The evening of the 7th of February 2020

18. The evening of the 7th of February 2020

Severus was bored. Hermione had been in the monthly meeting with the Board of Governors for the major part of the day, and now she was having her children at her quarters for the evening. And those children葉he combined gene pool of the Weasleys, the Grangers and whatever else was blended into them (goblins felt like a likely guess), was not conducive to offspring able to keep their mouths shut. Or even speak at a normal tone of voice. And they were going to stay with her overnight, which meant he was on his own. Not that it was anything new, since they always spent Friday night with her, leaving him on his own. A quick look around the office confirmed what he already knew: The rest of the portraits were asleep. But then again, they almost always were.

Was it the boredom of their half-lives? Depression, even? Were they closing out a reality where they were spectators rather than participants? Voyeurs of sorts. Phineas was a full fledged one at any rate, but Severus had the feeling that he had always enjoyed that particular proclivity and that little, if anything, had changed when he died and became a portrait. As it were, Severus didn't really want to know the exact details of Phineas' relationship with The Fat Lady.

And sleeping the days away was what he would do, eventually, wasn't it? When Hermione Weasley was no longer the Headmistress but a very old, sleeping lady a couple of portraits away from him, what would he have left then that was interesting enough to make him even want to stay awake? When the world around viewed the two of them as nothing more than old paintings of people whose stories could be found in the history books? Stories easy enough to forget, since they would still be told by Binns. And when the new Head of Hogwarts had no longer met either one of them in person, no one would even seek their advice. Why would they? The new Heads would turn to the newer portraits depicting those they once knew, and time was relentless. New politics, new people, new magic, and they揺e and Hermione謡ouldn't be able to compete, living in this stagnant pond of ancient knowledge.

The frames of his painting started to push in on him, and as he got to his feet, he had to fight to keep his breathing even. He had to get out. He chose the path of paintings that would lead him through the corridors of Hogwarts where he had patrolled all those sleepless nights when he had been alive.

All those nights when he had returned from meetings giddy and pumped up on adrenaline, he had paced and sometimes run through the corridors, trying to get rid of the excess energy and anxiety.

He made his way to the painting at the entrance of the kitchen. He could have a snack there, and it was a good spot to apprehend hungry students out after curfew. He ate his way through one of the apples on the painting as he watched the corridor, but no students showed up.

The last resort was the kitchen, so he slipped into the still life depicting the Great Hall prepared for a feast of some sort.

The only source of light in the kitchen was the fireplace where the glow from the embers threw an orange light over the stonewalls and oak furniture. Severus looked around. Empty. Hogwarts seemed abandoned this night.

And then came the mumbling.

"... knowing she is bad." The unknown speaker fell silent again and then he heard scraping.

Interesting. Something was happening, after all. And who was bad? And what had 'she' done? Severus sidled into the shadows in the painting he was currently standing in, just as a precaution, hoping to hear more.

"I is not even needing to be punishing me, after."

A house-elf, then. He had never noticed them much when alive. They had been comfortable to have around. They cooked and spared him the trouble of cleaning up after himself, giving him much needed time to devise plans so he could survive just a little bit longer. Not that it had done him much good in the end.

More scraping; it was the familiar sound of a mortar. A fleeting thought touched on the subject of things you ground for someone bad, and he felt his skin start prickling. This could be ugly. He hadn't expected that. Did house-elves off each other?

He backed deeper into the shadows as he saw the small silhouette of an elf standing by one of the workbenches.

"7.30 breakfast. 12 o'clock lunch. 8 o'clock gathering in Great Hall for dinner, signing of contracts and clothing," the elf recited, and then started to hum a little song. "I is free elf, I is. I is not needing to be punishing myself, after."

Then the elf started again on the reciting, and this time Severus shivered. This was not good.

"7.30 breakfast. 12 o'clock lunch. 5 o'clock coffee for Headmistress, 8 o'clock gathering in Great Hall for no signing of contracts and no clothing ceremony."

The grinding sound became more violent, and that humming ... Bellatrix had done that too. After using the Crucio curse to make a kill, she had hummed a similar tuneless little melody while confirming that the victims were well and truly dead.

A trickle of cold started to leak into his veins at the realisation: The elf was talking about Hermione. And it was insane.

The reciting started again.

"7.30 breakfast. 12 o'clock lunch. 5 o'clock nasty coffee for Headmistress, 8 o'clock gathering in Great Hall, for not a clothing ceremony, but crying over Headmistress who is dead."

And then the humming again while the sound of the grinding never ceased. And then the reciting once again.

"7.30 breakfast. 12 o'clock lunch. 5 o'clock nasty coffee for Headmistress, 8 o'clock gathering in Great Hall for not a clothing ceremony but crying over Headmistress instead. I is saving them, I is. I knows how bad free feels like. With Headmistress gone, they is still Hogwarts house-elves. Still belonging. And I is not even having to be punishing myself. I isn't. Headmistress is bad, so I is doing Hogwarts a good service."

A free elf. There had been two at Hogwarts. Dobby he remembered: the odd one out. The one that wanted freedom. Lucius had been livid when Potter had somehow managed to free him. Even more livid when the creature had moved all of his loyalty onto the brat.

But the other ... for a short while the memory hung suspended somewhere at the edges of his mind. Then it came back to him: The one from the Crouch household. Albus had taken it to Hogwarts. It had not adapted well.

Worse than they had thought, obviously.

And it was going to kill Hermione? But why?

He tried to calm himself and went through what he knew. The constant repetition of 'clothing ceremony' was significant.

And Hermione's work at the Ministry of Magic had been securing the rights of magical creatures, and had it not been some silly project of hers in that vein when she was at school? The word 'vomit' floated through his mind.

But it wasn't vomit, but S.P.E.W.

The woman was trying to set the house-elves free again. And she was on the verge of killing herself doing it.