A Little Christmas Magic

Chapter 3 ~ Elves

Snape pushed open the door to the cabin to find a barracks-style arrangement of sixty “Little Bear” sized beds, separated by tall wooden lockers. In each bed lay twitching. rolling, moaning little bundles of blankets.

The walls were covered in garish Christmas decorations of course, and over a couple of the beds were portraits that boasted “Elf of the Month.”

Then he breathed in . . . and gagged.

”Shit!” the Potions master hissed, pulling his cloak up over his nose in an attempt to protect it from the stench.

He was absolutely right. Next to each little bed was a bucket, full of the sick elves’ muck.

Snape quickly whipped out his wand and applied a very heavy freshening spell. He’d almost lost his cookies. But his outcry had roused the elves. They all sat up, looked at him and let out a collective scream, which quickly disintegrated into individual cries of shrill, abject terror.

”It’s the Reaper! He’s come for us! Arrrgh! Scramble!”

Snape watched in amazement as the elves, who were still dressed like elves, in little Christmas vests, hats and curly toed shoes, leapt out of their beds and tried to hide. Some dove into their closets, others dove under their beds, one or two even tried to hide under the shite-filled buckets. It was pure bedlam.

“I am NOT the Reaper!” Snape bellowed at the scrambling creatures. “My name is Severus Snape and I’m here to see if I can help you! So come out!”

All was silent for a moment as the elves all cringed in their hiding places.

“Death’s a shrewd one. Don’t listen to him. He’s trying to get a bead on us!” a muffled voice called from a nearby closet. “His scythe is probably behind his back!”

Frowning, Snape strode up to the closet and ripped open the door, looking down on a terrified elf. It held a large red Christmas ornament in front of itself for protection.

”If I were the Reaper, hiding in a closet wouldn’t save you,” Snape snarled, grabbing the elf by the shoulder and yanking him out. He held the struggling little man up in front of him, curly toed shoes dangling. “I’m a professor . . . a master of Potions. I came here to bring Father Christmas assistance. House elves to finish making toys. So kindly calm down.”

Snape set the elf on the floor.

“Blinky! Are you still alive?” a voice from under one of the beds called out.

”Yes, I’m still breathing. I don’t think he’s the Reaper. Come out,” the elf said, looking up at Snape’s stone-like expression. “He just looks like him.”

Slowly, the elves came out of their hiding places, looking at the wizard furtively, ready to dive for cover again if he made any sudden moves.

Snape frowned as the stench from the buckets began to rise again.

“Dear gods,” he hissed. “It smells like a reindeer died in here. Don’t you elves have indoor plumbing?”

The elf next to him looked apologetic.

”Well, we had a septic tank, but it kept filling up and overflowing. Mr. Nicholas got tired of digging through the permafrost and pumping it out. So he took out the toilets and now we use buckets. We’ve been too sick to take them to the fill. It’s rather far. Mrs. Claus has been dumping them for us, and she hasn’t come by for the second run yet,” he said.

“No wonder you are all sick. Breathing in all the bacteria from your feces isn’t conducive to recovery,” Snape observed. “I’ll take care of this. Back in bed. All of you.”

The elves climbed back into bed, except for the ones who had tried to hide under their buckets. They were covered head to curly toes with excrement. Snape Scourgified them.

The little workers watched in amazement as Snape moved from bed to bed, using his want to first Scourgify the buckets, then casting a spell to make them self-cleaning. That should make Mrs. Claus’ life a little bit easier. Imagine, dumping elf shit several times a day. The poor woman.

As he worked, Snape looked at the elves. They were multicultural. White, black, brown, yellow and there was even a purplish one. But, underneath the colors, all were rather green around the gills. At least they had stopped moaning. Suddenly, he heard the sound of retching behind him and spun. An elf was vomiting into a bucket. Then he heard a wet, squelching, spraying sound and turn to see an elf with his trousers around his ankles, seated on a bucket. Then they all started leaping out of the beds and to the buckets, running at both ends.

”This is going to take longer than I thought,” the Potions master sighed as the elves retched, gagged and grunted all around him.

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The House Elves were all seated at the long work benches, happily hammering, twisting, painting and gluing away as Mrs. Claus and Hermione watched. Mrs. Claus was amazed at how fast they caught on.

“My, they are handy little creatures. Each one can do the work of five elves,” the old woman stated. “How much are they paid at Hogwarts?”

”Oh, they don’t work for pay,” Hermione replied. Mrs. Claus looked at her.

”No? How are they reimbursed then? Barter? Food?”

“Ah, no,” Hermione said uncomfortably. Actually, House Elves were little more than slaves, even if they were happy to do what they did. Right now, she felt a little like a slave master.

Mrs. Claus’ eyes narrowed. As the wife of Father Christmas, she had the innate ability to tell when someone was trying to dodge telling the truth. It was part of the “Naughty/Nice” thing.

”What are you hiding, Hermione? Tell me about the elves right now and the truth. I’ll know if you’re being naughty,” she said in a no-nonsense voice.

Hermione blinked at the old woman.

Naughty?

“All right,” Hermione said with a sigh. “But let’s sit down first.”

The two women walked over to a table covered with a bright Christmasy tablecloth and sat down. Mrs. Claus looked at Hermione attentively.

“Well, House Elves work for free, Mrs. Claus. They are bound to serve a particular home or family and remain loyal to that home or family for the rest of their lives. These House Elves are bound to our school, and are actually doing service for the school,” Hermione explained, trying to make it sound as reasonable as possible.

She still disliked House Elf enslavement, but had given up on trying to do anything about it because the Elves wouldn’t cooperate and clung to their lives of servitude for the most part.

”Bound? What do you mean bound?”

”Magic’s involved. You see, House elves in the wild would often enter human habitations and settle there, doing work humans would do because they liked it. They would do it in hiding,” Hermione said.

”That doesn’t sound too bad at all,” Mrs. Claus said. “I certainly could use some help around here.”

Hermione nodded.

”Yes, but House Elves were very sensitive and if they thought they were under appreciated or being disrespected, they became dangerous and destructive. They would play horrible pranks on humans, taking their babies and leaving changlings, destroying crops, hitting people with elf-shot which caused a terrible, stinging pain and committing other terrible acts. At first, people tried exterminating them but that only served to make them war-like and cunning. Then magical means were used to bind them, but leaving them with the inclination to work for humans. The first House Elves were surly, but breeding was controlled, allowing only the more timid and servile Elves to bear young. Eventually, most of the negative traits were bred out and the House Elves became domesticated, like dogs but far more intelligent. I believe they are just as intelligent as we are. They can do very powerful magic and to be honest, if they were allowed to have wands, they could be much more powerful than we are. It’s a crime for a House Elf to even touch a wand.”

“So, House Elves are slaves,” Mrs. Claus replied, cutting right to the wick.

“Yes, you can say that,” Hermione agreed, her eyes a bit wet.

“Are they ever allowed to go free?” Mrs. Claus inquired.

“Yes. To free a House Elf, you have to give it clothes. The Hogwarts Elves consider it an insult if someone tries to free them. I know that firsthand,” Hermione said wistfully as she remembered how all the House Elves but Dobby refused to clean the Gryffindor common room because she kept hiding clothes there, hoping to free them when she was a student.

“Clothes? How strange,” Mrs. Claus mused.

”Yes. The first incident of House Elves leaving a human habitation was recorded centuries ago, before they were en . . . er . . . bound. There was a group of them that used to enter a shoemaker’s shop at night and make shoes, which he sold. Business became very good until his wife made the Elves clothes as a reward for all their help. The Elves took the clothes, but were never seen again,” Hermione told her.

Mrs. Claus looked over at the Elves, who were happily working away, their bat-like ears flitting back and forth, and huge smiles on their faces.

”They seem very happy despite their forced servitude,” she commented. “I wonder if I could get a few of them. It would certainly save money.”

“I wouldn’t know,” Hermione responded, hoping Mrs. Claus “naughty” sense didn’t fire off. The selling of baby House Elves was something Hermione thought cruel and inhuman. House Elves had feelings for their offspring just like anyone else. It just wasn’t right.

Mrs. Claus’ blue eyes rested on Hermione. If she did recognize that the witch wasn’t telling the truth, she didn’t say anything. Instead, she said, “Well, it’s time to put supper on. Would you like to help?”

”Ah, no. I’ll just stay here and oversee the House Elves if you don’t mind. I’m sure I’d only get in the way,” Hermione said apologetically.

“Lacking a little in your kitchen skills?” Mrs. Claus asked with a smile as she stood up, smoothing her apron.

“A little,” Hermione admitted.

“It’s all that magic,” Mrs. Claus said firmly. “It makes you lazy.”

”I’m not la . . .” Hermione began, but Mrs. Claus exited the workshop without looking back.

”I’m not lazy,” Hermione muttered as she turned her chair toward the Elves. “I’m just food-challenged.”

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A/N: Another rough writing moment, but I pushed onwards. I just couldn’t bring myself to write anymore about the sick elves and Snape. Lol. It was getting pretty awful and I figured we could just imagine how awful it was. I kind of blended a few elf lores together to make up the background of the House Elves. We don’t hear much about them. I just had to add a little Mrs. Claus jibe at Hermione in there at the end. Thanks for reading.