Hours and hours later, Arabela woke quite suddenly in the pitch blackness and gave a small yelp of pain: Her arm now felt full of large splinters. For a second, she thought that was what had woken her. Then, with a thrill of horror, she realized that someone was sponging her forehead in the dark
"What– get off me!" she shrieked, and then gasped, "Dobby?!"
The house-elf's goggling tennis ball eyes were peering at her through the darkness. A single tear was running down his long, pointed nose.
"Arabella and Lyla Potter came back to school," he whispered miserably. "Dobby warned you and warned. Ah ma'am, why didn't you heed Dobby? Why didn't Miss and Miss Potter go back home when they missed the train?"
Arabella heaved herself up on her pillows and pushed Dobby's sponge away.
"What're you doing here?" she asked groggily. "And how did you know we missed the train?"
Dobby's lip trembled and Arabella was seized by a sudden suspicion.
"You," she said slowly, realization dawning. "You stopped the barrier from letting us through!"
"Indeed yes, ma'am," said Dobby, nodding his head vigorously, ears flapping madly about. "Dobby hid and watched for Miss and Miss Potter, sealed the gateway and Dobby had to iron his hands afterward"— he showed Arabella ten long, bandaged fingers— "but Dobby didn't care, ma'am, for he thought both misses was safe, and never did Dobby dream that they would get to school another way!"
He was rocking backward and forward, shaking his great ugly head.
"Dobby was so shocked when he heard that the Misses was back at Hogwarts, he let his master's dinner burn! Such a flogging Dobby never had, ma'am..."
Arabella, defeated and still very much in pain, slumped back onto her pillows.
"You nearly got us and expelled!" she hissed. "You'd better get lost before my bones come back, Dobby, or I might strangle you."
Dobby gave a weak smile.
"Dobby is used to death threats, ma'am. Dobby gets them five times a day at home."
He blew his nose on a corner of the filthy pillowcase he wore, looking so pathetic that Arabella felt her anger ebb away.
"Why do you wear that thing?" she asked curiously.
"This, ma'am?" asked Dobby, plucking at the pillowcase. "'Tis a mark of the house-elf's enslavement, ma'am. Dobby can only be freed if his masters present him with clothes, ma'am. The family is careful not to pass Dobby even a sock, ma'am, for then he would be free to leave their house forever."
Dobby mopped his bulging eyes and said suddenly, "Arabella and Lyla Potter must go home! Dobby thought his Bludger would be enough to make —"
"Your Bludger?" said Arabella gasping, anger rising once more. "What do you mean, your Bludger? You could have killed me and Lyla! Not save us!"
"Not kill you, ma'am, never kill!" squeaked Dobby, shocked. "Dobby wants to save the Misses' life! Better send home, grievously injured, than remain here, ma'am! Dobby only wanted you hurt enough to be sent home!"
"Oh, is that so?" said Arabella angrily. "I don't suppose you're going to tell me why you wanted me sent home in pieces?"
"Ah, if only you knew!" Dobby groaned, more tears dripping onto his ragged pillowcase. "If only you knew what they means to us, to the lowly, the enslaved, we dregs of the magical world! Dobby remembers how it was when He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named was at the height of his powers, ma'am! We house-elves were treated like vermin, ma'am! Of course, Dobby is still treated like that, sir," he admitted, drying his face on the pillowcase. "But mostly, ma'am, life has improved for my kind since you triumphed over He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named. Miss and Misses Potter survived, and the Dark Lord's power was broken, and it was a new dawn, ma'am, and you two shone like a beacon of hope for those of us who thought the Dark days would never end, sit... And now, at Hogwarts, terrible things are to happen, are perhaps happening already, and Dobby cannot let Arabella or Lyla Potter stay here now that history is to repeat itself, now that the Chamber of Secrets is open once more."
As if realizing what he'd said, Dobby froze, horrorstruck. He then grabbed Arabella's water jug from his bedside table and cracked it over his own head, toppling out of sight. A second later, he crawled back onto the bed, cross-eyed, muttering, "Bad Dobby, very bad Dobby..."
"So there is a Chamber of Secrets?" Arabella whispered excitedly. "And did you say it's been opened before? Tell me, Dobby!"
She seized the elf's bony wrist as Dobby's hand inched toward the water jug. "But I'm not Muggle-born— how can I be in danger from the Chamber?"
"Ah, ma'am, ask no more, ask no more of poor Dobby," stammered the elf, his eyes huge in the dark. "Dark deeds are planned in this place, but you must not be here when they happen — go home, Miss Potter, and take your sister with you. You must not meddle in this, ma'am, 'tis too dangerous —"
"Who is it, Dobby?" she demanded, keeping a firm hold on Dobby's wrist to stop him from hitting himself with the water jug again. "Who's opened it? Who opened it last time?"
"Dobby can't, ma'am, Dobby can't, Dobby mustn't tell!" squealed the elf. "Go home, go home!"
"I'm not going anywhere!" said Arabella fiercely. "One of my best friends is Muggle-born; she'll be first in line if the Chamber really has been opened—"
"Arabella Potter risks her own life for her friends!" moaned Dobby in a kind of miserable ecstasy. "So noble! So valiant! But she must save herself, she must not —"
Dobby suddenly froze, his bat ears quivering. Arabella heard it, too. There were footsteps coming down the passageway outside.
"Dobby must go!" breathed the elf, terrified. There was a loud crack, and Arabella was now gripping nothing at all. She slumped back into bed, her eyes on the dark doorway to the hospital wing as the footsteps drew nearer.
The next moment, Dumbledore was backing into the dormitory, wearing a long woolly dressing gown and a nightcap. He was carrying one end of what looked like a statue. McGonagall appeared a second later, carrying its feet. Together, they heaved it onto a bed.
"Get Madam Pomfrey," said Dumbledore softly, and McGonagall hurried past the end of Arabella's bed and out of sight.
Arabella lay quite still, pretending to be asleep. She heard urgent voices, and then McGonagall swept back into view, closely followed by Madam Pomfrey, who was pulling a cardigan over her nightdress. She heard a sharp intake of breath.
"What-what happened Dumbledore?" Madam Pomfrey whispered in horror, bending over the statue on the bed.
"Another attack," said Dumbledore simply. "Minerva found him on the stairs."
"There was a bowl of grapes next to him," said McGonagall, a notable tremble in her voice. "We think he was trying to sneak up here to visit Potter."
Arabella's stomach gave a horrible lurch. Slowly and carefully, she raised himself a few inches so he could look at the statue on the bed. A ray of moonlight lay across its staring face.
It was Colin Creevey. His eyes were wide and his hands were stuck up in front of him, holding his camera.
"Petrified?" whispered Madam Pomfrey.
"Yes," said McGonagall. "But I shudder to think... If Albus hadn't been on the way downstairs for hot chocolate— who knows what might have—"
The three of them gazed down at Colin. Then Dumbledore leaned forward and wrenched the camera out of Colin's rigid grip.
"You don't think he managed to get a picture of his attacker?" said McGonagall eagerly.
Dumbledore didn't answer. He opened the back of the camera.
"Good gracious!" said Madam Pomfrey.
A jet of steam had hissed out of the camera. Arabella, three beds away, caught the acrid smell of burnt plastic.
"Melted," said Madam Pomfrey wonderingly. "All melted..."
"What does this mean, Albus?" McGonagall asked.
"It means," said Dumbledore, "that the Chamber of Secrets is indeed open again."
Madam Pomfrey clapped a hand to her mouth. McGonagall stared at Dumbledore.
"But, Albus... surely... who?"
"The question is not who," said Dumbledore, his eyes on Colin. "The question is, how…"
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