Work Text:
Introduction:
There is something fundamentally wrong with slavery. The idea of owning another sentient creature is disgusting and has been proven to be wrong so many times throughout history. Given this, I decided to investigate the House Elf Bond.
My research did not really start as academically as I normally like. Given the nature of the bond and Wix society's single-minded acceptance of it as the natural order, I knew no books would hold the answers I seek.
Methodology:
My only avenue for research was the source of the problem. The House Elves themselves. However, here I encountered my first obstacle. No house elf that was bonded to another would speak with me about the nature of House Elves. Even when Harry James Potter ordered Kreature the House Elf to assist, Kreature was somehow able to avoid giving me any answers other than “Yoos is not my master, I cannot helps yoos.”
The secondary issue was my staunch refusal to own a sentient being.
I decided to remedy this by purchasing a house elf's bond and then immediately freeing the elf. Only for the elf to immediately pop away and start seeking out a new family. I was not deterred, and I tried six more times before one stayed. A lovely old elleth named Missy.
A Free Elf:
Missy decided she would stay and be my assistant and has been helping me with my research for many years. Not about elves, she remained quite tight lipped about that other than to inform me that the elves that left went to seek new masters and that it would be unlikely I would ever get another to stay like she did.
Instead Missy has been invaluable to other avenues of research, helping me organize my thoughts and preserve tomes of knowledge that might have turned to dust at the slightest touch of Wix magic.
The History Of Elves:
Recently, Missy came to me to tell me why she stayed. She informed me that she couldn’t have told me sooner as it was interwoven with the Great Shame, and she was not sure until recently if I could be trusted.
The tale goes back to the 14th century. Back then House Elves were free, more like brownies from the Muggle story books. They would flitter from house to house cleaning and cooking for Muggles and Wix alike. They enjoyed their little domestic life, and the freedom to go anywhere and see anything.
See, House Elves have magic far more powerful than anything Wix kind can muster. They are capable of magicks that most Wix could not even comprehend, let alone recreate. And this was fine for a long time.
The Dark Lord Mipsy
Then, the most terrible dark wizard of all time came to be. I use the phrase wizard loosely, as it was not a Wix at all. Indeed, the most evil overlord the world has ever seen was The Dark Lord Mipsy.
Mipsy believed wholeheartedly that all other life was beneath that of the House Elves. He did not want to clean or cook for others like so many House Elves enjoyed, instead he desired to control everyone. And control everyone he did.
Mipsy was responsible for a cataclysmic event. By the time he was taken down by a conglomeration of a thousand house elves working in unison, 90% of all magical life had been wiped out by his rages. Missy has refused to elaborate on everything that The Dark Lord Mipsy did, but said it was far more terrible than anything that has been seen in living Wix memory.
The Ritual:
The surviving House Elves got together to discuss The Dark Lord Mipsy. It was decided that the risk of a future such Dark Lord was too high, with their race being so magically powerful. So they did a ritual to bind themselves to Wix kind. One that also hid The Great Shame from human memory in order to spare their honor, but kept the memory alive in the very soul of House Elves so what Missy called “The Great Shame” could never be forgotten.
The binding prevented any Bound House Elf from telling the secrets so that their Shame could not be ordered out of them, but the memory compelled any fertile, free house elf to seek a new family to bind with immediately.
Missy informed me that she was only able to stay with me because of an accident in her youth that prevented her from having children. That if there had been even a possibility of little Elflings she, too, would have gone in search of a new bond.
Of Other “Free” Elves:
When I asked her about Dobby and Winky she informed me that it was well known that Dobby the House Elf had bonded himself to Harry James Potter. That a large part of the scorn he faced was not about the pay but rather about his staunch refusal to tell his master the truth. When pressed he would always say “The Great Master Harry Potter orders mes to not save The Great Master Harry Potter. I shall dos as the Great Master Harry Potter says.”
She further hypothesizes that Dobby’s bond with Harry James Potter was frayed by the lack of normal master-elf interaction which is the only reason Dobby was able to disobey the order.
She theorizes that Dobby was able to snap the fraying bond, becoming truly free to save Harry James Potter’s life. However, this also came at the cost of his own life as the knife of Bellatrix Druella Lestrange née-Black struck him in the back.
Missy was uncertain if Dobby would have been forced to rebond after snapping the bond, as it was something of a first in House Elf history. Normally a House Elf can subvert a bond or an order by working around it. However, outright disobeying an order would require a type of severing that she is uncertain what the effects would have been.
A worse study is Winky the House Elf. Missy informed me that a huge part of Winky’s butterbeer problem was likely informed by the fact that she hadn’t been compelled to find a new family. Winky was likely mourning, finding out that she was barren and would never have a family of her own, just as she lost her Wix family.
Unintended Consequences:
Unfortunately, while the House Elves had good intentions there were unforeseen consequences of them hiding The Great Shame.
Mipsy had killed 90% of all magicals, this included the Wix. Before The Dark Lord Mipsy there was maybe a Wix for every ten villages. This allowed them to have their own lives while also tending to emergencies nearby. After the Dark Lord Mipsy there was only one for every one hundred villages.
Further, the free housekeeping the muggles had seen from the elves that kept them healthy with good cleanliness stopped, and the House Elves were now bound to one master, to one place.
Neither Muggles nor Wix could even remember what had happened to cause the sudden plummet of magic. The Muggles, being driven to their wits end, seeing loved ones dying where they used to live, seeing the Wix not be there when they were needed most, decided that the Wix were hoarding magic and that they were cursing their families with bad luck. This is what led to the Witch Trials.
Meanwhile, as the Muggles started burning people at the stake the Wix became concerned. Is this what happened to their missing kin? Were the Muggles so powerful that they were able to kill so many, so quickly, without the Wix even noticing? Fearfully, the Wix came together and established the Statute of Secrecy.
Conclusion:
The House Elves around today have willingly submitted themselves under the Wix rule in order to pay retribution for a crime that was never theirs, out of fear of the crime happening again. Yet the resolution can’t be to straight up free them as their own magicks compel them to find a new master to bind to.
Instead it is this researcher's opinion that we need to find better ways to treat the House Elves, form laws and regulations to ensure they can enjoy as much freedom as they are comfortable taking while helping them prevent any future Dark Elf Lords.
- Unspeakable Undesirable
Hermione frowned reading over her draft. No, this would never do. The Wix were more likely to organize a massacre of house-elves than to assist with their spiritual healing.
After all, they had turned on Harry year after year, incident after incident, like vicious wolves in sheeple clothing.
No, they would take one look and declare the innocent house-elves who had stopped the evil Mipsy as the responsible party.
Just as they had turned on Harry when he lost 150 points. When he could talk to snakes. When his name came from that stupid slavery goblet- a relic from the time where people were considered chattel . Or when he proclaimed Voldemort back. Or when Voldemort's people proclaimed that Harry had been the one to kill Dumbledore.
No, the Wix had a history of doing terrible things to their saviours.
She sighed. “Missy?” She called out.
A slight pop echoed through the quiet room as her assistant appeared at her side.
“Yes Miss Undesirable?” Missy asked politely, having gotten a grasp on the human grammar structure many years prior.
“I made another attempt, but it’s still too much. Can you?” Hermione said, eyes full of tears.
“Yes Miss Undesirable.” Missy bobbed her head and snapped her fingers.
A heavy sort of magic fell over the document, one that ensured that the words blurred to all but those already in the know.
She hated this. Hated having to make knowledge unknowable . Having to leave a race of slaves unsaved.
Hands shaking and with tears running down her face, she filed the document in her dinged little filing cabinet. Far into the back, where not even she dared look back at what had been stored.
“I swear to you Missy, and to myself, that one day...” She took a shuddering breath. “One day I will find a way to improve the lot of the house elf. I just...” She dabbed her eyes with a handkerchief that Missy offered. “I just need to figure out the right amount to share.”
Missy pat her shoulder. “Miss Undesirable carries many undesirable secrets. If there is a way she will find it.”
Hermione hugged the little elf closer to her, even with the heavy weight of unreadable words filed in the deepest corner of her cabinet.