if you are a merry witch she'll bring you all the best

when-we-were-useful

Headmaster Dippet's heart is in the right place but he doesn't really get it. Elves, as she has tried to explain at length, don't just need drudgery for drudgery's sake, they need to be of benefit to the persons or institutions they belong to. Dippet had just wanted to scrap all of Hogwarts's enchanted cookware and replace it with free elves, but that's makework, giving free elves makework would almost be worse than freeing them in the first place. They don't need pity. ...Okay some of them could probably do with a bit of respectfully expressed sympathy but giving them makework won't fix the underlying problem.

She's dwelling on this as she's taking inventory of one of the closets.

That's not a closet. That's a bar. She's heard of Hogwarts nooks and crannies getting up to some nonsense but she's pretty sure the Founders did not put a bar anywhere in their magic castle.

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The bar also doesn't look particularly Founders Era - it's bright and cozy, with colorful decorations in red and green and gold, and sparkly white snowflakes painted on the walls, and numerous tables each with a different festive centerpiece, and odd sourceless music playing, and giant candy canes framing a window that looks out on a vista of exploding galaxies. Also, there's no bartender, though there are an assortment of odd patrons who Batty is pretty sure have never been to Hogwarts.

when-we-were-useful

She sure is pretty sure. All right, she'll play ball.

She approaches the bar and climbs up onto a stool, craning her neck to see over the bar just in case there is a bartender who happens to be very small, or crouching down, or something.

Nope!

A napkin does however appear on the bar's surface, reading "Welcome to Milliways! Would you like a drink? First one's on the house."

when-we-were-useful

Goodness, okay. If she is to be a customer she'll have to take a moment to shift into Free Elf Mode. "Thank you!" she says out loud. "I is enjoying hot pumpkin cider with a cinnamon stick. My name is Batty the House-Elf, who is I speaking to if it pleases you?"

A drink appears on the countertop! It's in a cheery red mug, and it smells like the best pumpkin cider ever, and it has a perfect cinnamon stick in it.

"I am Bar," says the next napkin that appears on the bar. "I sell drinks, food, and rooms for reasonable prices, and I can explain Milliways to visitors."

when-we-were-useful

Sip. Oh that tastes spectacular.

"You is serving a very good pumpkin cider, Miss Bar," she says. "I think I is needing an explanation of Milliways."

"Milliways is The Bar At The End Of The Universe, formally, and informally a meeting place between worlds. People find doors into the establishment from time to time - unfortunately I don't know how or why - and when they enter and close the door behind them, time in their world is paused."

when-we-were-useful