The Potter Twins and the Chamber of Secrets

I

Ironically, mine and Harry's summer was decisively worse than the entire school year that had gone before.

We spent the entire time either doing housework or shut up in our bedroom (Vernon and Petunia had finally thrown us out of the cupboard into Dudley's 'spare bedroom', much to the brat's disgust), and Azure and Hedwig both got locked up for the entire duration of the time we were at Privet Drive. We pleaded with our uncle to let them out - "please, could Hedwig just stretch her wings," Harry begged on a daily basis - but he was unrelenting.

Like the summer before, there were days that were worse than others, but also similarly, there was one in particular that stood out as purely horrendous.

It was around six in the evening and I was laid on my bed, twirling my wand from hand to hand, when Harry came up the stairs with a scowl on his face. "What is it?" I asked, as he cleaned his glasses on his jumper.

"They've got that dumbass dinner in a few minutes," he moaned. "And I asked for food, and they both said no. We have to stay up here." Harry stood up straight and put on Petunia's voice. "You'll be in your room, making no noise and pretending you don't exist."

Vernon and Petunia were hosting a dinner. Their guests were a couple that our uncle worked with, and were presumably as pig-headed and annoying as the man himself. Maybe they weren't, I don't know. Harry says you shouldn't judge people by their associates, but personally, I think that's a great idea. For example, if someone's friends with me, you immediately know that they're a legend.

I stood up. "Then I'll go steal some food."

"They'll lock you in the room," Harry warned. I was about to ignore him and go downstairs, but the door opened to the hallway and the sound of Vernon obnoxiously greeting his guests filled the bedroom. I sank back into my bed. "Why now?" I whined. "I'm hungry."

However, I abruptly forgot about my hunger when there was a loud crashing sound from the inside of the wardrobe. "Shit!" I yelled, as Harry hauled the thing's door open to reveal a creature that I'd never seen before. It was about two or three feet tall, probably up to my waist, with large pointed ears and pale white skin with a greenish tinge. I couldn't even comprehend what it was wearing, for one. Harry later told me it was a pillowcase, but I had no idea at the time.

The creature jumped out of the wardrobe, grabbed my bedside lamp and started to scream, "bad Dobby! Bad Dobby!" while hitting itself on the head. Harry was frozen in shock, but I grabbed my lamp back from its hands and managed to keep the creature still long enough for it to calm down. "Hey, hey," I said softly. "It's okay. I'm Sam. Who are you?"

It's easy to ask with the power of hindsight what the hell I was doing introducing myself to a creature like this, but it looked desperately upset and Harry and I were an expert at that. It looked up at me with huge green eyes and said in a high, scratchy voice, "Dobby, Mr Potter. Dobby is here to help you."

"Erm..." Harry said, "why do we need help? And what even are you?"

"Dobby is a house elf, Mr Potter." The elf straightened his pillowcase and shook himself free from my grip. "House elves are always to serve Wizard families."

I caught a glimpse of a burn on Dobby's left hand. "Do your family hurt you?"

Dobby shook his head vigorously. "Dobby will not speak ill of his Masters." His eyes widened. "Dobby will not speak of his masters!" The elf hopped over to my drawers and shut his fingers inside it, shrieking each time. "Bad Dobby!"

"Stop it!" Harry yelped, probably sure that the Dursleys could hear us from downstairs. I grabbed Dobby by the tunic and pulled him backwards. "What the hell?!"

Tears pouring down his face, the elf explained. "Dobby must punish himself for his mistakes, or he is a bad servant."

Harry finally asked the sensible question. "What are you doing here?"

"Dobby has come to warn the Potters," he insisted. "The Potters must not go back to Hogwarts for this year. There is a plot... one to organise very dangerous happenings."

"But Hogwarts is the only place we've got friends," I protested, as Vernon let out a particularly loud laugh from downstairs. "It's where we belong."

Dobby raised an eyebrow. "Friends who don't even write to Mr Potter?"

Harry frowned. "How do you know they haven't been writing to us?" It was true, we hadn't had any letter from Ron, Will or Hermione. I hadn't had any from Rose either, the Ravenclaw girl I'd met on the train home, which was particularly disappointing. Dobby gulped. "Potters must forgive Dobby... he thought that if Mr Potter did not receive any letters, they would have thought they had been forgotten."

"You've been holding back our letters?" I demanded, outraged. The elf nodded, and pulled a stack of envelopes from his pillowcase.

"C'mere!" Harry lunged at Dobby, who squeaked and ran out of the room. The sound of his footsteps going downstairs reached my ears and we both looked at each other. "Go after him," I said, and Harry nodded in agreement. We raced down to the ground floor, and saw Dobby hiding in the kitchen.

"Dobby!" Harry whisper-yelled. "Get here, now!"

We inched towards him, and the elf's gaze locked on a cream cake that Petunia had 'made' (bought) for that evening. He snapped his fingers and the cake began to levitate, floating over towards the wife of Vernon's guest. "Promise Mr Potter will not go back to Hogwarts this year," Dobby whispered.

"No!" Harry and I hissed indignantly.

Dobby snapped his fingers and the huge cake fell onto the woman's head, splattering her hair with cream and chocolate. There were screams and yells of outrage, and by the time Vernon had waddled across the kitchen and grabbed Harry and I by our shirts, Dobby the house-elf had completely disappeared.