The children who lived, Fought, and Loved

Chapter Twenty Four

No longer safe/ Dueling Club

Hours and hours lat­er, Har­ry woke quite sud­den­ly in the pitch black­ness and gave a small yelp of pain: His arm now felt full of large splin­ters. For a sec­ond, he thought that was what had wo­ken him. Then, with a thrill of hor­ror, he re­al­ized that some­one was spong­ing his fore­head in the dark.
         

"Thats totally not creepy at all." Sirius barked a laugh.

"Get off!" he said loud­ly, and then, "Dobby!"

"The house elf again?" Rabastan muttered
          
The house-​elf's gog­gling ten­nis ball eyes were peer­ing at Har­ry through the dark­ness. A sin­gle tear was run­ning down his long, point­ed nose.
          
"Har­ry and Primrose Pot­ter came back to school," he whis­pered mis­er­ably. "Dob­by warned and warned Har­ry and Primrose Pot­ter. Ah sir, why didn't you heed Dob­by? Why didn't Primrose and Har­ry Pot­ter go back home when they missed the train?"
          
Har­ry heaved him­self up on his pil­lows and pushed Dob­by's sponge away.
          
"What're you do­ing here?" Harry asked. "And how did you know I missed the train?"
          
Dob­by's lip trem­bled and Har­ry was seized by a sud­den sus­pi­cion.

"It was you!" he said slow­ly. "You stopped the bar­ri­er from let­ting us through!"
        
"In­deed yes, sir," said Dob­by, nod­ding his head vig­or­ous­ly, ears flap­ping. "Dob­by hid and watched for Har­ry Pot­ter and sealed the gate­way and Dob­by had to iron his hands af­ter­ward" he showed Har­ry ten long, ban­daged fin­gers — "but Dob­by didn't care, sir, for he thought Har­ry and Primrose Pot­ter was safe, and nev­er did Dob­by dream that Har­ry and Primrose Potter would get to school an­oth­er way!"
        
He was rock­ing back­ward and for­ward, shak­ing his head.
        
"Dob­by was so shocked when he heard Har­ry Pot­ter was back at Hog­warts, he let his mas­ter's din­ner burn! Such a flog­ging Dob­by nev­er had, sir..."
        
Har­ry slumped back on­to his pil­lows.
        
"You near­ly got Ron, Primrose, and me expelled," harry said fierce­ly. "You'd bet­ter get lost be­fore my bones come back, Dob­by or I might stran­gle you."
        
Dob­by smiled weak­ly.

"Dob­by is used to death threats, sir. Dob­by gets them five times a day at home."
        
Multiple glares we're thrown at Lucius.

He blew his nose on a cor­ner of the filthy pil­low­case he wore, Har­ry felt his anger ebb away despite him­self.
        

Mary scrunches her nose in disgust

"Why d'you wear that thing, Dob­by?" he asked cu­ri­ous­ly.
        
"This, sir?" said Dob­by, pluck­ing at the pil­low­case. "'Tis a mark of the house-​elf's en­slave­ment, sir. Dob­by can on­ly be freed if his mas­ters present him with clothes, sir. The fam­ily is care­ful not to pass Dob­by even a sock, sir, for then he would be free to leave their house for­ev­er."
        
Dob­by mopped his bulging eyes and said sud­den­ly, "Har­ry Pot­ter must go home! Dob­by thought his Bludger would be enough to make —"
        
James choked on air, "I'm sorry did he just say HIS bludger?"

"Your Bludger?" Har­ry said, anger ris­ing once more. "What d'you mean, your Bludger? You made that Bludger try and kill me?"

"Not kill you, sir, nev­er kill you!" said Dob­by, shocked. "Dob­by wants to save Har­ry Pot­ter's life! Bet­ter sent home, grievous­ly in­jured, "than re­main here sir! Dob­by on­ly want­ed Har­ry Pot­ter hurt enough to be sent home!"