Kirra softly hushed the elf and kindly ushered Dobby back onto the bed where he sat hiccoughing, looking like a large and very ugly doll. At last he managed to control himself, and sat with his great eyes fixed on Kirra in an expression of watery adoration.
"You can't have met many decent wizards," said Kirra, trying to cheer him up. Dobby shook his head.
Then, without warning, he leapt up and started banging his head furiously on the window, shouting, "Bad Dobby! Bad Dobby!"
"Don't — what are you doing?" Harry hissed, springing up and pulling Dobby back onto the bed — Hedwig had woken up with a particularly loud screech and was beating her wings wildly against the bars of her cage.
Kirra had quickly stood up and grabbed onto Harrys hand which had a firm grip on the back of Dobby's pillowcase, "don't hurt him Harry," she scolded him softly
"Dobby had to punish himself, sir," said the elf, who had gone slightly cross-eyed, Kirra looked at him in concern. "Dobby almost spoke ill of his family, sir. . . ."
"Your family?" Kirra asked softly
"The wizard family Dobby serves, my lady. . . . Dobby is a house-elf — bound to serve one house and one family forever. . . ."
"Do they know you're here?" asked Harry curiously. Dobby shuddered. "Oh, no, sir, no . . . Dobby will have to punish himself most grievously for coming to see you and your sister, sir. Dobby will have to shut his ears in the oven door for this. If they ever knew, sir —"
"But won't they notice if you shut your ears in the oven door?" Kirra asked and felt a wave of anger towards whoever his family was. How could someone be so cruel to their house-elf, so abusive.
"Dobby doubts it, my lady. Dobby is always having to punish himself for something, my lady. They lets Dobby get on with it, my lady. Sometimes they reminds me to do extra punishments. . . ."
"But why don't you leave? Escape?" Kirra asked him quickly, though she had been asking herself that for the few years that she had been with her uncle and aunt.
"A house-elf must be set free, my lady. And the family will never set Dobby free . . . Dobby will serve the family until he dies, my lady. . . ." Harry stared while Kirra looked down, trying to figure out how somebody could be so cruel.
"And I thought I had it bad staying here for another four weeks," both of the twins said.
"This makes the Dursleys sound almost human." Harry stated
"Can't anyone help you? Can't I?" Almost at once, Kirra wished she hadn't spoken. Dobby dissolved again into wails of gratitude.
"Please," Harry whispered frantically, "please be quiet. If the Dursleys hear anything, if they know you're here —"
"Kirra Potter asks if she can help Dobby . . . Dobby has heard of your greatness and your great kindness and goodness, but Dobby never believed that he would be one of the lucky few who get to experience it. . . ."
Kirra, who was feeling distinctly hot in the face, said, "Whatever you've heard about my greatness is a load of rubbish. You should meet my friends, JJ is so protective, he'd never let anything happen to anyone he cared about and Maxine, she's so pretty and kind and responsible, and of course, there are the twins who bring a smile to everyone f —" But she stopped quickly because thinking about her friends was painful.
"Kirra Potter is humble and modest," said Dobby reverently, his orb-like eyes aglow. " and so is Harry Potter who speaks not of his triumph over He-WhoMust-Not-Be-Named —"
"Voldemort?" said Harry. Dobby clapped his hands over his bat ears and moaned, "Ah, speak not the name, sir! Speak not the name!"
"Sorry," said Harry quickly. "I know lots of people don't like it. My friend Ron —" He stopped as well, not liking to talk or think about his friends, who also hadn't written to him just like his twin's friends.
Dobby leaned toward Harry, his eyes wide as headlights. "Dobby heard tell," he said hoarsely, "that Harry Potter met the Dark Lord for a second time, just weeks ago . . . that Harry Potter escaped yet again."
Dobby then glanced at the girl before looking back at Harry "Dobby also heard that he stopped his sister from going, though Harry Potter is not the only one trying to protect the youngest Potter. Someone, who has ordered me not to be named, has also helped me come to warn you, he helped me buy time to come here"
Kirra gave her brother an angry look while Harry nodded and Dobby's eyes suddenly shone with tears. "Ah, sir," he gasped, dabbing his face with a corner of the grubby pillowcase he was wearing. "Harry Potter is valiant and bold! He has braved so many dangers already and protected his sister! But Dobby has come to protect Kirra and Harry Potter, to warn them, even if he does have to shut his ears in the oven door later. . . . Kirra and Harry Potter must not go back to Hogwarts."
There was a silence broken only by the clink of knives and forks from downstairs and the distant rumble of Uncle Vernon's voice. Kirra's mouth went wide but she couldn't say anything
"W-what?" Harry stammered. "But I've got to go back — term starts on September first. It's all that's keeping me going. You don't know what it's like here. I don't belong here. I belong in your world — at Hogwarts."
"No, no, no," squeaked Dobby, shaking his head so hard his ears flapped. "Harry Potter must stay where he is safe. He is too great, too good, to lose. And it is so very lucky that Harry stopped his sister from going last year, because she is in far more danger than you are sir. If Harry Potter goes back to Hogwarts, he will be in danger but if Kirra Potter goes back to Hogwarts, she will be in mortal danger."
"Why?" said Harry and Kirra in surprise.
"There is a plot, Harry Potter. A plot to make most terrible things happen at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry this year," whispered Dobby, suddenly trembling all over. "Dobby has known it for months, sir. Kirra and Harry Potter must not put themselves in peril. They are too important, sir!"
"What terrible things?" said Kirra and Harry at once. "Who's plotting them?"
Dobby made a funny choking noise and then banged his head frantically against the wall. "All right!" cried Harry, grabbing the elf's arm to stop him. "You can't tell us. I understand. But why are you warning us?"
A sudden, unpleasant thought struck him. "Hang on — this hasn't got anything to do with Vol- — sorry — with You-Know-Who, has it? You could just shake or nod," he added hastily as Dobby's head tilted worryingly close to the wall again.
Slowly, Dobby shook his head. "Not — not He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, sir —" But Dobby's eyes were wide and he seemed like he had been begging for the girl to say something, it was as if he expected her to know something about what was going on, but she didn't, she was completely lost.
"He hasn't got a brother, has he?" she asked, trying to figure out what it was that she should know that her brother didnt.
Dobby shook his head, his eyes wider than ever. "Well then, I can't think who else would have a chance of making horrible things happen at Hogwarts," said Harry and Kirra at the same time.
"I mean, there's Dumbledore, for one thing — you know who Dumbledore is, don't you?" Dobby bowed his head.
"Albus Dumbledore is the greatest headmaster Hogwarts has ever had. Dobby knows it, sir. Dobby has heard Dumbledore's powers rival those of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named at the height of his strength. But, sir" — Dobby's voice dropped to an urgent whisper — "there are powers Dumbledore doesn't . . . powers no decent wizard . . ."
Dobby looked towards the girl "untold, rare magic that people still haven't grown to understand, curses..." And before Harry or Kirra could stop him, Dobby bounded off the bed, seized Harry's desk lamp, and started beating himself around the head with earsplitting yelps.
A sudden silence fell downstairs. Two seconds later the twins, hearts thudding madly, heard Uncle Vernon coming into the hall, calling, "Dudley must have left his television on again, the little tyke!"
"Quick! In the closet!" hissed Harry, stuffing Dobby in, shutting the door, and the two twins quickly flung themselves on their beds just as the door handle turned.
"What — the — devil — are — you — doing?" said Uncle Vernon through gritted teeth, his face horribly close to Harry's.
"You've just ruined the punch line of my Japanese golfer joke. . . . One more sound from either of you and you'll wish you'd never been born!" He stomped flat-footed from the room. Shaking, Kirra let Dobby out of the closet.
"See what it's like here?" they asked, they had to go back to Hogwarts.
"See why we have got to go back to Hogwarts? It's the only place we've got — well, I think I've got friends." Harry started
"Friends who don't even write to Harry and Kirra Potter?" said Dobby slyly.
"I expect they've just been — wait a minute," said Harry, frowning and Kirra was now looking up at the elf with a glare on her face, she quickly pieced it all together.
"How do you know my friends haven't been writing to me?" Kirra asked him angrily Dobby shuffled his feet.
"Kirra and Harry Potter mustn't be angry with Dobby. Dobby did it for the best —"
"Have you been stopping my letters?" The twins both growl