Chapter Text
“Happy birthday to me…happy birthday to me…”
No cards, no presents, and he would be spending the evening pretending not to exist. Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon were having people over and Harry had been sent to his room. Uncle Vernon had a deal going with some people named the Mason’s and Harry’s job was to pretend like he wasn’t there. Harry had retreated out the back door after he was told to stay out of Aunt Petunia’s way while she cleaned. Harry missed his friends, Millie and Hermione, Blaise and Ron, Neville and the other Gryffindor’s who Harry had come to know last year. They, however, didn’t seem to be missing him at all.
He hadn’t received a single letter all year, even though Ron had said something about Harry coming and staying with him this summer.
His one source of enjoyment had been muttering nonsensical words under his breath just to watch Dudley totter out of the room as fast as he could. He couldn’t technically do magic outside of school without getting in severe trouble, but Dudley didn’t know that.
What he wouldn’t give for a message from Hogwarts? From anyone, he’d even be happy with one from Malfoy, just to be sure that it all hadn’t been a dream….
Before long Harry was sent to his room with a mostly empty stomach and words of warning.
“Remember, boy---one sound---“
Harry crossed to his bedroom on tiptoe, slipped inside, closed the door, and turned to collapse on his bed.
The trouble was, there was already someone sitting on it.
Harry managed not to shout, but it was close. The little creature on the bed had large, bat-like ears, and bulging green eyes the size of tennis balls.
As they stared at each other, Harry heard Dudley’s voice from the hall.
“May I take your coats, Mr. and Mrs. Mason?”
The creature slipped off the bed and bowed so low that the end of its long, thin nose touched the carpet. Harry noticed that it was wearing what looked like an old pillowcase, with rips for arm-and leg holes.
“Ex---hello,” said Harry nervously.
“Harry Potter!” said the creature in a high-pitched voice Harry was sure would carry down the stairs. “So long has Dobby wanted to meet you, sir…Such an honor it is…”
“Thank you,” said Harry, edging along the wall and sinking into his desk, next to Hedwig, who was asleep in her large cage. Even sitting he was taller than the creature.
“Who are you?” asked Harry tactfully.
“Dobby, sir, Just Dobby, Dobby the house-elf,” said the creature.
“Oh—really?” said Harry.”Er—I don’t want to be rude or anything, but—this isn’t the best time for me to have a house-elf in my bedroom.”
Aunt Petunia’s high, false laugh sounded from the living room. The elf hung his head.
“Why are you here, Dobby?” asked Harry remembering the elf’s name.
“Oh, yes ,sir,” said Dobby earnestly. “Dobby has come to tell you, sir…it is difficult, sir…Dobby wonders where to begin…”
“Sit down,” said Harry politely, pointing at the bed.
To his horror, the elf burst into tears—very noisy tears.
“Siittt, down….” He wailed. “Never……Never ever….”
Harry thought he heard the voices downstairs falter.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I didn’t mean to offend you or anything—“
“Offend Dobby!” choked the elf. “Dobby has never been asked to sit down by a wizard—like an equal….”
Harry finally managed to calm Dobby, getting him to the bed as Dobby stared up at him with great eyes full of watery adoration.
“You can’t have met many decent wizards,” said Harry, trying to cheer him up.
Dobby shook his head. Then, without warning, he leapt up and started banging his head furiously on the window, shouting, “Bad Dobby! Bad Dobby!!”
“What are you doing?” Harry hissed, pulling Dobby back down towards the bed. Hedwig had woken up with a particularly loud screech and was beating her wings wildly against her cage.
“Dobby has to punish himself. Dobby almost spoke poorly of his family.”
“Your family?”
“Yes,” said Dobby. “They don’t know Dobby is here, sir, but Dobby will have to punish himself most grievously for trying to come and see Harry Potter, sir.”
“Do they make you do that, Dobby?” asked Harry.
“Dobby is always having to punish himself, sir. They lets Dobby get on with it, sir. Sometimes they reminds me to do extra punishments.”
“But why don’t you leave? Escape?” If only Harry could do the same, he thought.
“A house-elf must be set free, sir. And the family will never so Dobby free….Dobby will serve the family until he dies, sir….”
Harry stared. It almost made the Dursley’s sound human.
“Can’t anyone help you,” asked Harry. “Can I?”
As Dobby dissolved again into wails of gratitude Harry wished he had kept his mouth shut.
“Please,” Harry whispered frantically. “please be quiet. If the Dursley’s hear anything, if they know you’re here….”
“Harry Potter asks if he can help Dobby…Dobby has heard of your greatness, sir, but of your goodness, Dobby never knew….”
Harry made to speak, but held his tongue. Dobby have him a knowing look.
“Harry Potter is humble and modest,” said Dobby reverently, his eyes aglow. “Harry Potter speaks not of his triumph over He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named—“
“Voldemort?” said Harry.
Dobby clapped his hands over his bat ears and moaned. “Ah, speak not the name, sir! Speak not the name!”
“Sorry,” said Harry quickly. “A lot of people don’t like it, my friend Ron…..” Harry broke off, thinking about any of them was too painful.
Dobby leaned forward, his eyes wide as headlights.
“Dobby heard tell,” he said hoarsely. “that Harry Potter met the Dark Lord for a second time, just months ago….that Harry Potter escaped yet again.”
Harry nodded and Dobby’s eyes suddenly shone with tears.
“Ah, sir,” he gasped, dabbing his face with a corner of the grubby pillowcase he was wearing.
“Harry Potter is valiant and bold and brave…,” Dobby listed, but something caught his attention.
“Harry Potter must not go back to Hogwarts.”
There was a silence broken only by the chink of knives and forks downstairs and the distant rumble of someone’s voice.
“W—what?” Harry stammered. “But I’ve got to go back. I don’t belong here, I belong at Hogwarts… my friends will be….”
“No,” Dobby bellowed. “There is a plot to make terrible things happen at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry this year. Dobby has known it for months, sir. Harry Potter must not put himself in peril! He is too important, sir!”
“Who, Dobby?” asked Harry before catching the frantic look in Dobby’s eyes.
“All right!” cried Harry, grabbing the elf’s arm to stop him from hurting himself. “You can’t tell me who, but why go through the bother of warning me in the first place?” Then a thought struck Harry.
“Is it Vol…..does it have to do with You-Know-Who? Just shake your head,” he added hastily as Dobby’s head titled worryingly close to the wall again.
Slowly, Dobby shook his head, no.
Harry had the odd urge to laugh.
“He hasn’t got a brother, has he?”
Dobby shook his head, his eyes wider than ever.
Harry looked at Dobby. “Nothing is going to happen at Hogwarts,” he assured him. “I mean, there’s Dumbledore, for one thing…”
Dobby bowed his head.
“Albus Dumbledore is the greatest headmaster Hogwarts has ever had. Dobby knows it, sir. Dobby has heard Dumbledore’s powers rival He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named…., but there are powers that Dumbledore….that no decent wizard….”
And before Harry could stop him, Dobby bounded off the bed, seized Harry’s desk lamp, and started beating himself around the head with earsplitting yelps. Silence fell downstairs and Harry knew.
“Dudley must have left his television on again, the little tyke.”
“Quick! In the closet!” hissed Harry, stuffing Dobby in, shutting the door, and flinging himself on to the bed just as the door handle turned.
With a warning and a threat that “one more sound and you’ll wish you’d never been born, boy!” Harry and Dobby were alone again.
“See what it’s like here?” he said. “See why I’ve got to go back to Hogwarts? It’s the only place I’ve got…I think I’ve got friends.”
“Friends who don’t even write to Harry Potter?” asked Dobby slyly.
It clicked in an instant.
Dobby shuffled his feet.
“Harry Potter mustn’t be angry with Dobby. Dobby did it for the best….”
“Have you been stealing my letters?”
“Dobby has them here, sir,” said the elf. Dobby reached into the pillowcase he was wearing and pulled out a huge wad of letters. Harry could make out all of his friends handwriting, there were even a few from Hagrid.
Harry made a grab for the letters, he didn’t care about Dobby’s excuses.
“Harry Potter will have them sir, if he gives Dobby his words that he will not return to Hogwarts. Ah, sir, this is a danger you must not face! Say you won’t go back, sir!”
“Never!” said Harry, and he could hear Millicent’s voice in his head scolding him for being so brash.
He couldn’t tell her to shut it though before Dobby had darted to the bedroom door, pulled it open, and sprinted down the stairs.
Mouth dry, stomach lurching, Harry sprang after him, trying not to make a sound.
The pudding that was once sitting on the side table in the kitchen, floated up and up.
“No,” croaked Harry. “Please…they’ll kill me…”
“Harry Potter must say he’s not going back to school…”
“Dobby….”
“Say it, sir….”
“I can’t…..”
Dobby gave him a tragic look before the pudding fell to the floor with a heart-stopping crash. Cream splattered the windows and walls as the dish shattered. Then with a crack like a whip Dobby vanished.
There were screams, screaming, excuses and the worst was a letter from the ministry.
Harry looked up from the letter and gulped.
“You didn’t tell us you weren’t allowed to use magic outside school,” said Uncle Vernon, a mad gleam dancing in his eyes. “Forgot to mention it….Slipped your mind, I daresay….”
“I’m locking you up,….You’re never going back to that school…never…and if you try and magic yourself out….they’ll expel you!”
And laughing like a maniac, he dragged Harry back upstairs.
Uncle Vernon was as bad as his word. The following morning, bars were fit to the windows, a flap was put on the doors so he could have some food, and he was only allowed out morning and evening to go to the
bathroom.
He was kept in his room round the clock, even Hedwig was ignoring him.
“It’s no good turning your beak up at it,” he said after he dumped some soggy vegetables in the bottom of her cage. That’s all we’ve got,” said Harry grimly.
He put the bowl back on the floor next to the flap, and lay back down on the bed, somehow even hungrier than he had been before the soup.
What if they kept him here forever? Would someone notice if he didn’t show up to Hogwarts in a few weeks? He had a dream about being in a zoo, Dobby was there ensuring that he was safe before he vanished. Then the
Dursley’s appeared and Dudley rattled the bars of the cage, laughing at him.
“Stop it,” Harry muttered as the rattling pounded in his sore head.
He opened his eyes when it didn’t stop. Moonlight was shining through the bars on the window. And someone was goggling through the bars at him; a freckle-faced, red haired, long-nosed someone.
Ron Weasley was outside Harry’s window.