Hermione glared at him and walked towards the nearest houseelf in the room.
She kindly asked about their current living conditions and encouraged them to ask for wages and leave to defend their rights.
She was already very experienced in this area and knew how to communicate with the houseelves.
Elwyn was still wondering if this matter had anything to do with Lord Voldemort.
Also, there was the crucial treasure of Hufflepuff.
He speculated that the clues to the treasure were also related to the houseelves. Perhaps there was a connection?
The riddle left by Hufflepuff mentioned, "The key to opening the treasure is integrity and loyalty. All you need to do is trust your humblest friend." Elwyn guessed that the humblest friend here referred to the houseelves.
The Hogwarts kitchen not only had a large number of houseelves, but it was also Hufflepuff's favorite place. Under the castle kitchen, Elwyn found the crypt filled with the heads of the houseelves and the demon altar deep in the crypt. The demon summoned was also in the form of the houseelves.
Houseelves, houseelves, all of these were related to the houseelves.
Perhaps, he could find something in the houseelves of the London underworld.
Elwyn had such a hunch, but there were too few clues at the moment. Everything was still unknown.
He asked Fred about the territory of the houseelves and the London underworld, but neither Fred nor George had been there. They only knew that the entrance to the underworld on the edge of the magic world was deep in Knockover Alley, where werewolves, dark wizards, and other dark creatures mingled.
The so-called underworld was the dark side of the British magic world. As for the specific situation inside, he did not know.
"About a month ago, George and I went to the Murderer's Pub in Knockover Alley for a drink. That place was a bit like the Pig's Head Pub in Hogsmeade Village. There were many interesting guys there, and we could hear news that we couldn't hear in the Broken Cauldron." Fred said, "We heard someone talking about the werewolves recently attacking the house-elves in the underground world. Under the attack of the werewolves, many house-elves lost their territories and were in dire straits. George and I suddenly had an idea. We could hire these house-elves. Hermione is always talking about this kind of thing, right? Also, we are really short of manpower, so we asked Dobby to come forward and ask about it. "
"And then, they agreed?"
"That's right. Although not all of them, there are quite a few house-elves who are willing to come out and work." Fred continued, "No matter what, they don't want to stay there and wait to be killed by werewolves, dark wizards, or starve to death. But these house-elves don't agree to be loyal to the new wizard, and they don't want to be hired for wages. They think it's a great insult to them. How could a house-elf earn zero wages? This was not the quality a good house-elf should have. In fact, no wizard would hire a house-elf. I don't know what he said, but in the end, they were willing to come and help. They helped for free, and we provided food, but it can't be counted as their payment. Well, you can say it's a kind of donation or aid … "
Creatures like house-elves are really contradictory. I don't know how those ancient wizards trained them to develop such a twisted slave character. Even after so long, there hasn't been any change.
"They don't need wages or holidays, and they don't eat much. They only need the cheapest coarse bread to satisfy their needs. However, they are more hardworking than most wizards. They have inexhaustible strength and energy, which is a great help to us." Fred said, "We recruited more than a hundred house-elves and fired all the wizards we hired before."
Hermione snorted heavily. Fred's words made them even more dissatisfied. This was pure exploitation.
She walked up to the house-elf who was packing magic items and tried to communicate with her.
The communication between the two was pleasant at first. This house-elf named Senia was loyal to an ancient wizard family that had disappeared for more than five hundred years. It was the family that her ancestors used to belong to.
She didn't know much about the past of this wizard family. She could only remember the master's surname.
This was an unknown wizard surname, and no famous person had ever appeared in it.
At least, Elwyn didn't know about the family's emblem in the heraldry book.
According to Senia, the last member of this family died on the battlefield, the famous war between England and France.
This war started from the Muggle Kingdom and was the world's longest war. It went on and on for 116 years. In the middle and late stages of the war, almost all wizards in Western Europe participated.
Many pure-blood wizard families that Elwyn knew perished because of this war. According to the set of heraldry, the number of pure-blooded sorcerer families that had been active in the United Kingdom was in the hundreds of thousands. It was a terrifying number. Based on the number of sorcerers in the United Kingdom, it was impossible.
However, this was indeed the case. From this, it could be seen that in the past thousand years, the rate at which Sorcerers were being replaced was very fast.
It wasn't easy for a pure-blood wizard family to survive to this day.
After losing her master, Senia's master moved here with other house-elves who were in the same situation.
Since then, a few centuries had passed.
The world had changed, but the only thing that did not change was the humble loyalty of the house-elves to their master. This Magus surname, which had disappeared long ago, had unexpectedly been passed down in this way. For more than five years, Senia's ancestors had been waiting for their master's return …
Although they knew that it was impossible, their loyalty had never wavered.
Like Senia, Senia's parents were born in the underground world.
They were loyal to different wizards and inherited different wizard surnames. Senia and her brother inherited the wizard families that their parents were loyal to. The house-elves in the underground world lived in this unique way.
One could imagine how emotional Hermione was after hearing Senia's story.
The two of them had a pleasant conversation, but when they talked about wages, the docile house-elf in front of her immediately widened her eyes and screamed, shaking her head like a rattle drum.
"She's wasting her time." Fred said, "Alright, Elwyn, let her talk to the house-elves. I'll take you to see our real profitable business. We've just developed a more serious product, and we need your professional advice."
As he spoke, he led Elwyn deeper into the room.
"Speaking of which, it's really interesting. You can't believe that there are so many people, even those working in the Ministry of Magic, who can't even recite a proper Armor Spell. They can't do anything other than wave their wands randomly …"
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