She opens her eyes – slowly, carefully, to observe her surroundings. She groans. There seems to be a thousand – no, a make that a million cuts on her body, and each one of them is screaming painfully in a different way. Yet, they feel muffled somehow, and she tentatively brings her hand into her line of sight, moaning at the pain it brings her. Her eyes widen as she observes the linen bandages that encase her hand so tightly that she is unable to move her fingers.

She lowers her hand to her chest and notices with the undamaged tips of her fingers that her silk dress is gone and has been replaced with a smooth material that she can't name - at least, not off the top of her head. Slowly, she moves the cloth between two of her fingertips, feeling the lovely, clean material. She smiles slightly, and closes her eyes, noticing the dim lighting of the room through her eyelids. It must be a single candelabrum, or maybe an oil lantern or two, for certainly no electricity is found here. That makes her relieved – she has not been found by Muggles.

Suddenly, she hears quick, light footsteps approaching her bedside.

ooooo

"Dobby is sorry, Miss, but Dobby must change Miss' bandages now," the tiny house-elf spoke in his squeaky voice as Harry helped him up onto the bed.

"She can't hear you, Dobby, it's no use talking," Harry said impatiently. "She's been out for nearly ten hours now…"

Dobby turned his head around on his skinny neck, and focused his huge green eyes on Harry. "Yes, Harry Potter sir, Dobby knows this, sir. But Dobby thought… perhaps even if Miss was still sleeping, sir, Miss might hear Dobby."

Harry sighed, and walked out of the bedroom, allowing Dobby to commence changing the bandages of the woman who had collapsed at The Hog's Head the night before.

He began to walk through the labyrinthine maze of corridors that led to the main living room where the rest of them where resting, eating, reading… where he had left them all. For some reason, Harry had wanted to come with Dobby to see the woman again. They had left her there with only the house-elf for company, and Dobby had just Apparated to the living room to get him to let him know that she was still asleep. Harry had wanted to see for himself.

After a few moments of primary inspection, Parvati, who was a Healer now, made the announcement that they needed to move her to a more stable environment, and they needed to do it quickly. Harry had sighed – and then volunteered his home. They had withheld gasps, and Hermione had looked at the floor, then carefully looked at Harry, forming her words with great caution, "Where should we Apparate to, then?"

It took a moment for Harry to get it out. This was going to sound very bad to them all…

"Malfoy Manor." He then Apparated immediately away.

Of course they all knew where Malfoy Manor was. Of course they did. It was, after all, in and around the Manor's grounds where the final battle had taken place.

Luna arrived first, with the "popping" noise that always accompanied Apparation. She spoke softly as she walked up to Harry's hunched form. "It might take a minute or two. They're all very angry." She then looked up at the huge mansion, which had once been a symbol of Dark Wizards, Purebloods, and the one who headed it all… Lord Voldemort. "You've certainly fixed the place up a bit."

Luna had made the understatement of the century. Malfoy Manor had been all but destroyed by the wayward spells of the final battle; the top floors had collapsed into the bottom, and the grounds had been ruined with litter, bodies, blood, wands, falling debris, and of course, Voldemort's corpse. Harry had done a huge overhaul of the place, presumably with his reward from the Ministry. Malfoy Manor, once a foreboding black, was now a somber grey, and no longer reached on and on toward the sky, but settled nicely at four levels. It looked somewhat like a cross between Buckingham Palace and a Victorian House, and the grounds were well taken care of - bursting with flowers of all kinds and sporting a lawn as green and smooth as the Dursleys could have ever wished for.

"Dobby helped a lot," Harry said shortly. "He came to work for me… after… after it happened. He thought I needed help." He said this last word rather bitterly.

"Don't you?" Luna said.

Harry was about to say something, especially something regarding her use of the present instead of the past tense, but there were two more pops – Parvati, and Hermione.

Hermione walked straight up to Harry, and slapped him smartly across the cheek. "How could you?" she said harshly, and then stared up at the house before her. "How could you?" she repeated, softer this time, shaking her head. It was clear that she was not talking only about the house.

"I'm to prepare a room," Parvati said crisply. "Then I'm going to go back, and Side-Along Apparate with Ron and Neville and… Her. We thought you wouldn't mind dropping social pretense here," she said, referring to the fact that it was incredibly rude to Apparate straight into a wizard's house. "So if you'll lead me in."

Harry, who was nursing his cheek and staring at Hermione as if she were mad, nodded slightly, and began to walk up the grey-stoned path to the front door. He pulled out his wand, and pointed it to the door, preparing to say a charm in a soft voice.

"So we're going to be locked in, is that it?" Hermione said sharply.

Harry stared at her.

"We don't know those wards. I have a feeling they're a far sight more complicated than Alohomora."

"Actually, it just is Alohomora. I learned once that the hardest thing to find is the thing that's most often right under your nose," Harry shut his mouth right up when he realized he was shouting by the end of his proclamation. Nobody had to ask where he had learnt this – not after Godric Gryffindor's sword had turned out to be the last Horcrux they had found. Being reminded of that – how Dumbledore had been so very wrong about that – made Harry want to cry.

Instead, he turned his face fiercely to the door again, and said, so everyone could hear him, Alohomora!"

He held the door open as Parvati and a very red-faced Hermione swept past.

Harry remembered the shock on Hermione's face now, as he made his way back to the living room where they were all sitting. Ron and Neville hadn't been too impressed when they arrived either, and they had promptly laid the woman down, as per Parvati's instructions, in one of the many spare bedrooms that the new Malfoy Manor had. Then all the men had left the room, and Dobby and the women had carefully stripped off the blue dress, chucking it out the door, and bandaged the woman carefully.

Harry remembered picking up the still sopping dress after it landed out in the hallway. It was a pathetic thing: it looked so rejected and unwanted. He had held it up almost ridiculously against himself, leaving wet imprints on his clothing. He could sort of see how the dress would have worked when it was whole – a ragged hem, just past the knee, a wide strap, a square bodice. Something a woman of class would have worn. There was something hard inside the left side of the skirt – Harry reached up underneath and found a sort of sewn pocket that hid a long stick of wood… a wand?

Experimentally, Harry waved the stick around, and muttered "Floris!" Sure enough, a bouquet of red roses came out the end of the (now that he was certain that that was what it was) wand, and his not-forgotten Seeker instincts made his other arm shoot out and catch them.

So she was a witch. It was a good thing to know, Harry thought. He draped the dress over his arm, and held the bouquet of roses in his fist, and began to make his way back to the living room, when Dobby seemed to appear out of nowhere.

He looked at the roses and dress warily. "If Harry Potter will allow Dobby to say…"

"Sure Dobby, go at it!" Harry suddenly felt very cheerful, and smiled down at his friend, his only real friend in the world, he thought.

"Dobby has seen many, many Misses go in and out of this house, Harry Potter sir, and Dobby has not said anything, sir. But Dobby thinks it would be very wise if Harry Potter would let the other friends help this one, sir," Dobby cringed slightly, as if expecting to be chastised.

"Dobby! What the devil do you mean?"

Dobby reached his long fingers out to the dress, and with a quick snap, the dress was no longer hanging over Harry's shoulder, but hanging from Dobby's two forefingers. "If Dobby may ask, sir, what is the young Miss wearing at the moment?"

Harry's brow furrowed. "Dobby…?" Then it registered. "Dobby! It's not like that! Good God, Dobby, it's not like that."

"Dobby knows, sir. But… Harry Potter sir… for many times, sir, it has been like that. Dobby must go now, sir," and Dobby disappeared.

Harry stared after his friend for a moment, puzzled. Sure, he had had a few girls in, now and then… every so often… after Ginny. Damnit! Who could blame him? Girls were hanging off of his every word, he was the bloody Man-Who-Lived, wasn't he?! Why couldn't he enjoy some of the perks… some of the time? It's not like he ever expected anything long term out of it!

ooooo

The house-elf, Dobby, is helping her now, as far as she can tell. He is surprisingly gentle; he sings softly to her in his high voice, nonsense about centaurs and thestrals who go to a pond in the middle of a wood… she can't catch it all. But it is pleasant in a very, very odd sort of way. He handles each limb, one at a time, and chatters inanely while examining the wounds underneath. "Oh, look, Miss, this one is getting better, Dobby thinks, yes, it is not scarring at all, no, look at that, Miss, Dobby is very happy Miss is healing so well, Mistress Parvati said Miss was not going to but Miss is proving them wrong, oh yes Miss, Dobby knew Miss would…" Dobby goes on and on…

"Dobby just wishes Dobby knew Miss' name, yes Dobby does, yes, yes Dobby does," and then he goes back to his singing. And now he is looking at the gash on her neck and clucking in a motherly way. "Tsk tsk, Miss, that is a narrow escape, Miss, yes that is… hmm Miss might have a slight scar there but nothing to worry Miss, Miss is still very pretty." She cannot help but smile – he is such a change from the frowning and the grumbling and the worrying, and she just might allow herself to speak, she wouldn't mind with Dobby. She laughs to herself, she thinks just exactly like Dobby sounds… isn't that funny…?

Isn't that funny…?

ooooo

"…but there is nothing to worry about, Miss, Miss is still very pretty."

"Dobby?"

She spoke! Dobby tried to hide his surprise and keep up the chatter. "Yes, Miss?"

"Dobby, thank you."

"Miss, it is no trouble, no trouble for Dobby at all."

"Dobby, I think I would like to tell you my name."

"That would be lovely, Miss."

"It's Evangeline. Cole. Evangeline Cole. Am I talking too much?" She seemed very earnest not to do so, to want to please Dobby, to not want to put him out.

"No, Mistress Evangeline. Mistress Evangeline is talking just the right amount."

"Dobby?"

"Yes, Mistress Evangeline?"

"Please call me Evy."

"All right, Evy."