“It’s…” Rose breathed, ticking her eyes around the shocking sight within. “It’s all so… clean!”
It was true. For the first time in James’ memory—perhaps for the first time in forever—the interior of the hut was absolutely and utterly spotless. The wooden floor gleamed with polish. The rafters were scoured free of their customary cobwebs and layers of greasy, sooty dust. The dishes and cups were stacked and shining in the hutch. Even the ashes of the fireplace had been shoveled and swept, revealing the bare bricks beneath. Trife, Hagrid’s bullmastiff dog, sat up on the rug before the hearth, allowing his tongue to loll out in a happy, doggy grin.
James was about to ask what had happened to the hut when the answer, such as it was, revealed itself.
A pair of huge eyes opened beneath the table. Then, cautiously, silently, a house elf stepped out into the light. It was a female elf, and James recognized her immediately. The last time he had seen her had been in the living room of the Vandergriff’s house in Blackbrier Quoit.
She wore the glove that her former mistress had given her. It drooped loose on her thin arm, still stained with dried pudding.
“I’m sorry, Master Hagrid,” Heddlebun said in her thin, high voice. “I finished cleaning the barn already. So I came here instead. I do hope…” Her eyes flicked around the hut, and then worryingly back to Hagrid, “that you don’t mind?”
Hagrid’s plan, such as it was, turned out to be just as nuanced and subtle as one might expect from a half-giant who had once hidden a man-eating spider in a school cupboard, feeding it kitchen scraps.
“So,” Rose sighed heavily, her brow knitted as she sat at his huge table, a cup of tea long-since cooled before her, “you’re going to take your magical ship to the edge of London on the Thames, collect Norberta by night from Grawp and Prechka, bring her back in the ship’s hold, and then hide her in the barn until the circus leaves London or you can arrange a new home for her.”
“No!” Ralph said for the umpteenth time, his face brick-red with impatient incredulity. “How many times do I have to say that this is all completely daft?!”
Hagrid covered his eyes with both of his enormous, ham-like hands and plunked his elbows onto the table. “I knows,” he said miserably. “I knows it’s daft. But what’m I s’posed ter do?” He dropped his hands to the table and looked from Ralph to Rose to James.
“Norberta can’t stay in the mountains! She won’t! You heard the letter, same as me! Grawp and Prechka can’t keep an eye on ‘er, not with their own tribe dealin’ with Muggles a-comin’ onto their lands and all the stress o’ stayin’ hid or getting’ ready t’ fight! B’sides, the arrangement’s already made! They’ll be there with Norberta tomorrow night, in an old abandoned wharf, at ‘alf-past one in the mornin’!”
Rose nodded, merely confirming the details. “And you’ve got a house elf helping you for some reason, because she can…” She raised her eyebrows patiently.
“Soothe the savage beast,” Hagrid sighed, glancing aside at Heddlebun, who stood in the corner on her chair, her shoulders hunched, her bulging eyes alert, ticking from one speaker to the next.
“Heddlebun is a beast-speaker, Miss,” the elf offered, not for the first time. “Heddlebun learned it from her father, Bedderhum, who was in charge of our former master’s stables, back when they had stables.”
“So you can keep Norberta soothed and under control during the transfer,” Rose nodded again, considering. “Since she’ll be closer to the city, right close to the male dragon that she’s been sniffing out for the past month. You have the ability to keep a Norwegian Ridgeback, who’s in heat and smelling a male dragon, still and quiet within sight of a major Muggle city?”
Heddlebun nodded without hesitation. “It’s an elfish talent, Miss, and Heddlebun is the best at it of her kind.”
“Well, that certainly is convenient,” James huffed crossly, folding his arms over his chest.
“James!” Rose scolded. “Are you accusing this poor elf of lying?”
“No,” James sat up in his chair. “I’m accusing her of dumping a pudding all over Mrs. Vandergriff’s head, all because she lost her job to a Muggle! The lying bit is just a strong suspicion, not an accusation.”
A high, keening sound arose in the hut as James said this. He assumed that it was Hagrid’s kettle preparing to whistle, and then realized, with some dismay, that the noise was emanating from the elf herself where she stood in the shadows. She was holding back a mounting wail of misery, but only just barely. Her lips trembled with the effort and huge, shining tears welled in her eyes, glistening in the firelight.
“Oh, now look what yeh’ve done, James!” Hagrid reproached, reaching for the elf and patting her on one bone-thin shoulder, nearly knocking her over. “There, there, Heddlebun. He din’t mean it…”
“Of course I meant it!” James exclaimed. “I watched it happen! I barely stopped her from blaming it on one of the Muggle servants! Not that he didn’t deserve it, being a right obnoxious wazzock.”
“Well, maybe you should’ve let her!” Rose countered. “The poor thing had lost her whole reason for being! Whole generations of her family have served the Vandergriffs, only to be swept under the rug in favor of… of… paid help!”
“MmmmmmWAAAAAHHHH!!” Heddlebun suddenly burst out, no longer able to hold in her wretchedness. “Heddlebun is a BAD ELF! Heddlebun ruined mistress’ dress! Heddlebun was dismissed from service because she is a horrible, terrible, nasty, AWFUL house elf!”
To James’ increasing dismay, the elf lunged and grabbed Rose’s teacup, then smashed it over her own head. Even before the shards finished pattering off the walls, she swiped at James’ own cup and repeated the action, smashing it to bits against her forehead and spattering cold tea in every direction. She reached next for Hagrid’s stoneware mug, but Hagrid still had his fingers hooked into its handle.
The elf only accomplished yanking herself off the chair she’d been standing on and collapsing beneath the table. James winced at the knock-tumble of her body as it hit the plank floor. A moment later, her wails resumed, only faintly muffled.
“Heddlebun!” Rose cried, scrambling from her chair and ducking under the table. A moment later, she collected the elf into her arms, cradling the spindly body as if were a kitten, and retreated to the hearth, where she turned back, tilting a baleful, warning eye at James.
Not another word, her gaze commanded.
James crossed his arms again and frowned defiantly.
The elf continued to wail. “Put Heddlebun down! Heddlebun is a horrid creature! Heddlebun deserves punishment!”
“Wherever did she learn this?” Rose raised her voice over the elf’s wails, addressing the question to Hagrid. “Surely the Vandergriff’s never beat her?”
James shook his head disgustedly. “It’s an act,” he answered, half to himself, although he saw that Ralph had heard him. “Got to be.