Healing Chapter 6: His Last Home, a harry potter fanfic

Author's Notes: Thanks everybody for faving, following and reviewing! This really means a lot!

Both boys walked down the few stone stairs leading from the back door and onto the lawn behind Shell Cottage. It was only then that Ron realized how cool and salty the air was. The sky had become somewhat lighter. From afar, he could hear the faint sound of birds chirping.

"Luna's not coming?" Ron asked Dean as they drew spades out of a little shack near the cottage in which Bill and Fleur kept their gardening tools.

"No, she's with Bill," Dean said and continued to walk. "He's helping her locate her dad. Word is that their house was destroyed in a Death Eater attack." He hesitated for a moment and then added, frowning slightly. "You guys are said to be involved, too."

Ron felt heat on his ears and around his neck, but the sight of Harry at the far end of the garden instantly swept Xenophilius Lovegood off both boys' minds.

When they approached him, Harry was standing in a knee-deep hole, wide enough for a house elf to lie in. He looked like his normal self again. Next to the hole lay a bundle that Ron recognized as Dobby wrapped into Harry's jacket. Both boys jumped into the hole and helped Harry dig.

Even with their combined efforts, it was drudgery. The ground was solid and dry and they made only slow progress. This suited Ron rather well; to him, it was a welcomed opportunity to let off steam and to distract himself from the past few hours and his worry about Hermione. Physically exhausting himself and not having to think was a relief and he felt himself slowly calm down.

Dawn had already broken when they finally considered the hole deep enough. Harry climbed out, followed by Ron and Dean, and wrapped Dobby more tightly into his jacket. As he did that, Ron briefly saw a flash of the blue and white of Dobby's sock between the jacket fabric. With a hollow feeling in his stomach, he remembered Dobby's liking of socks but all the same, he could not help but smile fondly as he recalled how happy the elf had been when Harry and him had both given him their socks for Christmas several years ago. With this memory in mind, Ron took off the socks he was wearing and gently pulled them over Dobby's feet. It was a ridiculous sort of reward for everything he had done tonight, Ron thought, but he knew that, had he survived, the elf would have been delighted at this gesture and in an attempt to emphasize his gratefulness, he put his shoes on him as well.

"You're giving him clothes?" Dean asked, furrowing his brow. "Wouldn't that - y'know - somehow insult him, setting him free?"

"Dobby's different," Ron responded. "He wanted to be free... Actually, he was free... And proud if it... He would've liked this."

"Oh," Dean said. "What other clothes did he like?"

"Hats," Ron said immediately, unable to suppress a little chuckle. "Remember, Harry, how he collected all those hats that Hermione had knitted and wore them all - at once?"

"Yeah," Harry said, grinning weakly. "And that tea cozy of his."

Ron started to grin as well, but Dean only looked more confused. "Hermione's knitted hats?"

"Long story," Harry said wearily.

Dean just shrugged. "Well, then I guess he should have this," he muttered. He drew a beanie out of his jacket and placed it onto Dobby's head.

"That's right," Ron said with grim pride as he looked over the mass of clothes the elf was now wearing. "Now he truly is a free elf."

He could not help thinking that somehow, Hermione had been right with SPEW all along. House-elves, as he now painfully realized, were not only the servants that nicely provided them with food and cleaned after them. No, they were living, breathing creatures with a will of their own and a sort of magic that lay beyond anything that wizards were capable of. He would have to tell her that later, even if it meant that he would have to endure a plethora of I-told-you-sos. Right now, that seemed like a more than acceptable price.

"We should close his eyes," [1] he suddenly heard Luna's voice somewhere behind him and then she came into sight, Bill and Fleur in her wake.

He felt something brush against his arm and as he looked, he saw that Hermione had stepped to his side. She looked even paler than before and she was swaying slightly. Ron put his arm around her shoulders and she heavily leant against him, wrapping her arms around his waist.

"You've given him your shoes," she whispered to Ron as they watched Luna bend over Dobby and gently move down the elf's eyelids.

"Well, yeah," Ron muttered sheepishly and she squeezed him lightly in response. He could not help but smile.

Their expressions were somber when Harry carefully laid Dobby into the hole and even more so when Luna spoke her eulogy. When she was done, she turned towards Ron with an eerily knowing look in her eyes, apparently expecting him to continue, and Ron, who had not been prepared for this, instantly blushed, feeling like a bunny rabbit facing the headlights of the Muggle car that was about to run over him.

There was so much that he had to say to the little elf. If it had not been for him, Harry would not have made it through the second task of the Triwizard Tournament. The DA would not have had their practice room. They would not have been prepared for the battle against the Death Eaters at the end of their last term. Hermione would not be standing here beside him. They would still be locked in the Malfoys' cellar and Hermione would be dead, ripped apart and gorged by Greyback.

All these thoughts wanted out at the same time, but were ultimately interfering with each other. "Yeah... thanks, Dobby," [2] was all that he could choke up, as he subconsciously held Hermione closer to himself, his stomach convulsing with his suppressed urge to let out a sob. He knew that his words would never do his feelings justice, but he had wholeheartedly meant them.

And soon enough, the little ceremony was over and they all made to walk back to the cottage. Everyone but Harry who asked rather uncertainly if they would mind if he stayed back for some more time.

Ron looked down at Hermione who returned him a glance that clearly said that she wished to go back inside. He shook his head no at Harry and sympathetically patted his back as they slowly followed the others to the cottage, arms still around each other.

"I can't believe that he's gone," Hermione sniffled after a while. "It's feels so... surreal."

"Yeah," Ron agreed. "But he died a hero."

Hermione nodded but even though he knew that his words had given her a little comfort, he wished that he could do something to take away her pain completely. This seemed to be one of those subjects that only time could fix, if anything, but this thought only added to his helplessness.