The next morning, Dobby fried up a breakfast of eggs, potatoes, tomatoes and mushrooms for everyone except the wood elves, who went out to the garden to forage.
"What is it that they eat?" Molly asked Pokey.
"I believe it's berries and garden slugs," replied Pokey in between bites of egg on toast.
"Oh my," said Molly. "How... interesting."
"Well no wonder," said Ron. "Who wouldn't turn down a fry-up for a few juicy slugs?" Hermione shot him a plaintive look, but didn't say anything.
"You should know, Ron," cracked Harry. "Better than anybody."
"Hey mate," Ron returned, "in my case, they were going the other way."
They had finished their breakfasts and cleared the table before the elves returned. Pat!k approached Pokey. "We need to go get that horrcr!k," he said. "Have they said anything about that?"
"Er," began Pokey, turning towards Pat!k. He let out a yelp. "Where's your jumper?" he cried in English, then caught himself and repeated the question in wood-elf. Pat!k was naked.
"Oops." Pat!k glanced down at himself. "We left them in the garden." He snapped his fingers. A maroon pile appeared on the floor, studded with small twigs and bits of grass.
"You take them off while you're outside?" cried Pokey.
"Of course we do," Pat!k replied as he tied his jumper back on toga-style. "We're only wearing them for the humans' benefit, and they really get in the way."
"I hope the neighbours can't see," remarked Pokey.
"I don't see what difference it makes," said Tadatada as she tied her sleeves together. "The garden's already full of gnomes and they're as naked as we are."
"Yes, it's hardly fair," said Pat!k.
"The gnomes aren't invited into the house, are they?" Pokey retorted. He approached Molly, who was standing by the sink. She flicked her wand and a sponge jumped into the soapy water, then onto the first dish, where it began scrubbing. "Pat!k wants to know when we're going to find the Horcrux," Pokey told Molly.
"Oh, right," she said. "We'd better discuss that. Hermione, I believe you tracked down Tom's orphanage?"
"Yes, Mrs. Weasley," replied Hermione. "During the summer, I spent a lot of time doing research on Tom Riddle. I found the orphanage, the Riddle house, the Gaunt house..."
"So you know where it is?"
"Yes I do."
"Is it still an orphanage? It hasn't been knocked down or turned into something else after all this time?"
"It's still an orphanage, yes."
"Well, I suppose we'd better go there, then," said Molly. "But not today."
"Not today?" cried Pat!k when Pokey translated this. "Do they understand the importance of this?"
"Look," Molly said, "We'll have to let the Muggles know before we go marching into their orphanage, won't we?"
"Dumbledore had an appointment when he went," Harry noted. "With Mrs. Cole, the lady who ran the orphanage."
"She certainly won't be there anymore," said Molly. "Being a Muggle, she'll have passed on. We'll have to get in touch with whoever is in charge there now."
"Will that mean using a felly-tone?" asked Ron.
"Telephone," corrected Hermione. "I can do that. I can make the arrangements. But what will I say?"
"That's another matter," said Molly. "We'll need to come up with a story."
"Something that will make sense to the Muggles," added Harry. "Like, I dunno, we're Tom's children..."
"Eww..." Hermione made a face.
"Well, we can't just tell them, excuse me, we think this room contains a piece of Tom's soul!" Harry responded.
"Exactly," said Molly. "We'll need to invent a plausible reason, and we'll need to make arrangements. All that takes time. So, we'll plan to go tomorrow, if the new head of the orphanage can see us then."
***
That evening, a group of disgruntled elves sat around the coffee table and gazed at the Horcrux remains.
"Completely wasted day," muttered Pat!k. "Completely."
"I wouldn't say that," Pokey returned cautiously. "They say that they have their story all straight now, and the appointment is ready for tomorrow. So something has been accomplished."
"Something," grunted Tadatada and kicked a table leg, making the Horcrux remains shiver. "But we spent most of the day sitting around, waiting and waiting."
"Or doing useless things," noted Pat!k irritably. "That thing in the afternoon, what was it called? Tee?"
"That's right, tea," said Pokey. "It's a tradition, you see. At a certain time in the afternoon, you have tea."
"A tradition. Like making copies of your guests," mused Tadatada.
"That... er, yes." Pokey looked away awkwardly. He had never heard of that tradition and felt uncomfortably sure that Molly had made it up. She wanted their photographs for some reason of her own, though what it was he did not know.
"I think she was lying," said Pat!k firmly. "That look she had. The shifting eye. Her eyes didn't shift at any other time."
"I noticed that too," Tadatada said. "But it must be a tradition if Pokey says it's a tradition."
Pokey sat silent. A house-elf keeps his family's secrets, he thought. The Wheezys were not his family, but he liked them and he thought Molly was a good woman. He would keep her secret, like a good house-elf, however much it pained him to violate the trust of these two.
Pat!k cast a deeply suspicious look at Pokey. "Yes, I would hardly expect her to lie, when our honesty is so important to her that she would feed us a potion to ensure it." His voice oozed with irony.
Pokey wanted to sink into the floor. He'd thought he'd experienced the ultimate in social awkwardness when Pat!k and Tadatada had refused to eat the human food, but that tea had far exceeded it.
Molly had explained the significance of tea, and they'd all sat at the kitchen table. This surprised Pokey a little, as he thought tea would be served in the sitting room. But then, he supposed, Molly must not have wanted to disturb the ex-Horcruxes on the coffee table.
Molly poured out the tea, and Ron passed the steaming hot cups around. "Careful," said Pokey hastily as Ron set the cups in front of Tadatada and Pat!k. "It's hot. You have to blow on it. Like this." He demonstrated with his own cup.
The wood elves simply stared into their cups doubtfully. "This ceremony hardly looks safe," Pat!k remarked.
"If they don't want to drink it, that's fine," Molly said hastily. "We can get them something else that's more to their taste."
"I think they're worried about burning themselves," Pokey explained.
"Oh, yes, I suppose it would take a bit of getting used to. What about juice?" she asked. "Ask them if they would prefer juice."
"Oh yes!" Tadatada perked up happily when asked. "A globe of yew juice would be lovely."
"Yew... juice?" Molly responded hesitantly when Pokey had reluctantly translated the request. "I'm... afraid we haven't got that on hand. We do have orange juice."
"They don't have yew juice," Pokey reported, "but they have a juice from another fruit. It's orange."
"Orange," repeated Tadatada doubtfully. "Orange juice."
"It's very good," Pokey wheedled.
"Let's give it a try, then," Pat!k said. "It won't be served hot, will it?"
"No, it will be cold. You needn't worry," said Pokey.
Molly placed two glasses of orange juice in front of Pat!k and Tadatada, while Dobby provided a tiny glass for Ch!kch!k.
When the glasses were halfway drained, Molly began asking peculiarly repetitive questions, like, "So you live in the middle of the forest, do you? Next to Hogwarts school of wizardry?"
The wood elves affirmed that they did. Molly asked Pat!k about certain elements of his vision, and Pat!k responded as expected. At that moment, Tadatada abruptly turned to Pokey and said fiercely, "Tell this woman that we have been honest with her from the start, and there was no need to put a truth-forcing potion into our drinks."
Pokey felt the blood drain from his face. "Surely not," he said. Pat!k, too, looked startled.
"I can feel it. I have a great deal of magical sensitivity. Go on, tell her!"
Pokey turned slowly to Molly. He considered saying something completely unrelated--the wood elves would never know the difference--but he found that he, too, wanted to know. "Mistress Wheezy," he said slowly, "Did you by any chance put Veritaserum in the wood elves' orange juice? Purely by accident, I'm sure," he hastily added, unable to stop his politeness reflex.
Molly went pink. "I'm... I'm very sorry," she stammered. "We had to be sure." She leapt to her feet, pulled out her wand and sent glasses of juice and half-full cups of tea soaring to the sink (ignoring Ron's protests of "Hey, I was still drinking that!"). "These are difficult times, you know, as if it's ever not difficult, really, in wizarding society." She was speaking very fast. "Death Eaters, Unforgivable Curses--so difficult to know who to trust." ("Mum!" cried Ron as plates of half-eaten little sandwiches and cakes leapt into the air and followed the cups.) "It's not that we didn't want to trust them, but it would have been foolish to do so without any proof, and I really, really do regret that we had to take such measures. Give Patuck and Tada my sincere apologies. Right, tea's over. Please excuse me." And she dashed out of the kitchen.
"Poor Mrs. Weasley," murmured Hermione sadly.
And that was tea.
"Yes, and it was important, wasn't it?" Pokey responded testily to Pat!k's comment. "She explained exactly why, and it was perfectly understandable. So can we have no further word on that?"
There were a few moments of silence. Tadatada stood up. "I'm going to our room," she said, and walked to the stairs.
A moment later, Pat!k leapt up. He gave Pokey a long look of regret. "Goodnight, Pokey," he said. For a moment, Pokey thought he was going to say something else, but then Pat!k abruptly turned away and followed his mate up the stairs.
Once they were gone, Pokey turned to Dobby and said, "You are uncharacteristically quiet. You didn't even ask me to translate."
Dobby smiled sadly. "What does it matter? I'm just glad this day is over, and I'm sure tomorrow will be much better."
Later that evening, Molly received a brief visit from Kingsley, who informed her that though he'd found Pokey and Dobby in the registry, as expected, he could not find any elves who looked quite like Patuck and Tada. He looked exhausted, his eyes red and squinty from two hours of peering at photos of house-elves.
"Thank you, Kingsley," Molly said, and rubbed her forehead.
"You look tired, Molly," said Kingsley.
Molly laughed. "I look tired? You should see yourself." She sighed. "I have a throbbing headache. I hated having to do that. Oh Kingsley, it was worse than I expected. Thank Merlin it's over. Tomorrow we'll go ahead with the mission."