Dobby walked with his head high, up and down the room of requirement. Ginny and Hermione clapped when he got to the end. No matter how many times they assured him that being himself would get Winky to like him, he insisted that they were mistaken, and that they teach him more of how to be a real gentleman.
"Maybe you should act like Crouch. She seemed to love him." Ron suggested, laughing, from the corner. Harry also cracked a smile. Hermione scowled, but Dobby nodded his head earnestly.
"Yes Mr Wheezy sir! Dobby did thought of that sir! That is why he is trying to grow a moustache sir, see?" he pointed to the faint growth of white hair littering his upper lip. "But it is not easy for a house elf sir. Not easy at all."
Ron tried with all his might not to burst out into madly hysterical laughter at these words, and, as a result, turned blue in the face, rolling maniacally, yet silently, over the cushions on which he and Harry were perched.
Even Hermione managed to turn her giggle into a hiccup.
Dobby continued to walk proudly, his head up, and then Ginny got on to the next lesson; the smile.
"Now, Dobby, smile at me." She said, trying to have Hermione's motherly teaching charm, but coming out sounding slightly awkward.
Dobby broke into a wide, psychotic grin, all his teeth beaming up at them, the smell of the minty breath mints that he had forced down his throat very prominent.
"Wow wow wow." Ginny said, placing her hands on his shoulder. She was kneeling before Dobby, and Hermione was sitting next to her on a bright pink cushion.
"Now, a little less wide. Try less." Dobby smiled, a grin where only the top row of his teeth was shown. This was hard. Hermione and Ginny had no idea what a house elf looked for in another house elf. But he looked cute and innocent to the girls, and that was the look that they were going for…better get that then the manic they had received first up. Now they were on to rendering his appearance.
Ginny pulled the fake glasses off his nose.
"These are not a good look Dobby." She said.
"Hey!" came Harry's annoyed voice from the other side of the room, as he fingered his own glasses, offended. Ginny looked over at him, and rolled her eyes.
"On Dobby you dolt." Ginny said, and Harry relaxed slightly. Hermione tugged at his jumper, and felt the butterbeer corks underneath.
"What's this?" she asked him, as he pulled them out from under their woollen prison.
"That is Winky's Christmas present to Dobby Miss. Dobby is wearing it always."
The girls made squealing noises, and Harry and Ron exchanged uncomfortable glances.
"You know what Dobby, I don't think you need any help. I think that you just need to tell Winky how you feel." Said Hermione confidently. Dobby blushed at just the thought, and wrung his hands nervously.
"Dobby is scared miss. Dobby doesn't know if he can…"
"You're ready Dobby. You are officially a ladies man." Said Ginny, still holding back a giggle. Dobby beamed at them, and then hurried down to the kitchens, to begin making dinner.
They four friends walked back to the common room, Ginny and Hermione squealing at the adorableness of the miniature love story they were avidly assisting, and Harry and Ron exchanging nervous glances, having just witnessed such a girly hour, and sat in such a vividly pink version of the room of requirement. Ron cleared his throat, and looked at Harry.
"Er, that was pretty sentimental of him, eh? Keeping the necklace and all. Winky probably doesn't like him cause he's not a man."
Harry grinned.
"Yes, because it's so much different to sleeping with the book Hermione gave you under your pillow, isn't is?" he said, and kept walking, Ron left standing in the hallway, gapping after them.
oOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOo
Dobby stared across at Winky, once again, the absence of the glasses from his long nose noticed by passing elves, who stared and pointed, both at that, and the new way that Dobby held himself. Dobby smiled his suave new smile, and gave his friends a small wave as he passed them.
"Dobby! Dobby!" One house elf, the leader in the kitchens, was running towards Dobby quickly, her arms and legs flaying wildly across the floor of the kitchens, her eyes wide open in fear. She came to rest next to him, panting, and Dobby looked worried.
"What is it?" he asked her, his squeaky voice even higher with worry, his eyes darting around the kitchen, and at all the other elves worried and confused faces.
"It is Winky Dobby. Winky is gone!" she said, wheezing out her words in between pants.
Dobby's great eyes widened, and he chocked back tears. He ran out of the kitchens. There was only one place that Winky went when she was drunk, and it was dangerous for her to be doing so in such broad daylight. The students would think that she was crazy. She could get herself fired!
Dobby ran, helter skelter, from the corridor that held the kitchens and up into the school, passing hoard of shocked students as he went, sending pot plant flying and other mysterious objects, which he did not stop to clean up. He would have to do that tonight anyway, what was the point while Winky gone?
Dobby ran up through the entrance hall, which was almost deserted, but for a few stragglers who were late for the last lesson of the day. He ignored their worried, scandalised shouts, and padded his tiny feet out through the door and onto the castle grounds. He had only found Winky here once before. It had been midnight, about two years ago.
He ran even faster still, over the grass that was flourishing in the summer breeze, and down the sloping hills that led to Hagrid's cottage, which sat alone on the edge of the Forest.
There she was. In the patch of earth that sat in front of Hagrid's house, digging frantically, covering herself with mountains of soot, Her hands blackened, her face covered with mud from where her ears combined with the dirt. Dobby sat down beside her, and gently put a little hand on her heaving shoulders, as she collapsed onto him, sobbing uncontrollably.
Dobby didn't know why she came here. There must have been a reason. She seemed to think, for some preposterous reason that digging up the earth in front of Hagrid's cabin would bring her old master back. Dobby didn't know why she would get such an idea into her head. Mr Crouch had gone missing in the forest, and the first time she had gone missing he had looked for her there for hours on end, getting horribly lost, until Hagrid had fished him out, and led him here.
Winky was distressed. The sweet smell of butterbeer lingered on her ominously, so that it no longer smelt welcoming and tasty, but off and vile, in such large amounts that even the smell made Dobby feel giddy.
She couldn't go back to the kitchens.
Dobby hauled Winky to her feet, muttering comforting words of encouragement, and carried her up to the school and into the room of requirement, using his magic to make them invisible. The house elves were only meant to use this when they were cleaning, and didn't want to be seen by the students, but this, Dobby decided, was an emergency, and so they dodged unsuspecting students rapidly, making their way up to the room of requirement.
Dobby opened up the door to the Room. He gasped. Winky was now asleep, snoring gently on his shoulder. The room was not what normally presented itself on such a situation. It was very far from it.
They were standing in a dimly lit room, centred around a tiny table, fit for two smitten house elves, and in the corner was a curtained off area, behind which Dobby could hear the gentle gurgling of a bath being run.
There were two beds (thankfully) and the walls of the room were coloured in a deep red. Dobby's cheeks darken, so that they seemed to blend with the walls. What would Winky say when she saw this?
Dobby lowered her into the bath, fully dressed, and watched as the dirt came apart in the water. Then he left, and tried to make the room look a little less suggesting.
oOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOo
Winky woke up. She knew that she had slept for a very long time. The remedies to butterbeer, and the hangover potion that Dobby had obviously fed her through the night had worked wonders. Her head felt clear. The only question that remained in her head was what she had gotten up to last night, for the last memory in her brain was that of her running from the kitchens, alone, and it didn't seem entirely plausible that she had run here, to Dobby, in a dimly lit room full of candles and remedies. There had to be something in between, and she knew that whatever it was was not going to be easy to explain her way out of.
"Morning!" said Dobby cheerfully, as he walked into view, carrying with him some bacon and eggs that he had no doubt stolen from kitchens before anyone else had been awake, the butterbeer cork necklace she remembered making for him jangling around his neck as he bounced over to wear she was sitting.
Dobby set the breakfast down on Winky's lap, and gave her an orange juice, commanding her to eat, for which Winky was grateful. She noticed that Dobby sported large, sleepless circles under his eyes, and yet he was smiling as though he had slept right through the night.
"Er, Winky, there is something that I wanted to tell you…" he said to her, the colour rising in his cheeks again, as he did when he was nervous. His ears seemed to be quivering with anticipation, and his eyes hopeful, yet extremely worried.
"I was wondering, if you…I mean, I needed to tell you that I…I don't know how to…I know that you might…" Dobby was stumbling hopelessly. Winky grinned. She knew what he was trying to say.
In one quick movement, acting very boldly for a house elf, Winky swept Dobby into a kiss. Dobby's eyes widened for a moment, before he relaxed, and clamped them tightly shut.
Winky grinned to herself. She knew that she would have had to step in sometimes. After all, sweet as he might be, Dobby the House Elf was most definitely not a ladies man…
THE END.
A/N: thanks for reading! Lots of fun writing that! Lots and lots! Thanks to omnicat, who set the challenge, and pinocchino, who runs the forum, they're really fun, so thanks u 2!
Please drop me review! xXx