Dramione and The Goblet of Fire

Chapter 5 ~ S.P.E.W.

The next day I told them that it was in fact Malfoy on the way to breakfast... They weren't too happy about it at the fact that I was helping the "enemy", but they understood since school was my thing of course teachers were going to come to me when a student needs help. 

At merely 6pm I walk in and had a sheaf of parchment in one hand and a box whose contents rattled as I walked in the other. Crookshanks arched his back, purring. "Hello," I say, "I've just finished!" I smile "So have I!" Ron says triumphantly, throwing down his quill. I sit down, laid the things I was carrying in an empty armchair, and pulled Ron's predictions towards me. "Not going to have a very good month, are you?" I say sardonically as Crookshanks curled up in her lap. "Ah well, at least I'm forewarned," Ron yawns. "You seem to be drowning twice," I say. "Oh am I?" Ron says, peering down at his predictions. "I'd better change one of them to getting trampled by a rampaging hippogriff." I mock. "Don't you think it's a bit obvious you've made these up?" I say. "How dare you!" Ron says, in mock outrage. "We've been working like house-elves here!" I raise my eyebrows. "It's just an expression," said Ron hastily. Harry laid down his quill too, having just finished predicting his own death by decapitation. "What's in the box?" he asked, pointing at it. "Funny you should ask," I say, with a nasty look at Ron. I took off the lid to show them the contents. Inside were about fifty badges, all of different colors, but all bearing the same letters: S.P.E.W. "'Spew'?" Harry asks, picking up a badge and looking at it.

"What's this about?" Ron asks "Not spew," I say impatiently. "It's S-P-E-W. Stands for the Society for the Promotion of Elfish Welfare." I say confidently "Never heard of it," Ron says. "Well, of course you haven't," I say briskly, "I've only just started it." "Yeah?" said Ron in mild surprise. "How many members have you got?" "Well — if you two join — three," I say. "And you think we want to walk around wearing badges saying 'spew,' do you?" Ron says. "S-P-E-W!" I say hotly. "I was going to put Stop the Outrageous Abuse of Our Fellow Magical Creatures and Campaign for a Change in Their Legal Status — but it wouldn't fit. So that's the heading of our manifesto." She brandished the sheaf of parchment at them. "I've been researching it thoroughly in the library. Elf enslavement goes back centuries. I can't believe no one's done anything about it before now." "Hermione — open your ears," said Ron loudly. "They. Like. It. They like being enslaved!" He says. "Our short-term aims," I say, speaking even more loudly than Ron, and acting as though I hadn't heard a word, no one likes being a slave to another person "are to secure house-elves fair wages and working conditions. Our long term aims include changing the law about non-wand use, and trying to get an elf into the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures, because they're shockingly underrepresented." I say "And how do we do all this?" Harry asks. "We start by recruiting members," I say happily. "I thought two Sickles to join — that buys a badge — and the proceeds can fund our leaflet campaign. Your treasurer, Ron — I've got you a collecting tin upstairs — and Harry, your secretary, so you might want to write down everything I'm saying now, as a record of our first meeting." There was a pause in which I beamed at the pair of them, and Harry sat, torn between exasperation at Hermione and amusement at the look on Ron's face. The silence was broken, not by Ron, who in any case looked as though he was temporarily dumbstruck, but by a soft tap, tap on the window. Harry looks across the now empty common room and saw, illuminated by the moonlight, a snowy owl perched on the windowsill. "Hedwig!" he shouts, and he launches himself out of his chair and across the room to pull open the window. Hedwig flies inside, soars across the room, and lands on the table on top of Harry's predictions. "About time!" said Harry, hurrying after her. "She's got an answer!" Ron says excitedly, pointing at the grubby piece of parchment tied to Hedwig's leg. Harry hastily untied it and sat down to read, whereupon Hedwig fluttered onto his knee, hooting softly. "What does it say?" I ask breathlessly. Harry read it aloud:

Harry —

I'm flying north immediately. This news about your scar is

the latest in a series of strange rumors that have reached me