I'll take Hagrid's word that the house-elves don't want to be free and that payment is an insult. I trust his knowledge in this area. Of course that does not mean that Hermione is altogether wrong -- there is a difference between serving willingly and being BOUND to serve. There should be a possibility of escape for those who do not want to. I assume the binding has developed because a wizard would want to know that his "servants" could not betray his secrets to other wizards, and so that would be a precondition for them being allowed to serve. That would explain why they entered into it (I don't expect they would have been forced into it originally, considering the power of their own magic).


I really like that Hufflepuff, which is so often portrayed as "the rest", the unremarkable and nice, have the Hogwarts Champion. It validates them as a house. They are always in the shadow, and suddenly they have produced the best of the year (or, part of two years, I suppose). I really like that.


I wonder how long it will take us to get the first nudgenudgewinkwink comments about the wand-weighing.