Oleandra was shocked speechless by the Malfoy family's utter lack of shame. By the time she had reached the Greengrass's luxury tent, her bottled-up resentment was about to explode.
"Who the hell do they think they are?" Oleandra shouted within the soundproofed tent. "Both of them!"
"Calm down, dear," said her mother. "Don't take it to heart; adults have different priorities. I'm sure Mr. Malfoy didn't mean any disrespect; young Draco must have misunderstood his father's intentions when he arranged your little meeting."
"I'm not angry," grumbled Oleandra. "I just thought that our discovery of parallel worlds would have held more value to Mr. I-Love-Money."
"That's the spirit!" said her father. "Now, how about we get changed? The game's starting soon, and I'm sure you don't want to go to the match looking like a princess, am I right?"
The idea of running through the woods in an evening gown didn't especially appeal to any of the girls, so they quickly got changed into regular Muggle clothes; t-shirts and pants. Once everyone had changed, they exited the tent and started making their way over to the stadium.
"Prime seats!" said a Ministry Witch at the entrance when she checked their tickets. "Top Box! Straight upstairs, as high as you can go."
With the amount of money the Greengrass family had donated to St Mungo's, they could easily have afforded hundreds of V.I.P. tickets to the Top Box, but receiving the tickets for free from Fudge didn't hurt either!
As she and her family climbed up the stairs in the immense stadium, Oleandra was overcome by the sheer scale of the building; she was less than an insect compared to its size. And yet, she was going to the very top. The stadium was supposed to house one hundred thousand Witches and Wizards, and she was going to sit above all of them. The interior décor was all purple and gold; the colours of kings. It was truly breathtaking… if you could ignore the constant stream of advertisements flickering across the gigantic screens.
To Oleandra's surprise, she saw a few familiar faces in the Top Box; the Weasleys, as well as Harry and Hermione. She knew from Ginny's letter that the Weasleys had a chance to get V.I.P. tickets, but this was in a whole other league! Those were V.V.I.P. tickets! Had they used up all of their savings to buy this favour, or what? You could see the stage just as well from lower down!
And for some reason, Harry seemed to be talking to a pair of House-Elves.
"Two Dobbies?" Harry was saying incredulously.
"I no is Dobby," said a female House-Elf in an annoyingly high-pitched voice. "But if sir wants to speak to Dobby, youse in luck!"
"Harry Potter!" squealed the second House-Elf, who was sitting further away. "What an honour to meet you again! And you remembered his name! Dobby is not worthy!"
"Dobby, it really is you!" said Harry in wonder. "What happened to you? You never came back to see me after the affair of the Chamber of Secrets. Why don't you come sit with us so we can catch up?"
"Dobby is not worthy!" the House-Elf repeated, tears streaming down its face. "Only someone as great as Harry Potter would invite a lesser being to talk with him as an equal, much less ask one to sit with him!"
"Harry, you know the Malfoy's House-Elf?" interjected Oleandra.
"Remember when we couldn't pass the barrier to Platform Nine and Three-Quarters at the beginning of our second year?" said Harry, pointing at Dobby. "That was his doing. And remember when Lockhart removed all the bones in my right arm? Dobby came to visit me right afterwards. He wanted to keep me away from Hogwarts, since the Basilisk had been freed from the Chamber of Secrets. And I never saw him since."
"But school hadn't even started yet!" said Oleandra with a start. "But how could Dobby have possibly known that the Basilisk was going to be freed, unless the Malfoys…"
Dobby then began banging its head repeatedly on the seat in front of it.
"Bad Dobby, bad Dobby!" it cried in horror. "Dobby's very existence is causing Dobby's master to come under suspicion!"
"Unless the Malfoys had known from the start that Mafalda was the Heir of Slytherin?" completed Harry.
"Dormi!" chanted Ginny, who had sneaked behind the House-Elf. With a single cast of the Sleeping Charm, Dobby fell asleep and began snoring quite loudly.
"What'd you do that for?" asked Harry in dismay.
"Would you rather he kept hurting himself?" said Ginny. "House-Elves can never betray their masters. It's no use trying to get an answer out of him. Why don't you try the Malfoys instead? Oleandra said Dobby belonged to them."
Ginny had come very close to having a clue to her true identity revealed. Unbeknownst to everyone present but Dobby, Lucius Malfoy had been the one to slip the original Ginny Weasley Tom Riddle's diary, which had started the whole chain of events concerning the Chamber of Secrets. For now, it would be hard to guess that she'd been responsible for freeing the Basilisk, but if it became known that Ginny had been the first to possess the diary, then the moment someone figured out the diary was a Horcrux, her cover would be blown!
While she had no doubts that Lucius Malfoy knew that keeping his mouth shut was in his best interest regarding his involvement with the affair of the Chamber of Secrets, it was better not to leave any hidden dangers. Ginny's eyes narrowed slightly; the Malfoys and their House-Elf must be silenced at any cost!
"What about you, then?" Harry turned to ask the female Elf. "I didn't catch your name, by the way. Do you know why… Er— Why are you holding your hands over your face?"
"My name is Winky, sir—, and you is surely Harry Potter!" Winky said, opening a gap between her fingers to get a look at Harry. "I's not liking heights at all, Harry Potter. I don't dare look down."
"Does your master know you don't like heights?" said Harry, frowning. "Why'd you get sent up here?"
"Same reason as Dobby—" said Winky, tilting her head to the seat next to her. "Our masters wanted us to save them good seats. But unlike Dobby, I is a good House-Elf. Winky wishes she is back in master's tent, Harry Potter, but Winky does what she is told."
"It's common practice for the upper class to show off their House-Elves," explained Daphne, who'd been listening in on the conversation from the start. "They're not much to look at, but only those with old money or nobility have House-Elves."
"That's horrible!" said Hermione, frowning. "It's almost as if they're treating Elves as furniture!"