No foolish wand waving.
Harry Potter sat disconsolately in his room. The elf Dobby had got him into trouble and he wasn't allowed to do any magic to stop the Dursleys from hurting him, but Dobby wanted to stop him going back to Hogwarts too.
There would be those people he would not miss, of course. Professor Snape for one.
A memory drifted through Harry's mind.
There will be no foolish wand-waving in this class.
"Dobby, can you hear me?" said Harry, cautiously.
"The great Harry Potter sir wants Dobby?" the little creature popped up in front of him.
Harry grinned.
"Dobby, do you really want to keep me safe?" he asked.
The little creature nodded its outsize head vigorously.
"Oh, yes, Harry Potter, sir, Dobby will do anything to ..."
"Great! In that case you need to keep me safe from my relatives as well, so I shall need the following things. Can you go to the bank for me for money?"
"If Harry Potter sir authorises Dobby," said Dobby.
"Good. I need a lot of potions books, and a cauldron, because all my stuff is in the cupboard under the stairs."
"Why can't Harry Potter sir get it?"
"Has it escaped your notice, Dobby, that Harry Potter is locked in this room except when being beaten because of you, and fed once a day on soup? Stop knocking your head on the wall, it will get me beaten more, and make amends instead by making sure Hedwig and I are properly fed, and you get me things to poison my relatives just enough to make them tractable."
Dobby gaped.
"Harry Potter sir shouldn't be treated like that!" he squeaked.
"That was why I was looking forward to going back to Hogwarts," said Harry.
"Dobby will get Harry Potter sir all he needs to poison nasty muggles a bit, and Dobby will see if there are any better places for Harry Potter sir."
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Harry enjoyed brewing without Snape looming over him, and as Dobby was happy to poison the Dursley's food with bowel relieving draught, flatulence inducer and other interesting concoctions, none with too obviously magical results, Harry did not have to resort to his first plan of inserting potions into toothpaste tubes when allowed out to use the bathroom. In fact, Dobby hid and warded his brewing area so nobody could see it. Dobby knew a lot about brewing; he had been loaned to Severus Snape as a helper occasionally.
He also helped Harry brew an acid strong enough to destroy the workings of locks, so the keys turned on dissolved wards. Dobby used elf magic to make the bolts appear to be there when they had in fact been dissolved, so Harry could come and go as he wanted.
With his new found love of brewing, and nothing much else to do but holiday assignments, when Dobby Popped his trunk to him, Harry was happy enough in his room, especially when Dobby made a sun balcony on it for him, hidden from everyone else.
The Dursleys, meanwhile, were diagnosed as having Lyme Disease, and Uncle Vernon was suddenly on the sick and became one of those he had previously castigated as 'scroungers', which made Harry snigger.
The first of September came and went, and Dobby turned up looking jubilant.
"Master Harry Potter sir still has elves, and if he calls for them, they can come and sort out Potter Manor for him," he said.
"Wait, there's a Potter manor and I have elves? Why did Dumbledore put me here then?" asked Harry.
"He told your elveses, who are working in the Hogwarts kitchens, that you would be happier in a proper family. Dobby has told them what your proper family is like."
Harry duly called for his elves, and was taken to Potter Manor, which was under so many wards, Harry wondered why on earth his parents would have moved to a place with half-baked wards like Godric's Hollow, which he now knew about.
He removed everyone but himself from the wards, and set about meeting his relatives in portraits, and learning from the library.
Meanwhile the Dursleys stopped being quite as sick, and remembered the boy had not been let out for over a week.
They decided he had probably died and there was no point opening the door on that sort of smell.
Which was a little unfortunate for them, when members of the Order of the Phoenix turned up to see why Harry had not gone to school, or to visit his friend Ron Weasley, or been visible to the Weasley twins when they had turned up with the flying Ford Anglia.
The wards falling had been what prompted Dumbledore to send in people in force, rather than 'rescuing' a resentful Harry, even readier to trust him after his relatives had kept him from school for a week or so.
The effects of the potions having worn off, to superficial checks, anyway, the order members were disgusted to find a family of malingerers with no illness to be found by wand, who admitted that the boy was locked in upstairs if he was still alive.
It had not been Dumbledore's intention to have the Dursleys arraigned before the Wizengamot for child abuse, but then, perhaps he should not have sent a stickler for procedure like Moody.
Since Harry was missing, presumed dead, as all the Potter elves quietly removed all tracking charms from him and buried them in the garden in Privet Drive, Dumbledore had roosters brought in to deal with the basilisk and removed the diary from Ginny Weasley as soon as the chamber was opened.
Dobby's ties to his family were weak enough that Harry was able to break them by declaring Dobby a member of family Potter, and Lucius never knew what had happened to the volatile little elf.
Snape, however, suffered regular bouts of heartburn and flatulence as Dobby was happy to carry and administer potions.