Silvermade || Draco Malfoy x Reader

Chapter 79 - The Elves, The Hate Mail, and The Letter

On Sunday, I was up early and out of the Slytherin Common Room to join Harry, Ron, and Hermione at the Owlery after breakfast to send a letter to Percy, asking if he's seen Crouch lately. Ron was understandably not very positive about it, knowing how Percy is. After that, the four of us headed to the Hogwarts Kitchens to visit Dobby and give him his present.

The house-elves were their usual cheery selves, and immediately busied themselves with preparing tea and cakes for us. Dobby was absolutely ecstatic for his socks.

"Everyone is too good to Dobby!" The elf squeaked after he'd open up the box we gave him, which contained socks of the most outrageous designs we could find at Gladrags.

"You saved my life with that Gillyweed, Dobby." Harry said sincerely.

"Can I have more eclairs?" Ron suddenly asked the house elves who were still beaming at us.

"You just had breakfast!" Hermione said irritably, but another silver platter of eclairs were sent our way by four house elves.

"Maybe we can send some of that to Snuffles." I said, remembering that he'd be living off rats again.

"That's a great idea." Harry said, then turned to the house elves. "Could you give us a bit of extra food?"

They all nodded eagerly and hurried off to get our request.

"Dobby, where's Winky?" Hermione asked as she looked around.

"Winky is over there, Miss." Dobby said quietly as he pointed by the fireplace.

We all looked over and saw Winky sitting on the same stool as last time, but she had become so filthy due to all the smoke from the fireplace, although it was quite evident that she didn't care. Her clothes, the same ones we've seen before, were all ragged and unwashed. She was clutching a bottle of Butterbeer as she swayed slightly on the stool, staring solemnly into the fire.

"Winky is drinking six bottles a day now." Dobby whispered.

"Butterbeer isn't really that strong." Harry said.

Dobby, however, shook his head. "It is very strong for a house elf, Sir."

Winky gave an enormous hiccup, and the elves who were lingering around us all shot her disapproving looks as they returned to work.

"Winky wants to go home. Winky still thinks that Mr. Crouch is her master, and nothing Dobby says will persuade her that Professor Dumbledore is her master now." Dobby said, sounding sad and desperate at the same time.

We walked over to Winky, although Ron was quite reluctant to leave the table filled with food.

Harry bent down to the elf's eye level.

"Hey Winky, you don't know what Mr. Crouch might be up to, do you? He's stopped turning up to judge the Triwizard Tournament."

Winky's huge eyes flickered, speaking in between hiccups. "My...my master has — has stopped coming?"

"Yeah." Harry nodded. "We haven't seen him since the First Task. The Daily Prophet says he's ill."

Winky swayed on her stool, and her bottom lip began to quiver. "Master...is — is ill?"

"We're not really sure if that's true." Hermione quickly said.