Chapter Two

Dobby's Warning

The little creature on the bed had large, bat-like ears and bulging green eyes the size of tennis balls. This was what had been watching out of the garden hedge that morning. As they stared, Dudley's voice rang from the hall.

"May I take your coats, Mr. and Mrs. Mason?"

The creature slipped off the bed and bowed so low that the end of its long, thin nose touched the carpet. It was wearing what looked like an old pillowcase, with rips for arm- and leg-holes. It stood next to Hedwig, who was asleep in her large cage.

"Dobby. Just Dobby. Dobby the house-elf," said the creature, introducing itself to the audience.

Petunia's high, false laugh sounded from the living room. The elf hung his head. The elf burst into tears — very noisy tears. The voices downstairs began to falter.

Dobby jumped back onto the bed where he sat hiccoughing, looking like a large and very ugly doll. At last he managed to control himself, and sat with his great eyes fixed in an expression of watery adoration. Suddenly, Dobby shook his head. Then, without warning, he leapt up and started banging his head furiously on the window, shouting, "Bad Dobby! Bad Dobby!"

— Hedwig had woken up with a particularly loud screech and was beating her wings wildly against the bars of her cage.

Dobby shuddered. Almost at once, Dobby dissolved again into wails. Dobby clapped his hands over his bat ears. He gasped, dabbing his face with a corner of the grubby pillowcase he was wearing. There was a silence broken only by the chink of knives and forks from downstairs and the distant rumble of Vernon's voice. Dobby made a funny choking noise and then banged his head frantically against the wall. Dobby bounded off the bed, seized desk lamp, and started beating himself around the head with earsplitting yelps.

A sudden silence fell downstairs. Vernon coming into the hall, calling, "Dudley must have left his television on again, the little tyke!"

Dobby ran into the closet, shutting the door, just as the door handle turned.

He stomped flat-footed from the room, looked around for a long while, then returned downstairs. All the while, he was wondering what had made that ruckus.

When he was sure the coast was clear, Dobby jumped out of the closet. Then Dobby had darted to the bedroom door, pulled it open, and sprinted down the stairs.

From the dining room Vernon was saying, "… tell Petunia that very funny story about those American plumbers, Mr. Mason. She's been dying to hear…"

Petunia's masterpiece of a pudding, the mountain of cream and sugared violets, was floating up near the ceiling. On top of a cupboard in the corner crouched Dobby. The pudding then fell to the floor with a heart-stopping crash. Cream splattered the windows and walls as the dish shattered. With a crack like a whip, Dobby vanished.

There were screams from the dining room and Vernon burst into the kitchen, rigid with shock, covered from head to foot in Petunia's pudding. At first, it looked as though Vernon would manage to gloss the whole thing over. He shooed the shocked the Masons back into the dining room. Petunia dug some ice cream out of the freezer.

Vernon might still have been able to make his deal — if it hadn't been for the owl. Petunia was just passing around a box of after-dinner mints when a huge barn owl swooped through the dining room window, dropped a letter on Mrs. Mason's head, and swooped out again. Mrs. Mason screamed like a banshee and ran from the house shouting about lunatics. Mr. Mason stayed just long enough to tell the Dursleys that his wife was mortally afraid of birds of all shapes and sizes, and to ask whether this was their idea of a joke.

The following morning, Vernon paid a man to fit bars on the bedroom window. He himself fitted a cat-flap for Hedwig in the bedroom door, so that small amounts of food could be pushed inside three times a day. Since Hedwig was a magical owl, she could levitate the food towards her cage, despite being locked up.

Vernon was positive whatever happened had something to do with the spare room, and he was determined to stop it by blocking the room off. Three days later, the Dursleys were showing no sign of relenting, and the sun was sinking behind the bars on the window. The cat-flap rattled and Petunia's hand appeared, pushing a bowl of canned soup into the room. The soup was stone-cold. Inside Hedwig's cage, she ruffled her feathers and gave a look of deep disgust.

The room was growing dark. Moonlight was shining through the bars on the window. And someone was goggling through the bars: a freckle-faced, red-haired, long-nosed someone.

Ron Weasley was outside window.