserum and use it on my guests, we still won't know if the elves are trustworthy or not," Molly pointed out. "After all, this is not a case of trying to get information. We already have the information; we just don't know if it's accurate. And if we give the elves Veritaserum and they stick to their story, we won't know if that's because they're telling the truth or because they've blocked the Veritaserum."
"But if the elves change their story, then we will know they are not trustworthy," Minerva added. "I do think it is a precaution we must take. I don't like it anymore than you do, Molly, but these are the times we live in. That said, if Veritaserum is limited in its effectiveness, are there any other ways that we have of testing the elves' trustworthiness?"
"Hmm... the Ministry of Magic keeps a registry of all house-elves," Kingsley said. "If we could have a look through it, we could see if these alleged free elves are actually bonded to a family. A Death Eater family."
Minerva stroked her chin. "If we found that the elves were bonded to a Death Eater family, that would certainly prove them untrustworthy. But if we didn't find them on the registry, it wouldn't prove that they are trustworthy."
"That's true," conceded Kingsley.
"It's the same thing as the Veritaserum," Molly complained.
"It would be something," said Sturgis.
Ron asked, "How are we going to tell if they're in the registry?"
"There is a photo of every bonded elf--" Kingsley began.
"Yeah but, they all look pretty much alike to me."
"Ron!" cried Hermione.
"Well they do. I can tell the boys from the girls, but that's about it."
"Ron has a point," said Harry.
"Oh, not you too!" cried Hermione.
"I mean," Harry continued, "I can recognize the ones I know well, like Dobby and Winky, but to look through a whole bunch of house-elf pictures... yeah, they do look a lot alike, and I'm not sure I could pick out one that I just met. Honestly, I think I'd have a hard time picking even Dobby out of a queue of house-elves, if he wasn't wearing his socks and hats."
"Perhaps," said Hestia, "What we need is some sort of recognition spell."
"The Hogwarts library is an excellent source of information," noted Dedalus Diggle. "Someone could go there and do some research."
"No," said Harry.
"I beg your pardon?" said Sturgis.
"How long is all that going to take? If the last Horcrux is in that orphanage, I need to get at it as soon as possible."
"I think Harry's right," said Hermione. "Also, how much stalling will the elves put up with? I think that in the end, we're just going to have to trust them."
"I really don't think that's wise," said Sturgis.
"If Dumbledore was here," Hagrid said, gazing into space with a misty look in his eyes, "I bet he would've trusted them."
"Yes, we all know what a trusting soul Dumbledore was," said Sturgis drily, "and look where it got him."
A couple of hissing intakes of breath were heard around the table. "All right," said Minerva, "we need to compromise." She turned towards Molly, Hermione, Harry and Ron, who were seated together. "How much of a delay can you live with? And how much of a delay do you think the elves will tolerate?"
"I don't want to chance more than a day," said Molly.
"One day? Honestly!" said Sturgis irritably.
Harry nodded. "I can live with a day."
Minerva nodded. "This is my suggestion then. I will see if I can procure Veritaserum for you within one day."
"I thought I was going to do that," Mundungus muttered, confused.
"Change of plans, Mundungus. Do try to pay attention. Molly, in this one day, you will also procure a photo of the elves and send it to Kingsley so he can attempt to match it against the registry."
"I don't know what pretext I'll use for that, but I'll try to come up with something," said Molly.
"With no recognition spell," noted Hestia.
"Unless somebody can come up with something by, say, tomorrow noon, I'm afraid Kingsley is going to have to eyeball those pictures," said Minerva.
"How many elves are in that registry?" asked Hestia with a touch of scepticism.
"A couple hundred, perhaps," replied Kingsley. "That's all right, I'll manage."
"And once the elves have passed both tests," said Minerva, "the mission will proceed. That's only reasonable, as we will have done all we can."
"So who's going to go on this mission?" asked Bill Weasley.
"It's going to be me, of course," said Harry stubbornly.
"And me," said Ron.
"And me," said Hermione.
"And they will of course have an older, more experienced member to go with them," added Molly. "Me."
"Right then, we seem to have recruitment taken care of," said Minerva. "Here's the plan. Tomorrow, Molly will photograph the elves and administer Veritaserum to them. She will transmit the photo to Kingsley, who will do the best he can with his present knowledge and house-elf-recognition skills, to determine if the elves are in the registry. If the Veritaserum results in no changes to the elves' story, and if Kingsley cannot find the elves in the registry, Molly and her charges will proceed with the mission at the orphanage. All in favour?"
Twelve people raised their hands.
"All against?"
Sturgis and Hestia raised their hands.
"Twelve to two in favour. Motion carried," Minerva concluded.
Footsteps were heard coming down the hall. The door opened and an orange-haired head poked through. "What did I miss?" asked Arthur Weasley.
"Everything, dear," said Molly with a little laugh. "But I'll explain."
***
After Molly pulled the door to, the four elves glanced awkwardly at each other, then quickly away when their eyes met.
Pokey broke the silence. "I think it's time I went to bed," he said in wood elf, then "Goodnight," in English. With a crack, he Disapparated. Dobby stared, startled, at the place where Pokey had been. He turned to the wood elves and said, "Goodnight then." Realizing they couldn't understand him, he waved. But that, he realized, was a human gesture, and he did not know if wood elves understood it. Finally, he flashed an embarrassed grin and Disapparated himself.
Pokey had drawn the sitting room curtains shut. The only light in the room came from a streetlamp shining through the gaps between the curtains. Dobby could dimly see Pokey bundled up in a blanket on one of the two sofas.
"You're going to sleep then?" he asked.
Pokey rolled slightly and gazed at him with one irate eye. "Dobby, I have been awake steadily since we left Hogwarts. I have been translating almost endlessly the whole time, I have had to run as I haven't run in thirty years to avoid being flattened by a broom... yes I'm going to sleep. I'm exhausted. Do you mind?"
"No but... I don't think I can sleep," Dobby said plaintively. "It's only about half past eight, and I'm so excited. Harry Potter is in this very house right now," he said happily, unaware that Harry was not in the house, but entering Order Headquarters at that very moment. "And we're going to help him fight He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named! How can I sleep?"
"Try," Pokey drawled. "For my sake, Dobby. Try."
"Oh... all right." Dobby hopped onto the other sofa, arranged the blankets, and lay still, staring up at the ceiling. He spent the next ten minutes entertaining himself by imagining himself at Harry Potter's side as they faced Death Eaters, he with an elf-sized sword, Harry Potter tall and regal by his side. Harry seemed to glow with an inner fire as he cut down one Death Eater after another with Gryffindor's sword.
After a time, Dobby became uncomfortable from lying still in one position. He shifted his weight and rearranged his blanket as silently as possible. He wanted to avoid disturbing Pokey, who seemed to be in an ill mood. But from the next sofa he heard, softly, "Dobby?"
Pokey's prominent ears were silhouetted against the light filtering through the curtains. "I can't sleep either."
"Oh, good!" Dobby swung himself into a seated position on the sofa. "I mean, now we can talk."
"Yes," said Pokey, pulling himself up and resting his back against the sofa arm. "I guess I do want to... I was thinking." In the dim light, Dobby saw Pokey's eyes flicker towards him, then gaze toward the curtains. "Your former masters... they were very bad, weren't they?"
Dobby squirmed to the end of the sofa that was closest to Pokey and leaned against the sofa arm. He told Pokey about the constant punishments, self-inflicted and otherwise, and about his former master's affiliation to Voldemort.
Pokey nodded. "I thought so. I didn't think you could be so disloyal otherwise. They do sound... quite horrible."
There was a pause, while Dobby contemplated the beatings, the burns, the times he'd shut his ears in the oven door. It seemed as if he were watching the torture of a different elf, a distant Dobby who had once been. "They were," he said simply. "You know," he added, "I never understood why they seemed to take so much satisfaction in... watching pain."
Pokey nodded. "It is a human thing, I think. I don't suppose any elf can understand it."
"And your master?" asked Dobby.
Pokey paused for such a while that Dobby wondered if he hadn't heard, but Pokey spoke just as Dobby was opening his mouth to repeat the question. "Well, he kidnapped me himself, you know. It was the style at the time. The breeding programme hadn't really got underway, and the Ministry of Magic hadn't yet put a stop to poaching in the forest. Well, there you are. He was looking for a young elf; he wanted a servant he could easily mould to his requirements. He took me."
"And? How did he treat you?" Dobby pressed.
"Not like yours did. I seldom had physical punishments. The threat was always there, though."
"And?" Dobby said again. "How did you feel about him?"
Pokey blew out a gust of air. "Oh, you know, how do you ever feel about them? They're there, they're a fact of life. I just... he was... I just..." Pokey stopped, shook his head, and turned to look at Dobby. A shaft of light caught his eyes and made them gleam like headlamps. "I was afraid of him," he said with sudden firmness. "I was terrified. All the time."
"Yes," said Dobby softly, knowingly.
"You know," said Pokey with a nod.
"Yes. Although," added Dobby thoughtfully, "There came a time when I... went beyond fear. It was just... they'd done everything they could. There was nothing left, after a while. Of course, there was always more pain, pain again, but what was that? Every day was already filled with pain." He shrugged. "The threat of pain didn't impress me anymore. I think, if I hadn't lost my fear, I never could have gone to warn Harry Potter of their plans."
"Oh! This is where the floating cake comes in, isn't it?" Pokey slapped the sofa arm. "Do tell!"
Dobby felt his ears burn, and was glad the room was dark. He told Pokey of the lengths he had gone to in his fruitless attempt to keep Harry safely out of Hogwarts."
"Oh, Dobby." Pokey shook his head.
"I was desperate. Desperate to keep Harry Potter safe. There was so little I could do--I couldn't even tell him what to watch out for! I did the only thing I could think of."
Pokey began to chuckle.
"Fine. Laugh. It wasn't funny for me. I knew what my master had planned."
Pokey stopped laughing. "How did you get through it, Dobby? Life with those... people. How did you survive?"
Dobby stared into space. "I don't know. I just did."
"Because you seem to have come through it in better shape than could be expected."
"You only know me now," Dobby pointed out. "I'm just so happy to be free. So happy, I love every minute of my life now. I never expected this. I thought I'd serve my family until I died."
"You know what was the worst part?" Pokey said suddenly. "The loneliness."
"Oh, if you're talking about that... I had imaginary friends," Dobby admitted. "That's one way I survived."
"I did too. How could you not? One elf per house." He shook his head. "I nearly went mad that first year. To go from a tribe of twenty-odd elves to me in a musty old house with one bad-tempered old human..."
"It must have been terrible," murmured Dobby. "At least I never had a tribe. I couldn't miss what I didn't have."
"Oh, don't kid yourself, Dobby, you were worse off," said Pokey. "At least I had been happy for a time. I had that. I had my memories. He never took my memories away."
"No, I don't think he'd have any reason to," mused Dobby. "So how did you get to Hogwarts?"
"My master died and left no heirs. Oh, there was a family looking to buy the house, and I would have come with the house, but they had Muggle relations. You know how much pull the pures still have at the Ministry of Magic. The Ministry decreed that I was to be bonded to Hogwarts. It was good for me. I finally had other elves for company." He yawned.
"Mmm... have the Hogwarts elves accepted you yet?" asked Dobby wryly.
Pokey burst into laughter. "Yes, it's been fifty years, so I think they've come around. Give them time, Dobby. They'll warm to you."
"Even though I'm a free elf?"
Pokey thought about that. "I suppose that could be a sticking point. Still... I think they will. You're a Hogwarts elf now." He yawned again, wider and longer. "Dobby, I'm glad we had this talk, but I've got to get some sleep. I'm so tired."
"Do you think you'll be able to sleep now?" asked Dobby.
"Oh yes. I think I needed that talk. I had to get some things off my chest, hear some things from you. Anyway. Yes, I think I can sleep now."
"Good night then," said Dobby.
"Good night." Pokey hunkered back down into his blanket. A moment later, Dobby softly said, "Pokey?"
"Mmm?"
"The wood elves are right, aren't they? Humans have a lot to answer for."
Pokey hesitated a moment. "Yes," he said. "I suppose they do."