There's a slight nod at the first. It was actually a dreadful insult to suggest paying a house elf, something he'd learned from those talks with Kreacher when he'd had no one else to talk to. It was like saying their loyalty had a price. It didn't. It shouldn't for anyone, but most considered house elves too far beneath them for there to be anything they could learn from them.

"Surprised to find that from someone sorted into Slytherin?" Regulus asks softly. "Not everyone in the house of snakes is treacherous. Some of us are only so if crossed."