“Well, we can’t just set her free,” Ron said, frowning.
“Allow me to be her charge,” Merlin suggested from the nearby shadows, an ominous note in his voice. “After all, she has apparently corrupted at least one of the elves in the employ of Hogwarts School. I should very much like to interrogate her about who else might be a part of her secret cabal.”
Harry shook his head. “I’ve considered that, Headmaster. And it’s a tempting idea. But our prisoner has already answered that question, at least as much as I am certain she ever intends to. According to her, all house elves are part of her cabal. And I have a sinking suspicion that she is telling the truth. At least, as far as she knows. No, I have another warden in mind for Miss Heddlebun.”
With that, Harry drew his wand from his pocket and flicked it lightly toward the sky. “Curatio,” he said quietly, firing a narrow pencil-beam of deep purple sparks high into the sky. The spell emitted an almost sub-audible chime, like anchor chains clattering in bottomless depths.
“You rang, sir,” a gratingly deep voice suddenly said from directly behind James. He knew the voice instantly, but couldn’t help jumping on the spot, startled by the ancient elf’s sudden, noiseless appearance.
“Kreacher,” Hermione said, understanding dawning on her.
“Thank you for coming so quickly, Kreacher,” Harry said, “I have a task for you, but it’s up to you whether you want to accept it or not.”
James turned to the tiny old elf and watched as a dozen extremely subtle expressions flitted, almost imperceptibly, across his stony, curmudgeon face. The elf was no more accustomed to the egalitarian attitudes of his master now than he was over two decades ago, when he had first come into Harry Potter’s employ. But he had at least learned that it was pointless to say so.
“Master’s wish is Kreacher’s command,” he said for possibly the millionth time, drawing upon a well of stubborn patience that James thought was likely as inexhaustible, and cold, as space itself.
Harry nodded, “And yet, according to this particular member of your kind,” he gestured toward the shape of Heddlebun, who sat hunched in the shadows, her knees clutched to her chest and her head lowered atop them. “You are part of a secret universal coalition of elven resistance, led, in part, by she herself.”
Kreacher’s head swiveled so slowly and ponderously that James thought he could hear the tendons of the elf’s neck creak. “Does she say so, Master,” he asked in his deep, monotone voice, although it wasn’t really a question.
“Indeed,” Harry replied, “She says that all members of your kind are part of a new elven uprising. Thus, my request—which is for you to take her back to Marble Arch, guard her, and provide her with some suitable service until a better plan presents itself—may place you in the uncomfortable position of having to decide between loyalties.”
James knew that Kreacher couldn’t possibly be a part of Heddlebun’s Elven Uprising. And yet, as the old house elf regarded his younger, female counterpart, his pinched, inscrutable face as stoic as an anvil, James had to wonder. Perhaps Kreacher had heard of the Uprising. Perhaps his loyalties were, if not in question, then at least sympathetic.
Instead of answering directly, Kreacher said, “Master is certain that Mistress will welcome this new development?”
“I am certain of no such thing,” Harry sighed. “But ‘Mistress’ has learned to be extremely resilient over the years. I will speak to her myself. But do, perhaps, try to keep our new guest a secret until morning? Let me break it to Ginny over tea.”
“So to be clear,” Hermione said carefully, turning from Heddlebun back to Kreacher. “Is there any truth to what she says?”
Kreacher arched one heavy brow at Hermione, apparently weighing whether he was required to answer her or not. Then, as if submitting to Harry’s unspoken urging, he raised his chin stiffly and said, “Kreacher’s allegiance is always and forever to Harry Potter and the house of Black.”
“Blimey, Harry,” Ron muttered, shaking his head, “you collect stray house elves the way Rose used to collect dogerpillars in the back garden.”
Without a word, Kreacher took custody of Heddlebun and vanished away with her, their departure marked only by a faint, airy pop.
Quietly, Hermione asked, “What will you do with her?”
Harry shrugged. “Keep her busy, if nothing else. Especially for elves, it would seem that idle hands really are the devil’s playthings.”
Hagrid tugged up the Gertrude’s anchor and shortly they were back underway, returning via the mysterious subterranean rivers that had brought them there.
Millie fell asleep on the bench next to James as the ship swooped and rocked its way back. He realized that part of the magic of the journey lie in the fact that whatever time you conserved on the way there, you earned back on the return trip, making the final trek seem tiresomely long and exhausting. He looked aside at Millie where she lay curled on the bench, rocking obliviously with the motion of the hull, her blonde hair partially obscuring her face. He was jealous of her fitful sleep, even if it was rooted in a sort of numb shock. Even now, her brow was creased faintly, her lips downturned in a worried frown.
“I was wrong,” she’d said to him after boarding the Gertrude again. “Wrong about all your adventures. They’re only fun in books.
Rose can have them from now on.”
James didn’t argue with her. He’d known she was wrong from the beginning. And yet the bland finality of her words still gave him a faint pang. He wanted to say he never asked for deadly and scary adventures, they just seemed to seek him out. But he knew there was no point. There was nothing to salvage with Millie. And she was better off away from him. Whatever it took.
Back at the moonpool, James said goodnight to Hagrid, his dad, aunt, and uncle, and then walked Millie through the eerily dark and silent corridors of the school until their paths parted.
She turned to him but didn’t look up at him. “Well.
Goodnight, James.”
“Goodbye, Millie,” he sighed.
She gave a sigh of her own and nodded.
A moment later, she was merely a shadow trudging tiredly away from him. A moment after that, she was gone around a corner.
James stood and stared at the empty corner for a minute. He had kissed Millie, and made her giggle, and held her hand, and shared long, intense gazes with her across classrooms and the library. But in the end, she couldn’t look him in the eye as they said goodbye. And that, James thought, too exhausted to feel particularly sad, was probably the story of most of life’s loves: brief moments of blazing romance, followed by two people standing over the spitting, cooling coals of their spent passion until one of them got uncomfortable enough to walk away.