By the time James had dressed and made his way down to the Great Hall for breakfast, it was nearly ten o'clock. Less than a dozen students could be seen moving disconsolately among the detritus of the morning's earlier rush. At the far corner of the Slytherin table, Zane sat hunched and squinting under a beam of sunlight. Across from him was Ralph, who saw James enter and waved him over.
As James made his way across the Hall, four or five house-elves, each wearing large linen napkins with the Hogwarts crest embroidered on them, circled the tables, meandering in what at first appeared to be random paths. Occasionally, one of them would duck beneath the surface of a table and then reappear a moment later, tossing a stray fork or half a biscuit casually onto the mess of the table. As James passed one of the elves, it straightened, raised its spindly arms, and then brought them swiftly down. The contents on the table in front of him swirled together as if caught in a miniature cyclone. With a great clattering of dishes and silverware, the corners of the tablecloth shot upwards and twisted around the pile of breakfast debris, creating a huge clanking bag floating improbably over the polished wood table. The house-elf leaped from floor to bench to tabletop, and then jumped, turning in midair and landing lightly on top of the bag. It grasped the twisted top of the bag, using the knot as if it were a set of reins, and turned the bag, driving it bobbingly toward the gigantic service doors in the side of the Hall. James ducked as the bag swooped over his head.
'Phew,' Zane muttered as James plopped down next to him and reached for the last piece of toast. 'These little waiters of yours may be weird-lookin' buggers, but they know how to make a good cup of coffee.'
'They're not waiters, they're house-elves. I read about them yesterday,' Ralph said, happily munching half a sausage. The other half was speared on the end of his fork, which he used like a pointer, indicating the elves. 'They work downstairs. They're like the elves in that kids' story. The ones that came at night and did all the work for the cobbler.'
'The what?' Zane asked over his coffee mug.
'The guy that makes shoes. He had all these shoes half finished and just lying around, and he was about to fall over from all the work. You know that story, don't you? So he falls asleep, and in the middle of the night, all these little elves show up and whip out their hammers and go to town, fixing up all the shoes for him. He wakes up and bammo, everything's cool.' Ralph bit the rest of the sausage off his fork and munched it, looking around. 'I never pictured them wearing napkins, though.'
'Hey, alien-boy, I see your face is back to normal,' Zane said, examining James critically.
'What passes for it, I suppose,' James replied.
'Did it hurt at all when Sabrina zapped you?'
'No,' James said. 'It felt weird. Really weird. But it didn't hurt. It just went back to normal overnight.'
'She must be an artist. You looked great. Webbed feet and all.'
'What are you two talking about?' Ralph asked, looking back and forth between them. They told him all about the previous night, about raising the Wocket, and the farmer who'd fainted when James, the little alien, had stumbled and fallen on top of him.
'I was hiding in the corner of the yard, near the shed, and I about gave myself a hernia trying not to laugh when you tackled him. Attack of the Martian Klutzes!' He dissolved into laughter and after a moment, James joined him.
'Where'd they get the spaceship?' Ralph asked, bypassing the humor.
'It's just a bunch of chicken wire and papier-mache,' Zane said, downing the last of his coffee and clapping the mug onto the table. He raised his arm and snapped his fingers twice. 'Sabrina and Horace made it last year as part of a float for a Christmas parade down in Hogsmeade. It used to be a giant cauldron. Now, with the help of some paint and something Gennifer called a 'Visum-ineptio charm', it's the R.M.S. Wocket.'
A very small house-elf approached Zane, frowning. 'You, er, snapped, young master?' The elf's voice was gratingly deep despite his size.
'Here you go, buddy,' Zane said, handing the elf the empty coffee mug. 'Nice work. Keep it up. This is for you.'
The elf looked down at the piece of paper Zane had just handed him. He raised his eyes again. 'Thank you, young master. Will there, er, be anything else?'
Zane flapped his hand dismissively. 'No, thanks. Go get some sleep or something. You look tired.'
The elf looked at Ralph, then James, who shrugged and tried to smile. With a barely perceptible roll of the eyes, the elf tucked the five dollar bill into his napkin and disappeared under the table.
Zane looked thoughtful. 'I could get used to this.'
'I don't think you're supposed to tip the house-elves,' Ralph said uncertainly.
'I don't see why not,' Zane said airily, stretching. 'My dad tips everybody when he's travelling. He says it's part of the local economy. And it fosters good service.'
'And you can't just tell a house-elf to go get some sleep,' James said, suddenly realizing what had just happened.
'Why the heck not?'
'Because that's exactly what he'll have to go and do!' James said in exasperation. He was thinking of the Potter family house-elf, a sad little pug of an elf whose moroseness was only offset by his sheer bloodyminded determination to do exactly what was asked of him. It wasn't that James didn't like Kreacher. It was just that you had to learn precisely how to ask things of Kreacher. 'House-elves have to do what is asked of them by their masters. It's just the kind of beings they are. He's probably heading back to his cupboard, or shelf, or wherever it is he sleeps even now and trying to work out how he's going to sleep in the middle of the morning.' James shook his head, and then realized it struck him funny. He tried not to smile, which only made it worse. Zane saw it and pointed at him.
'Ha ha! You think it's funny, too!' he chortled.
'I can't imagine that they have to do everything we ask of them,' Ralph said, his brow furrowed. 'We're just students. We don't own the place or anything. And we're just first years.'
'You remembered the name of the spell Sabrina used to make the Wocket look like a rocket?' James asked, turning to Zane, impressed.
'Visum-ineptio,' Zane said, relishing the sound of it. 'It means something like 'eye-fooling'. If you work through the Latin, you can sort of figure it out. Horace says it just helps people see what they think they are going to see.'
James frowned. 'So when that beam of light came out of the sky onto that farmer, he, sort of,
'Sure. Everybody knows that a beam of light, at night, in the middle of nowhere means the little green guys are coming.'
'You're a strange guy, Zane,' Ralph said, not unappreciatively.
Just then, James sensed someone standing behind him. All three of them turned, looking up. It was the Slytherin girl from the previous night, the one who'd led the applause for James before his Sorting. She was looking down at him with a pleasant, vaguely indulgent expression. She was flanked by two other Slytherins, a boy with
