alchemical blurb

[mswoods]

The following day, Sadde has Transfiguration in the morning.

She is all over it at lunch.

"Okay, so, Transfig is just about the coolest thing," she says first thing to the Ravenclaws as soon as she sits at the table.

Comments

[mrwoods]

Okay, that first part was interesting. "Didn't you say they had, erm, passed away? Why are you still keeping their silence?"

[alicornucopia]

"Winky tries to be good. And does not want to be embarrassing her masters."

[mrwoods]

"But her masters can't be embarrassed anymore, can they? If they're... not around anymore?"

He's pretty sure the moment he says they're dead with as many words she's going to start bawling again and he really doesn't want that.

[alicornucopia]

"Mr. Crouch was caring about their reputations," Winky sniffs, more haughty than weepy in this moment.

[mrwoods]

"Yes, but is he caring about them now?"

[alicornucopia]

"No, but he was! Winky is still loyal even though she is being a Hogwarts elf now."

[mrwoods]

"And why are you still loyal even though he's no longer around to be loyal to?"

[alicornucopia]

"Winky loves her family!" says Winky, wringing her hands.

[mrwoods]

"Why do you love them?"

[alicornucopia]

"They were - they were mine!" she exclaims, crying again, probably more from emotion than because she used an unauthorized possessive pronoun. "Winky served them as her mother and her mother before her - Winky was for looking after Crouches - Winky tried to be good for them -"

[mrwoods]

"I mean, I get that, but why did you love them? I mean, what caused you to feel love for them? Was it just... was the fact that you worked for them enough?"

[alicornucopia]

"Winky always loved them," blinks the elf. "Oh, when Master Barty was born Winky loved him at once, when Winky was born she loved Mr. Crouch right away and when he married Mistress Winky loved her too..."

[mrwoods]

Innnnnnnnteresting.

"So it was automatic? Just, you just had to look at them and know they were in your family and you loved them? Your parents didn't have to tell you that you should love them and such, you just... did."

[alicornucopia]

"Well, Winky does not remember being a baby but certainly does not remember not loving Mr. Crouch," says Winky primly.

[mrwoods]

Hm.

"Did your parents teach you that you should love Mr. Crouch and his family?"

[alicornucopia]

"Winky's mother loved them too of course and taught Winky to be a good elf."

[mrwoods]

Be a good elf.

That... starts making a pattern.

"Good elf? What's a good elf?" he decides do ask.

[alicornucopia]

"A good elf minds her masters and does not embarrass or disobey them and makes them comfortable and is not seen when she is not wanted and always works for their good and does not shirk her chores and hones all of the talents she needs to support and care for them and does not gossip or complain," Winky says.

[mrwoods]

"Oh."

He takes a few seconds to recover.

"Why is that what a good elf is?" he asks, tentatively.

[alicornucopia]

Winky blinks. "Elves who are not that are bad elves," she says, not quite understanding the question.

[mrwoods]

"But why are elves who are not that bad elves? How do you know there isn't another way to be a good elf?"

[alicornucopia]

"There was a bad elf working at Hogwarts," says Winky primly. "Until last year. He hated his family and did not do as he was told and tricked Harry Potter into making his master free him and then he was being paid wages by Headmaster Dumbledore. He was a bad elf."

[mrwoods]

"Well... what if he was another kind of good? A different kind?"

[alicornucopia]

"Elves should be being good elves, not other things. We is elves."

[mrwoods]

"No, I mean, another kind of good for an elf. Like, maybe he was a good elf but a kind of good elf that is not the same kind of good elf as most other good elves are."