Harry, Ron, Hermione, and I went up to the Owlery after breakfast on Sunday to send a letter to Percy, asking, as Sirius had suggested, whether he had seen Crouch lately. We used Hedwig, because it had been so long since she'd had a job.
When we had watched her fly out of sight through the Owlery window, we proceeded down to the kitchen to give Dobby his new socks. The house-elves gave us a very cheery welcome, bowing and curtsying and bustling around making tea again. Dobby was ecstatic about his present.
"Harry Potter is too good to Dobby!" he squeaked, wiping large tears out of his enormous eyes.
"You saved my life with that gillyweed, Dobby, you really did," said Harry.
"No chance of more of those eclairs, is there?" said Ron, who was looking around at the beaming and bowing house-elves.
"You've just had breakfast!" said Hermione irritably, but a great silver platter of eclairs was already zooming toward us, supported by four elves.
"We should get some stuff to send up to Snuffles," Harry muttered.
"Good idea," said Ron. "Give Pig something to do. You couldn't give us a bit of extra food, could you?" he said to the surrounding elves, and they bowed delightedly and hurried off to get some more.
"Dobby, where's Winky?" said Hermione, who was looking around.
"Winky is over there by the fire, miss," said Dobby quietly, his ears drooping slightly.
"Oh dear," said Hermione as she spotted Winky.
I looked over at the fireplace too, only to be greeted with a sore sight. Winky was sitting on the same stool as last time, but she had allowed herself to become so filthy that she was not immediately distinguishable from the smoke-blackened brick behind her. Her clothes were ragged and unwashed.
She was clutching a bottle of butterbeer and swaying slightly on her stool, staring into the fire. As we watched her, she gave an enormous hiccup.
"Winky is getting through six bottles a day now," Dobby whis- pered to Harry.
"Well, it's not strong, that stuff," Harry said.
But Dobby shook his head. " 'Tis strong for a house-elf, sir," he said.
Winky hiccuped again. The elves who had brought the eclairs gave her disapproving looks as they returned to work.
"Winky is pining, Harry Potter," Dobby whispered sadly. "Winky wants to go home. Winky still thinks Mr. Crouch is her master, sir, and nothing Dobby says will persuade her that Professor Dumbledore is her master now."
"Hey, Winky," said Harry, walking over to her, and bending down, "you don't know what Mr. Crouch might be up to, do you? Because he's stopped turning up to judge the Triwizard Tournament."
I rolled my eyes. Why would Harry ask that? She's clearly torn up about it why bring Crouch up again to her.
Winky's eyes flickered. Her enormous pupils focused on Harry. She swayed slightly again and then said, "M — Master is stopped — hic — coming?"
"Yeah," said Harry, "we haven't seen him since the first task. The Daily Prophet's saying he's ill."
Winky swayed some more, staring blurrily at Harry.
"Master — hic — ill?"
Her bottom lip began to tremble.
"But we're not sure if that's true," said Hermione quickly.
"Master is needing his — hic — Winky!" whimpered the elf.
"Master cannot — hic — manage — hic — all by himself. . . ."
YOU ARE READING
The Weasley of Slytherin: The Goblet of Fire
Fanfic(Y/n) Weasley, starting to feel disconnected from his family, is staring his fourth year at Hogwarts, and with that brings new adventures, new threats, and new feelings.
