With a bang, a full plate of lunch suddenly appeared on Kasenhis's desk.
He calmly took the plate, picked up a fork, and took a bite.
Ah~~ Yum~~
Chew chew chew chew chew chew...
Then Hermione began her tirade. "Professor, do you know? All the food on your plate was made by enslaved house-elves working in the Hogwarts kitchens!"
Kasenhis: Chew chew chew... chew chew chew...
Chew chew chew... chew chew chew...
"So? And?" Kasenhis said between chews.
"So… Professor, we're basically acting like slave owners—oppressing and exploiting the house-elves! We eat the food they make, we live in a castle where every inch is cleaned by them, and those poor creatures don't even get paid!" Hermione declared passionately.
"Hmm... so? Why do they need a salary?" Kasenhis sighed. He decided it was time to sit down and really argue this through with Hermione.
Before, when she'd only targeted Harry and Neville, he could stand aside and enjoy the spectacle.
But now that Hermione had turned her sights on him…
Well—better late than never!
It was time to charge. The Hermione standing before him was no longer the ordinary Hermione—this required a heavy counterattack!
"They've labored, so of course they deserve wages!" Hermione declared.
"...Hermione, do you know about the evolution of human productivity? I just gave a lecture on that to the seventh-years." Kasenhis countered.
"I know. Our upperclassmen told us about it," Hermione nodded.
"In the beginning, humans relied on slash-and-burn farming. Later, they learned animal husbandry—how to use beasts of burden. Like making oxen plow fields, donkeys turn mills, or hanging carrots in front of pigs to make them pull carts. They didn't get paid either, did they?" Kasenhis replied.
"They're animals! They're not people," Hermione shot back.
"Bobby."
With a pop, a house-elf appeared between them.
"Hermione, do you think this is human?"
Hermione looked at Bobby, swallowed hard—the situation clearly wasn't in her favor.
Still, she had enough dignity not to insist that the little house-elf in front of her was human.
"But it's a sentient being!" she argued.
Kasenhis awkwardly scratched his chin. "You can't call something a sentient being only because it can talk. In fact, there are plenty of beings with intelligence. Take cows, for instance—they even shed tears when they're slaughtered in abattoirs, yet no one seems to object to eating beef. Last I checked, you and all your friends liked medium rare."
Hermione's face tightened with frustration. At fourteen, her life experience clearly couldn't match Kasenhis's. But he wasn't done yet—obviously, he had no intention of letting her off the hook.
"And Hermione, you can't force your ideas onto the house-elves. That's arrogance—a deep kind of arrogance. House-elves don't think the way humans do. They don't like freedom or rights. Maybe I should put it more bluntly: they're basically all masochists. They like it that way."
"And now house-elves fill a service role in society. If you forcibly 'liberate' them, that service sector disappears. Who's going to fill the gap? Muggle-born wizards? Nonmagical Muggles?"
"Or alchemical golems? Unfortunately, they're not smart enough. Even if one day they are smart enough... to be honest, alchemical golems can't provide emotional value. That's part of why house-elves still have a place in those old pure-blood families."
"And if you do this, no one will thank you. Wizards will lose their servants. Some will even be forced into those service roles themselves. They'll resent you for it."
"And the house-elves, stripped of their social niche, will hate you for taking it from them—while masses of them become destabilizing elements on the fringes of society. The Ministry will inevitably launch a purge."
"And your methods have another problem—you're already affecting normal people. Maybe I should be even more blunt: the people you're affecting right now—Harry, Neville, Ron, and me—we're not the slave-owners of house-elves. The real masters are Dumbledore, the pure-blood families—people like Sirius, like the Slytherins, like Draco Malfoy. His family alone—besides Dobby—has four house-elves."
"You haven't gone to the real slave-owners to demand the elves' liberation. Instead, you've come to us, the bystanders. Forgive my sharpness, but that can be seen as cowardice—because you know perfectly well we won't actually strike back at you."
"But those Slytherin pure-bloods—both physically and mentally—are all the same. Well, except for Sirius, of course. Oh, yeah, the Deputy Headmistress, who is in charge of those House-elves, Menerva, is your role model, and you joined the Gryffindor house on the sole fact that Dumbledore graduated from it."
"What I mean is, judging from what you're doing right now, Hermione, it's not that you truly want to liberate the house-elves. What you actually want is to show off your overflowing compassion."
"To make others see your heartfelt sympathy and go, 'Wow! Hermione's so kind and caring, beautiful and righteous—Merlin reborn! We love her!'"
"But in reality, that's not how they'll see you. They'll think you're just... an emotionally clueless... idiot. Pardon my wording."
Kasenhis spoke between mouthfuls, answering casually.
Honestly, arguing against Hermione's so-called "liberation of house-elves" idea didn't even require brainpower.
Chomp, chomp, chomp, chomp...
Meanwhile, Hermione's face turned bright red as she stared at Kasenhis chewing away, then glanced at Harry and the others, who seemed to agree with him.
Noticing her expression, Kasenhis's face stiffened.
He suddenly had a bad feeling—don't tell him Hermione was about to burst into tears right here and now?
_________
(～￣▽￣)～Read 12 Chapters ahead:
Patreon: Dragonel