So I'm writing something after a very long time. This'll probably be my only piece for quite some time too, due to exams, until some frantic stroke of inspiration hits me and I sit all night long to put it on paper (Or well, Google Docs)

I'm not sure why but I've always loved the idea of an Indian house elf, and this one in particular just stole my heart. Rani means 'queen' in Hindi, btw, and I think it's quite fitting, yes?

As always, hope you like it and constructive criticism is always welcome :")

(This is definitely not edited, so please ignore that)

word count: 2390

His first contact with Rani was when he was two. She had been with their family for much longer than that, of course, as most house elves tended to, but he hadn't been allowed to be with her then since he was too young and a bond formed with anyone but the parents, let alone a house elf was dangerous. And wizard babies formed bonds much more quickly than their muggle counterparts. That was why he was only limited to human contact for his first two years, and even then it was mostly just his parents.

But after that? Everything and everyone was fair game. Even though he was just two, he still remembered their first meeting. She had popped into his room, as quiet as she could be, which wasn't much considering she probably wasn't much older than 25 years herself; practically an infant in house elf years.

He had immediately woken up and before he could start wailing, Rani had popped up into his crib and that immediately quietened him. He remembered looking up at her in wonder.

She had huge tennis ball eyes, ever larger than the average house elf as he would learn later, and large lashes. Her skin was darker than anyone's he had ever seen before, and she was barely taller than he was. She was also wringing her hands together nervously, worried she had woken up her little master.

"Who you?" he had asked curiously, having never seen someone like her.

"I being Rani, little master James," she had replied immediately.

"Ra-Ra!" he had declared in a lisp, and Ra-Ra she was from that day on.

"Ra-Ra, Ra-RAAAA!" 6 year old James Potter wailed as he fell of his miniature broomstick. Before he could even finish his cry, a tiny figure materialized in front of him and Rani immediately went to heal his scraped knee. Her steady hands were a direct contrast to the panic and concern that had washed over her face.

"Is little master being okay? Is he being hurt anywhere else?" She enquired worriedly, running her little hands over his arms and legs to make sure she hadn't missed anything.

"I'm okay, Ra-Ra, thank you," James assured her, gently pushing her hands away. "I'mma go again!"

"Oh, little master," Rani shook her head affectionately as she saw him trying to climb onto the broomstick with his grubby fingers, not seconds after he had just fallen off. This time, however, Rani made sure she was standing right there, watching over him with hawk eyes. She'd make sure he don't fall again, she would.

Holding his breath, a barely 10 year old James quietly tip-toed his way into the kitchen, heaving a sigh of relief when it seemed like he had successfully made the trip without waking anyone up.

Before he could take another step, however, the lights lit up all of a sudden and he was whisked off his feet and into a chair before he could so much as blink.

"Wha-?" he had barely managed to say when Rani appeared in front of him, seeming to bounce on her heels like the excitable little thing she was.

"Little master James! Little master James!" she exclaimed. "You is not allowed to be here right now."

James grinned sheepishly, running his hand through his already messy hair, "Ah you know me Ra-Ra. I just have to sneak into the kitchen before my birthday. Aren't you used to it by now?" he asked her cheekily.

Rani huffed, "Of course I is used to it, that's why I is standing guard."

James immediately pouted at that, "Oh come on, Ra-Ra! That's not fair."

It was the little house elf's turn to grin now as instead of answering, she merely clicked her fingers and a silver cloche appeared mid air in front of the young raven haired boy.

"Ooooh, what's this?" James craned his head to figure out if he could see anything from the top of the thing, but he failed.

"Why don't little master open it and see?" Rani hinted slyly.

An excited gleam entered James' hazel eyes as he immediately lifted the lid and came face to face with a delicious looking cake.

"Is this-?" he looked up at Rani hopefully who had a knowing smirk on her face.

"Little master's favorite banana hazelnut cake? Yes," she announced triumphantly.

"Oh Ra-Ra, I love you! You know I love your cakes!" James exclaimed before leaping off the chair to wrap his arms around the little elf who was at least a foot shorter than he was.

"Thank you so much," James cried, before letting her go and attacking the cake with a vigor one would not expect of him at midnight.

Rani stepped back, smiling fondly at him.

"Ah look, Prongs, it's chocolate eclairs!" 13 year old Sirius Black exclaimed one morning when he opened James' mail to find his favorite dessert, "You're not getting any of this now!"

"Hey!" James protested, "That's not fair."

"No can do, lil Prongsie," Sirius sang, dancing out of his reach, "You know how much I love Rani's baking. At least you get to eat it during the summer, I don't even get that."

James scowled but dropped the topic. He knew Rani had sent the eclairs for Sirius because he had asked her to. He wasn't about to take them from him now, but messing with him couldn't hurt could it?

Shaking his head lightly, he sat down to pen a letter to Rani, thanking her for the no doubt delicious eclairs and asking her how everything was at home.

"James."

"Little master."

"James."

"Little master."

"James," the boy in question pressed, not looking away from Rani, who was staring at him just as intensely as he was.

"I no call you James," Rani said with slight disgust coating her words. "That be wrong."

"Not if I say it isn't," James stubbornly said. "I don't like it when you call me 'little master', Ra-Ra. You're my friend, hell, you're like my sister. Do you know how wrong that is, my sister calling me 'little master'? He gagged in fake disgust to accentuate his point making her bite her lip in amusement.

Rani sighed, knowing she couldn't win this, "Fine. I be calling you Jamesy, and that be final." She wagged one stern finger at him and he smirked at his victory. She could never say no to him. He knew that.

"Jamesy?" Rani's hesitant voice carries over to him through the silence of the library. He tried to muster up a smile and turned to look at her. By the look on her face, he knew he had failed.

"Oh, little master, what be wrong?" Rani rushed over to him, falling back to the title she had mostly stopped using years ago. She still used it when she was particularly distressed or concerned, or in front of company, though. This was the former.

"I-It's nothing, Ra-Ra. You needn't have come," James said half-heartedly. Both of them knew he was lying.

Rani just shot him a stern look that reminded him quite a bit of his mother. Scary, that.

"It's just, I broke it off with Lily," he started, lips faintly twitching when the tiny house elf twitched and climbed the arm of his chair to wrap her arms around his neck.

Knowing she wouldn't ask him to elaborate on her own, he continued, "She wasn't comfortable with Sirius, at all. And I think she was a little jealous of him? She finally asked me to make a choice. There wasn't any question at all, was there? I mean, I didn't do the wrong thing, did I, Ra-Ra?" He looked imploringly at her, knowing she would never advise him wrongly.

"Of course you didn't, Jamesy," Rani said, horrified even at the thought. "That girl only like you and be there for you one year but Siri always be there for you. She not nice she made you choose."

"That's what I thought," he faintly smiled at her. He knew she would always make him feel better. Ever since he was a little kid, he couldn't remember Rani not being there. Her dark skinned face always grinning at him, always a sliver of concern for him in those large eyes. She never once turned him away and she cared for him just as much as his own mother.

"What will I ever do without you, Ra-Ra?" he wrapped his own arms around her and pulled her close.

She merely smiled, not saying anything.

"SIRIUS!" James shouted when he saw the raven haired teen duelling a masked man, "DUCK!"

Without hesitating, Sirius ducked and barely missed the white light by inches. Even from where he was, James could see it actually grazing past his hair and his actually stuttered. He immediately aimed at the Death Eater who had attacked Sirius from behind and shot off a dancing charm on him. That would keep him busy long enough for someone to take care of him permanently.

They were in Hogsmeade, enjoying their day after the exams were over, when there was an attack. No one was spared; children, elderly, everyone was attacked equally viciously and all the training that Sirius and James had been doing had come into use then.

James couldn't remember how long it had been, how many people he had cursed, how many times he'd been cursed, but he did remember the cutting spell that hit him inches away from his artery. The spell that sent him crashing to the ground, screaming.

He remembered the exact second he heard the familiar 'POP', even in the middle of the crazy atmosphere, the spells being shot left right and centre and the screams of victims and attackers alike.

He remembered the utter fear that filled him when he saw the familiar face of Rani standing determinedly in front of him, arms raised high in front of her.

She was casting quietly under her breath and within seconds, a greyish barrier had formed between everyone else and the two of them. As soon as the shield was up, she turned to him with a sense of urgency in her eyes. The lines around her eyes didn't seem like laugh lines in that moment, it looked like she had aged fifty years since the last time he'd seen her.

"Ra-Ra, how-how did you I was here? That I was hurt?" James asked her, the sight of his beloved friend helping him think through the hurt.

"Silly Jamesy, I always know when you is hurt," Rani told him fondly, but her eyes showed a different story. Hey eyes had always been expressive and she could never hide anything. The brown orbs ran over his wounds with a sense of urgency and once she had catalogued everything accurately, she immediately started working on treating them.

Within minutes, he felt much better and far less light-headed. At the same time, he noticed Rani was looking faint and was almost swaying on her feet.

James cursed and almost hexed himself when he realized that she had been holding up a very powerful shield for several minutes while healing him at the same time and a house elf was normally not capable of doing such large amounts of strenuous magic in such short time. Her reserves were bound to be draining.

"Ra-Ra, Rani, please, let the shield down," James whispered urgently, noting that most of the fighting had slowed down. "It's..It's hurting you, Ra-Ra, please."

Rani smiled tiredly, her white teeth shining against her skin. Slowly, she dropped the shield and almost as if it had been holding her up the absence of it sent her to her knees.

James immediately reacted and held her before she could fall. But in doing so, he didn't see the green let of light that was headed towards them.

He didn't see it until it hit Rani, until it was too late.

But she had seen it, she knew what was coming and he saw in her eyes she had accepted him.

"Yoube the best little master, Jamesy," she barely managed to get out before the killing curse struck her, draining the life out of her in front of his very eyes.

James didn't comprehend what had happened at first, not until a dead silence had fallen around him. When he did, he let out a cry of anguish, of despair, of pain.

His first ever friend had died and he could do nothing about it. It was his fault she was even here in the first place.

Tears slowly leaked out of his eyes as he looked at the still body of Rani, her lips in a content smile and both her hands wrapped around one of James'.

He had insisted, demanded she be buried in the Potter family cemetery. There was no other place worthy of Rani's body, and he would make sure she would lie with the family she had loved and treated like her own.

No one fought him on it either, knowing they wouldn't win. They quietly stayed back while he did everything, his eyes rimmed red and his lip quivering. He couldn't quite stop the sobs that raked through his body when she was lowered into the ground, but he couldn't bring himself to care about that.

When everyone was gone, James stayed back.

He took the single black rose he had plucked earlier and placed it at Rani's headstone. It had always been her favorite flower.

"Most people think it goes against the basic laws of nature to have something as pure as a rose and black, something synonymous with black," James had teased her one day, when she greeted him with a black rose in her hair.

"Most people be idiots, Jamesy," she had retorted.

The memory brought a smile to James' lips, igniting something in his tired face. It had taken her a while to be so comfortable around him as to speak her mind, but once she was, there was no going back.

Shaking himself out of his thoughts, he stared at the freshly dug ground.

"You'll always be missed, Ra-Ra," James whispered. Wiping the sole tear that had fallen from his eye, he quickly turned around and walked back to the house, lest he break down again.

Written for-

-Assignment 3, Mythology, Artemis; Write about an animal or creature.

- Crazy House challenge, 365 prompts challenge; (creature) house elf

- Serpent day, Blond Hognose Snake; (word) whisper.

- Fanfic resolutions; Set in Marauder Era