Dobby's Disaster
Hari was staring at a bush in the back garden of Privet Drive, sitting on a small bench as he tried to avoid the Dursleys as much as he could. He swore he saw something in the bushes a moment ago, like a pair of big eyes peering out at him, but they disappeared so soon he wasn’t sure. Perhaps they were just the eyes of some stray cat in the bushes or something…
He was so focused on trying to figure out whether he had seen anything or not that he didn’t notice Dudley sitting down beside him until he heard him sigh. Hari turned to the side and saw Dudley peering curiously at him, head tilted sideways as though he couldn’t quite figure Hari out.
“Can I help you, Dudley?” Hari asked coolly, narrowing his eyes in suspicion. Dudley had rarely spoken to Hari since he stopped staying at their house for most of the year. So why was he suddenly sitting next to him in the back garden?
Dudley shrugged heavily. “No. Can’t I sit here? It’s my house,” he sneered, pouting. He reminded Hari faintly of one of those frowny faces he had seen on stickers in the past.
“Well then why, of all places in your house, are you sitting right next to me?”
Dudley shrugged again. Sometimes it was really exhausting trying to talk to Dudley. “Mum and Dad say you’re a freak, but I can’t really see it. You’re just small,” Dudley said bluntly. Hari held back a laugh at his comment. His aunt and uncle were really lovely, weren’t they? Dudley looked into the bushes where Hari had just been staring. “Why are you staring at that bush?”
“I dunno. I thought I saw something, but now I’m not sure,” Hari replied, looking at the bush as well.
“That isweird,” Dudley said, “Maybe they were right, but I don’t see what the problem is.”
Hari blinked at his cousin, tilting his head much like Dudley had done a few minutes ago, trying to understand the odd boy beside him. “Er, thanks, Dudley,” Hari said after a moment of looking at each other.
“Dudley! Come inside and get ready!” Aunt Petunia’s high, shrill voice called from inside the house. Dudley got off the bench, nodded jerkily at Hari and then scuttled away inside to where his mother was.
Hari sighed and went over to sit in the grass by the bushes, no use in doing anything else. A little while later, when he was half-heartedly making a chain out of bits of grass, a small black and grey grass snake slithered out from the bushes, tongue flicking out of its mouth. It paused its trail across the garden and stared up at Hari.
“Hello there,” Hari said to the snake, just as he often did with the snakes that sometimes came nearby in his garden back in Caithness.
“Hello…” said the snake, still looking up at Hari from between the leaves in the bushes. “Who are you? I do not recognise you from this garden.”
“I’m just visiting, actually,” Hari replied. “Was that you I saw in the bushes a few minutes ago? Looking at me?”
The snake shook its head, tongue still flicking in and out of its mouth. “No it was not… I did not see you until now,” said the snake.
“”MUM, come and see what Hari’s doing in the back garden!” Hari whipped around as Dudley reappeared in the back garden, dressed in an ill-fitting dinner jacket and a bow tie that seemed to be almost choking him. “He’s talking to that snake, Mum!”
Dudley wandered over next to Hari and gaped at the snake next to Harry. “What do you want now, Dudley?” Hari asked Dudley in irritation.
“Mum says you have to come in because guests are here,” Dudley teased, “And you should stop talking to that snake or Mum will really think you’re a freak.” Hari glanced at the garden snake and it lunged towards Dudley, making him leap back in fright, falling over onto his butt. He yelped and scrambled to his feet, running back into the house as Hari laughed to himself.
“Did I scare it away?” asked the snake, turning around to look at Harry behind it.
“I think you did. Thanks,” Hari said just as he heard his name being shrieked from inside the house. “I better go. Nice talking to you!” Hari waved to the snake and jogged back to Aunt Petunia’s screaming in the house.
All three of the Dursleys were standing in the front hall, dressed up for a dinner party. Aunt Petunia had thin blonde hair that she’d curled for the evening, a long thin neck and sallow skin, wearing a lot of makeup. Uncle Vernon was wearing a boring suit and tie, his big mustache combed straight and his thinning hair slicked back from his face. Dudley was pouting and pink in the face as his mother fixed his bowtie and his similarly gelled blond hair.
Uncle Vernon reared on Hari as soon as he stepped inside, pointing a pudgy finger in his face so that Hari went cross-eyed trying to look at it. “I’m warning you, boy. I don’t want any funny business while the Masons are here,” he snarled, spitting angrily so that it hit Hari in the face. He turned to the family at large. “So, what’s the plan? Petunia, you will be?”
“In the lounge,” replied Aunt Petunia, gesturing towards the room in question, “waiting graciously to welcome them into our lovely home.” She eyed Hari beadily as if he would say something about it.
Uncle Vernon beamed at his wife. “And Dudley, where will you be?” he asked his son, standing trying to fix his bow tie to no avail. Hari almost wanted to fix it for him.
“I’ll be opening the door and offering to take their coats,” Dudley replied, removing his hands from the bow tie. “‘Mr. and Mrs. Mason, may I take your coats?’”
Aunt Petunia looked as though she may cry tears of joy. Hari resisted the urge to laugh. Uncle Vernon turned to him next, scowling down at him over his giant moustache. “And you, boy, what will you be doing?”
“I’ll be in the guest room making no noise and pretending I don’t exist,” Hari drawled monotonously, staring into his watery blue eyes.
“Exactly. As you should, showing up here again.” Uncle Vernon turned away, just in time for Hari to roll his eyes out of sight of his glare. “And then, I’ll sit the Masons down and offer them drinks, which you, Petunia, will pour for them. Next?”
“I will announce a wonderful dinner,” chimed Aunt Petunia.
“And you, Dudley?”
“‘May I take you to the dining room, Mrs. Mason?’” Dudley said, as though he were reading off a script. He caught Hari’s eye behind Aunt Petunia’s back as she cried about what a gentleman her son was. Hari gave nothing away, but Dudley smirked slightly, rolling his eyes and trying to loosen his bowtie once again.
“And you?” snarled Uncle Vernon to Hari again, raising a surprisingly accusing eyebrow.
“I’ll be in the guest room making no noise and pretending I don’t exist.”
“Precisely.” The doorbell rang and Aunt Petunia yelped, straightening out her skirt and wiping the tears under her eyes. She shooed Dudley to answer the door while Uncle Vernon tugged Hari by the scruff of his neck and shoved him up the stairs. “Remember, boy. One sound and you’ll be sorry!” Hari rolled his eyes and ignored him, opening his door to sit on his bed.
However, when he got there, Hari found a house elf he didn’t recognise, sitting in the middle of his bed and staring right at him. The elf was dressed in a ragged, dirty cloth with bulging green eyes and pointy ears, clutching onto the fabric. As soon as the elf saw Hari, he bent down so low in a bow that his nose touched the floor.
“Er, hello?” Hari said sheepishly as the elf straightened up again, still staring right up at him.
“Hari Potter!” the elf cried, jumping off the bed excitedly. “So long have I wanted to meet the famous Hari Potter! I have heard such great things about you, sir!”
Hari was very aware of how loud the elf was being and frantically tried to shush him, begging him not to talk so loud that the people downstairs would overhear. Hari might have been staying with the Dursleys for only another two days, but he really did not want to have to deal with an angry Uncle Vernon.
“Harry Potter, what an honour it is to meet you!” cried the elf.
“Er, it’s nice to meet you, too. What’s your name?” Harry asked, glancing over his shoulder at the closed door, hoping they couldn’t hear the elf’s loud talking.
“Dobby, sir! My name is Dobby!” replied the elf with a tiny sob. It built up into a loud cry and Harry heard Uncle Vernon’s talking downstairs pause for a moment.
Harry covered the elf’s mouth to keep it from making noise again and said, “Please, why don’t you, er, have a seat?”
This only served to make the poor house elf cry even more, great fat tears plopping onto the carpet and his dirty pillowcase. “I have never been asked to sit down by a wizard like I was an equal!” cried the elf tearfully, sitting down on Harry’s bed again as he had been instructed. “I knew you were good, but I didn’t know you were this good, sir!”
“Er, thanks, Dobby,” Harry replied awkwardly, rubbing the back of his neck, “Listen, not that I’m not pleased to see you, but what are you doing here?”
“Because you are in grave danger, Harry Potter! Very grave danger!” he cried, eyes growing wider than Harry would have thought possible. “You must not go back to Hogwarts this year! It is not safe for you!”
“What? But why not? I live at Hogwarts, Dobby. My legal guardian lives there! Hogwarts is my home!” Harry replied indignantly, “That’s where my real family is, Dobby. All my friends, too.”
“Friends that don’t even write to you?”
Harry startled, staring at the house elf with narrowed eyes. “How did you know my friends weren’t writing back to me, Dobby?” he asked slowly.
Dobby pulled out a pile of envelopes and papers from inside his pillowcase outfit and held it out to Harry with a shaking hand. “I only hoped you would not want to go back to Hogwarts if you thought you had no friends there…” Dobby said, ears drooping and eyes glittering with fresh tears.
“You stole my letters just so I would feel too isolated to want to go back to school?” said Harry, horrified. He looked down at the stack of letters, recognising the different handwriting from his different friends he thought had abandoned him. “Dobby, that’s cruel!”
“I only wanted to keep you safe, Hari Potter! You must promise not to go back to Hogwarts!” Dobby cried, clutching at the dirty fabric he was wearing. Hari loathed the fact that house elves had to wear pillowcases as a sign of their servitude, but he had never seen one this bad.
Hari shook his head. “I can’t promise that, Dobby. I don’t have anywhere else to go. Hogwarts is my home, ” he insisted once again, defensively clutching the letters to his chest as though Dobby would try to tear them away from him again.
“Then you leave me no choice,” said Dobby, ears drooping lower. And then Dobby leapt off the bed, scuttled past Hari, threw the bedroom door open and sprinted out of the room. Hari dropped the pile of letters on his desk and ran after Dobby, skipping steps in his haste to catch the elf running away from him. He found Dobby in the kitchen, gaping up at the cake Aunt Petunia had made for dessert. “This is my final warning, Hari Potter. Say you won’t go back to Hogwarts.”
“Dobby, no,” Hari pleaded.
Dobby hovered the cake in the air, making it float over their heads as Hari could only gape in horror. “I’m sorry, Hari Potter.”
And then, the elf dropped the cake on the ground and disappeared with a crack. At once, cake splattered everywhere, covering the floors, the walls and Hari in icing and sponge cake.
“Damn,” Hari muttered, covered from head to toe in cake and frosting.
Everyone in the other room came hurrying inside to find Hari standing in the centre of the kitchen, covered from head to toe in the cake Aunt Petunia had made. It was as though time stood still, everyone staring silently at Hari in horror, nobody sure of what to say. Dudley peered around, covering his giggles with both hands as he looked over Hari’s mess of the kitchen, eyes glinting with mischief.
Uncle Vernon broke the silence, trying to explain that Hari was just their ‘mentally ill’ nephew staying with them for a few days when suddenly, an owl burst in through the window and dropped a letter on Mrs. Mason’s head.
Instantly, Mrs. Mason let out a blood curdling scream and sprinted out of the house through the front door, still shrieking like nothing on earth. Mr. Mason gawked after her and turned to Mr. and Mrs. Dursley, red in the face.
“My wife has had a severe fear of birds since she was very small,” he explained slowly in a thick RP accent that grated on Hari’s nerves as he stood frozen in shock and icing. “What, did you think this was some kind of a joke? That it would be funny to harass my wife with birds?”
With one last glare around the room, Mr. Mason hurried out after his wife, slamming the front door shut behind him.
Uncle Vernon roared, going bright scarlet. He turned to Hari, pointing a shaking finger at Hari and shouting, “Open the ruddy letter! Open it!” Hari scrambled to pick it up in shaking, cake-covered hands.
As Hari read out the letter, he felt sick to his stomach. He couldn’t risk getting expelled from Hogwarts just because of a hover charm he didn’t even perform. There must have been some kind of mistake.
“You cost me that deal, boy. You’re going to pay for this!” Uncle Vernon seethed as Hari finished reading through the letter. His face was as purple as a plum as he raised his hand. Hari winced, preparing himself mentally for a slap…
A slap that never came.
“I suggest you do not continue what you are doing, Mr. Dursley,” said the cool voice of Minerva McGonagall, standing in the doorway of the kitchen and looking incredibly severe.