This wasn't the first time Harry had met a house elf.
In fact, since Elena entered Hogwarts, almost no one in the entire school does not know about the existence of house elves. Students all know where three meals a day come from and who is helping to clean the room.
and wash clothes.
Sometimes Harry even felt that he was actually a house elf in the Dursleys' house.
Cleaning windows, washing cars, mowing lawns, tidying flower beds, pruning and watering roses, repainting garden benches... After this summer vacation, I added the task of preparing three meals a day, and helping to clean up the kitchen and living room.
Fortunately, this kind of life will only last for another month at most.
And on the other hand, as Harry began to take charge of part of the kitchen, the Dursley family's attitude towards him has improved slightly. At least there is not as much sarcasm as before, if it weren't for accidentally taking a picture of the bacon slices.
If you look at Uncle Vernon's face and plead a few words, you might be able to get Hedwig an extra chance to relax.
Putting aside the emotions brought over from the dining room for the time being, Harry frowned and looked at the two little secretaries who were wrestling with each other.
The elf that appeared in front of Harry this time was slightly different from the one in his memory.
Unlike the energetic house elves in Hogwarts Castle who wear napkins with the Hogwarts school emblem (in fact, Elena had asked them to change their napkins into small clothes at the end of the semester).
), the two house elves that rolled out of his closet looked as pitiful as beggars.
The house elf at the disadvantage must be very old. Except for a dirty rag around her waist, she is almost naked. The wrinkled skin makes her look like she has more skin than her body actually needs.
Several times.
Although its head is bald like all house elves, its two big bat-like ears have a lot of white hair growing out of them, its eyes are bloodshot and watery and gray, and its fleshy nose is big.
It's just like a pig's snout.
At this time, Kreacher was waving his skinny arms desperately, trying to catch the letter that had fallen into the hands of the younger elf.
The younger house elf was wearing an old pillowcase with a few holes cut out for his arms and legs. In addition, Harry noticed that the elf's fingers and ears were covered with holes.
The scars looked like they had been severely abused - it was precisely because of these scars that it could not easily subdue Kreacher.
"Oh - hello." Harry said subconsciously, a little confused.
"Harry Potter!" the younger house elf screamed, "Dobby has always wanted to meet you, sir... it's an honor... Dobby has long heard of your greatness, sir..."
At the same time, the old elf also raised his head and looked at Harry thoughtfully.
"Is this true? Of course, Kreacher saw the scar. It must be real. He is the boy who stopped the Dark Lord. Kreacher doesn't know how he did it - oh, by the way, the master's letter! Although
The young master is a nasty bastard, but Kreacher will never allow a scoundrel from another family to steal the young master's letter to Harry Potter!"
Then, taking advantage of Dobby's distraction, Kreacher suddenly pounced forward, trying to snatch the envelope back.
It's just that compared to the young and agile Dobby, the old Kreacher is obviously much slower. Before Kreacher's fingers touched the envelope, Dobby had already nimbly jumped to the side and retorted sharply.
.
"Dobby is not stealing, Dobby is only keeping Harry Potter temporarily to protect the safety of Harry Potter——"
"Wait, except for this letter...you also intercepted all the letters from my friends?"
Harry gradually picked up the clues from the conversation between the two elves, and frowned and looked at Dobby angrily.
Last year it was Uncle Vernon, and this year it was a house elf who came from nowhere. From last year to this year, it seemed that every time this time approached, it was difficult for him to successfully get letters addressed to him.
"Harry Potter don't be angry with Dobby - Dobby is all for..."
Dobby blinked anxiously and defended himself while jumping around the room, avoiding Kreacher.
However, as Harry began to cooperate with Kreacher in blocking its path in the room, Dobby had to start making noise in the room, using various ornaments or debris to gain space for himself.
"Where's my letter?! Where did you throw all my friends' letters!"
"It's not lost. The letters are still here with Dobby, sir."
Dobby said quickly, waving the trash can to open Kreacher's lunge, jumped on the top of the wardrobe, and pulled out a thick stack of letters from the pillowcase he was wearing. Harry recognized Draco at a glance
The slightly lacy retro font, Ron's flying handwriting, Hermione's neat and orderly font, and the unique and lovely handwriting of Elena...
"Harry Potter, don't be angry, Dobby is doing this for your own good, because Hogwarts may be in danger this year..."
Dobby blinked anxiously and looked down at Harry.
"Dobby had thought... that if Harry Potter thought his friends had forgotten him... Harry Potter might not want to go back to school, sir... Harry Potter would first have to promise Dobby not to
I will return the letter to you when you return to Hogwarts."
Harry didn't want to listen and reached out to grab the letter, but Dobby jumped out of the way.
"No," said Harry angrily, "give me my friend's letter!"
With the combined efforts of him and Kreacher to contain him, they finally restricted Dobby to an extremely narrow space. Harry was about to catch this nimble elf and take back the letters he had intercepted.
At this moment, I suddenly heard footsteps in the corridor outside the door.
Uncle Vernon's heavy body stepped across the wooden floor, making a creaking sound, accompanied by the man's roar.
"What are you doing?! Boy, do you want to demolish my house?!"
Snapped.
Snapped.
A look of panic appeared on the faces of the two house elves, and they started to disapparate in unison, and together with the pile of letters that were only a few centimeters away from Harry's fingertips, they disappeared in front of Harry.
Only Harry was left in the empty room, and the bedroom was in a mess.
Immediately afterwards, the door handle turned open.
"Ah - very good - very good -"
Uncle Vernon's fierce face appeared in front of Harry. He looked around Harry's bedroom, which looked like it had just been ravaged by a few big men, and put his face in front of Harry. It was terrifyingly close, and he spoke slowly and gnashing his teeth.
Said slowly.
"Learn to let go of your anger, right? If I don't come up, are you going to smash the windows of my house? Or are you going to burn the bed? Or make a few more deep scratches on the wall? Hmm? Boy, speak up
!”
"This, these are..."
Harry looked around the messy bedroom, looked at Vernon Dursley's gloomy face, and explained feebly.
"Uncle Vernon, I know this sounds ridiculous, but there were two house elves fighting here just now... One of them intercepted the letter from my friend, and the other wanted to take the letter back to me...
…”
"House-elf? Why didn't you say it was goblins fighting?"
Vernon Dursley grinned, revealing some yellowed teeth, and said coldly with a smile on his face.
Harry swallowed and explained in a low voice.
"Goblins are different from elves. Although there are goblins, most of them are in Gringotts Wizarding Bank..."
"That's enough! I have no time and no interest in listening to your nonsense!"
Mr. Dursley yelled, spittle flying into Harry's face, interrupting Harry's words.
"Listen to me, boy!"
Uncle Vernon pointed his thick finger at the bridge of Harry's nose and said fiercely.
"Tonight I may make the biggest deal of my life. If you can help your Aunt Petunia prepare the dinner and help me get this order smoothly, I will leave your damn owl alone. It
You can fly however you like at night, as long as you don't get seen by the neighbors or don't let your unscrupulous friends come to your door."
After a slight pause, Vernon Dursley raised his eyebrows and narrowed his eyes.
"Of course, if you dare to do anything at dinner, I swear you will regret being born in this world - and if I find you smashing things here again, then you will move back downstairs.
Live in a small cubicle."
Regarding the dinner Uncle Vernon was talking about, Harry certainly knew what it was.
For the past two weeks, this was almost all he talked about.
A rich builder and his wife are coming over for dinner, and Uncle Vernon is hoping that the man will order a large order of drilling rigs from his company. With luck, the family will have enough money to go shopping in Majorca.
The villa on the island.
Compared to Aunt Petunia's barely passable English housewife cooking skills, Harry's cooking skills are much better.
After a year of studying Potions at Hogwarts, Snape's guidance on knife skills, and Elena's occasional coaching tips on cooking, Harry, who originally had some talent in housekeeping skills, made rapid progress.
In terms of some simple cooking, it can almost reach the normal standards of Hogwarts house elves in the past.
Although there are not many expensive ingredients to choose from, the concept that Elena advocates is to use the most common ingredients to make the most delicious and rich dishes. In this regard, Eastern cuisine can be several steps ahead of Western cuisine.
"I understand, I understand, don't worry, Uncle Vernon, I will cook well tonight."
Looking at Uncle Vernon with a ferocious look on his face, Harry nodded and said very seriously.
"But... regarding Hedwig, you must keep your word!"
As for tonight's dishes, Harry had already finalized it with the Dursleys a week ago.
Because it is a family dinner, the preparation is not too complicated. There are two kinds of pies as the staple food:
The first is the traditional British fish pie that Harry often eats at Hogwarts. It only needs to cover the fried fish, cheese, butter, onions, and diced carrots with mashed potatoes, and bake it in the oven.
, can be easily made.
Compared to looking up at the stars, this is obviously much simpler.
The second type is steak and kidney pie, which is common in Scotland. Onions, steaks, and beef kidneys are mixed into the pie. It needs to be chewed while drinking beer to enjoy it. It is especially suitable for starting conversations about business.
For hot pot dishes, Harry is going to make a Lancashire casserole.
This is a casserole that the little wizards of Gryffindor often make secretly by the fire in the common room.
The main purpose of this dish is to first prepare various vegetables, mutton, beef slices, add salt, pepper, and flour to the meat slices, marinate them for a short time in advance, then remove the excess flour, throw them into the pot and mix with onions, carrots,
Stir-fry the stock, thyme and rosemary together, then cover it with potato slices and butter, put it in the oven, and it's ready to go.
Since there is no oven in the common room, Gryffindor's little wizards usually transform the cauldron into a large cauldron, float it directly in the fireplace, and use flame spells to heat it evenly in all directions to achieve an oven-like effect.
In addition, there are jam pudding, mango chicken (mixed with banana, apricot, mayonnaise and chicken), violet cake with cream frosting (this is Aunt Petunia's specialty), stewed bean soup...these are common
of dishes.
All in all, this dinner can be said to be the most important event of the entire summer vacation for the Dursley family.
In order to make everything go smoothly, Vernon Dursley even overcame part of his fear of magic, and did not care at all that the cooking skills displayed by Harry might come from the teaching content of the wizard school-after all, wizards are also human beings.
If the wizard's delicacies can help him get orders, he can even tolerate Harry touching things in the kitchen with his wand.
"It's best this way. It's good for all of us."
Uncle Vernon stared at Harry very seriously for a while, as if he wanted to tell whether he was lying, and then continued slowly, raising his voice to ensure that his son and wife downstairs could hear him.
"Okay, then I think at noon, it would be best for all of us to go through the evening's arrangements again..."
…
And at the same time, on the other side.
12 Grimmauld Place, the ancestral home of the Black family.
"What did you say? The Malfoy house elves stole my letter to Harry?!"
Sirius Black, who was playing with his beloved flying motorcycle in the hall, suddenly stood up, frowned heavily and looked at the old house elf standing in front of him.
Kreacher nodded, his cloudy eyes flashing with annoyance, and said in a determined tone.
"Yes, I have met the guy named Dobby at Malfoy Manor before. He is the house elf of the Malfoy family. Not only the letter from you, Master, I saw many other people's letters in his hand to Harry.
Potter's letter."
"Malfoy? Haha, Lucius is a little too courageous."
Sirius Black snorted coldly and straightened the giant flying motorcycle that Hagrid had returned to him. A cold look flashed in his eyes, as well as a hint of excitement that he was eager to try.
Although Dumbledore did not allow him to go to the Dursley's house to pick up Harry, nor did he allow him to take the initiative to talk to the former Death Eaters, but if this happened, how could he, as Harry's legal godfather,
Gotta take care of it.
"Just in time, I'm still worried that I won't have the opportunity to visit Lily's sister's family and have a good chat about Harry..."