"Harry Snape!"
Harry snorted and opened his eyes.
"Mmrph…? Oh, no…"
On the carpet in front of him, wearing the same ratty old pillowcase and expression of helpful terror, stood Dobby the house-elf.
"Hello, Harry Snape!" whispered the house-elf, but his whisper was so piercing that Harry wanted to shush him.
"What are you doing here, Dobby?" he whispered back, sitting up.
"Dobby has come to warn Harry Snape! Harry Snape must not go back to Hogwarts!"
"Yes, you said…you nearly got me expelled, too! If you could just tell me why!"
Dobby shook his head frantically. "Dobby does not have much time before his masters check the kitchen to see that he is doing his work properly! But Dobby will not let Harry Snape be harmed! Dobby must beg Harry Snape not to go back!"
"The kitchens…?" Harry blinked a few times, and then a puzzle piece clunked into place in his head. "Dobby, do you work for the Malfoys?"
Dobby nodded feverishly. "Dobby hates his masters, sir, they treat Dobby very badly…" He looked horrified with himself all of a sudden and rushed to the wall, into which he pounded his head fiercely.
"Dobby…Dobby, you'll wake everyone up, stop, stop it! Do you want them to come up here and see you? Dobby, why don't you want me going back to Hogwarts? Don't you think I can handle myself? I defeated Lord Voldemort twice, Dobby! What could be worse than that?"
Dobby shook his head again, chewing on his long floppy ear. "Danger, Harry Snape! Great danger! Even the great Harry Snape cannot face everything!"
"No, take your ear out of your mouth, Dobby…Did Draco put you up to this?" he asked suddenly. "Is this his idea of a joke? Well you can go tell young Master Malfoy that he…"
"Master Draco has no idea Dobby is here, Harry Snape, no idea at all! Master Draco would certainly punish Dobby most severely…"
"More severely than you're already punishing yourself, you mean?" asked Harry.
Dobby went tense all of a sudden and, with a pop, disappeared.
"Oh, honestly!" shouted Harry. He looked at the grandfather clock in the corner; it was difficult to read, partly because the light was so dim, and partly because Mrs Malfoy's taste for incomprehensible art apparently extended to clocks. He found himself missing the digital alarm clock he kept next to his bed at the Dursleys', but finally worked out that it was half past seven.
"Might as well get up now I am up," he muttered. He changed out of his pyjamas and found the clean robes and fresh pair of pants Mrs Weasley had thoughtfully arranged for him on top of all the other stuff in his trunk.
Maybe I could have a proper conversation with Dobby if I went down to the kitchens, he thought suddenly as he snapped the lid of his trunk to. Assuming I can find the kitchens, he thought. Well, how hard could it be? Maybe they were in the basement, like they were at Hogwarts, and he just had to keep going down stairs until he found them.
He set off hopefully enough, but by the time an hour had gone by (according to one of the almost incomprehensible clocks on the wall) he was hopelessly lost. The place must be vast, he thought, as he turned down yet another unfamiliar corridor full of bizarre statuary and old "Dutch Masters".
He ended up (he had no idea how) in a large library, which seemed to be mostly full of books about purebloods, and how purebloods lived, and how purebloods were disappearing, and how pure magical blood made you inherently superior to those of "impure" heritage. Even the fairytales, in the corner with the rocking horse and multitudinous broken toys, all had names like The Wizard and the Hopping Pot and The Warlock's Hairy Heart and were about wizard underdogs triumphing over evil Muggles.
Besides these, Harry discovered a shelf full of art compendia and a handful of brightly coloured paperbacks (Raquechelle MacBoon is pureblood, privileged, beautiful, and fiercely independent—until she meets Tertius McClivert, equally pureblood, equally privileged, and her family's sworn enemy. Under his smouldering gaze her arrogant heart seems to melt, and she must choose between passion and pride in THE VINDICATIVE LOVE OF RAQUECHELLE MACBOON) which he presumed were mostly Mrs Malfoy's property.
He was trying to comprehend the sort of proofreader that would allow vindicative when Mr Malfoy found him and told him he was late for breakfast.
"I saw a peacock in the house," Harry said conversationally as they made their way back.
"Again? It didn't mess anywhere, did it?"
"Er, not that I saw."
"Narcissa simply must stop leaving the windows open…"
Breakfast was leisurely. Mrs Malfoy spent most of it saying to Draco the sort of things that Mrs Weasley had said to Harry when he was about to leave.
"Now, if the stupid elf forgets anything, send an owl and Mummy will send it straightaway," she was saying as they finally finished up. "And be sure to eat well, darling, you looked thin when you came home."
"Yes, Mother," said Draco.
"And be careful around all those dreadful Mudbloods," she added. Harry had been amused by her fussing until that point. "Be sure you bathe every day. You have to be careful, with all those sorts around, you never know what you might catch…"
"Yes, Mother," said Draco.
Harry wondered how much Draco had told his mother about the time he'd spent with Hermione. He wondered how she might react if he did tell her.
"Well, Narcissa, I believe it's time for the boys to be off," said Mr Malfoy, folding up his newspaper. Harry glanced at the clock.
"It's a quarter to eleven!" he exclaimed, jumping up. "How are we going to get to London in fifteen minutes?!"
I am never doing that again, thought Harry.
"Oh, come off it, Snapey, it wasn't that bad," said Draco, looking at Harry's green face. "It's just side-along apparition, you get used to it. In five years we're going to have to do it on our own."
Mr Malfoy had seen them into the station and helped them load their trunks onto trolleys, then glanced at his watch.
"I have another appointment, Draco, I can't see you off this time. I assume you can find your way to the platform and board the train by yourself by now?"
"Of course I can, Father, I'm not a child."
"Excellent. Do well. Write often. Mr Snape, a pleasure to receive you at our home." He had bowed slightly to him, shaken hands with Draco, and left.
Now Harry and Draco pushed their trolleys through the station, past platforms six, seven, and eight.
"Thank goodness Mother didn't come," said Draco. "She'd have insisted on seeing us off."
"And that would have been bad?"
"Who wants to be dropped off by their parents, like some toddler? Oh, look. The Weasels."
And indeed, a sea of carrot-coloured hair approached, headed by Mrs Weasley, looking very flustered. She caught sight of Harry and Draco at the same time that they caught sight of her.
"Harry, dear!" She dropped the trunk she was tugging and ran across to hug him. "Oh, thank goodness. And Draco," she added, a little stiffly. He sneered and turned away.
"Hi, Mrs Weasley," said Harry, feeling again like he had just been embraced by a large marshmallow. "Ron!"
Ron waved. He had his wand between his teeth and was trying to wrestle a slipping trunk back on top of a trolley, but he darted quick relieved looks at Harry all the same. Fred and George, like their mother, greeted Harry and raised their eyebrows at Draco; Percy nodded at them all pompously and looked in a hurry to be off; Ginny ducked behind her miniature trolley as soon as Harry glanced her way.
Ron balanced the trunk and took his wand from between his teeth. "Hullo," he said to Harry. "Did the Slytherin follow you home?"
"Did you have a nice time, Harry, dear? Go on, Percy," said Mrs Weasley, glancing worriedly at the big clock.
"A very nice time, thanks," said Harry. "Though I missed the hot cocoa before bed."
"Fred, George, you two go on next. And you're not…you're feeling all right?" she asked.
Harry grinned. "I'm absolutely fine. No poison this time."
Draco sniffed.
"All right, well…Ginny, take my hand, dear, don't get lost, don't think too much, just go to it…Ron, you make sure Harry gets on all right behind us, we don't want to be late."
"Come on," said Ron, as soon as his mother and sister had disappeared. "We've only got a minute."
Harry made sure that Hedwig's cage was safely wedged on top of his trunk and wheeled his trolley around to face the barrier. He felt perfectly confident; this wasn't as uncomfortable as using Floo powder, and nothing like as awful as Apparating. The three of them bent low over the handles of their trolleys and walked purposefully toward the barrier, gathering speed. A few feet away from it, they broke into a run and—