"It's very difficult… Ma'am!" Dobby shrilly shook his head, then continued proudly. "Only a great wizard like Sir Harls would be willing to pay us!"
"That's not necessarily true, Dobby! I'm sure there will be more people who will agree with us if we speak out!" Hermione said firmly, believing that the abuse of house-elves by wizards these days was a result of feudalism.
The little witch then asked Dobby how much he was paid every month and how many days off he took.
Dobby was so excited that he wanted to reply in order to show off his master's greatness, but when he opened his mouth, he remembered that Ivan had once ordered him not to reveal the details of his salary to anyone else.
"Herr Hals paid Dobby a lot of money and gave him holidays…God, what a noble man he was!"
"All right, stop complimenting me and get off!" Ivan waved Dobby away, not wanting Hermione to ask too many questions.
Hermione gave Ivan a suspicious look, but said nothing.
In her opinion, if Dobby was so grateful, then Ivan must have paid him well, perhaps a little less than a normal wizard.
"What made you decide to liberate the house-elves, Hermione?" Yvonne asked curiously, as he had always wondered.
"Why not?"
The little witch gave Ivan a very serious look and then went on, "House-elves have done so much for their masters… not only to perform all the housework, but also to be absolutely loyal and do everything their masters command, but to what end?"
"All they got in return was discrimination and abuse! I even read that some wizards at the height of You-Know-Who's power treated house-elves like vermin!"
At this point, the young witch became furious, as she had been in contact with Kreacher and Winky and asked about their lives.
In her opinion, house-elves were a hard-working and loyal group who could easily become family friends with wizards, rather than slaves to be beaten and scolded!
Ivan did not seem fazed by Hermione's angry words, and spoke calmly.
"Now that you've read the book, you should be aware of the origins of house-elves. They are creatures created by wizards and must serve them for generations. This is the purpose of their existence…"
"Do you really think so? Wizards creating house-elves? They're so much like goblins!" Hermione retorted, then paused to speculate.
"Perhaps some wizards deliberately altered history in order to enslave them, so that house-elves could sink forever!"
"And…they're intelligent creatures like us, and they think, and they shouldn't be treated like that!" Hermione added.
Ivan looked at Hermione in surprise. He had not expected her to question the contents of the book.
"What's wrong? Did I say something wrong?" When Yvonne did not respond for a long time, Hermione looked uncomfortable, and nervously stabbed her fork into a piece of cake in front of her, sending cream flying across the table.
"No, nothing. I'm just surprised you thought of it!" Ivan laughed.
He had read The Origin of the Bloodline, so he knew exactly what was going on.
It is true that house-elves are not wizards' creations, but rather magical creatures that wizards enslave to take control of the wizarding world.
After all, wizards were not powerful enough to create a magical race with human-like intelligence and innate ability to cast spells.
That was the realm of gods!
Ivan suggested that this might be the reason why the wizarding community was so wary of house-elves, and had worked for centuries to cultivate servility.
Ivan, however, saw nothing wrong with the wizarding seniors' methods.
Unlike in the past, wizards did not have a good time in the wizarding world. Now, they had the right to speak!
Centaurs, goblins, merpeople… all magical creatures that live in the wizarding world are subject to wizarding discipline, including house-elves!
This is the dominance of the ultimate winner over the loser in a brutal competition for survival!
It was just like how the ancestors of the ancient human race banished lions and tamed cattle. It was just that house-elves were highly intelligent, so they were more cruel!
There were some problems with this.
With the exception of Hogwarts, the vast majority of house-elves were monopolised by pure-blood families and became their private property, a convenience that was denied to civilian wizards.
House-elves also did not perform as well as they should have, their ability to cast spells was severely limited, and the sheer arrogance of pure-blood wizards caused the overall number of house-elves to decline.
Despite this, Yvonne found herself in a difficult position when it came to persuading Hermione.
Was telling her directly that the world was actually a cruel place, and that survival of the fittest was the law of the land, and that once house-elves were freed, they would fight for power with wizards?
As if Hermione would understand!
Yvonne was well aware that teenage years were the age when imps were sympathetic and full of a sense of justice, untroubled by society and generally believing themselves capable of righting injustice.
It was just like when he was in primary school in his previous life. After a few environmental lessons, he became arrogant and dared to scold the logger, "Why did you cut down a tree when it's so important?"
Now that I think about it, it was a blessing not to be beaten.
Oblivious to Ivan's thoughts, Hermione thought he approved of her idea, and happily told him about her plans for the future.
"I'm going to set up a society to promote the rights of house-elves, starting at Hogwarts, and convince Professor Dumbledore to improve the treatment of house-elves!" Hermione announced.
"I think you'd better not do that. Professor Dumbledore would never agree to it!" Yvonne tried to talk him out of it.
"Why?" Hermione asked eagerly.
"There are over a hundred elves at Hogwarts, and even at the minimum wage, it's quite an expense every month. Even if Professor Dumbledore didn't discriminate against house-elves, the Board would never agree to fund them," Ivan explained.
On Filch's salary, Hogwarts would have to pay an extra seventy or eighty thousand Galleons a year!
As Headmaster, Dumbledore is over a hundred years old and has not been feeling well lately.
(PS: House-elves are bound to be used later, after so many essays on them, not water words (the whole fourth volume is slow because of the amount of foreshadowing)… and, for special reasons, today's update.)