a foul place is where i love you

Prologue

He could still feel the heat of the flames behind him, the thickness of the smoke burning his lungs like dry acid, and nothing, not one thing in all his tormenting years of service, could compare to it. Not because of the pure terror it inspired - though that too was unrivaled - but because of the sense of duty he felt ... the sense of ... loyalty.

Perhaps it was for this reason that he, Dobby, nothing more than a small, insignificant house elf, was running faster than the quickest racing broom. His tunneled vision was fixed upon the jagged boulder resting among the many trees mere feet away - a landmark plain to the common eye, but a gateway to freedom for a magical being such as a house elf.

Dobby clutched the box close to his small frame, still marveling at the idea of freedom. It was once something he could only dare to dream about in the dark loneliness of the night, when he would scandalously fantasize about being his own master, being loyal to those he chose. And when Dobby had finally been blessed with that freedom, he had made a promise to himself: he would not let it be wasted.

So why, pray tell, was he now carrying out a deed worthy of the Enslaved - a deed that came with the box he now carried with a fierce strength?

The answer to that was a mystery even to Dobby - as was the wizard that has bestowed this task upon him, a free elf, an action risky in itself.  Perhaps there were multiple reasons on both accounts, but now was not the time to discover them.

No, it was most certainly not, for Dobby's small, bare feet had just stepped past the stone apparition point.

At that very moment, the wards - rare wards that limited even a house elf's power - disappeared. And with a crack that echoed through the forest, so had Dobby.

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Perhaps it was his size, or maybe a lone house elf was simply insignificant enough to be ignored, but not one soul was aware of Dobby's former presence or departure. Not the Aurors that showed just before the free elf's escape into the woods, nor the ones that arrived afterward. Nonetheless, their evidence of what had truly happened in that horrific fire had been stolen, and the rest had been reduced to ash - it must have been.

Still, one might wonder what would've happened had Dobby been caught that fateful, mysterious night. The irony of it all was that despite its injustice, having taken the time to consider the actions of such a lowly being would have doused what small chance they had to a brighter future. And it was such hope that they all needed most; that they had all prayed for, just as Dobby once had, and were steadily losing. Perhaps forces betting their understanding would take pity on them - or maybe they already had.

After all, who in this world would believe that their future was in the hands of a simple house elf?

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So, there's the short prologue. I have the first chapter done, but I need to copy it down from my notebook as well. Lemme know what you guys think and thanks for reading!