How Fawkes and Dobby met

Fawkes was taking his usual flight around the castle as he did every morning, when he saw a new house elf heading for the kitchens. He decided to talk to him for a while.

"Hello!" he said flying beside the house elf.

"Hello Mr Phoenix!" came the house elf's jolly reply, "Dobby is a free elf now sir!"

"So you're Dobby then? My master speaks highly of you! I'm Fawkes by the way! Albus Dumbledore's phoenix!"

"Nice to meet you Fawky!" Dobby smiled excitedly, "I should be getting on with some work now sir but we can talk later some time maybe? If we are allowed?"

"I'm sure my master would allow it!" and with that Dobby returned to the kitchen and Fawkes flew off back to the headmaster's office.

Albus Dumbledore was sitting in his chair reading the Daily Prophet when Fawkes crashed through the window and landed in a heap on the floor.

"Fawkes what have you been doing?" he laughed and picked up the phoenix and repaired the window.

"I was talking to Dobby, sir!" Fawkes bowed respectfully before hopping onto his perch next to his master's chair.

"Ah yes the new house elf! He volunteered to work here you know! He is determined not to let Harry Potter get hurt!" he laughed again.

"That is a good thing though, sir! Didn't he belong to the Malfoys before?"

"Yes he did and it hasn't done him too much harm although he does punish himself for the smallest of mistakes sometimes!" and with that Albus returned to reading his newspaper and Fawkes preened his feathers.

A while later Fawkes was flying to the kitchen to see if there was any left overs for him to eat when he met Dobby again.

"Hello Dobby!" Fawkes said happily.

"Fawky! What are you doing down here?"

"I'm hungry and my master told me to get my own food for once so I thought I'd come down here and see what there is!" he replied.

Dobby looked around and found several plates of food for Fawkes to eat, and then he did the washing up while Fawkes ate.

"Thank you Dobby!" Fawkes smiled at his new friend, carried the plate to the sink and returned to sit on the table.

"Do you do washing up Fawky? It's fun!" Dobby sang happily while he washed up the last few plates.

"No I'm not allowed near water. It damages my feathers."
"That must be annoying! But you can go near fire, right?"

"Yeah of course! It's how I'm reincarnated!"

"What?"

"Reincarnated. Re-born."

"Are you immortal then Fawky?"

"Yeah I am! Quite useful really!"

Fawkes and Dobby talked for hours in the kitchen and went for many walks around the castle together, becoming quite good friends. They went through many difficult times together and remained friends long after the death of Albus Dumbledore.