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Chapter 603: Heads of House-Elves
🕑 Added 2019-09-21 09:34:38 +0000 UTCBehind the brick wall was a wide space. As soon as Evan entered, he was shocked. He was facing a huge wall dotted with so many strange things.
A closer look revealed that they were all wrinkled heads of house-elves. They piled up densely with the same ugly noses.
These were much more vivid than the row of heads of the house-elves Evan had seen before in the Blacks' old house. Under the low temperature preservation, they looked so lifelike, looking at him with their bulging eyes, as though still alive. Many of them had humble faces, with an exaggerated smile that forced the corners of their mouths upward.
In this case, these smiles went beyond sinister, and no trace of kindness could be sensed through them.
Imagine the sensory stimulation, shock and pressure that thousands of ugly heads piled together could bring.
If he didn’t already know that the house-elves had the habit of cutting off their heads and hanging them on walls after death, Evan would have thought that this was the base of some of the most evil Dark wizards, for only those psychopaths would hang such things on the wall.
Only separated by a wall, on one side was the cold storage for food to Hogwarts, and on the other side was a really hellish showroom of severed heads.
If the students saw this scene, he didn’t know if they could still eat the food made by the house-elves.
When Dobby came in behind Evan, he let out a sudden scream and covered his eyes with his right arm.
Dobby clenched Evan's robes with the other hand, following him forward trembling, greatly frightened.
"Master Evan, let's go back," said Dobby, "Dobby feels uncomfortable here."
“Uncomfortable?!” asked Evan. "Isn't it your tradition to cut off your heads and hang them on the wall?”
As far as he knew, most of the house-elves had that terrible belief, such as Kreacher.
His biggest dream was to have his head cut off and hung with his ancestors’ in the old house of the Blacks.
"Dobby doesn't like this tradition. Dobby doesn’t hang his head here!" Dobby squealed. "Dobby is a free elf. Dobby will be buried like a wizard after he dies… let's go back, Master Evan!"
"Wait, let's have a look!" said Evan, looking amusedly at the house-elf shivering at his feet.
He led Dobby through the rows of heads, holding up his wand and carefully looking around.
The spacious room was cold and quiet. Perhaps because someone cleaned it regularly, there was not a speck of dust on the floor.
Only those heads on the walls hang quietly there, with strange expressions on their faces.
Some of the house-elves were solemn, some had a smile, others were angry, and others were very humble...
In a sense, this was the Holy Land of Hogwarts House-Elves.
These heads on the wall revealed the changes in history and in the status of the house-elves.
The house-elves in different times dressed differently and had different facial expressions.
The elves' heads Evan had seen at the beginning were mostly full of expressions of confidence and had many exaggerated ornaments. Many ornaments had high value, and Evan could even feel the magic from them.
It was conceivable that the house-elves of that era were relatively rich and possessed considerable personal property.
This was in the early days of Hogwarts, and before they became slaves of wizards, they were a free and independent species.
Their status was near that of wizards, because they were gentle, peace-loving and possessed relatively strong magic power. The house-elves in that era were the most closely related non-human intelligent creatures to wizards. They accepted the employment of human wizards and acted as assistants to wizards in various fields of magic.
Evan continued to move forward, recalling the history of the house-elf races she had seen in a book.
The closer he got to modern times, the humbler the faces of the elves on the wall were, and there were no more ornaments.
At that time, they were no longer free species, but slaves to wizards.
There were heads hanging on the wall, on which the faces of the house-elves were missing a part or more.
Each face looked extraordinarily shocking.
They seemed to have suffered some kind of cruel abuse and permanent damage caused by irreversible magic.
This was the period when pure blood theory and Dark magic were most prevalent, and house-elves suffered the most from wizards’ persecution.
Even the house-elves in the schools couldn’t avoid being attacked and abused by students as a means of entertainment.
It was conceivable how miserable the elves that lived in the pure blood wizard families would be.
In fact, in those Dark Ages, the same thing happened to other creatures.
Under such circumstances, many non-human intelligent creatures began to rebel against the brutal rule of human wizards.
The most famous were the goblin rebellions. They had rebelled many times.
The largest and most successful one occurred in 1612, when the goblins used the Three Broomsticks Inn as their headquarters to attack the wizarding world.
At the beginning of the battle, the crafty goblins were hiding behind the scenes and were ostensibly allies of the wizards.
But in the dark, they had a secret alliance with the giants and let them come out to make trouble.
When the army of the Ministry of Magic fought with the giants, the goblins suddenly rebelled and attacked.
The unexpected changes caused the wizards to be hit hard, and many of them died in the battle.
The goblins quickly occupied the Ministry of Magic and Diagon Alley. Even the pure-blood wizard families had been attacked, and everyone was in danger at that time.
The final and most tragic stage of the war was the attack on Hogwarts.
The goblins continued to consolidate the advantages they had gained. They united non-human intelligent creatures such as Centaurs, giants, Merpeople, vampires, as well as a large number of dangerous magical creatures and the help of many evil Dark wizards. Their forces far exceeded those of the wizards’ coalition of the Ministry of Magic.
The wizards huddled in Hogwarts Castle, and their allies were only house-elves and a few magical creatures.
The house-elves were the only non-human magical creatures that did not betray the human wizards in the goblin rebellion.
The Ministry of Magic and the pure-blood wizard families at that time probably promised a lot of things to the house-elves before they convinced them to become their allies.
There was no way to find out about it, and Evan didn't know how they did it.
The only thing that could be known was that the bitter war ended in a draw. The goblins did not successfully seize Hogwarts, but the wizarding community had recognized the independent status of the goblins, Centaurs, Merpeople and other non-human intelligent creatures. They were no longer wizards' slaves.
Only the status of the house-elves who helped the wizards in the war had not changed. On the contrary, they were confronted with more deformity and severe enslavement and oppression. Foolish slaves to the humans, and traitors to everyone else; at that time, no one spoke for them...
