Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince - J.K. Rowling

J.K. Rowling
HARRY POTTER AND THE HALF-BLOOD PRINCE
resuming his seat and indicating that Harry should do the same. “Hokey the
house-elf was convicted by the Ministry of poisoning her mistress’s evening
cocoa by accident.”
“No way!” said Harry angrily.
“I see we are of one mind,” said Dumbledore. “Certainly, there are many
similarities between this death and that of the Riddles. In both cases, somebody
else took the blame, someone who had a clear memory of having caused
the death —”
“Hokey confessed?”
“She remembered putting something in her mistress’s cocoa that turned
out not to be sugar, but a lethal and little-known poison,” said Dumbledore.
“It was concluded that she had not meant to do it, but being old and confused.”
“Voldemort modified her memory, just like he did with Morfin!”
“Yes, that is my conclusion too,” said Dumbledore. “And, just as with
Morfin, the Ministry was predisposed to suspect Hokey —”
“— because she was a house-elf,” said Harry. He had rarely felt more in
sympathy with the society Hermione had set up, S.P.E.W.
“Precisely,” said Dumbledore. “She was old, she admitted to having tampered
with the drink, and nobody at the Ministry bothered to inquire further.
As in the case of Morfin, by the time I traced her and managed to extract
this memory, her life was almost over — but her memory, of course, proves
nothing except that Voldemort knew of the existence of the cup and the
locket.
“By the time Hokey was convicted, Hepzibah’s family had realized that
two of her greatest treasures were missing. It took them a while to be sure
of this, for she had many hiding places, having always guarded her collection
most jealously. But before they were sure beyond doubt that the cup
and the locket were both gone, the assistant who had worked at Borgin and
Burkes, the young man who had visited Hepzibah so regularly and charmed
her so well, had resigned his post and vanished. His superiors had no idea
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