Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter.
Elf Trap
For the first time since… my death, I didn't wake up from a nightmare in physiological stress. I still ended up being abruptly conscious. But more due to a feeling of, 'that was weird', rather than, 'holy shit, I'm dead'. When my eyes flew open, I immediately knew I was looking at the ceiling of my dormitory. My heart wasn't racing. My body wasn't trembling, and my skin didn't feel clammy. Not once did I feel the need to touch my torso for stab wounds. Nor did I need to remind me of which body I was currently in.
Instead, I continued to lay in the dark; blinking up at a shadowed ceiling. I was experiencing the frustrating phenomenon of having a million different questions, but not knowing how to ask a single one. That nightmare felt like a memory. Just like all the others. But, at the same time, it felt like it had just happened for the first time. I didn't know any gingers in that life. I'm sure of it. And the only middle-aged people I associated with were Jessie's mom and Jessie's employer. I exhaled loudly through my nose, before climbing out of bed. I never liked solving puzzles in both of my lives. I never saw the point of them. Why dig for a solution when someone else already knew the answer? And yet, my whole world seemed to have morphed into an unsolved puzzle.
Even though I wasn't scared, I started the familiar trek to Fred and George. With new information swimming around in my head, I knew I wouldn't be sleeping again tonight. So, there was no point in staying put. In the least, I could make myself feel better by being close to the two who knew me best...
Except I didn't make it very far. Stepping off the last step of the girls' staircase, my body froze as my attention snapped to the sounds of hushed whispering and a rattling sound. Coming from the boys' staircase, George stepped into the common room, he had both of his hands behind him as he held one handle of a trunk. Three guesses on who the trunk belongs to. Walking further into the common room revealed Fred coming up behind George holding up the other end of the trunk. It was shaking and jumping and rattling like a cat wrapped inside a Christmas present. So, I guess that means whatever Fred and George did to make the house-elf apparition unusable worked… Or, Dobby wasn't thinking about magical means of escape. Who knows? "What do we do now?" George whispered to Fred.
"Let me think,'' Fred responded. And yeah, we hadn't really thought through what we would do once Dobby was ensnared in our trap. I'm not sure we fully believed that our trap would actually work.
Stepping away from the girls' staircase, I asked in a whispered voice, "We got him?"
Fred and George jumped, jolting the trunk they were holding between them. Poor Dobby. "Merin, Holls", Fred complained as he adjusted his grip on the trunk handle.
"What are you doing up?" George asked at the same time.
"Nightmare", I answered. At that moment, it occurred to me that the weird nightmare with the unidentified redhead was the most convenient nightmare I've ever had. Considering it woke me up on the night that something interesting was happening. Now that we're faced with the situation, I wondered how Fred and George would have contacted me about our trap being sprung if I hadn't wandered into the common room. It's not like they could have gone up the girls' staircase.
"That's convenient", Fred commented; following my thoughts exactly.
"So, what should we do?" George asked again.
"I could get the marauders' map", Fred said with a one-shoulder shrug. "We could see if we could find an empty classroom".
I wrinkled my nose. That sounded like a lot of extra steps. If he had to go upstairs to get the map, then we ran the risk of one of their roommates waking up. Assuming they hadn't woken up when Fred and George lugged Fred's trunk out of the dorm. Then, even with the map, we could be caught out after curfew if we left the common room. And wouldn't it be fun to explain why we had a house-elf in a school trunk?
"Let's just use the common room", I said. That wasn't the best plan either. We'd have to worry about someone waking up and coming downstairs. But it would be easier to explain away our odd behavior than if we left. Why were you talking to a house-elf? He was cleaning the common room like house-elves always do. We saw him and had questions. Why are you awake at this late hour? Holly has nightmares. Why is there a school trunk down here? … We wanted to ask if the house-elf could clean it. I moved over to the favored spot in front of the fireplace. At this late hour, the flames were reduced to embers. In any other situation, the ambiance of the soft glow would have been pleasant. But now it was adding to the intensity of what we were trying to accomplish.
Fred and George followed; placing the trunk in front of the fireplace. Now on the ground, the trunk rocked left and right as Dobby thrashed around inside of it. With the sofa and two chairs set up around the fireplace and us sitting in the middle, we didn't have a lot of room. But it also gave us some sense of privacy, no matter how pretend that privacy was. "So", Fred said slowly. "I guess we just open it?" He formed a statement but it came out sounding like a question. Knowing that George and I didn't have a clue either, Fred reached for the latch.
"Wait", George spoke up just as Fred's fingertips made contact. Fred had no problem pausing. Any sort of advice or further thought was welcomed. "How do we know he won't disparate as soon as we let him out?"
That was a really good question. Fred turned his head in my direction to see if I knew the answer. Which I didn't. But knowing I should contribute something, I swallowed my apprehensive nerves and knocked twice on the trunk's lid, stopping its rocking from side to side. In the back of my head, I hoped what I just did wasn't the equivalent of tapping on a fishbowl. We need Dobby to like us. Or all of this was for nothing.
"We're not going to hurt you", I said; leaning in with my face close to the trunk's lid. "And we won't turn you in either for going through our things". I felt it was important to make that clear. "Knock if you understand me". A tense moment passed with Fred, George, and I just staring at each other. It was probably only five seconds, but it felt much longer before we got the response we were looking for. "We want to let you out and talk to you". I said, trying to think of a reason that would make Dobby stay and hear us out.
"We know about the diary, and we want to destroy it", Fred stepped up. "But we could use your help".
I nodded my approval. That was good. That should spike Dobby's interest. "Knock if you promise to stay". Of course, I had no idea what we would do if Dobby didn't knock or knock and then disparate immediately after we let him go. I guess… we'd just have to catch him all over again. This time it felt like Dobby's response happened faster than the first. I sat back as Fred reached for the latch again. George glanced over his shoulders as if he was checking for other students that were out of bed. Though his attention quickly reverted to the trunk as Fred undid the latch. We hadn't used magic to lock the trunk. Though we had used a little magic to make sure the latch would fully engage once Dobby was inside of the trunk. One summer, prior to us starting Hogwarts, Fred and George put Ron in Bill's trunk and shut the lid. So, we knew from personal experience that once a trunk was closed, it couldn't be opened from the inside. Fred opened the lid a crack and that was all it took. Dobby sprang to his feet; forcing the trunk lid out of Fred's hand. Thankfully, the hinges prevented the lid from completely opening like an open book laid flat on a table. Without the hinges, the lid would have connected with the stones of the fireplace. Only Merlin knows how much noise that would have made. Dobby stood before us in the trunk. His bat-like ears were perked forward in our direction and his hands were nervously twisting the worn fabric of his pillowcase.
"Right, err" George started after the excitement of opening the trunk passed. "Umm. I'm George. This is my brother Fred and my sister, Holly".
"Yous is the family Dobby's master dislikes". Dobby spoke with honesty, but it was an honesty that led to him whimpering. He stopped clinging to his pillowcase in favor of twisting his ears; probably thinking he had just violated the privacy of his master.
"It's okay. It's okay", I said quickly; not wanting to watch someone hurt themselves. "We know that the Malfoys don't like us. Everyone knows".
Watery-eyed, Dobby didn't let go of his ears, but he did stop abusing them. "How do you know Dobby serves the Malfoys?"
Thinking fast, Fred answered, "Because of the diary. We know it came from Malfoy. And we know you're looking for it. We put two and two together". Obviously, we couldn't tell Dobby the truth. I don't think there's a need to tell anyone other than Fred and George about my strange circumstances. I didn't need to become a magical experiment for wizardkind to poke and prod at. Also, since Dobby was still enslaved, we needed to be selective even with the information we could tell him. It wouldn't be a very good strategy on our part if we gave him vital knowledge and he was somehow ordered to tell the Malfoys everything.
"The diary is bad. Very bad. If it stays, terrible things will happen at Hogwarts", Dobby said. As if just remembering the diary, he turned and squatted down in Fred's trunk. He started to make grunting noises as he tried to pry the sticky-charmed diary from the floor of the trunk. I'm not sure why he didn't just use magic to unstick the diary. But I decided to not question it. I kind of already have a lot on my plate.
"You can't take the diary", I said. "No matter where you hide it there's always going to be a chance that someone will find it and use it to hurt people. The only way to stop that from happening is to destroy it". Dobby's head popped back up, staring at us from over the rim of the trunk.
"That's what we want to do", Fred repeated. "We want to destroy the diary. But we don't know how. We thought maybe a house-elf was strong enough to destroy it".
"And since you already know about the diary…" George trailed off, letting Dobby fill in the blanks.
It didn't take him long to figure out what we were saying. "Yous want Dobby's help". His voice came out in a high-pitched squeak and made me flinch back. High pitched sounds and the middle of the night is not a match made in heaven.
Briefly, Dobby's eyes sparked in interest, but they quickly adopted shadows. He looked away from us in favor of staring down at the trunk's bottom. Yes, I imagine it's hard to see challenges as possible when you're not allowed to be your own person. "And we thought-", I was quick to add. "That we could figure out a way to free you. That way you'll never be forced to tell the Malfoys that you helped us".
Light bloomed in Dobby's eyes again as he raised his head to look at us. It was a good thing we were talking to Dobby. If it was any other house-elf they'd have an existential crisis at just the chance to imagine what freedom would feel like. "Free Dobby?" He asked, hope leaking through his squeaky voice.
Fred, George, and I wasted no time in nodding to give Dobby confirmation. Though with the three of us all nodding at once, we probably looked like a row of bobbleheads on a dashboard. "We know a Malfoy has to give you clothes", George said.
"There's a Malfoy at Hogwarts", I added.
"It's just a matter of making it happen", Fred finished. Honestly, given the opportunity, we'd probably just stage something similar to how Dobby was freed in the series. I mean, Malfoy Jr. is only a second-year and too arrogant to be cautious. It'd probably be easier than tricking Malfoy Sr. into freeing Dobby.
"So, will you help us?" I asked. Because all of this would be for nothing if Dobby disagreed.
Dobby chewed on his bottom lip. His ears drooped as he thought turned our words over in his mind. All my brothers and I could do were shift uncomfortably and wait. It didn't take long for Dobby to come to a decision. He bowed hard enough that his ears flopped. But when he looked up his ears were no longer drooping. "Dobby will help".
The sighs of relief us triplets let out were brief. Kind of like when you complete the first step in a long arduous project and have to focus on what's yet to come. From there, Fred, George, and I explained our half-baked plan to the best of our abilities. First, to save our own skis (and Dobby's), we had to set Dobby free. That way any member of the Malfoy family who was feeling a little suspicious couldn't stumble upon our intentions prematurely. The hardest part was planning for when Dobby could work with us to be freed. It wasn't like Dobby had an open if he was given orders or summoned, Dobby would have to comply. Eventually, we decided to meet on Wednesday nights. If Dobby could make it he would. And if he couldn't, we'd just meet at the same time next week. Satisfied with what we were able to accomplish tonight, Dobby finished our conversation by promising to never go through our trunks again. "Dobby is happy to have Weasley friends", he shared before disapparating.
And didn't that just make us feel all warm and fuzzy inside? We sat in silence for a few seconds after Dobby left; basking in our initial success. It didn't happen very often. With all of Fred and George's creations, we were more accustomed to first attempts blowing up in our faces. "That went well", George said as he stood up; breaking Fred and me out of our thoughts. "How do you want to get your trunk back upstairs?" George asked Fred as Fred started to unfold his legs.
Fred shrugged as he raised his body into a standing position. "Leave it", he answered. "We'll unstick the diary and secure it into your trunk for the night. I think if we tried to bring it back to our dorm now our roommates would stage a protest". I guess that means, someone did wake up when they were heading for the common room. And I don't think it was Lee.
George didn't take much convincing. He leaned over Fred's trunk with his wand to get the diary while Fred offered me a hand up. "I guess we have more sleepless nights ahead of us", I said after taking my brother's hand and allowing him to pull me to my feet.
Fred grunted in agreement as George stood up straight with the diary now in hand. We should probably put the Magical Me cover back on it, I thought. We had taken it off to make it more obvious for Dobby. But now that he was on board, we'd need to take every precaution again. "Do you want to stay with us?" George asked me, referring to the nightmare I had mentioned earlier.
Did I want to spend the rest of the night with Fred and George? That nightmare hadn't been terribly scary. At least, not when compared to the nightmare I usually have. And whatever unnerving feelings I had felt from it was near forgotten after successfully recruiting Dobby. "No, I'll be alright", I answered. "I don't want your roommates to protest". And I wasn't talking about Lee.
"You sure?" Fred double-checked. I understood why. This would be the first time that I didn't end up in one of their beds after a nightmare. I was feeling a bit unsure about my decision, but there wasn't any need. I knew I was Holly Weasley, and I knew that wasn't going to get stabbed in this life. Hopefully.