“Are you sure you don’t want to go outside, Hermione?" Hermione's Dad's voice sounded from the other side of her room door, "You’ve been a shut in ever since you got back from camp. I know your other friends didn’t send you mail, but I’m sure they're just very busy. I know I didn't send as many letters I should have when I was a student...”

Hermione sniffed. She had to study, think of joyful memories. It was very hard.

“No, Dad.” She replied. “I should study. I have a lot of homework…”

“I’m coming in.” He replied.

“What? Dad, no…”

The door opened and her dad came in and saw her sitting on her bed, blankly staring at a wall.

He raised an eyebrow. “Homework? Clearly you’re busy.”

“It’s not what it looks like… The homework. I mean, I have to meditate and think of joyful memories. I’m supposed to stare at a wall to do it.” Hermione protested against her dad’s disbelief.

“You don’t look very happy.”

“I… I guess you’re right. I can’t do it right now.” Hermione said with a huff, leaning back and bracing herself with her arms against the bed.

Her dad sat next to her. “Still worried about your friend?”

“Yeah. It’s been so long, I really thought he would wake up sooner. But it’s nearly the end of summer. Maybe Pansy was right and he won’t wake up for years….”

There was a moment of silence between them. Her dad spoke up first and hugged her slightly.

“I know you’re going through a lot right now. I know some of what you’re going through, but most people don’t have to deal with it until they’re much older. You can talk about it, if you want to.”

Hermione pushed him away. “Understand?! How could you understand? My friend is in a coma because I wasn’t there to protect him!”

Hermione looked at him and her dad’s face was serious and a little melancholic as he responded. “More than you think. Do you remember your uncle George?”

She was confused, what was with the change in topic. “Yes… a little. I was only six when he died though.”

“He had lung cancer, all that smoking you know. We all tried to convince him, but he loved his cigarettes too much to stop. He didn’t like doctors, so when he finally went and they found the tumor, it was already so big he had to go directly to the hospital. He was in that bed for weeks, recovering a little one day and crashing into critical the next. We must have rushed to the hospital at three in the morning at least four times while he was there when he was teetering on the edge.”

Hermione listened in shock. Her dad never talked about her uncle, she had never heard any of this. Her dad continued speaking, a far off look in his eye.

“It was constant stress, wondering if any of his recovery would disappear again the next day into nothing again. We gave up hope for his recovery after a month in the hospital. But then… he recovered. Had a big risky surgery and survived, and was relatively healthy afterwards. This was long before you were born, and it was only years later that the cancer returned and finally got him.”

He took a deep breath. “Look, all I’m saying is don’t give up hope yet. Your friend is stable at least, and he could wake up at any moment. You worrying about it won’t change anything. And don’t you want plenty of fun things to put in your little journal for when he finally does recover? Sitting in your room alone won’t do that.”

“Okay,” She replied, still staring at the wall. Her dad stood and looked awkward for a moment before he turned to leave.

“Well, just think about it then.” He said.

Hermione stopped him before he left the room, “Thanks Dad. That helped a little.”

He paused for a moment and looked at her again. “Happy to help. Me and your mother are happy to talk whenever you're ready. We won’t be there at that school of yours, so don’t wait too long though.”

“Sure, Dad. Maybe I will.”

Hermione had a little more success with her meditation after that.

— — —

Hermione startled from her reading as there was a sharp *crack* in the air like the strike of a whip. There standing at the foot of her bed was a small hunched humanoid figure that would barely reach her waist if its back were straight. It was clothed in dirty rags that barely covered it and had big eyes, a long nose, and big ears like an elephant. It had long fingers on its small hands as it turned to Hermione.

“Hermione Granger, friend of the great Harry Potter, I have come to warn you of great danger at Hogwarts!”

Hermione blinked. “What… Who are you?”

“Well, I’m a house elf, ma’am.”

“I’ve never heard of those before. What’s your name?”

“Name? Dobby, Ma’am.” The house elf Dobby’s voice lowered as he muttered to himself, “So polite, she’s even asking my name…”

Hermione looked around and realized there wasn’t anywhere for Dobby to sit after a moments silence. “Uhm, would you like my chair? I can sit on the bed if you want?”

“You… you want Dobby to take a seat? To take your chair?”

“Yeah, unless you want to stand? I know the chair is a little high for you…”

“WAAAAAHHHHHHH”

The elf cried out and Hermione jumped as it began sobbing.

“Harry Potter’s friend is offering me a seat like another wizard. So kind, so generous.”

Hermione shifted and quickly sat on the bed and glanced at the door. Hopefully her parents hadn’t heard that, she was sure they would want to know all about any danger at Hogwarts. She tried to move onwards, not sure what to do with the crying Dobby.

“Uhm. So, what is this about danger at Hogwarts? Why are you telling me?”

Dobby wiped his running nose on his dirty rags. “Oh, Hermione Granger, you truly are a great and kind witch. I have heard of terrible things that are going to happen at school. Evil plots for this upcoming year!”

“What plots? By who, what’s going to happen?”

Support the creativity of authors by visiting the original site for this novel and more.

Dobby let a little whine in his throat and looked around and grabbed a lamp off her desk.

“Hey!” Hermione shouted before gasping as the elf smashed himself in the face with it over and over.

“Bad Dobby, bad Dobby.”

Hermione jumped forward and grabbed his arm and prevented himself from hitting himself again.

“Oh my, are you okay? What are you doing?!”

Dobby squirmed in her grip for a moment before replying. “A house elf should not speak ill of his masters! I had to punish myself for my disloyalty.”

“That’s horrible! Who are your masters?” Hermione said in shock.

The elf began whining again and tugged from her grip again. He wanted to hit himself again. Hermione held him firm and tried to think of what to do. This was all so horrible! The elf was trying to tell her something with his gaze even as he tried to tug away. His gaze reminded her of when Harry was mute. He had learned to communicate well through body gestures without speaking. That gave her an idea.

“Wait! You don’t have to tell me anything, and so you don’t have to punish yourself!”

Dobby stopped. “Dobby doesn’t have to tell Hermione Granger anything?”

“No, no. Now we’ve dealt with that. If you feel good then tap my arm twice, and if you are feeling down then tap my arm once. Do you get it?”

Dobby slowly relaxed and tapped her arm twice.

“Dobby was ordered not to speak of the terrible things that he knows to anyone.” Dobby said with emphasis.

Hermione was getting excited. Yes, progress!

“So, completely unrelated. I’m looking for somebody, just tap yes or no when I ask a question okay?”

The elf relaxed more and tapped twice on Hermione’s arm.

“Is this person a Slytherin?”

Two taps on her arm.

“Do they go to Hogwarts as a student?”

A small hesitation. A single tap, that was a no.

Hermione thought about it for a moment. “Just wait a second, I have to grab something.”

Hermione went into her things and rummaged around for her history of magic textbook. She flipped through for a while, she was sure it had been here…

There was a knock at the door. Her mom’s voice echoed through it.

“Honey? Are you alright in there, we thought we heard some kind of scream.”

“No, Mom! I’m fine. Just fell off the bed.” Hermione said.

“Well, try to be a bit more careful. ”

“Okay, Mom. I’m fine.”

Her mom left and after another minute Hermione finally found the diagram she had been looking for in the book. It was a big tree of all the modern pureblood family lines. All she had to do was list them and Dobby could say which terrible family he worked for. Although he didn’t seem very happy about it, Hermione wondered why he didn’t go work for someone else if they were so horrible.

Hermione came back over to the patient elf and opened the book. She sat next to him and he reached up to grab her arm as he stared up at her with his big eyes.

“Is this person’s family name Nott?”

One tap.

“Is this person’s family name Black?”

One tap.

“Is this person’s family name Malfoy?”

Two taps. More taps.

“Malfoy? Is the person Lucius Malfoy? Draco Malfoy’s father?”

Two taps again.

Hermione frowned. “But what is he planning? He’s not at the school so he can’t do anything there…”

The elf shrugged, not sure how to respond.

“Well… Dobby, can you write things out? I just realized that would be much easier.”

Dobby spoke up, “Dobby is illiterate, Ma’am. He never learned to read.”

Dang. Oh, wait. “Can you talk to yourself about things? Is it only telling other people that’s forbidden?”

Dobby frowned and his big elephant ears twitched, “Dobby was ordered to ‘speak of nothing you learn within these walls to anyone’. I believe that includes me, Hermione Granger.”

“Dang. I thought that would do it. Is there any way you can stop working for him? You’re under some kind of magical contract to follow his orders right? Can you break it?”

Dobby jumped. “Contract? No, it is part of being a house elf, ma’am. We are bound to a wizarding family at birth and follow our master’s orders.”

“Oh.”

Oh. He was a slave. Just when Hermione thought she couldn’t feel worse for Dobby.

Dobby continued, “The only way for an elf to leave a family is to receive clothes from the head of household. Lucius Malfoy is the proud head of the Malfoy family and he would never give one of his elves clothes.”

Well that explained the rags Dobby was wearing.

Dobby’s eyes widened.

“Dobby has to go! He is being called. You are a kind and generous witch, Hermione Granger. Dobby will see you soon.”

The air cracked and Dobby disappeared again. Hermione sat down at her desk and shoved aside her homework and pulled out a blank piece of parchment. How could she get Lucius Malfoy to give Dobby clothes and free him?

— — —

All of Hermione’s plans were garbage. She had thrown away at least two filled pieces of parchment by now. Her best two ideas were blackmailing Lucius Malfoy over Draco’s involvement in the attack on Harry, and disguising Dobby as someone else.

The blackmailing was probably a no go. Hermione didn’t think she could go through with it, especially since she didn’t have proof of anything. If Harry said something then it was a threat, but a muggle born like her wouldn’t be taken seriously by the public in accusing a famous racist like Lucius or Draco Malfoy of anything without any proof. According to Dobby, house elves being enslaved was perfectly legal and all the purebloods did it. So she couldn't go to the Ministry either.

Her best plan was also the stupidest sounding one. She would have to find someone who would cast some sort of advanced illusion over Dobby, or find some other method of disguising him. Then he would walk up to Lucius and convince him to give him some article of clothing without the wizard figuring out it was Dobby. Pretty dumb still, but Hermione couldn’t think of another way to do it without a lot of danger for the both of them.

The way Dobby had phrased it, she thought there must be some intention element as well. So Lucius had to consciously give the clothes for it to work or otherwise Dobby could have just stolen some of the man’s laundry and freed himself. There was one other option… but it was the most risky for Hermione personally. Lucius Malfoy was scary, and the last method would have her directly confronting him in the street.

Hermione turned at the crack of Dobby returning to apparate into her room again. His finger’s were bandaged. She rushed forward and grabbed his hands and he hissed and pulled away for a moment.

“Oh, no. Dobby! Here, I’ll get some alcohol for it. How did this happen?”

“Dobby was late when he was called, Hermione Granger. He was punished by master for his inexcusable tardiness to his duties. Ten minutes with his fingers in the hot oven was light punishment for Dobby’s offense!”

Hermione left and grabbed some supplies from the bathroom and quickly returned to her bedroom where Dobby waited. She tried to ignore more of the horribleness of the Malfoy’s.

“Here are the things. You said it was burns? We have some burn salve stuff here. My mom put it on me when I bumped the stove. Here it…”

Dobby unwrapped his bandages and his gray skin underneath was peeling and red with the burns. Hermione took out the tube of gel and poured it onto the wounds on each hand. Dobby just stared at the piled up gel sitting on top of both of his hands for a moment.

“Oh, you rub that gel into the burns and it’ll take away some of the pain. Not as good as magic, but I don’t know any healing spells even if I could use magic right now.”

Dobby carefully rubbed in some of the gel and let out a sigh of relief as the burn salve went to work.

Hermione went back to her notes and picked up her big list of ideas. Most were terrible, but Dobby would know better than anyone if they would work.

— — —

Dobby couldn’t directly participate due to one of the orders he must have been given by the Malfoy’s. He could only say yes or no after Hermione listed an idea if he thought it could work. And occasionally state a ‘totally not relevant’ factoid to himself if it would help a plan be better.

In the end, the three ideas she had already been considering were the only ones that Dobby said yes to, saying he thought they could work. Blackmail, disguising Dobby, and the dangerous one…

Dobby was very much against that last one, he didn’t want her to put herself in danger for him. But he didn’t say it wouldn’t work. Hermione thought it would also probably get her a lot of trouble, but was she really going to let Dobby keep being a slave just so she wouldn’t get detention. Or a little jailtime if she was unlucky…

She was going with the third plan. She couldn’t blackmail properly, and she had no idea who she would contact about making Dobby a good disguise. Let alone getting him to not blow it all the instant he started speaking.

Yeah, the third plan it was. She would have to prepare some materials first and Dobby would tell her when she should strike.