It was beautiful. Easily the best gift her large eyes had ever seen.

Sitting in the kitchens of Hogwarts Winky felt three wet drops slide down her face as she gave the socks in her hands a small smile. Her socks. Her last gift from Dobby. The only thing he left for anyone in the world. A pair of woolen socks.

They were mismatched of course. One was scarlet with gold stripes and the other had snitches, quaffles and brooms stitched on it. They were naturally his old favorite.

Sitting on the small stool, she thought about slipping them on her own feet. Her toes were about to duck into the small solace but she hesitated and then quickly put her foot back down. She couldn't possibly.

So she carefully folded them up and placed them in the only pocket of her apron before scuttling back to her position next to the large fireplace, stirring a bubbling cauldron of beef stew.

The familiar scent filled her tomato-shaped nose, pulling her long eyelashes down over her big brown eyes. Tears filled the fine hairs as everything in the kitchen directed her thoughts towards Dobby.

The bubbling of the soup sounded like him apparating back to her a thousand times over and over again.

The cackling fire sounded like his laugh trying to cheer her up.

The sound of clacking pots and pans reminded her of how he would trip over his many garbs, sending nearly everything crashing.

A hand finding it's way on her shaking shoulder sent her sobs into full convulsions. Turning into the other house elf she heaved deeper, soaking their pillowcase apron.

"You ok Winky?" Delilah asked, her ski slope nose settled underneath her sympathetic, large green eyes. The other house elf held her at a small arms length as Winky nodded, only to fall into heavy sobs once again.

"I need some butterbeer…" she trailed off in her squeaky voice.

"Oh I don't think so," Delilah said, putting her long hands on her slender hips, her usually mellifluous voice now stern. "You're not going to drink yourself perpetually drunk again. What good would that do?"

Winky hiccupped, collapsing on the ground and crossing her legs, "Help me forget?" she offered, pushing her thin dark hair away from her face.

"Oh Wink," the other elf said, sinking to her own knees, "But Dobby wouldn't want you to forget. If you forget him he's really gone."

Another hiccup. "What do you mean 'Lilah?"

"Why would you ever want to forget about Dobby?"

"But I don't!" Winky protested, her eyes wide in fright that such a thing could even be suggested.

"So then don't go getting yourself drunk Wink," Delilah said pleasantly, pulling the socks out of Winky's pocket. Standing up she placed one on each of Winky's large ears. "I don't think Dobby would be very happy about it. Afterall he did give you those lovely socks."

She offered a hand a Winky took it gratefully. She looked up quizzically at the socks on her ears, "You know their supposed to go on your feet? To keep them warm?"

"Oh, that's what socks do?" Delilah cocked her head to the side, looking up at the newly donned ears. "Hmm, well wouldn't they get all dirty, scuttling across the floor?"

Winky furrowed her brow, about to protest but then decided the chocolate brown haired elf had a point. So instead of finding her way into the pantry where butter beers were stored sky high, drinking herself senselessly drunk, sobbing away, rotting somewhere in an abandoned corner she lifted her hands and fondly rubbed the socks on her ears as she followed the other back towards the bubbling beef stew.

Giving the shaky co-worker one last lingering hand-hand-on-the-shoulder, Delilah walked off with a small smile forming on her mouth.

Granted, it would take sometime for Winky to learn to control herself from sprinting towards the butterbeer, but no doubt she would be there to pull the small one back. And soon, soon enough, Winky would learn to smile once again at everything in the vast kitchens that reminded her of the brave house elf with tennis ball eyes and a pencil nose that saved them all.

Ok, so I obviously totally lied when I said mickey g's chap was up next…..as you can tell. I think im going to save her for a while :3. Sorry. But winky needed some love as well.

And Delilah

But that's another story…

ANYWAY. I needed a break from writing fred-centric ones--they were making me too unsoundly upset. So Yeah. I know this one is short again. I promise sooner or later there'll be a longer on……so sorry again. My bad.

Lots o love!