The Adventures of a Girl Who Should Not Exist (Doctor Who/ Harry Potter Crossover)

Chapter Ten: House-Elves

Chapter Ten: House-Elves

I awoke nearly an hour later. The room was dark and pretty quiet, save for the slow and shallow breathing of my new roommates.

I reached for my trunk, snapped open the latches, and grabbed a stack of textbooks.

"Might as well re-read them a few times," I thought.

It took me less than 30 minutes to finish them all. I figured that magic would probably be much more about practice than theory, anyway. I sat there looking out the window, down at the swooping, majestic castle for as long as my two-minute attention span could possibly allow.

Then, as quietly as I could, I slid open the compartment door and crept across the room.

It was just the three of us; two of the beds were still open. I wondered if they'd get filled later in the year as I tiptoed down the stairwell to the main common room.

I stood in the center of the awe-inspiring common room for 8 seconds 34 milliseconds, looking up at the domed ceiling and around at the views and more importantly, books. I grabbed a pile of random ones and ascended more stairs to the reading area.

The fire was just a pile of smoldering embers now, and I saw a couple older students asleep, faces planted on books or papers, in the dying light.

I curled up in a particularly deep chair near the fire and read a few books.

When I finished the stack of books and looked up, a small, dirty-looking creature was dusting a golden book near my head.

"Hi There!" I said quietly.

The creature jumped and stared down at me in shock.

"Dusty thinks that you, miss, should be asleep! A first year, as well!" the creature tutted.

"I never sleep much... I'm used to it," I said to comfort the rather pathetic creature. On closer inspection, it was wearing an old towel with an emblem stamped on the shoulder. "Your name is Dusty, then?" I asked as politely as possible.

The short creature inhaled sharply and jumped away from me.

"Slave race, I'd guess," I thought to myself. "Like the Ood, but less... Squid."

I had half a mind to go looking for Dusty, so I stood up. I started toward the stairs down then did a double take.

The place was swarming with creatures like Dusty. I bent down to the nearest one.

"Answer me please," I said in a commanding but gentle (I hoped) tone. "What are you called?"

"I is called Paty. I is a House Elf!" it said, almost proudly, pulling forward a bunch of cloth by its shoulder. I noticed that it was the same crest stamped there as it was on my letter.

"A house elf?" I asked. "Do you work here? Do you want some clean clothes?"

The elf recoiled in horror and shrieked.

"NOT CLOTHES!" It cried.

All the other house elves in the room looked to me. They gave me varying glances, some terror, some disgust. They all started to pop out of existance until the room was empty but for the drowsy Ravenclaws. A few had awakened and one near me turned to me and said,

"Did you REALLY just offer a House Elf clothes?"

"Um, yes, I did. Why, is there some significance to that?" I asked.

Ravenclaws all around the room chuckled.