"I'll ask my father, I bet there are and that he wouldn't mind."

"Cool."

There are, and he doesn't mind. How does elf magic work? The elves are not sure, sir, they are just doing things that need to be done. Can an anti-Apparition ward be set against them - yep, looks like the standard ones aren't only for reasons of convenience. Do they have any stories about what they did before they served wizards - no, that is ridiculous, they have always served wizards. Are they willing to try using a wand? (They are not.) Do they get sick (yes, but they wouldn't want to stop working when sick and it'd be shameful for wizards to notice). Do they like some work more than others - no, whatever is most needed is the best! What if they had a bad master - this results in pages and pages of assurances that Finis is a good one, and pages and pages of increasingly frustrated rephrasings from Finis. They have the concept of a bad master, apparently, but it's a very taboo one and no one will admit to ever having heard of an actual existing bad master. They definitely don't want to be free, or be paid, or have days off, and get upset when these things are suggested.

How long do they live? Forty or fifty years; they'll usually stop eating when they can't work anymore. Finis spends apparently months trying tacks to talk them out of this; they eventually convince him that they will be miserable if ordered not to do that. How long do they take to grow up - a year or two. How do they decide when to have children? When there'll be enough work for them. The Way house-elves have had lots of children recently because all of the Way grandchildren will be starting their own families. Why don't they ask for time off for the children? Oh, house-elf babies aren't much trouble. Why don't they tell wizards about their babies? Well, it's really better for everyone - the babies might be told to do things and do them badly and not know to punish themselves appropriately, or the wizards might feel burdened by catering to the babies and that would be so horrible and shameful. 

Finis tries and fails to convince them that 'shame' is meaningless and does not carry ethical import; the exchange leaves everyone involved quite angry with each other.

They regard themselves as bound more to the interests of the household than to the orders being given, though it takes a white to tease that out; if Finis told them, say, to not get him a drink when he was already drinking, they would listen to that over later instructions to get a drink, and their explanations eventually resolve to 'he said both things and one of them is clearly better for him'. Their definition of 'better' seems to mean 'running an honorable and thriving wizarding family', and Finis can't tell if most other house-elves would share their values or if they absorb them from the household (so in this case, from his father).

 They refuse to participate in tests of their magic abilities and if ordered to beg to do something else instead; Finis didn't insist. he does observe that clearly they like some kinds of work more than others, and is told frustratedly that participating in his questioning sessions isn't work, work is nice things like cooking or cleaning or watching children or tending to animals that makes something better for their family.

Finis spends another couple months trying to convince them that experimentation makes things better for the family, to no avail. He runs a series of complicated payment schemes by them - are they okay with bonuses? Incentives? Presents? (Bonuses and incentives stress them out because they insist they are doing a good job all the time, is he dissatisfied?) They are divided on presents but eventually concede that if their work makes Finis so happy he wants to give them presents that'd be very nice. 

"...they sound like one of the more frustrating possible designs for a slave race, actually..."

" - how so?"

"I suppose they might appeal to some people but the inability to answer questions - and these are the ones who are used to that! - and the narrow definition of 'work' and the general nontransparency."

"Maybe it's a difference in sensibilities - the idea is that a useful servant is one who you don't even notice-"

"But they're willing to supervise children! If I were responsible for children I would not hand them off to these creatures without really impoverished options!"

"Elves're good company! They don't let you light yourself on fire, they'll play games with you..."

"I would have found them very frustrating even as a six-year-old, I assure you."

"Fair enough. And parenting might be another thing that changes over the centuries - Elves sure do it differently -"

"Yeah, that's probably most of it."

"I don't know if their sensibilities adapt with the expectations of their owners, though."

"Not very much or any that had been around your father for his entire life would be better at answering questions - is there an observable generation gap in the family elves, how many do you guys have -"

"They weren't around him his entire life, he ran away from home when he was eight and didn't reconcile with his father until after he'd graduated from Hogwarts - and we have five -"

"I suppose running away would explain it. They've known you lot your entire lives, though, right?"

"Yeah. It certainly hasn't produced a drastic shift in outlook."

"How do they divvy up between households when kids grow up and move out?"

"Typically one would come with me and one with my wife, and then they'd have kids if the household needed more than two. So there'll probably be a few children by the time James and Samuel are of age."

"Do you get to pick? How does that work if the spouse doesn't have one or the genders don't work out?"

"I'd take my favorite, yeah. I am not a hundred percent sure house-elves do genders. And I could take two, or we could borrow my grandparents', but mostly the wealthy families intermarry and it doesn't come up."

"Is your favorite house elf going to judge you for not heading up an honorable and thriving branch of their family by taking up with an unsuitable person who does not even have a house elf."

"If I planned on any present social institutions still being in one piece in ten years I'd have to worry about that, yes."

"I was mostly being facetious but it is plausible that the house elves are harder than humans to shove into improved social attitudes, especially if they never see a non-house-elf until they're old enough to make cherries jubilee."

"Yeah. And taking kids away from their parents to improve them seems a bit - horrible."

"Oh, it is, it's been tried and it is very horrible."

"So we may be stuck not just with a slave race but with one with 1802 sensibilities about what that means."

"Well, if they've been around forever and currently suit 1802 wizards very well presumably they weren't very off for 1456 when it was 1456?"

"Don't think so. So there's that."

"But it's not clear exactly how they adapt to the times..."

"Yeah. With a little bit of lag, at least." Sigh. "How much of a problem is it going to be for relations with other societies, if we get a reliable way of contacting them..."

"...people in 2179 care about elephants and you might get conscientious objectors but human nature hasn't fundamentally changed and you can probably present a really compelling economic case for believing what you say about how house elves work."

"Okay. The Elves think they should probably sneak into Revelation, lightleap into the star system somewhere, meet people and trade tech and so on. And see how that goes before 1802 contact with all its complications is attempted." 

"Yeah, Arda/Revelation might not be a smaller values gap but it's one where the fussier society has more warning..."

"I told Maitimo I thought it was adorable that they let the furniture angel be visited in prison by people who think serial killers are great and he looked so appalled at me. Anyway, yes, more warning and no mind control anywhere to be seen."

"Oh, the Elves do have mind control, it just only works on oneself and only if one is an Elf. Or an orc or a Maia or a Vala I guess."

" - I missed that -"

"Oaths work on mental states."

"Yikes."

"And even the ones that aren't directly about them get all compulsive if you try to change your mind."

"I am glad they existed so there was a way to end the war but that's kind of horrifying. - you can use magic to make an Unbreakable Vow but if you break it you just die."

"That's not particularly unbreakable. Especially if there's not even a warning condition for being about to break it."

"I think there is. Not sure, it doesn't get much use. Not a dark spell exactly but definitely a typically ill-advised one."

"Rather, yes."

"I'll tell them they can draw up their eighty page meet-2179 briefing documents."

"Sounds fun."

"I am envious of their resources. Wouldn't trade them for anything, though."

Nod.

Hug. "Let me know about the Poppy Gardens inquiries."

"Will do."

The Elves make plans to contact Revelation!

"I don't know a good way to convince random people in Charlie's old house to let it be an interdimensional communication hub, do you?"

"Money?"

"They do have demonproof currency arrangements in Revelation."

"I wasn't planning to counterfeit it. We have lightleapers and it looks like mostly better consumer tech than them - and a couple thousand catalogues of music and literature from different universes, though I wasn't planning to offer those to the humans..."

"So you want them to extend credit. To home invaders."

"I want to establish ourselves and then buy the house."

"I will have to continuously hold the door for time in which to establish yourselves to pass. In their house. This would be a problem even if I ditched the wings and tail."

"Are you sure of that? Time hasn't been paused in Revelation since you walked in here."

"...okay, I don't actually know for sure, my door situation is weird."

"I am hoping for an arrangement by which you do not need to hold the door, and we write you when we want it open again. Maybe we can ask Bar what that requires - maybe after opening it to Revelation opening it to Hell or Arda?"

"Bar might not know, lacking the ability to personally run door experiments."

"Well, it seems like a cheap test - the worst case scenario is that we're stranded in Revelation and that's not actually very inconvenient, we could still correspond."

"Yes, I suppose, you're even forkable-home if you want."

"Yep. Or if you need us for anything, but I think the rest is pending on whether people can daevafy anywhere outside Revelation."

"If only somebody would die."

"It's terrible."

And when they are ready (two Elves and forty chips in their pockets, all invisible) they wait for Cam to sneak them into formerly-his-dad's-house. 

Cam holds the door and watches them hop out the window. They are not caught by whatever resident is singing in the shower.

While he is checking his mail periodically in case they have anything to report, he remarks to Timothy, "You should probably actually tell Miranda you know about her parents."

"I - did? I said that we were going to continue being careful around things like peoples' families and peoples' orientations, despite how rapidly I expect them to become irrelevant."

"Which... solidified her position that you probably suspect but does not tell her how much detail you have or if you've guessed the right thing or even actually guarantee that you know anything as opposed to being generally magnanimous."

"- okay - and those are relevantly different? I mean, if I've communicated that I'm not going to hurt her, what additional benefit is there -"

"While she is using her conservative do-not-tell-anybody-even-if-it-would-certainly-be-fine-because-that-only-gets-to-leak-to-the-wrong-person-once strategy she cannot drop the pretense around you without knowing that you in fact know."

"Okay. If it's meaningful to her I'll tell her."

"Or I can but I wasn't sure I wanted to explain why I know you know."

" - yeah, fair. If you didn't throw it off for some reason I was going to put up a privacy spell such that he didn't actually hear you. And be very worried but that's a different story."

"It was a perfectly good prompt to throw off the spell and I figured you had something in mind but I don't super want to tell Miranda all about it if she isn't actually curious, which she does not seem to be."

"I will find a separate excuse to tell her. Have we heard back from the Poppy people?"

"I got a form letter, but it said they would interview some people who had given applicable advance consent and get back to me, so."

"Thanks."

And a little while later, "Miranda?"

"Yeah?"

Conversational privacy - "Cam said that I should tell you explicitly that I picked up that your father's a Muggle and your mother Muggleborn because the rules you are operating under don't treat 'wouldn't care and probably knows' the same as 'definitely knows' and wouldn't allow telling me?"

"...okay, thanks. How did you figure it out, when was it -"

"First time you got into a fight with one of the girls in your year - well, didn't have the details at that point, but you don't talk about your father and your mother didn't have elves or family friends with elves or family friends informally setting up a match for you -"

"Most people buy 'Nnenne is eccentric and immigrated from Igboland as a child' as an explanation for that part. She is and she did."

"Sure, but there are more Muggleborns than people with no extended family for other reasons. I don't think you're at risk of exposure in general."

"Okay. Thank you."

"Sure! Take care."

"- as long as you already know do you have a read on who would care and how much -"

"The world's going to be changing a lot, really fast - and I overestimated how much people'd care if I were involved with Cam. At least within here I think you're fine."

"Okay, thanks."

"Of course."

(Based on the message from the Elves, time is in fact passing in Revelation while the door is closed - but about a thousand times slower than in Milliways. The initial note saying that everything worked fine was composed a minute after the door closed, and arrives the next day.)

"Huh. I guess that's more convenient than if they were going a lot faster than us - and, come to think of it, if Arda's stopped, the daeva worlds have to be slow not to have noticed anything wrong..."

"Maybe that's why my correspondence is taking so long - and that fairy didn't want a resummon so soon?"

"Yeah, she said she had something the next couple weeks - it'd been more than that on our end, but probably not on hers - the time stuff is weird. I approve, though. It is nice to be able to guiltlessly take an afternoon off occasionally."

"It is!"

"Speaking of which I think I have learned about as much from your books as can be learned from books."

"And now you want volumes two through seven?"

"I am surprised 2179 does not consider it uncivilized not to provide all of their citizens with basement-dwellers for practice. And demonic elephants for the elephants."

"Basement dwellers seem like they would not be worth the time, honestly, I don't get the appeal."