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This is where they live, the dark crevices, the corners, the spaces between. They avoid the wide open and the low places where there are threats, but venture out far enough to catch their prey without being prey in return.

Of course, some are foolish or careless, and they deserve nothing more than the death they receive -- being less than a credit to their noble species, why should they survive long enough to breed?

***

It was almost dawn when Snake returned to Harry's dormitory from a nocturnal feeding expedition, one twitching spider's leg still dangling from his mouth. Mostly he hibernated in the cold times, which were less interesting than the warm times when Harry took him to a place where there was green as far as the eye could see and it was just him and his Harry and the two Big Ones. Still, a snake had to eat, and Snake had woken with a hunger for some crunchy creatures. As much as he liked the eggs and bacon Harry fed him, sometimes he itched to hunt, and spiders were delicate and tasty.

He'd found a single isolated web in a corner of the room Harry slept in and devoured the four spiders living in and around it, but his animal instinct told him something was off. Spiders didn't share webs and there ought to be more of them in an underground burrow like this. He was a snake, and it wasn't his place to care about such things, but it made him uneasy.

As he slithered past the wall of the dormitory beneath the high windows that never let in enough proper basking sunlight, even in the warm times, he found his way blocked.

It was as if a human had somehow come across a parade of ice cream cones which had sprouted legs and were all scurrying past. He watched in predatory fascination as a steady stream, a river of spiders made their way towards the windows, across the floor and up the wall. Little baby spiders crawled under and around others which were bigger than Snake's head; brown, black, grey, long-legged, short-legged, creeping and jumping, all moving methodically towards the nearest way out of this burrow. It was like a feast on eight legs.

Harry, he called delightedly, come see what I've found.

***

Harry was unsure why he woke in the middle of the night and for a moment the skewed perspective of not-quite-focused eyes, combined with the Parseltongue voice in his ears, made him wonder if the vaulted ceiling of the dormitory room wasn't the belly of an enormous coiled snake come to devour him. He bolted upright and nearly fell out of the bed, but the movement corrected his depth-perception, and the voice he heard wasn't the horrible predatory voice of last term, but Snake's mischevious tones.

Harry, come see!

Harry grumbled but obediently found his glasses and followed the voice to a corner near the outer castle wall, below the moonlit windows.

What is it? he asked sulkily, crouching next to Snake. Something scuttled over his foot and he flinched backwards; when he'd recovered from the tumble, he crawled forward again, carefully.

Spiders were scuttling across the floor in the moonlight, hurrying with terrifying purpose towards the wall. Hanging down from each window was a multitude of silvery threads to help them along, and one of the windows had actually been pushed open slightly by an enormous tarantula -- it might even have been Lee Jordan's -- who was sitting nearby with front legs upraised, as if summoning the rest with a gesture. Harry had never seen anything like it and, as he watched, he realised that he never wanted to again. Snake, having coiled himself around Harry's ankle, was a soothing weight, but there were hundreds of spiders making for the windows and Harry reasoned that if an entire species was trying to get out of somewhere, there was probably a good reason.

Why are they leaving? he asked Snake. And where are they going?

I don't talk to my food, Snake replied scornfully.

Harry sat on the floor until the sun rose, watching the spiders leave the castle. Just before the other boys woke up their numbers started to drop off, and by the time Blaise sat up and rubbed his eyes and yawned, the last of the spiders had gone; Harry was already dressing and Snake was drowsing in his box on Harry's nightstand.

He was the first into the Great Hall for their usual early breakfast, and Brecon the house-elf brought up a plate of warm buttered crumpets with jam for Harry to start on while he waited. He was expecting Padma, who was an early riser and generally beat all three boys to the Great Hall. It wasn't unusual to find her already buried in a book or working on an essay, but this morning she was nowhere to be seen until long after Neville came down, and Neville was invariably last.

"Wish I'd known," Neville said, around a mouthful of egg. "I'd have run up to the eyrie and fetched her down. It's not like her."

Harry, who was bursting with the news of the spiders' exodus, was almost dancing with impatience by the time Padma did arrive, looking as if she hadn't slept well. Her normally tidy braid was wispy and uneven and she gave no explanation for her lateness. Harry didn't inquire too closely; he had his own story to tell, and once he'd recounted it, her interest (not to mention Draco and Neville's) was renewed.

"Do you suppose it's some kind of migration?" Draco asked.

"I've never heard of any spider that migrates like that," Padma answered. "And Harry said it was all kinds."

"Well, I say the fewer spiders in the castle, the better," Neville said. "Suppose we could get the rats and everyone above fifth year to evacuate themselves too?"

"Brecon begs Master Draco's pardon," said the reedy voice of a house-elf, interrupting Padma's retort to Neville, "but...but..."

Draco glanced down at the bug-eyed, bat-eared elf. "Well, say it then, Brecon. What is it?"

"If Master Draco would be so good -- Denbigh requests -- oh!" Brecon wrung his hands. "In the kitchen there is goings-on!"

Draco gave the other three a wry grin. "Goings-on. Sounds serious. What do you want me to do about it, Brecon?"

Brecon squeaked and wrung his hands.

"I'd better see what's wrong," Draco said. "Though why they'd ask me and not Headmaster Dumbledore, I'm sure I don't know. Coming?"

"Never been to the kitchens," Neville said thoughtfully. "I think I might."

"Come on then, Padma," Harry said, and they slipped out the side door and down into the cellars just as the rest of the school was trickling into the Great Hall.

The kitchen was in chaos, even more so than usual -- great platters of eggs, bacon, sausage, pastries, kippers, pitchers of juices and milk were all being prepared at an alarming rate by the kitchen house-elves who hopped and ran, ducked, shouted, called to each other and wielded knives and frying pans with terrifying speed and accuracy. Neville and Padma, who hadn't accompanied Harry and Draco on kitchen runs in the past, stared at the orderly mess in awe.

Near a great fireplace at one end there was an empty space, and they naturally gravitated towards it as a safe haven, but when they arrived they found a tiny stool and a shivering, miserable-looking creature wrapped in the remains of a jumper with Hufflepuff colours striping the collar and sleeves. Only a pair of bulbous eyes peeped out morosely at the world.

"Dobby?" Draco asked, stopping so suddenly that Neville ran into him. "Dobby, is that you?"

The jumper shivered. The eyes blinked.

"What's he doing here?" Harry asked.

"Well, now we know why they didn't tell Dumbledore. He'd have had Dobby thrown off the grounds," Neville observed.

"He wouldn't," Harry answered. "He knows Dobby had his reasons, whatever they were."

Neville muttered something about house-elves having no reason at all, but Draco was sitting on the hearthrug, peering at the elf.

"It's one of my old jumpers from last year, I thought it had gone for dusters," Draco said, lifting one of the sleeves. "This isn't the clothing mum gave you, is it?"

One trembling foot slipped out from below the jumper, clad in a grimy, tattered sock.

Fifteen extremely trying minutes followed while Draco tried to coax anything more than trembles and whimpers from Dobby, but finally they managed to discover that he'd made his way to Hogwarts from London and collapsed outside the old scullery, where Denbigh had tripped over him while going outside for firewood for the morning fires.

"I think we should talk," Draco said finally, standing and dusting off the seat of his trousers. "The four of us and Dobby. Mum's put an awful fear of punishment in him if he talks, even if he knows she can't get to him anymore. Maybe she can. I don't like it."

"The music room?" Padma suggested.

"There isn't time before class -- Denbigh, can you have someone bring up Dobby and some lunch?" Draco asked, catching the head elf as he went past. "The portrait of the man at the piano, you know the one?"

Denbigh nodded and hurried off, and they all realised they had better do likewise if they didn't want to lose house points for lateness. None of them paid much attention to their lessons, though Padma seemed more tired than distracted, and she snapped at Neville in class, then ran off to her next one with a toss of her braid.

"Do you suppose the spiders have anything to do with Dobby?" Draco asked as he and Harry loitered outside the painting while they waited for the other two to arrive. The man in the portrait was playing the piano softly, and the woman in the portrait-within-a-portrait was reading a novel.

"I don't see how. They've never run away from house-elves before, and even Dobby wouldn't be batty enough to cast an extermination spell or something."

"Not to mention he's not powerful enough."

"Wotcha!" Neville called, trotting down the corridor with Padma in tow. "No sign of lunch yet?"

"Tell everyone in the castle, why don't you," Padma said.

"Nobody can hear us up here," Neville replied sullenly.

"My, we are missish today," said the man in the painting. "Password?"

"You know full well who we -- oh, fine, polyphonic," Padma said. "And it's JS Bach, before you can start," she added, jabbing a finger at the woman behind him.

Harry and Neville raised their eyebrows at each other behind Padma as she stalked into the room, while Draco looked as though he preferred the hallway. Dobby was already inside, cowering behind a small table laden with sandwiches and drinks; Draco crossed to him and began speaking quietly, apparently glad to have something to do. Padma took a sandwich and went to sit by one of the windows, staring out.

"Did you know he'd been socked?" Neville asked Draco. Dobby squeaked.

"I thought he might have been," Draco replied. "Dobby, you can't go around in that jumper forever. At least let me shrink it."

"Make Padma do it, Draco, you're likely to flatten it," Harry suggested helpfully. Draco scowled at him and flicked his wand at Dobby. The elf tried to wriggle out of the jumper, but it was shrinking too quickly; soon his pencil-thin nose had popped out, followed by his fingers, and before long he looked like a rather spindly plush Hufflepuff mascot doll.

"What are we going to do with him?" Neville asked, tearing the crusts off of a turkey sandwich as he ate it. He offered the crusts to Dobby, who took one hesitantly and nibbled on it.

"I don't see why we have to do anything with him," Padma replied. "He's a free elf."

"He's not used to the outside world," Draco said. "He'll starve."

"He has ears, you know," Harry said, sitting down on the floor next to Dobby, who looked up at him with bulbous, wary eyes. "Why did you come to Hogwarts, Dobby?"

Dobby swallowed the crust he'd been eating all in a lump and hacked reedily a few times before speaking.

"Dobby did not know where else to go. All the big houses turn Dobby away. Troublesome house-elf, nobody wants you here," he said morosely.

"Someone's got to look after him," Draco said.

"Well, I wouldn't tell the Headmaster," Neville answered. "Merlin alone knows what he'd do."

Dobby had been slowly inching closer to Harry's knee and was now hiding behind it, only his nose and eyes visible over the top. Snake, sleeping in Harry's pocket, poked his head out to see what the fuss was about.

"He's had his punishment already," Harry said. "Dobby, what would you like to do?"

It was apparently the wrong question. The house-elf burst into wailing tears and began to bang his head on the floor. The others, growing bored with his histrionics, exchanged annoyed looks.

"Stop it this instant, you little green bag of skin!" Padma said, startling the other three. Even Dobby was sufficiently surprised that he stopped his furious self-punishment and looked up at her. "We'll have no more wailing or crying or trembling or any of that silly nonsense from you. Stand up and stop sniffling."

A crisp white handkerchief landed on the floor next to Dobby, who picked it up and wrapped it around himself like a cape, using one end to stop his rather runny nose. Apparently, Draco was not the only one who could summon a voice of command when necessary.

"Nobody's going to give you a job and you can't very well stay here, so you had better put some thought into how you're going to feed yourself, because we certainly aren't going to give up our lunch time to smuggle food to you every day," Padma continued.

"He could get a job gathering herbs and things in the Forest!" Neville suggested brightly. Padma gave him a narrow look. "Well, he's low to the ground, he might see things other people miss..."

"Why couldn't he stay here?" Draco asked suddenly.

"Because Dumbledore won't hire him and he oughtn't freeload off the kitchen elves," Padma said firmly.

"No, but what if someone else did?" Draco said excitedly. "If someone hired him to be their...their valet or something. Then he could pay for his food and have a place to stay -- "

"I don't think that's allowed," Neville said dubiously. "It must be in the rules somewhere, you know. No personal servants to accompany students to school. Otherwise everyone in Slytherin would have one. Sorry Harry," he added, belatedly.

"Nobody has to know, except the kitchen house-elves, and they won't mind," Draco said. "I have some pocket-money from mum saved up, I could hire him to make my bed for me and stuff."

"Why hire him? Can't you....re...capture him or something?" Neville asked.

"No," Draco said.

"Course you can, I've read about it," Padma said.

"No, I can't," Draco insisted.

"Oh, Master Draco could!" Dobby cried suddenly. "Dobby would be pleased to serve Master Draco, Dobby would never do anything wrong ever again -- "

"Yes you can," Padma said, over the racket. "You just steal their clothes and -- "

"No, you can," Draco said. "I can't. I think it's barbarous."

"Dobby does not want to be employed!" Dobby began to wail, but a glare from Padma shut him up again.

"Fine, fine, hire him then, but it'll only get you in trouble," she said.

"Why don't you want to be employed?" Neville asked. "Then you could quit whenever you like, Dobby."

"Dobby does not quit! Dobby is a good house-elf!"

"Oh, for pity's sake, give him a sickle and tell him he's hired, I have class soon," Harry said crossly. Draco jutted out his chin in defiance.

"All right, Dobby, you're hired. No, I'm not going to take your clothes," he said, as Dobby whimpered. "You'll have three knuts a week. You will make my bed, carry books for me in the library, and uh..."

He glanced at Neville, who shrugged.

"He could refill your ink bottles," Harry suggested.

"Sure. Make my bed, carry my books, refill my ink bottles," Draco said. Dobby seemed comforted by his voice. "Go on now. You can sleep in my trunk if you want, there's more than enough room, only don't smash my collars."

Dobby ran up to Draco and threw his spindly arms around his leg, then scurried off through the music-room portrait-door.

"Ew, house-elf snot," Draco said, examining his trouser leg.

"They're odd creatures, aren't they?" Neville asked.

"Bats if you ask me," Harry said. "Imagine wanting to be a slave."

"I don't think they do want to, really," Draco said. "I don't think any living thing wants to be a slave. It's not natural."

"Not natural for us," Harry said, gathering up his book bag. "Maybe it's an instinct to them."

"Or maybe it's like religion," Padma said thoughtfully.

"What do you mean?" Neville asked.

"Well...sort of like monks."

"What's a monk?" Draco said. Padma sighed and shouldered her bag. Draco pushed the portrait-door open for her, then nearly let it slam on her when he ran back to stuff another sandwich in his pocket.

"Someone who promises to serve a god and joins a club to do it," Neville said vaguely. "Dora had to study them for her Muggle Studies unit at the Academy."

"Maybe..." Padma waited until they were all out of the room before continuing. "Maybe they think that by serving humans, they're actually serving whatever gods they have. Or that if they serve in this life they'll be rewarded after they die."

Draco looked troubled. "You don't mean our house-elves think I'm some kind of god, do you?"

"No -- not exactly. But maybe servitude and obedience to humans is what they think is asked of them." Padma shrugged. "I don't know. Do house-elves even have a god?"

"I never asked," Draco replied.

"But then why wouldn't they want to be freed?" Harry persisted. "Don't you think they'd see it as a reward for good behaviour?"

"Well, not really. I mean, when you're free it's a lot harder to be humble and serve others, isn't it?" Padma said. "It'd be like someone who can't have sugar living above a sweets shop. The temptation to do what you want rather than what you ought would be awful. And..."

"What?" Draco asked.

"Well...we sort of take it for granted that freedom is a good thing. I mean, we all think freedom is a basic right, don't we?"

"I like it," Harry put in.

"Yeah, but what if they don't think that way? I mean, if you tell someone who doesn't think freedom is all that great that you want to free all the house-elves, aren't you imposing on them just as much as if they imposed on you?"

"Depends on whether they're the ones being slaves or doing the enslaving," Harry said darkly.

"But that's just it! The house-elves are the ones being enslaved, aren't they?"

Harry looked doubtful. "Isn't that what the Muggles said in America about the slaves? That they wanted to be slaves?"

"Maybe," Padma shrugged as they began to descend the stairs. In the distance, the end-of-lunch bell was tolling. "But look at it this way. If house-elves think it's a religious duty to be enslaved to humans as a sort of...service test, then getting freed isn't a reward. Being free and serving humans is something that you can only do if you're really strong and brave and devoted, because otherwise when push comes to shove you're going to start thinking of yourself instead of others. And there's pride in it, you know, like those old Muggle serving families who've been butlers to the same rich family for five generations."

"That's true," Draco said. "There's a whole hallway lined with house-elf heads at home. They all want to have their heads hung up too, when they die."

"Eurgh," Neville said. "There was a hallway like that at home before they knocked down most of the walls. Andromeda took all the heads down and gave them a decent burial." He paused. "Well, you know. As decent as you can get, burying them in the garden. The rosebushes Ted planted there grow like anything -- "

"That's disgusting, Neville," Padma said.

"What? They do."

"You needn't bring it up!"

"Well, no, but -- " Neville stopped haplessly as Padma ran off to join the rest of the Ravenclaws, who were heading for class. "She always has to have the last word," he said sulkily.

"What's wrong with Padma, anyway? I thought she was going to punch Dobby in the head," Harry said.

"Dunno," Draco shrugged. "My mum's that way all the time, maybe it's something girls just get as they get older."

"Dora isn't," Neville said. "Except -- ooh. Maybe she has Girl Problems."

"Girl Problems?" Harry asked. "What, like, lost her hair curlers?"

"No, sometimes Andromeda and Dora get cranky and angry and Ted says it's Girl Problems. I think it has to do with vitamins or something," Neville said vaguely.

"Do you suppose if I gave mum some vitamins she'd be more sane?" Draco asked, a trace of hope in his voice.

"Sirius says with your mum it's inherited insanity," Harry put in.

"Bother," Draco sighed.

"There's Dora, we could ask her," Neville said, pointing to where Professor Tonks was hanging a large sheet of parchment on the wall outside the main entrance to the Great Hall.

"I'm not asking her, if it IS inherited," Draco muttered.

"What's she hanging up, anyway?" Harry asked, pushing through the crowds. "It looks like a sign-up sheet for something."

"Dueling club!" Neville read, catching up to him. "Learn the techniques and skills required to engage in a wizard's duel. All years and houses welcome to attend."

"Oooer," Draco said. "That sounds brilliant. Even if you only watch, someone's sure to get their nose hexed off."

"There won't be any of that," Professor Tonks said, without turning around. "Professor Snape and I are supervising it."

"Are you going to duel him?" Neville asked excitedly.

"Only in demonstration," Professor Tonks answered. "You'll be late to class if you keep asking silly questions, Neville."

"Sign us up, Harry!" Neville said, Harry being closest. He shouldered his way past a few fourth-years and managed to scrawl their names down before someone else shoved him out of the way to sign up as well.

Dueling was all anyone talked about for the rest of the day, much to the dismay of Professor Snape in particular, who had only gone along with this stunt because it was easier than backing out in front of Professor McGonagall.

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