Chapter 109: Shanshan Crying Sadly
"Dinner is over." In the dark hallway, Hermione Granger sneezed slightly and looked through the door at the auditorium, which was empty except for candles. There was obvious disappointment in her tone.
They had just spent too long at the Black Lake.
When they ran back in the rain, all the students had left the hall. Even foodies like Crabbe and Goyle, who were used to sitting from beginning to end, were nowhere to be seen; the dining table was tidy - even the plate of Muggle mint candies that was usually ignored had been removed.
"It's okay, I have my own way." Draco's tone did not sound very worried.
"What method?" she asked curiously, looking up at the boy who was busy working on her.
"Wait," he whispered, as he was busy tapping her with his wand, making her wet clothes dry again and her tangled hair fluffy again.
He was so close. So close that he could hold her tightly at any time - anywhere. Hermione's mind was in a mess, and her eyes blinked nervously and rapidly.
The rain seemed to amplify her senses. She could smell the scent of rain, and the damp wind brushed against her cheeks. Her body trembled slightly, not knowing whether it was from the cold weather or the turmoil in her heart.
Slowly, he slid the tip of his staff down the front and sides of her robes, and she could feel the dampness disappear just as she could feel the shiver it caused when it touched her body.
He was casting the most common drying and warming spells on her, but she felt that this boy with a nonchalant expression was casting some strange, scalding spell on her amidst the faint scent of cedar.
Her lips parted slightly, and her whole body burned hot—especially where the tip of his rod had touched her.
Points are connected into lines, and lines are connected into pieces.
However, this young man who burned her body and even her soul did this continuously with a natural expression, as if he was unaware of her tense body and trembling heart.
Then he extended his arm, not touching her body, but hovering around her, the tip of his staff delicately sliding across the back of her robe.
His face looked so calm, so focused. He was tracing her with the tip of his staff, not looking into her eyes but into her hair.
Hermione looked at his reddened ears, her breathing quickening. She bit her lip, lost in a moment of confusion. She felt like a rabbit trapped in a trap, and he was the trap itself.
Later, the trap finally let her go, and he began to deal with her long, curly hair that was as thick as a jungle.
This is the end of one kind of torture and the beginning of another.
At one moment, his cold fingertips accidentally brushed her cheek, picking up a small strand of her wet, curly hair. The place he touched quickly became hot, which reminded Hermione of the hot wrist he had held tightly in the rain just now.
The touch shook her to her core. She clutched her robes in her fingers, nervous as hell, but unable to refuse him.
At one moment, she strangely felt like a rabbit surrounded by a well-fed python, not knowing when he would gently wrap around her and swallow her in one gulp.
It may take a long time, or it may be the next second.
She knew her imagination ran wild.
She knew she had no way to deal with him. She had no way to deal with this boy who intended to treat her as a sister but was making vague and intimate gestures towards her.
She could only stand there in a daze as he drew closer and closer to her, smelling the cedar scent, welcoming him to do anything to her.
This was not good. This was terribly bad. She felt like she was running a fever.
By candlelight, she raised her eyes and looked at him quietly, suddenly noticing the few strands of hair still dripping on his forehead, and then the sincere gray eyes behind the hair.
So sincere, so pure and innocent.
Amidst the sound of her heartbeat, which had nowhere to rest, she murmured softly, "I can't even take care of myself, and yet I'm always worrying about others."
"What?" He was fiddling with her hair and didn't hear clearly, so he raised his eyelashes and asked her.
"Nothing." Hermione shook her head and exhaled.
She couldn't continue to be lost like this—it would never end well. She took out her wand and tried to imitate him by casting drying and warming spells on him, and in a pretentious manner ordered him, "Keep your head down."
Draco had just accomplished his grand goal of "keeping Hermione neat and tidy."
He rubbed the dry ends of her hair with satisfaction. When he heard her command, he lowered his wand, tilted his head, and let her take care of him obediently, his gray eyes meekly following her dodging eyes.
"Okay!" After a while, Hermione blushed and looked at his dry and new platinum hair with a sense of accomplishment. She couldn't help but touch his hair with her hand, and bravely looked him in the eye, "It's done."
"Thank you." He began to smile at her again, looking a little silly, with a little happy light in his eyes.
This is totally unlike the usually reserved and introverted boy, but rather a bit like a child who has eaten his favorite candy.
However, a child's smile may be sparkling and brilliant, but it will never make people blush and their hearts beat faster like this.
Looking at him, Hermione felt her ears burning. Before her heart could leap out of her throat, she asked him again, "Draco... what was that solution you just mentioned?"
"Oh, come with me." His smile widened a little, and seemed to have a sly meaning. Draco tentatively took her arm again. Seeing that she allowed him to hold it and did not refuse him, he smiled with satisfaction and said, "I'll take you to a fun place."
His rare mysterious look made Hermione feel puzzled and curious, so she suppressed her shyness and let him hold her hand as they walked down the stairs leading to the Hufflepuff common room and into the underground passage below the Great Hall.
The stone-paved underground corridor was spacious and bright, decorated with various pleasant paintings about food. Draco pulled her to a painting of a bowl of fruit, smiled at her mysteriously, and then stretched out his fingers to gently scratch a pear in the painting.
Hermione was surprised to find that the pear began to wriggle, giggle, and then gradually turned into a green doorknob.
"This is something new," she couldn't help but say.
Draco opened the door, suppressed his laughter, and made a gentlemanly gesture to the stunned Hermione: "Ladies first - welcome to the Hogwarts kitchen."
Hermione blushed again at his smile.
She coughed lightly, stepped through the door, and was immediately shocked by the spectacular sight inside: at least a hundred elves wearing tea towels printed with the Hogwarts crest were standing in an empty underground hall that was almost identical to the one upstairs. They were all smiling, bowing, and curtsying, surrounding her.
She looked at Draco and found him as comfortable as if he were back home. He leaned over familiarly and said something to a female house-elf. The elf curtsied to them, took two steps back, and ran away excitedly. A moment later, seven or eight house-elves hurried up, carrying several large silver trays:
A silver tray was filled with pies, sausages, baked potatoes, puddings and spring rolls of strange styles; another silver tray was filled with various cakes. Hermione saw her favorite avalanche strawberry cake and Draco's favorite chocolate cake; on another plate was a steaming large teapot with the aroma of black tea, as well as milk cups, juice cups, and even a large pot of pumpkin juice.
"Thank you, Wendy," Draco said gently. The house-elf was so happy to hear this that he bowed and retreated. The other elves also bowed and saluted, and one after another, they lined up and retreated to the adjacent kitchen.
"Have a seat," Draco said. He waited for Hermione to sit down first, then followed suit. He casually forked up a piece of the oddly shaped spring roll and studied it lazily for a long time before finally tasting a little.
"That's incredible!" Hermione took a sip of pumpkin juice, the steaming sensation awakening her taste buds. She glanced at Draco, "That explains a lot about your behavior."
"What behavior?"
"Why do you always have something to eat in your pocket?" Hermione shook her head and smiled in sudden realization. "I've always been curious about where you got those green apples. And George and Fred, I bet they must know this place too. They've been taking food from the common room a lot over the years. We always thought they were very powerful-"
"Oh, the house-elves are very welcoming. You may have discovered that it is the easiest thing to come here and order food. Your hands will be full in no time." Draco said complacently.
They quickly fed themselves. Hermione took a sip of tea and said hesitantly, "Actually, I've always been curious about the treatment of house-elves... I wanted to ask them..."
Draco raised an eyebrow—typical Hermione Granger-like truth-seeking behavior—never missing an opportunity for research.
"Okay. But make sure you're careful with the words and tone of your questions so as not to irritate them. I don't want to be turned away when I come to order food one day," he warned her.
"I'll see to that," Hermione said nervously and seriously.
He waved the elf, Wendy, over to answer Hermione's question. Wendy looked nervous and asked hurriedly, "Sir, is there anything you're not satisfied with?"
The other house-elves also poked their heads out from the kitchen door and looked at them from a distance, looking a little uneasy.
"No, this lady wants to ask some questions." Draco nodded towards Hermione.
So Wendy looked up timidly and looked at Hermione in confusion.
"You've treated us very well, Wendy." Hermione smiled at her, trying to soothe her. "I just want to know how you're paid and treated here. You know, the salary, vacation time, and things like that..."
Wendy didn't relax at all because of Hermione's soothing words.
Hearing words like "salary" and "compensation," a look of horror immediately appeared on her face. She opened her round, tennis-ball-sized eyes wide and shrieked, "Miss, we never need compensation! We are good elves, we are not that depraved!"
Hermione was taken aback by her reaction. Then, a flash of indignation appeared in her eyes. "You're telling me you've been cooking and cleaning for the entire castle for nothing?"
Wendy puffed out her chest, which was wrapped in a clean tea towel, nodded proudly, and said, "That's what a good house-elf should do!"
Hermione could see that the elf in front of her was very proud of his work.
"But this is wrong, this is slave labor." She murmured, and suddenly felt that everything she had just eaten was stuck in her throat.
Draco glanced at Hermione, and before the house-elf was frightened to death by her, he waved his hand gently, signaling Wendy to go down.
Wendy didn't look as happy as she had just been. She tried to maintain a respectful demeanor, curtsying impeccably to Hermione and Draco before retreating hesitantly, muttering discontentedly, "Sir, Madam, you're really giving Wendy a hard time! First, the house-elves were kicked out! And now the wages and salaries! This pure land of Hogwarts has been corrupted by evil..."
"Who was kicked out?" Hermione couldn't help but stop her and asked again.
"Oh, miss, it's a disgraceful elf. Wendy advises you, sir and miss, not to go into the kitchen to see her!" shrieked the elf, retreating in a panic.
This only aroused Hermione's curiosity. She turned to Draco and said, "I want to go and see."
"Okay, now that we're here." Draco yawned, nodded at her, stood up and followed her.
They walked through the long underground hall and came to the kitchen where the house-elves gathered. They found the "shameful elf" easily because there was a corner that was like a vacuum - completely isolated by the house-elves - where only two familiar figures sat together.
"Dobby?" Draco said in surprise.
"Winky?" It was Hermione's voice.
The two elves turned around at the same time, and it was Dobby and Winky.
Dobby, wearing a teapot coziness with the Golden Snitch embroidered on it and something like a child's football jersey, maintained a cheerful look; Winky, dressed neatly in a short jacket and a small skirt, sat on a stool by the fire, her face streaked with tears.
"Winky, are you working at Hogwarts now?" Hermione immediately grasped the point.
Winky seemed to recall the time when she was fired. Her lips trembled, and then she burst into tears, tears rolling out of her big brown eyes.
"Oh, my God—" Hermione said worriedly, "Winky, don't cry, tell me, what's wrong with you…"
"Dobby, I need an explanation. You asked me for a long vacation just to do this? To settle your friend?" Draco ignored Winky's crying and looked at Dobby.
Dobby's cheerful expression disappeared. He bowed hesitantly to Draco and looked at his young master anxiously, as if he was unsure whether what he was doing was right, and even more unsure whether he should punish himself by banging his head against the fireplace.
"Don't punish yourself." Draco reacted before it could move and said quickly, "I want to know why you didn't tell me or bring her to me directly."
Winky, howling, glanced up at him and said in an offended, shrill voice, "Mr. Crouch says the Malfoys are bad wizards! Very bad wizards!"
Dobby looked at Draco hesitantly, his eyes wide with fear, not knowing whether he needed to apologize on Winky's behalf or ease his guilt by hurting himself.
Hermione glanced at Draco worriedly, but found that he was not angry. Instead, he smiled coldly: "Well, that's a reasonable reason. Go on, Dobby, explain this to me clearly."
"It was Dobby who found the job for Winky! You know, little master, it's very difficult for a fired house-elf to find a new job. It's really very difficult—" Dobby said loudly.
After hearing this, Shanshan cried even louder.
"Winky doesn't want to come to the young master's place. She is prejudiced against the young master! Dobby persuaded her that there is a salary, holidays, and even a raise if she works well, but after hearing that, she became even more unhappy..." Dobby said in a shrill voice. When the house-elves in the kitchen heard this, they all looked away from them, as if they had heard something rude and offensive.
"Get a salary? Shanshan hasn't fallen to that level yet!" Shanshan's wet face suddenly became angry.
Hermione sighed, and she suddenly looked at Draco with an unexpected look, mixed with a complex emotion.
Draco - is a rare good master.
Draco glanced back at her innocently – what was wrong?
But Hermione said nothing more, she was too busy continuing to look at Dobby.
"Dobby kept thinking, where could there be room for the expelled elf? Finally, he thought of Hogwarts! Professor Dumbledore also said he was willing to pay a salary, but Winky didn't want to take it..." Dobby said happily. Winky let out another loud sob.
"Winky, you should be happy! Professor Dumbledore is much better than Mr. Crouch! Mr. Crouch was not nice to you, you didn't do anything wrong! He was so cruel to you..." Hermione tried to comfort her.
"Don't insult Mr. Crouch, miss!" Winky put her fingers on the hole in her hat and shrieked with tears in her eyes. "My poor Mr. Crouch, what will he do without Winky? He needs Winky's help..."
"What does he need your help with?" Draco asked suddenly, remembering the strange incident Dobby had mentioned during the holidays. "Looking after your little master?"
"The little master needs to be well... No, there is no little master!" Winky suddenly screamed, looking at Draco with the same panic eyes, as if he was a poisonous snake, "You are all bad wizards, very bad dark wizards, trying to frame Mr. Crouch!"
"He's not!" Hermione tried to correct her. "Winky, he's not—"
"Save your breath." Draco waved his hand and said to Hermione in a nonchalant manner, "House elves are very stubborn. You can't reason with them."
"It's your attitude that's the worst part," she said unconvincedly. "Why do you think they can't reason? You don't even have the patience to bother with the elves!"
"Okay, whatever you want." Draco sat aside nonchalantly, waved to Wendy, and asked her to make a new pot of hot tea, and specifically asked for Keemun black tea.
The elf nodded hurriedly, his face brightened up again - the offended anger of half an hour ago was gone - he knelt happily and left happily.
"Slave labor," she muttered, glaring at him.
"Didn't you see Wendy's expression?" he said lazily, raising an eyebrow as he studied her puffed-up face. "Is it happier when you're encouraging it to pursue its rights, or when I'm making demands?"
"Even if she seems happier while she's working, it doesn't mean it's right," Hermione said indignantly. "Without pay, it's slave labour!"
"Okay, I respect your opinion." Draco raised his hands in surrender and wisely chose to keep his mouth shut.
He knew that confronting Hermione Granger directly on the issue of house-elves' rights would not end well. To be honest, he was still quite intimidated by the idea of facing "an indignant Hermione" head-on.
Hermione thought he had given in, so she turned back triumphantly, intending to comfort Winky again, trying to make the grief-stricken elf realize that leaving Mr. Crouch was a good thing.
However, a quarter of an hour passed, and she gained nothing except a dry mouth. No matter how she persuaded, Winky would not respond. The elf just buried her sad face in her skirt and cried: "Poor Mr. Crouch... There is no Winky to help him anymore..."
"Hermione, come here and rest for a while." The boy over there said to her gently.
Hermione was a little annoyed. Because she found that Draco seemed to be right. He seemed to understand the psychological workings of house elves better than she did. She sighed, walked over angrily, sat in the chair next to him, and sulked.
"The tea is ready, want to have some to moisten your throat?" He fiddled with the tea set in front of him, with a hint of smile in his tone.
"I don't drink tea." She looked at the steam escaping from the teapot from the corner of her eye and said stubbornly, "That's tea made from the blood and tears of house elves. It's full of the smell of oppression."
"Actually, I made the tea. I didn't let them do it in the end," Draco said slowly, pouring tea into the empty cup in front of her. "You can drink it with confidence. There's absolutely no blood or tears of house-elf mixed in it. As for me, I personally don't think making tea for you is a form of oppression."
Hermione glanced at him secretly and found that he was smiling with a knowing look in his eyes.
It was as if he saw through her thirst, resentment and loss.
"Okay," she said, feeling more relaxed, "a drink then. Thanks."
"In fact, why not talk to the house-elf who's willing to communicate with you?" Draco suggested cheerfully, observing her as she sipped her hot tea. "Why don't you talk to Dobby? I think he's probably the only elf in this kitchen who won't get angry at your questions."
"Of course, of course!" Her eyes lit up, and she turned to Dobby, who was beaming. "You just said you have a salary, right? Can you tell me what your salary package is like?"
The nearby elves had been eavesdropping with great interest on Hermione's persuasion of Winky, but when she and Dobby started talking about "salary" and "holidays" again, they all turned their eyes away and moved away one after another, all of them acting as if they were afraid of being infected with dragon pox.
Dobby didn't pay attention to the actions of the other elves. He was busy saying to Hermione happily: "Dobby started with one Galleon a month and one day off a month -"
"Oh, that's too little!" Hermione did the math in her head and gave Draco a reproachful look.
Draco was daydreaming about Shanshan's words, "The young master needs to be treated well..." and didn't notice her look.
"No, the young master wanted to give Dobby more salary and vacation time! But Dobby couldn't do it! Dobby refused!" Dobby jumped up and explained in a panicked shriek, "Later, the young master still gave Dobby a raise. It's horrible! Dobby now makes ten Galleons a week and has one day off a week!"
"Oh—" Hermione said in surprise. Unexpectedly, Dobby's salary increase was quite fast.
"Dobby can't even use up all that salary and vacation time!" Dobby shuddered. "Young Master, this horrible practice of raising salaries must be stopped!"
"Oh, come on, Dobby, this salary and vacation time are nowhere near the average wage in the Muggle world..." Hermione retorted.
"That's enough, that's enough... no more... Dobby has to go see Winky..." Dobby seemed to not want to discuss this topic anymore, fearing that Draco would take the opportunity to increase his salary. The elf bowed to the two of them and hurriedly fled to the other end of the kitchen.
"You heard it too. It's not that I don't want to give it, it's that it doesn't want it." Draco shrugged and said, "Over the years, every time I give it a raise, it makes a scene."
"Oh, Dobby's thinking needs to be corrected urgently. Who would complain about having too much salary? Besides, I was blinded by Dobby's state before. I didn't know that most house-elves were treated so badly, with no salary, no holidays, and they are basically treated like slaves." Hermione looked at Dobby's back worriedly, glanced at the elves around who were watching them from afar, and said to Draco.
"It has always been like this." Draco said calmly, "I told you a long time ago. There is no fairness in the wizarding world, only order. House-elves serve wizards. This is the rule that has been passed down in the wizarding world since ancient times."
Hermione looked at him defiantly, slamming her empty glass on the table—startling the few house-elves who had been peeking at them worriedly—with something that might be called stubbornness in her eyes.
She didn't want to stay here any longer. Every sweet cake scent here turned into the suffocating smell of house-elf rights and oppression.
"I'm leaving." She stood up and walked quickly, her voice echoing in the empty underground hall. "Draco, I don't think this is right! I must do something to change this rule!"
"Of course you would," Draco muttered under his breath. He waved to the elves who were about to hand him cakes, whispered a "thank you", and hurried to catch up with the girl who was striding quickly.
"I don't hold out any hope for this..." He opened the hidden door behind the portrait for Hermione and said lightly, "How could a tradition that has lasted for thousands of years be changed overnight?"
"But you've changed!" Hermione stepped out the door and looked back at him. "Why are you willing to pay Dobby a salary?"
"I—" Draco began to speak but stopped.
He is an exception.
After going through so many things, he finally changed a little.
Even if he had changed, his reasons for being lenient towards Dobby were not simple - a mixture of gratitude, exploitation, and fear.
"Why don't you tell me? If you can do it, why can't others?" Hermione asked as a matter of course.
"You can't judge the entire group based on a few isolated cases." Draco choked and didn't directly answer her question. He said vexedly, "There's only one house-elf who wants a salary, and the rest of the house-elves regard the idea of 'getting a salary' as a disgrace. You've seen that, haven't you?"
Hermione frowned.
In a way, Draco was revealing to her some dark reality of the conventions she had always held. But she still felt suffocated and irritated - she didn't get the kind of unwavering support and encouragement she had expected from Draco.
He was throwing cold water on her. And, it was clear that he was not on her side.
"Do you support the enslavement of house-elves?" she asked him. "Which side are you on?"
"I'm not on any side," he said. "I respect everyone's perspective. But whose side do you think you're on? The house-elves'? Do you think they agree that you're on their side?"
Hermione was stunned by the question. She pursed her lips in thought—for a moment, it reminded Draco of Professor McGonagall when she was dealing with Longbottom's Transfiguration homework—and acted as if she was speechless but determined not to give up.
After walking up the stairs for a while, she suddenly said sternly, "Draco, you are quibbling. They think this way now because they don't understand that they are being oppressed!"
The essence of this matter is not that simple.
Why should wizards be born superior to humans? Why should house-elves be born slaves?
Hermione always felt that no race should be discriminated against, exploited, or enslaved.
Everyone should be equal, free, and respected. This was the philosophy promoted by the Muggle world where she grew up, and she believed it deeply and thought it was the social consensus.
However, she increasingly discovered that many wizards in the wizarding world did not seem to think this way.
The most terrifying thing is that even the enslaved house-elves have become accustomed to this oppression and even take it for granted.
What should I do? Hermione frowned in confusion, her mood suddenly dropping.
She stopped talking and walked upstairs silently. She thought hard and vowed to find a solution to help the house-elves and bring some justice to the wizarding world.