A Lesson at Dawn
The next morning, very early, Sally was already up preparing breakfast for her children. There was a trace of nervousness inside her, for she knew Mr. Einjard would be coming that day. So, even though everything was ready, she remained waiting by the table, her hands restless.
At the exact hour, the fireplace lit up with a green glow, and out of it emerged Einjard, his expression perpetually annoyed and his eyes heavy with severity.
"Where's the brat?" he asked without even greeting.
"Ah, I'm sorry, the children take a little while to wake up completely," Sally replied quickly, her tone apologetic.
Einjard's frown deepened.
"I'll go wake him up right now," she hurried to say.
"That won't be necessary. I'll do it," he replied in a grave voice. He reached into one of his pockets and pulled out a scrap of parchment. With a sharp gesture, he shook it in the air. The parchment twisted in on itself, transforming into a living letter that shot off at full speed toward the children's room.
A moment later, a piercing shriek echoed from upstairs, followed by Harry and Percy's terrified screams. Since they shared a room, both had been victims of Einjard's strange "alarm clock."
"Ahhh!" they both yelled as they bolted down the hallway, chased by the letter, which now displayed a wide mouth screaming furiously. They covered their ears, desperate, but it was useless—the shriek drilled into their heads until the letter finally self-destructed in a burst of dust.
The children stumbled into the living room, faces pale, disoriented, and their ears still ringing.
"Seems like you think you're too important to make me wait, brat," Einjard said harshly, locking his gaze on Percy. Harry, however, immediately understood that he had only been collateral damage.
Sally tried to force a smile to ease the tension, but the worry in her eyes was impossible to hide.
"You'd better be ready to sweat," Einjard added with a dangerous smile directed at Percy.
The boy trembled a little, still dazed from the magical scream. Harry, meanwhile, thought perhaps he was lucky not to have asked for training himself. Although, deep down, he remembered Einjard had mentioned that one day a teacher would come for him too.
…
In the backyard, Harry watched from a chair as Percy ran in circles, drenched in sweat, his legs trembling. At his side, Sally looked on with a clenched heart, wishing she could stop it, but her son's determined expression held her back.
Einjard, on the other hand, remained unmoved. To him, there was no reason for concern: even newborn goblins began training as soon as they could take their first steps. And what tied Sally's hands even more were his words, spoken with absolute seriousness:
"If he doesn't know how to defend himself when the time comes, when his scent can no longer be hidden, he will be in far greater danger."
With that, Sally had no choice but to endure the pain of watching her son push himself to the limit.
"Mom, who do you think my teacher will be?" Harry asked softly, worried at the thought his training might be just as harsh.
"I don't know, sweetheart," she answered, as she watched Percy collapse exhausted on the grass. She nearly rushed to him, but Einjard threw a potion over his body. The boy stood up instantly, recovered, only to receive the order to keep running.
"I hope it won't be that painful," Harry muttered, looking at his brother with unease.
"Come on, brat. This is only the warm-up. If you want to quit, say so right now. I don't have time to waste, every minute here costs me money," Einjard growled, his voice carrying the merciless tone of an iron instructor.
Percy, though silently regretting having asked to learn the sword just because it was "cool," felt deep inside that giving up now would be a mistake he would regret for the rest of his life. He was only six years old, but something pushed him to continue. Seeing his mother and Harry watching him with concern gave him the strength for another lap.
Although he seemed cruel, Einjard cast small healing spells to make sure Percy didn't injure himself badly. He was testing him, measuring his endurance, his will. His face remained stern, but the fact that he had accepted to train Percy meant he would do it properly.
"Mmm… looks like she's here," he muttered suddenly, raising an eyebrow as he glanced toward the entrance. "And it seems they sent someone… interesting."
…
Harry, meanwhile, had taken one of the books his grandparents had brought and was leafing through it with seriousness. He had no wand, but he could study the spells and memorize every detail.
"Lumos… light spell," he murmured, repeating with the focus of a diligent student.
"Well… is this what they teach now? If Hogwarts has been reduced to teaching such nonsense, I'd be quite disappointed."
The feminine voice caught him off guard. Harry spun around quickly, as did Sally, and both froze at the sight of the woman who had appeared without warning.
She was hypnotically beautiful: blood-red hair falling in waves, pale skin, intense blue eyes, and a black dress that melted into a translucent cape resembling a veil of shadows. Her lips curved in interest, but her gaze, when it briefly flicked to Harry's scar, hardened before softening again.
"Hello, my little nephew," she said in a melodious voice.
Harry and Sally were stunned. Even Percy, who was still running nearby, stopped for a moment before receiving another kick from Einjard to keep moving.
"Excuse me, but who did you say you were?" Sally asked cautiously, moving into a defensive stance.
"For now, you may call me Aunt Mor. I am not his blood aunt, but something quite similar." With a snap of her fingers, a dark chair rose from her shadow. She sat down confidently, crossing her legs with elegance.
"Oh, right. I brought a gift. Since it's my first time introducing myself, I didn't know what you liked… so I took something from some unpleasant wizards."
With another snap of her fingers, a cage appeared before them. Inside, huddled and trembling, was a being none of the children had ever seen before: a house-elf. It had enormous bulging eyes, long ears, a bony frame, and clothes that were nothing more than tattered rags. It clutched its legs tightly, consumed by fear.
The silence grew heavy. Sally, Harry, and Percy didn't know how to react.
"Ah? You don't like it?" Mor asked, tilting her head with an amused air. "They're very useful for cleaning, looking after children… even powerful, though limited by their magical contracts. They never betray their master."
Harry frowned at the sight of the trembling creature.
"Why is it in a cage?" he asked indignantly.
"That's how I found it." With a flick of her hand, the cage vanished and the elf collapsed onto its knees.
Harry rushed to help, but the creature shrieked at once:
"No, no, sorry, so very sorry! Trash must not get in the way of a great wizard!" it squealed, beating its head with desperate hands.
Sally's heart clenched. The creature was broken with fear.
"Your name is… Trash?" Mor asked, arching an eyebrow.
"Yes, yes. That was the name Trash's previous master gave him," the elf replied, trembling.
"Master? But I don't see any magical contract on you," Mor remarked with interest.
The elf's eyes widened in terror. "Yes, yes! Trash was to be sold to a new master… for a new magical contract."
"Sold?" Sally asked, her voice now laced with indignation.
Mor smiled calmly. "House-elves are bought and sold like objects. They are slaves bound to magical contracts until their death… or until someone frees them."
"So we can free him?" Harry asked, his voice hopeful.
"No, no! Trash does not want to die!" the elf wailed, striking his head again. "Trash is sorry, Trash is sorry…"
Sally watched in horror, slowly beginning to grasp the magnitude of the problem.
"Free elves don't get work. Without a master, they starve or kill themselves. That's why almost none want freedom," Mor explained coldly. "Accepting a contract isn't slavery if you don't treat it as such. It would simply be a helper… with a home."
Harry looked at his mother, his heart torn between compassion and doubt. Percy, though exhausted, was also paying attention from the training yard.
"Then… shall we take it as a helper?" Sally asked in an uncertain voice.
"No, no! Trash is happy being a slave. Yes, a slave. Just don't free Trash," the elf pleaded, trembling from head to toe.
Sally gazed at the pitiful elf with sadness. She couldn't just leave it now, not after knowing what awaited it.
"Then the first thing will be to change that name," she said at last, with a sigh heavy with decision.
"Then I'll make the contract," Mor said with a smile as she clapped lightly. A parchment appeared in the air, and a quill began to scribble quickly across it, as though guided by an invisible hand.
"What name will you give it?" she asked lightly, as if speaking about naming a newly adopted pet.
Sally frowned at the casualness of it, but drew a breath and looked at the elf closely.
"I'm sorry… do you have a name you'd like?" she asked softly, with a tenderness that surprised everyone.
The elf's eyes widened in shock. For a moment, the trembling ceased. No one had ever asked such a thing before. Tears burst forth, soaking his bony face.
"Yes… ah, yes. Trash… no, I would like my mother's name… Lia," the elf said between sobs.
"Lia? But… that's a girl's name, isn't it?" Harry asked, tilting his head with genuine confusion.
"Yes, yes. Trash… no, Lia is a she-elf," the elf replied hastily, wiping her tears with frail hands.
"I see. Then your name will be Lia," Mor declared firmly, as the contract finished writing itself.
Only the thumbprints remained: first the little elf's, then Sally's. As soon as they pressed them down, the parchment ignited in blue flames and vanished, sealing the pact. The children didn't need to sign—by registering Sally as her guardian, they too became Lia's masters.
"Done," Mor said with utter simplicity, as though it were a routine formality.
Sally looked at the rags covering the fragile body of the elf and felt a lump in her throat. "Now we need to find you some clothes," she said gently.
At once, Lia shrank back in terror and cried out desperately: "No! Freeing, no! Please!" She dropped to her knees, trembling, her face buried in her hands.
"To break a contract, all it takes is giving them a piece of clothing," Mor explained casually, as if it were a trivial detail.
"I'm sorry, I didn't know," Sally said quickly, kneeling beside her. "Don't worry, you won't be freed if you don't want to," she promised, her voice full of concern.
Harry, meanwhile, stared thoughtfully at Lia's rags. Suddenly, he dashed inside the house.
Moments later he returned holding something in his hands: a pillowcase with blue flowers, taken from his mother's bed.
"If she can't use clothes, she can use this!" he said proudly, showing it off with a smile.
Sally looked at him in surprise, understanding his idea. Mor regarded Harry with an amused smile. "Technically… it isn't clothing," she said in a sing-song voice.
A spell from Mor cleaned the elf, and soon Lia was dressed in the pillowcase, tied at the waist with a cord to resemble an improvised dress. Simple, yet dignified. And most importantly: it didn't break the contract.
"Well. If you're done with that, we can move to the real matter," Mor said, her gaze drifting toward boredom. Everyone turned toward her, expectant.
"I was forced out of my retirement to become the teacher of you," she said, pointing directly at Harry, her finger as cold as a sentence. Then she looked at Sally. "And you."
The silence grew heavy in the yard. Einjard, who had remained in the background until then, clenched his jaw. His expression, usually surly, now darkened with real concern.
"Not for them… but for the wizarding world as a whole," he muttered gravely, more to himself than to anyone else. "They really sent someone dangerous."
Mor noticed, and at the sight of him, she smiled—a smile that seemed to hold a secret shared since ancient times. A smile that chilled the goblin's blood: the smile of someone far too powerful, and far too familiar.
Einjard felt a shiver crawl down his spine.