Author's Note -
Practice Round for Caerphilly Catapults, in the Quidditch League.
Seeker Prompt - Someone taking care of someone/something
Word count: 2,438
How Dobby might feel about losing Draco throughout the years.
Betas: CupCakeyyy, Wellwick.
Dobby Is A Free Elf
Dobby thought it was amazing how one so tiny knew so much about the world. His young Master was turning four and could now speak quite a lot of words; granted, some didn't make sense but who was Dobby to judge? Young Draco didn't understand a lot. His young master did know one thing though: The Boy Who Lived was a great Wizard. And the same age! It fascinated Dobby just how much Draco was interested in his story.
Every night, Dobby would read books of Harry Potter or listen to Draco make up stories about him. It was always something he would look forward to.
"Dobby, pwease can we make up a story where he rides a dragon and finds me here? Then we become fwiends! I don't have any fwiends. I think we would be gweat tog-fer!" Draco was just getting the hang of speaking.
"Dobby can do that, little Master!" came the reply with Dobby's beaming smile.
That was how his Mistress found them at bed time, both running around Draco's bedroom with his plush dragon pretending to fly. Dobby noticed her covering up her smile. He knew something was wrong then but he wanted to ignore it for a little while. He saw her look down at his hands and there was amusement in her eyes at his pain and suffering. She always gave lighter punishment than his Master, though any punishments from her were still just as bad. They might heal faster but that didn't mean they were any less painful. Dobby twitched and hurriedly turned around before he started to hit his head on the nearest wall, his bound magic taking over as he shouldn't be thinking ill of his Master and Mistress.
Until it came to one day when Draco was five, where Draco's father sat down with him about etiquette and how they were meant to behave, Dobby listened in, without meaning to of course. Apparently getting rules ingrained in a young mind helped with Slytherin persona and coldness, Dobby interpreted, at least according to what he had heard his Master say. They'd have lessons once a week about proper behaviour. One time Dobby was caught cleaning the floor close to the room they were sitting in and he had to iron his hands, his Master's favourite punishment.
The first time the punishment happened with his young Master present, Draco was just one, too young to understand. As he got slightly older, he had asked his father about it, obviously curious as to why Dobby behaved that way.
"Why does Dobby hurt himself? He's done nothing wrong! He shouldn't be doing that! It's bad!" he cried in his whiniest voice, glaring at his father with a cute pout.
"He's a servant, Draco. You aren't meant to be friends with the help." The reply came back with a whack of his stick on the table, scaring Draco, but not enough as he folded his arms across his chest, stamping his foot.
"No! Dobby is my only friend! I don't care what you say! This is wrong!"
Dobby was nervous for Draco when his Father gave him a look and Draco did his best not to change his expression as he tried to stare his father down. It lasted two seconds before Lucius nodded his head to the door.
"Go to your room! Think about what you've done."
Draco stomped out angrily, making his steps heavy on purpose as Dobby watched him stomp up the stairs.
"He's only five, dear," his Mistress replied, but it was no use reasoning with his Master and Dobby knew that more than anyone else.
"You!" His Master sneered suddenly, using his stick to whack him down to the floor, making Dobby jump and move to try to get to the exit, shaking in fear, crouching, bowing. "I have had enough of you influencing him with The Boy Who Lived. You will not utter a word, you will not play with him any longer -"
"Lucius!" his Mistress scolded.
"Fine. I'll give you till he's seven. Then you're nothing but a pathetic house-elf."
Dobby snapped his fingers using his impressive elf magic and left the room with a blink of an eye, without so much as a sound.
Dobby went back to his young Master's room and found him crying, lying down on his bed, his head in his arms.
"Little one, Dobby is okay." Dobby wanted to reassure Draco but he could tell that it didn't work.
"He shouldn't be treating you like that." Draco sniffed, wiping his eyes.
"Dobby wants you to know that this is how we house-elves are treated. There is nothing you can do to change that. House-elves are meant to serve one family for all their lives and we do so with pride. Mustn't annoy your father any more than you have already. Dobby doesn't want you upset."
"So you want me to ignore this like everyone else? Do I just need to do as he says? To make him happy?" Draco asked and Dobby felt his own will and the magic he was bound with fight against each other. He was amazed that his young Master was five and thought all of this.
"You need to be happy too, young Master."
"I won't be happy until you are." Dobby thought his young Master was very stubborn. He was touched and it warmed his heart. But at the same time, it hurt him, knowing that Master Draco made things more difficult for himself than things needed to be.
"Dobby is happy," Dobby lied, finally giving in to the house-elf bonding magic that was forcing him to never speak ill of his Master's family. "Go and apologise, set your feelings aside." Just like Dobby did, day in, day out.
Draco didn't ask again after that day.
Draco, who was only five, chose to play with toys instead of being with him. This was where Dobby started to realise just how bad things were within the Malfoy family and the meetings behind closed doors that he overhead. Talking of He Who Must Not Be Named, planning terrible things… Dobby did not feel good about any of it.
Dobby knew - he knew he wasn't going to be freed any time soon, if at all.
When Draco was six and a half, something happened that would change him for future years to come. "Dobbyyy. I think I'm going to be a Gryffindor just like Harry Potter!" His obsession still hadn't died down, much to his Master's distaste. Dobby thought it was fantastic, great, even! Why wouldn't he be in Gryffindor? Draco was brave, he knew what he wanted and had the courage to stand up for what he believed in. Well, unless he let his father influence him. Which at that age, Draco was oblivious as to what the young Master's father was doing.
"Dobby thinks that would be a great idea!" Dobby offered and smiled when his young Master beamed, hugging Dobby as he left his room in a rush. "I'm going to tell Mother and Father!"
Dobby felt pretty good about that. Until…
"Father told me I shouldn't speak to you anymore unless you're needed. I…" Young Master seemed to be shaking with fear. "I don't need you anymore today, you're dismissed."
Tears gathered in Dobby's eyes which he hurriedly tried to suppress. House-elves weren't allowed to show feelings as emotions only kept them from doing their work. It was the last time that Dobby spoke with Master Draco as an equal.
After the young Master left for his first educational lessons, Dobby saw him less often. He got his first broom a week later, a gift from Master Malfoy, to encourage his education as a Wizard. The boy was either leaving him for Quidditch or studying with tutors before Hogwarts. Dobby knew that education was important, especially so for a Malfoy but he couldn't help but miss the times in which young Master Draco would talk and interact with Dobby.
That was the end of their friendship. It wasn't the same afterwards.
When Draco was seven, he asked for him to help him do his homework. He wanted to impress his father. For Dobby, that was when he stopped thinking of Draco as someone he respected. His personality and behaviour trying to fit in to something he wasn't... Draco was unrecognisable to Dobby and it was because of his Master.
It only ever got worse.
Punishments were harder.
Draco became colder.
But when it came to the Hogwarts letter…
A fine young man was standing in the parlor, ready to open the letter, ready for Hogwarts. The boy had built a wall around him over the years and Dobby saw nothing of his old friend. Standing proudly in the middle of the room was a stranger. With his Master's proud smile watching his plan unfold, Dobby couldn't suppress the shudder that ran through his tiny body.
Once second year came, Draco's love for Harry Potter turned to hatred. What worried Dobby wasn't what the former happy boy had turned into but what Dobby had heard concerning the plans again. Terrible, terrible things were happening at Hogwarts, the very school where both Master Draco and the Great Harry Potter went to. He should warn Harry Potter himself. Not to go back! So that's what he did. He started planning, ignoring the bonding magic as best he could. He had to iron his hands three times and hit his head against the wall seven times but it was all worth it because he had to protect Harry Potter against evil this year.
That's how he ended up in Harry Potter's room.
"Hello?" Harry Potter sounded confused as he saw Dobby stand on his bed in his small room.
"Harry Potter!" Dobby said excitedly, "So long has Dobby wanted to meet you, sir. Such an honour it is!"
"Who are you?"
"Dobby, sir. Just Dobby. Dobby the house-elf."
As the conversation went on, he was beginning to see why his young Master had liked Harry Potter so much.
It was when Harry Potter asked him to sit down, it truly sunk in.
"Sit down?" he wailed, feeling a sense of gratitude so strong that he was struggling to breathe. "Never… never ever…"
"I didn't mean to offend you," the great Harry Potter spoke in a whisper, sounding worried that he had offended Dobby.
"Offend Dobby? Dobby has never been asked to sit down by a Wizard - like an equal -" He was looking at the young Wizard with adoration and happiness, his neglected heart swelling with life once more.
"Can't have met many decent Wizards then?"
"No, you're right. I haven't." A cold shower of shudders flooded over his body as the magic ingrained in his very core started screaming. He had just spoken ill of his Masters and Mistress! Dobby was a bad elf! A bad, bad elf!
"Bad Dobby, very bad," Dobby screamed loudly, feeling the pain of disobedience throb inside him. He searched for something, anything to punish himself with. If his Master knew he was there - Oh, he was in trouble.
"What are you doing?" Harry hissed.
"Dobby had to punish himself, sir. Dobby almost spoke ill of his family, sir."
"Family?" Harry questioned and Dobby nodded.
"The Wizard family I serve, sir. Dobby is a house-elf, bound to serve one house and one family forever."
"Do they know you're here?" Dobby could hear the curiosity in his voice.
"Oh no, oh no, sir. I will have to punish myself for this. Shut my ears in the oven doors. If ever they knew, sir…"
A few moments later Harry amazed him once again. "Can I help you?" he asked, voice hinting concern.
"Harry Potter asks if he can help Dobby. Dobby has heard of your greatness, sir, but Dobby never knew…"
Dobby knew one thing, however.
He was going to protect the great Harry Potter. Even if his Master did not want that. It was the least he could do for his… for young Draco.
It was the day the great Harry Potter saved him, he would remember the most. The day he would remember years to come. When Dobby realised who his true friends were.
"Master has given Dobby a sock," Dobby said in a voice of shock and wonderment.
"What did you just say?" Lucius spat out and Dobby held Harry's sock in his hand, showing his now old Master, who looked positively enraged, glancing at both Harry Potter and Dobby.
"Master has given Dobby a sock. Master hasd given it to Dobby."
Lucius stood frozen as Dobby spoke again. "Dobby has got a sock. Master threw the sock and Dobby caught it." Elation so strong he had never felt before filled his small body.
"Dobby is Free!"
Afterwards the free house-elf went to see his former young Master Draco, who he had once called a friend.
"Dobby? What are you doing here?" Draco asked the elf as he popped into Draco's dormitory. Dobby wasn't sure why he had gone to Draco, but it was the first thing that had come to his mind when Dumbledore had said he could work at Hogwarts with the other elves.
"Former Master Blondie freed me, I'm a free house-elf," Dobby said and he could have sworn he saw some emotion flash through Draco's eyes for the first time in years. It was sadness. It was gone a moment later.
"Father wouldn't have freed you. Who did?" Draco asked, too smart for his own good, Dobby thought. He didn't know what he had wanted Draco to say. But this hadn't been it.
"Harry Potter, sir," he said proudly but also cautiously. He knew how much trouble Harry Potter had actually caused Draco emotionally, causing a rift between former Master Malfoy and Draco when he had been younger which was probably the root of their problems now.
Again, emotions flashed through Draco's eyes. Little did either know, they were both thinking back to the time when he had been younger, when things had been much simpler. When he hadn't had to be someone he wasn't. When he had had a true friend. All of that was gone. Draco wasn't a child anymore.
Draco glanced at the door to the dormitory and looked around, making sure no one was in the room before he did something that surprised Dobby.
Draco gave Dobby a hug.
"Goodbye, Dobby."
"Goodbye… little one."
