Wardwizard Snape resumes instructing.

She keeps her face on, and doesn't let her thoughts show on it, but she has the distinct impression that Wardwizard Snape is keeping one eye on her, moreso than any of the other students.

That impression is going to be borne out as the morning proceeds.

Hmm.  What would the bright young girl Clover Evans-Potter do about this?

Well, the bright young girl Clover Evans-Potter hasn't noticed.  ...The bright young precocious scrupulously ethical girl Clover Evans-Potter may have misgivings about that "House Elves don't go in for self-determination" line.  Ugh.

To Millicent: "Do you know much about House Elves?"

"Not much," Millicent says.  "My mum didn't have any.  I know they don't like being freed, and I think Dumbledore has been sort of - collecting freed ones, and giving them work?  They're supposed to like being given work."

"Hmm," she says.  "I think I'd like to ask one some questions.  Want to come along?"

"Okay.  I'm a bit curious myself."

So she approaches one of the House Elves, the one who'd spoken sharply with Snape, and says, "Excuse me?"

Batty turns swiftly and swishily to face her.

"I don't mean to interrupt - "

She waves off her apology.  "Miss is a bright young girl from a Muggle family, with a bright young girl's sense of right and wrong, who has not had much exposure to the magical world before this week, I am guessing," Batty says wryly with a grin to match.  "One moment please."

She turns back to the other Elves.  "Foible, one of the first years is needing House Elves explained to her, you is covering for me for a few minutes?"

Assent from Foible, and she turns back to the girl.  "Pleased to meet you, Miss.  My name is Batty."

Clover does her little bright-young-girl curtsy.  "Clover Evans-Potter."

Millicent glances at Clover, suddenly uncomfortably aware that she's not very good at curtsying.  "I'm Millicent.  - Bulstrode."

She nods respectfully at both of them.  "I is pleased to meet you both.  Every year there is at least one bright young Muggle-raised student who has misgivings about House Elves.  Not many of us is very comfortable having this sort of conversation but I is not minding so much.  Ask whatever questions you like.  I is not being offended if you ask after something that is not your business as long as you is not minding being told to mind your own business."

Millicent giggles.

Clover titters.  "That sounds fair."  She strokes her chin contemplatively.  "I overheard - I didn't mean to eavesdrop, but I heard you say to Wardwizard Snape that House Elves don't like self-determination...?"

"We is very anxious little creatures," Batty says, a bit playfully.  "I is unusual in being much less so.  Spending too much time deciding makes us nervous.  Most of us is happier if we knows what we is supposed to do because someone else tells us."

"That makes sense, I suppose," Clover says.  "It's just - it sounds very much like..."

"Like the sort of lies Muggles is telling each other to feel better about enslaving other Muggles?"

Another titter.  "Well.  Yes."

"With respect, Miss Evans-Potter, you is a human, and Muggles is also humans, including the ones that other Muggles enslave.  And there is many ways to be a human but there is even more ways to be something that is not human.  I is not human, and other House Elves is not human either.  You has a very well-developed sense of what it means to do right by other humans, but applying it to other types of person whose minds work in other types of ways can lead you astray.  ...You may also find it reassuring that I is not saying it is impossible to harm or abuse House Elves."

"It isn't?"

"Not at all!  We is not liking to express our preferences very much but we do have them.  Wizards has told plenty of lies to each other about House Elves too.  But the truth about House Elves is that we is happier when we has work to do, given to us by someone who understands House Elves and understands us, and when we knows how to do a good job, and when we is told we is doing a good job when it's true and are helped to improve when it isn't.  And of course when we has enough time off to eat and sleep and recuperate, and lots more of us than realize it enjoy leisure activities though it is a bit less important for us than for humans.  But it is more comfortable to be told to take a break than to ask, or at least not to have to ask every time."

She doesn't find this terribly interesting but she is pretty sure the outward Clover would not be quite convinced yet, so: "I think for humans, not being comfortable asking for things would be a problem to be fixed."

"Yes, I think so," Batty says.  In a low voice: "There is some well-meaning owners who is not really understanding, who try to encourage their House Elves to ask regularly.  And there is some House Elves who is better off if they can ask.  But they don't often match up.  Most of the time it is - hard, and keeps getting harder, to have that hanging over their head.  It burns them out.  Some of the Elves at Hogwarts had that happen to them, Miss.  It is not a good thing."