Sirius Black's Daughter

Chapter Twenty-Four The Madness of Mr Crouch

Posted: March 24, 2021

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Major editing: August 7th, 2021
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Natalia, Jae, Harry, Ron, and Hermione went up to the Owlery after breakfast on Sunday to send a letter to Percy, asking, as Sirius had suggested, whether he had seen Mr. Crouch lately. They used Hedwig, because it had been so long since she'd had a job. When they had watched her fly out of sight through the Owlery window, they proceeded down to the kitchen to give Dobby his new socks.

The house-elves gave them a very cheery welcome, bowing and curtsying and bustling around making tea again. Dobby was ecstatic about his present.
"Harry Potter is too good to Dobby!" he squeaked, wiping large tears out of his enormous eyes.
"You saved my life with that gillyweed, Dobby, you really did," said Harry.
"No chance of more of those eclairs, is there?" said Jae, who was looking around at the beaming and bowing house-elves.
"You've just had breakfast!" said Hermione irritably, but a great silver platter of eclairs was already zooming toward them, supported by four elves.
"We should get some stuff to send up to Snuffles," Natalia muttered.

"Good idea," said Ron. "Give Pig something to do. You couldn't give us a bit of extra food, could you?" he said to the surrounding elves, and they bowed delightedly and hurried off to get some more.
"What about Hooty?" said Jae, looking over to Natalia who is drinking black tea from a white mug a house-elf gave her.
"Hooty can't do it. He hurt his wing the other day," said Natalia sadly.
Hermione gasps. "What happened?"
"I don't know. I usually let him roam free around here but I found him in a hallway," said Natalia.

Natalia was going back to the Gryffindor dormitory after spending a few hours with Jae in the abandoned classroom but when she turned a corner, Hooty was hopping in the hall.
"Did you bring him to the Hospital Wing," asked Harry, concerned about Hooty.
"Yeah. It will take maybe four days for his wing to fully heal," explained Natalia.

"Dobby, where's Winky?" said Hermione, who was looking around.
"Winky is over there by the fire, miss," said Dobby quietly, his ears drooping slightly.
"Oh dear," said Hermione as she spotted Winky.
Natalia looked over at the fireplace too. Winky was sitting on the same stool as last time, but she had allowed herself to become so filthy that she was not immediately distinguishable from the smoke-blackened brick behind her. Her clothes were ragged and unwashed. She was clutching a bottle of butterbeer and swaying slightly on her stool, staring into the fire. As they watched her, she gave an enormous hiccup.
"Winky is getting through six bottles a day now," Dobby whispered to the group.

"Well, it's not strong, that stuff," Jae said.
But Dobby shook his head. "'Tis strong for a house-elf, sir," he said.
Winky hiccuped again.
The elves who had brought the eclairs gave her disapproving looks as they returned to work.
"Winky is pining, Harry Potter," Dobby whispered sadly. "Winky wants to go home. Winky still thinks Mr. Crouch is her master, sir, and nothing Dobby says will persuade her that Professor Dumbledore is her master now."
"Hey, Winky," said Harry, struck by a sudden inspiration, walking over to her, and bending down, "you don't know what Mr. Crouch might be up to, do you? Because he's stopped turning up to judge the Triwizard Tournament."

Winky's eyes flickered. Her enormous pupils focused on Harry. She swayed slightly again and then said, "M - Master is stopped - hic - coming?"
"Yeah," said Harry, "we haven't seen him since the first task. The Daily Prophet's saying he's ill."
Winky swayed some more, staring blurrily at Harry.
"Master - hic - ill?"
Her bottom lip began to tremble.
"But we're not sure if that's true," said Hermione quickly.
"Master is needing his - hic - Winky!" whimpered the elf. "Master cannot - hic - manage - hic - all by himself...."
"Other people manage to do their own housework, you know, Winky," Hermione said severely.
"Winky - hic - is not only - hic - doing housework for Mr. Crouch!" Winky squeaked indignantly, swaying worse than ever and slopping butterbeer down her already heavily stained blouse. "Master is - hic - trusting Winky with - hic - the most important - hic - the most secret..."