𝑻𝒉𝒐𝒓𝒏𝒔 ☆ 𝑅𝑜𝑠𝑎𝑙𝑦𝑛 𝑃𝑜𝑡𝑡𝑒𝑟

𝑌𝐸𝐴𝑅 𝑆𝐸𝑉𝐸𝑁 ☆ 15

They all landed on a wet, sandy beach. Rosalyn got up immediately, seeing Ron and Hermione a few metres away. "Hermione... Hermione, it's alright, we're safe, we're all safe."

She hugged them as Harry joined them, and Rosalyn took a moment to rejoice in the fact that they were all safe and no one could touch them.

"Rosalyn... Rosal... Rosalyn Potter..."

Rosalyn turned, and saw Dobby about twenty steps away. She ran that distance in five seconds. "Dobby, it's alright... we're all safe... we'll all survive-"

But what she saw told her that Dobby wouldn't.

Bellatrix's knife was lodged in his stomach, and he managed to take it out just before he fell into Rosalyn's arms.

"H-hold on," Rosalyn started to cry. Tears splashed on Dobby's tablecloth of a garment. "Hermione? Hermione! Help... please..."

"Such a beautiful place..." Dobby started. "To be with friends..."

"Hermione!" Rosalyn shouted. She was sobbing now, hugging Dobby to her chest.

"Dobby is happy... to be with his friend..." The elf said weakly. "Rosalyn... Potter..."

And with that, he lay still, his eyes were no longer glassy orbs, but still, dry and emotionless, and Dobby was dead.

Rosalyn cried. "I'm sorry... sorry that I- I didn't- I couldn't- you died because of me, Dobby," she said to the dead elf before her. "And you- you saved all of us... you didn't deserve this..."

Hermione, Ron and Harry came over, as well as Luna."We should close his eyes," she suggested. Rosalyn nodded numbly. Gently, Luna closed his eyelids. "There. Now he could be sleeping."

Rosalyn addressed the group before her. "I want to bury him. Properly, without magic. He deserves way more than that, but it's all I can do."

The rest of them nodded.

Slowly but surely, they dug a grave in the sand. Rosalyn didn't care what people thought of her, or if they turned their noses up at her for not doing this by magic. Dobby deserved it. And way more.

When the grave was dug, Harry brought Dobby out, wrapped in white cloth, and placed him gently in the sand grave. Rosalyn then used the shovel to put more sand on top of him. Finally, she summoned a big enough rock to be the gravestone, and wrote upon it:

HERE LIES DOBBY
A FREE ELF

"I'm so, so, sorry Dobby," Rosalyn said in a low voice, not long since mopped up tears threatening to reappear. "I didn't mean for this to happen."

She continued to stare at the grave for the next hour, thinking. Ron and Harry watched her from the window, wondering if they should do something. Deep down, they realised that she was just hurting. And that they could do nothing about it.

Finally, when her eyes got blurry and she couldn't cry anymore, Rosalyn got up and headed inside. She was broken.

But soon, she would have to put herself back together.

☆☆☆

Bill and Fleur had decided to buy a house a few weeks after they got married. They had settled on a seaside cottage, a beautiful place really, and now it was also a rescue house for seven unlikely people.

Rosalyn walked into the cottage, seeing Luna, Ron, Bill and Hermione sitting at the table. Luna and Bill were having a conversation, but Rosalyn interrupted it by walking in.