The Durlseys were being their usual selves, which for Harry was very bad. After returning from Hogwarts, the magic school where he had defeated his greatest enemy for the second time, his guardians immediately seized all of his possessions and locked them up tight. Like normal parents would do. Luckily he was able to convince them that he needed to keep his owl, Hedge, in his room so she could go out and get food. They would've locked her away otherwise.

At first, Hedge was a little cold towards Harry and was very bristly. This might have been because he had accidentally ignored her the entire school year.

"It was a very hectic year, Hedge," Harry tried to reason. "We had to defeat Voldemort and everything."

Harry ended up sharing half of his food rations to get her to forgive him. It wasn't like he was missing out on much since it was mostly random vegetables from the freezer and cold canned food that was pushed to him from under the catflap. Oh yeah, the Dursleys installed a catflap in Harry's room and added like 5 locks from the outside. Totally normal. The room used to be Dudley's but after Harry asked him to use the "magic word" one day they all had a panic attack and hoped giving him the bedroom would stop him from using such horrible language.

Today was Harry's 12th birthday but nobody seemed to care. Obviously the Dursleys wouldn't but he had hoped his friends would send him letters or something. In fact, he hasn't heard a thing from his friends since school ended and summer was nearly over! He didn't want to think about it too much, because he might start crying or something and the Dursley's told him to go into his room and pretend he doesn't exist because Uncle Vernon was trying to impress some rich guy over dinner to buy his drills or whatever. They threatened to kill him if they heard any sounds and Harry didn't want to call their bluff this time (not that they could kill him since he was the chosen one, but still).

Harry sighed and looked outside, but jumped back when he was met by a pair of eyes! What the #$^ ?! This was the second floor! The window slammed open and a creature came into his room! It was like a naked monkey except more gross maybe. Its ears were really large, and its eyes were like actual orbs.

Harry turned to Hedge. "Is this guy your friend or something?" This was apparently the wrong thing to say because Hedge started to swoop at Harry and the creature with alarming bloodlust.

Harry quickly apologized and hurriedly shushed Hedge. If the dursleys were to come in he didn't even know what would happen.

Harry noticed that the creature was wearing only a dirty old pillow case as clothes and it was covered in bumps and bruises. Yikes. It just stared at him for a moment before Harry decided to break the ice.

"Er… Hello there?" He said. The creature burst into tears.

"D-Dobby has never been gr-greeted before. Harry P-Potter really is the B-BWL!" The creature that was apparently named Dobby choked out. Harry immediately tried to shush him but when that didn't work he instead just offered for Dobby to take a seat on his bed. That was a mistake because Dobby just started to cry LOUDER and sprint around his room maniacally. That set off Hedge and she started swooping at them again aggressively. Harry had to grab Dobby and hold him for what felt like several minutes to calm him down.

"Dobby! Calm down or the Dursley's will hear you and we will both be in trouble!" Harry whispered in his humongous ear and Dobby finally was chill enough to talk.

"Sorry sir. Dobby has never met someone so nice as Harry Potter! Dobby is a house elf, see, and house elves get nothing but beatings, sir!" Dobby said cheerfully before punching himself in the face multiple times. Um okay?

Harry felt a sudden kinship with this creature. He really was just like Harry before he was able to go to Hogwarts and be treated like ACTUAL normal people. Except with the hero worship sprinkled in.

"It's ok, Dobby. I get it." Harry put his hand on the creature's shoulder. "What are you here for anyway?"

Dobby puffed up suddenly and trained his freakishly large orbs at Harry. "Dobby is here to tell Harry Potter that he mustn't go to Hogwarts no matter what!" Um… what now?!

"Dobby, I don't think you understand how much I can't do that," Harry said. "Why shouldn't I go to Hogwarts?"

"YOU MUSTN'T! YOU MUSTN'T!" Dobby started freaking out! Harry knew there was nothing he could do, there was no way the Dursley's didn't hear Dobby's little fit. His worries came true when he heard thundering footsteps approaching the room. Thinking on his feet he threw a blanket over Dobby, which made him go silent almost like a bird in a cage.

Uncle Vernon BURST through the door and hoisted 12 year old Harry up by his shirt collar, like a normal adult.

"What do you think you're doing?" Vernon asked.

"Fell out of bed, sorry." Harry answered lamely. Hedge nodded behind him.

Uncle Vernon's face turned red and a bunch of blood vessels looked like they were going to explode on his face. He should really get that checked out or something.

"Well you better not do it again!" Uncle Vernon hissed. "You better be as quiet as a mouse, boy!" He slammed the door shut and Harry heard the clunking of multiple locks closing.

Once Uncle Vernon's angry footsteps were far enough away Harry pulled the covers off of Dobby to see the creature looking at him sadly.

"What?" he asked. "Are you okay?"

Dobby sniffled and started bawling as loud as he possibly could. What the heck.

"Sorry, sir. Harry Potter is just so amazing and kind and compassionate and-"

"Yeah yeah I know, now tell me why you think I can't go to Hogwarts?" Harry interjected. Dobby's face twisted like he was going to scream or puke, or both.

"Harry Potter must not go to school because there is great danger! Even more dangerous than He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Spoken-Of!"

"He who must… You mean Voldemort?"

Now you've done it, Harry. Dobby shrieked at the name so loud that Harry was surprised the glass didn't shatter. He covered him in a blanket again to quiet him. Somehow nobody seems to have heard it.

"Harry Potter must listen! Harry Potter doesn't even want to go to Hogwarts!" Dobby cried.

"Yes I do?!"

"But Harry Potter's friends haven't been writing to him?" Dobby said, looking up at him with those large orbs again.

"W-Well that's-" wait a minute. "...How did you know that?"

Dobby started to sweat profusely, looking around the room suspiciously. Hedge saw this as an opportunity and started swooping again, which knocked Dobby back against the wall, knocking something out of his dirty pillowcase outfit with a soft noise.

They both stared at the stack of letters on the ground in silence before Dobby shot off like a rocket towards the door and somehow opened it. He turned towards Harry with a pathetic look again.

"If Harry Potter won't listen, Dobby will make him." With that ominous statement he took off down the stairs.

Harry and Hedge looked at each other dramatically before Harry realized this was the worst case scenario and leaped out the door after Dobby. When he reached the bottom of the stairs he saw Dobby making one of Aunt Petunia's disgusting pudding pyramids levitate over towards the Dursley's dinner guests. Harry quietly stepped out into the room with his arms out, hoping to catch the pudding without being seen. That failed because the Dursleys were all staring at him in horror.

Right as he was about to grab the pudding, Dobby released the charm and it fell on top of the guests. Harry just helped Dobby frame him…

"Good luck going to Hogwarts now, Harry Potter!" Harry turned to see Dobby whispering to him while kneeing himself in the face before the creature vanished into thin air.

He couldn't believe that he had let himself be framed by a weird monkey wearing nothing but a pillowcase. Harry turned towards the dursleys, who were looking at their guest covered in pudding in absolute horror.

Aunt Petunia stepped up and grabbed him by the back of the shirt like a misbehaving kitten. "Please excuse our nephew!" She cried. "He's very disturbed and also somewhat of a criminal which is why we kept him out of sight…"

Harry thought that it was sort of weird that no one was questioning why a skinny 12 year old was somehow a criminal, or why he was put out of sight, but that was life.

Aunt Petunia marched him up the stairs and locked him in the room. Harry looked to Hedge only to see that there were TWO OWLS? Harry walked up to the owl and asked, "so…is this one your friend, Hedge?"

Hedge looked like she wanted to attack him, but decided not to in front of company. The owl held out its leg, and Harry grabbed the letter, which had a large "HARRY FACTS FOR THE NEW HARRY BIOGRAPHY DO NOT OPEN"...what? The owl noticed its mistake and quickly held out the other leg which had his address stamped on it.

He quickly opened it only to be greeted with a ministry seal.

"CEASE YOUR USE OF UNDERAGE MAGIC OR YOU WILL BE EXPELLED, THANKS!" The letter actually spoke the words aloud so Harry couldn't hide it from Petunia and the other Dursleys who were now standing in his room. Vernon looked ready to explode.

"You will stay in here. Forever. And I'm putting bars on your windows so don't even think of trying to leave!" Harry was really in deep this time…