Chapter 1: Kreacher Comforts Part 1
“Mudblood!!” Hermione Granger nearly leapt out of her skin when the evil howl ripped through the dank front hall of 12 Grimmauld Place. In her surprise, she dropped the plate she had been holding, and the sandwich which sat atop it, allowing it to shatter on the ground and spilling her freshly made lunch across the grubby floor. “Filth! Half-Breed Filth!!” The screaming continued. “Get out of my house! Get out!” Hermione heaved a deep sigh, glowering at the portrait that hung (with unfortunate and stubborn permanence) in the entry hall of the decaying mansion. Trapped within the polished brass frame, the portrait of Walburga Black howled and gibbered increasingly hateful epithets at Hermione. If the hateful thing weren’t a two-dimensional mass of mystical pigments, she would probably have rushed at the young witch and attempted to claw her eyes out. “Accio Canvas!” Hermione whipped her wand out from the bag at her side, slicing it through the air in a precise arc. These were dark times and she was never far from her wand these days…who knows when it might be needed? With the sound of thick cloth whipping through the air, a heavy canvas sheet flew down the stairs at her summons. With another sharp command and a wave of her wand, it slapped itself over the front of the painting, muffling the bigoted curses. A final spell wrapped the whole thing in thick ropes, keeping the canvas from sliding off. Hermione took a deep breath, trying to calm her jangling nerves. Muted shrieks could still be faintly heard through the canvas but at least the facsimile of the horrible old corpse was no longer driving aural needles through her eardrums. She had left her room upstairs to go down to the basement kitchen to fix herself a simple meal, the same meal that was now decorating the floor, and when she had passed the painting before it had been safely covered. Obviously, the painting didn’t uncover itself, so that left one suspect… “Kreacher...” She snarled under her breath. “You demanded Kreacher’s presence, false Mistress?” Hermione jumped again, her nerves still on edge from the portrait’s outburst, as the raspy, unpleasant voice spoke up right behind her. “Maybe my clumsy, stupid, foul-blooded Mistress will demand Kreacher clean up the mess she has made?” Hermione turned to face the diminutive speaker who peered at her from behind the bathroom doorway, the house-elf Kreacher. The wizened and ancient servant of the Black family stared at her with undisguised hatred. She almost did command him to clean up the shattered plate and spilled food. It was his fault, after all. They were the only inhabitants of 12 Grimmauld Place…no one but Kreacher could have uncovered the portrait. One of the many cruel pranks he used to torment her. She took a deep, calming breath as Kreacher glared up at her, his eyes daring her to lose her temper. She didn’t speak at first and instead pointed her wand at the mess on the floor. “Reparo!” The ceramic fragments flew together as though drawn by a magnet, the edges fitting themselves together like a jigsaw and melding themselves back into a seamless whole. “Scourgify.” The scattered remains of Hermione’s meal shimmered and rose into the air, dissolving into a collection of glowing soap bubbles before evaporating completely. “Accio plate.” Hermione gave Kreacher an arch, level look as the plate flew up into her hand, clean and intact once more. “Kreacher, did you take the covering off of Walburga’s portrait?” “A common, filthy mud-blood would normally call her Lady Black.” Kreacher snarled. “Something my false Mistress may wish to keep in mind.” “I’m quite happy calling her Walburga…unless you’d prefer more choice terms, like bigoted, dried-up, old shrew.” Hermione snapped, ignoring Kreacher’s hateful glare. “Why did you uncover the painting, Kreacher?” Kreacher grinned, baring yellow and misaligned teeth. “Kreacher likes to look at Mistress Walburga and hear her lovely voice. So Kreacher took off the frumpy old sheet.” “And you just so happened to do this while I was down in the kitchen?” “Foolish to think Kreacher cares where a mudblooded false Mistress is.” The look in his eyes told Hermione that Kreacher was lying and he didn’t particularly care if she knew it. “Did Kreacher do wrong? Is Kreacher to be punished? Poor, poor Kreacher.” Hermione had to suppress a snappy retort at Kreacher’s sarcastic tone. Remember, it’s not his fault. He’s been enslaved and abused for six hundred years. Even if he is begging to have his teeth kicked in. “Kreacher...I’ve told you several times that I don’t like it when Walburga screams at me, haven’t I? And that I’d prefer if her portrait remains covered?” Hermione spoke slowly, choosing her words very carefully as Kreacher sneered at her. “Oh dear...maybe poor foolish Kreacher is confused...is Kreacher’s awful, terrible Mistress ordering him to keep his good, noble Mistress’s portrait covered?” Kreacher scratched his ugly bald head, an expression of exaggerated confusion on his face. “Kreacher would hate that, but of course he will do as he is told. Poor, Poor Kreacher.” “Kreacher…” Hermione frowned, rubbing her forehead as she felt a headache starting to come on. “I told you, I won’t give you orders. As far as I’m concerned, you’re a free, independent creature. But I am hoping that you will respect my desire to keep the painting covered. As a courtesy.” “So...Kreacher is not being ordered to keep the painting covered?” “No, I’m just...asking politely.” Hermione sighed. That nasty grin spread over Kreacher’s face once more and he raised one finger into the air. A single blue spark danced on the jagged tip of his nail. “Kreacher…” Hermione drew out the name with a note of warning in her voice. Kreacher crooked his finger and Hermione could hear the sound of rope rubbing against rope as the house-elf’s magic undid the bindings on the painting. “Mudblood! Filthy Mudblood child, tracking her filth into my father’s house!!” The hall echoed with Walburga’s vindictive shrieks the moment the canvas fell from the painting. Hermione had been expecting it but the hateful sound still set her teeth on edge. “Obscurio!” She whipped around, pointing her wand at the painting once more. The image of Walburga Black reeled in confusion as a black blindfold appeared over her eyes. Blindness didn’t seem to stop her and she opened her mouth to shout some new invective, but Hermione was faster. “Silencio!” The portrait’s face bore an expression of comical confusion as its mouth worked silently. Blind and mute, it began to feel around the interior of its frame, groping for some point of reference. Hermione’s frizzy hair bounced as she turned the wand on Kreacher, eyes flashing. She was breathing heavily, weeks of frustration boiling over as dozens of jinxes and curses swam through her head, any number of unpleasant fates she could inflict on the house-elf. Kreacher just stared down the length of her wand at her, his eyes sharp and his grin turned into a thin line. He made no move to run or conjure a counterspell. “It seems that poor Kreacher has angered his stupid, cow-headed, ugly Mistress. It is only right that Kreacher be punished for it.” Hermione’s hand shook, causing the tip of her wand to wobble slightly as her chest heaved with deep, angry breaths. She wanted to turn Kreacher’s nose to a cucumber, or fill his mouth with jumping beans...but she also knew that Kreacher would just accept it as a punishment...as admission that she owned him. She wouldn’t let him force her hand like that. Slowly she lowered the wand. Kreacher just smiled and shook his head. “Poor, poor Kreacher, who has such a cowardly, unworthy Mistress.” With a snap of his fingers, Kreacher apparated away, back to whatever dark corner of the house he normally hid. “Bugger.” Hermione swore under her breath, head pounding as she slowly got her temper back under control. She slid the wand back into her bag and, still toting the freshly repaired plate, headed back towards the stairs to fix herself another sandwich.
****************
Hermione’s nineteenth birthday had certainly been the worst birthday of her entire life. Of course, it hadn’t been a good year in general, what with the death of Headmaster Dumbledor and she and her friends being forced to flee Hogwarts. But her birthday had felt particularly hollow after she had been forced to wipe her parent’s memories and send them off to Australia. But the real mold on the cheese had been Harry’s birthday “present”, which took the cake as the most awful, thoughtless present she had ever received: Kreacher. She had tried to protest, of course, against the very idea of giving a person (even a person as roundly awful and unpleasant as Kreacher) to someone as a gift. That had been the whole point behind S.P.E.W, after all, to stop treating the house-elves like property. Besides which, while Kreacher was undoubtedly a victim of his environment and the cruelty perpetrated on him by elitist wizards, he was also a miserable, annoying and hateful little git. She had spent months trying to be friendly to him as they cleaned out number 12 Grimmauld place and got nothing but abuse and bigotry for her trouble. As she had told Harry, she might want him freed, but she also didn’t want him anywhere near her, thank-you-very-much. That’s when the Boy Who Lived launched into a long-winded diatribe on how difficult the year had been for him (as though she wasn’t living through the same difficulties) and how he just couldn’t cope with being responsible for Kreacher anymore. As though that made the prospect of owning the house-elf any more enticing. Unfortunately, no-one could win a game of misery poker with Harry “I’m-an-orphan” Potter. In the end, she hadn’t accepted Kreacher, but, apparently, that didn’t actually matter when it came to transferring a house-elf’s allegiance. She considered giving him back to Harry, or maybe to Ron or one of the other Order members...but trading him around like an unwanted, itchy Christmas sweater was exactly the dehumanizing treatment she was trying to fight against. So, in the end, the house-elf became “hers”. At first, she tried to look on the bright side. This was an excellent opportunity to give Kreacher a much-needed taste of freedom, something that was sure to improve his attitude. She sat down with the dour house-elf and explained to him that Harry had “given” Kreacher to her but that she did not intend to treat him as a servant, offering him a bobble-hat knit from green yarn. She had made it herself, just like the clothing she had scattered around Hogwarts in happier years. Kreacher had screamed right in her face, unleashing a flood of abuse the likes of which she had never heard. Unsurprisingly, he hated the mere thought of Hermione being his new “Mistress”, but somehow he seemed equally offended at the idea of being set free by her. That’s when the real trouble started. Before, Kreacher had been a miserable, grouchy presence in 12 Grimmauld Place, having mellowed a bit since the Order of the Phoenix stopped staying there. He still wasn’t cleaning the place up (and Ron claimed to see Kreacher actually adding dust and cobwebs to the decaying structure), but, with Harry in charge, he had seemed content to lurk and skulk. Since Hermione had refused to give Kreacher any orders (except for a common-sense reinforcement of the command not to betray the trio’s presence in 12 Grimmauld Place and do them no harm), the house elf had gone practically feral. He had become even more abusive and foul-mouthed and even began to play cruel pranks on the three unwanted guests within the Black mansion: unplugging the old refrigerator and letting food spoil and ice cream melt, flushing every roll of toilet paper in the house and constantly uncovering the hateful portrait of Walburga. Needless to say, this had opened a bit of a rift between Hermione and the other two. Harry seemed resigned to it (perhaps having expected something like this when he gave Kreacher away) but Ron’s hatred of the little house-elf practically boiled over. Ron and Hermione had gotten into multiple shouting matches over Kreacher, with Ron demanding that she bring the little bastard to heel while she stubbornly refused to betray her ethics. It had all come to a head in October when Kreacher had hidden a rotting fish in Ron’s mattress. Ron had pulled his wand on Kreacher and, if Hermione hadn’t intervened, he might very well have hurt the wizened little house-elf. She had disarmed him just in time, but this had been the last straw...their argument had practically shaken the old building apart, dragging Harry into it as well. By the end, Ron decided he needed to spend some time at Shell Cottage with his family, abandoning the two of them. Harry had gotten mopey, like he always did when Ron wasn’t around, and she could tell that he blamed her for driving Ron off. Harry never quite seemed comfortable around Hermione without Ron there as well and the pressure created by Kreacher (and the looming threat of Voldemort) quickly eroded their relationship as well. Only a week later, Harry offered to go to Shell Cottage as well and try and “talk some sense” into Ron, maybe stay there for a while and see how things were going. When she had offered to come along, he said it would probably be best if she stayed and, in his own words, “looked after Kreacher”. He had assured her that he would be back soon and that there was no need to worry. ...That had been over a month ago. Harry would sometimes stop by, arriving in the middle of the night while she was asleep, and come in via floo powder to leave notes to assure her that everything was fine and that they would be back any day now. She had considered going to Shell Cottage herself to confront them, but she was worried that she’d either end up breaking down and begging their forgiveness or getting into a shouting match that might end the trio’s friendship once and for all...so she waited. Shut away in the moldering hulk of 12 Grimmauld Place, she was left alone with Kreacher. Her status as his “Mistress” seemed to shield her from some of his most vicious abuses, but he still seemed to delight in making her miserable. She was starting to understand Ron’s point of view on the house-elf and it was only stubborn determination that kept her clinging to her ethics in the face of Kreacher’s relentless awfulness. Determination that was rapidly wearing thin.
****************