The Forever Necklace

Earlier that summer…..

Jen woke up with a start. Her “new” brother was snoring in the bed opposite hers in their aunt and uncle’s house. Today their guardians would be hosting a small dinner for some business associates and the potter siblings weren’t allowed downstairs that evening. Until then they were to help clean the entire house, regardless of the fact that the guests would only be in the dining room and tea room. When Harry brought up this point while scrubbing the upstairs bathroom, uncle Vernon locked the two in their room without supper. Not an unusual occurrence.
Jen went to the door and picked up two pieces of paper that had been slid under the door.
“Harry, wake up,” she said, without really even looking at him. She plopped back down on her bed. “Harry!” She tossed her pillow across the room and it landed squarely on Harry’s face.
“Huh?” Harry sat strait up, waving his hands alarmed and tangling himself in the sheets.
“Harry it’s seven in the morning. We needed to have started breakfast. They’ve given us our list of chores for today as well. Looks like you didn’t clean the bathroom well enough yesterday.”
“Right. I’ll get on breakfast if you start on the bathroom.”
“Tough, mate. You know I hate the bathroom. Besides, if it’s between who can get downstairs faster to make breakfast, I’ll win. You’ve barely woken up.” With that she pranced out the door and ran down the stairs as to avoid getting in trouble for being late with the eggs and bacon.
The rest of the day went pretty smoothly. Aunt Petunia only yelled at Jen once for burning Dudley’s toast and at a quarter to five the siblings were sat down in the living room.
“You two won’t be down stairs when they arrive,” said Uncle Vernon. “I don’t want to hear a peep from you. Not a creak in the floorboards, you hear?”
“Yes, Uncle Vernon,” they replied together and were sent up to their room.
A few minutes later they heard a knock at the door and their aunt and uncle laughing and welcoming the Masons. And not five minutes after that, a loud CRACK sounded off, resulting in two high-pitched shrieks down stairs. Jen jumped, having enough sense not to scream but instead slapped her hand over Harry’s mouth to muffle his “AUGHHH!” He shot a glance at her before looking around the room. A small, wrinkled looking creature was sitting on Harry’s bed, rocking back and forth staring with big green eyes at Jen and Harry.
“Sorry, Jen. Th-thanks,” Harry said.
“Wha- Who are you?” Jen asked, forbidding herself from asking what the creature was.
“Dobby, ma’am. Just Dobby. Dobby the house-elf,” said the thing.
“Oh-really?” said Harry. “Er- I don’t want to be rude or anything, but- this isn’t a great time for us to have a house-elf in our room” Dobby frowned and looked down.
“Dobby, we really don’t mean any harm. Please, sit down,” Jen said, shocked when the elf-creature went into hysterical sobs. “Oh! We didn’t mean to offend you, Dobby.”
“Offend Dobby!” the elf said. “ Dobby has never been asked to sit down by a wizard- like an equal-“
“-just our cat,” Jen heard Uncle Vernon say.
“You can’t have met many decent wizards,” Harry said. Jen shook her head as Dobby jumped up and hit his head against the window.
“Bad Dobby!” the house-elf screamed. “Bad Dobby! Bad Dobby!”
“Don’t!” Jen said, not wanting the poor thing to hurt itself. She rushed forward and grabbed the small thing’s arms, restraining it from further harm. Hedwig hooted feebly in her cage. “Why did you do that?”
“Dobby had to punish himself, ma’am,” said the elf. “Dobby almost spoke ill of his family, ma’am…”
“You’re family?” Harry said.
“The wizard family Dobby serves, sir… Dobby is a house-elf- bound to serve one house and one family forever…”
“Do they know you’re here?” asked Harry.
“Oh, no, sir, no… Dobby will have to punish himself most grievously for coming to see you, sir and ma’am. Dobby will have to shut his ears in the oven door for this. If they ever knew, sir-“ Jen closed her eyes, trying to block out the image of the elf’s enormous ears being shut in an oven.
“But won’t they notice if you shut your ears in the oven door?”
“Dobby doubts it, sir. Dobby is always having to punish himself for something, sir. They lets Dobby get on with it, sir. Sometimes they reminds me to do extra punishments…”
“Why not leave?” Jen suggested. Dobby broke free of her grip and began to beat his head with her bedside lamp, making a real ruckus while doing so.
“-I’ll just go upstairs and check on the cat,” Uncle Vernon said loudly. Harry and Jen looked at each other in panic. Jen grabbed Dobby, dropping the lamp in the ordeal. She went and sat in the closet while Harry scooped up the lamp as quickly as he could. Uncle Vernon was faster, though, and flung open the door, face purple and swollen, vein popping out of his forehead.
“Dobby,” Jen whispered in the dark, trying to ignore Uncle Vernon verbally abusing her brother. “Why are you here? Please, whisper.”
“Dobby must warn the Potters. Dobby must tell the Potters that there are to be horrors at Hogwarts this year.”
“Horrors,” she breathed. “Dobby what kind of horrors?”
“He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named is coming back. He will take over Hogwarts. The Potters shouldn’t be there.”
“Dobby,” Jen’s voice was stern but quiet. “Tell me more!”
“Why should Miss Potter and Mister Potter want to go back anyway, ma’am? Their professors are difficult, their friends don’t write, their-“
“Dobby! How did you know Harry and I haven’t been getting any post?” Dobby looked scared. “Dobby!”
“Dobby did it for the best-“
“You’ve been stopping our letters?” Jen had to remind herself not to scream it.
“Dobby has them here, ma’am,” said the elf. Dobby withdrew several letters from his cloth just as Harry opened the door and dragged them both out into the main part of the room.
“Harry! Dobby has our post!”
“Wh-“
“Give me the letter’s Dobby!” Jen practically shouted. Harry shoved his hand over her mouth and snatched at Dobby, who avoided him by inches.
“Say you won’t be returning to Hogwarts, sir and ma’am!”
“No! Dobby give them here!”
“Mister Potter and Miss Potter give Dobby no choice.”
Before the two could react in any way, Dobby ran out of the room and down stairs, entering Aunt Petunia’s kitchen where she had a brilliant pudding dish was sitting on the counter, topped with purple sugared violets and little perfect globs of cream. Dobby spotted it too, focusing hard on the dessert. The pudding began to float towards the ceiling, Dobby crouching behind a cupboard.
“They’ll kill us,” Jen groaned.
“The Potters must say they are not going back to school,” Dobby said with a sad frown on his wrinkled face.
“No. Dobby, please…”
“Say it.”
“Dobby. We can’t say it-“
Dobby looked sadly at the two siblings who knew their fate by this point and realized there was nothing they could do to stop the unholy chain of events that followed Dobby’s nearly heart-stopping movement that they watched happen, Jen realizing it would as soon as the house-elf blinked his tennis-ball shaped eyes and only wished that the pudding bowl-
CRASH
The deed was done. The bowl dropped. Pudding was sent up the walls in bright green and purple globs. And their Aunt and Uncle ran into the room, screaming and sobbing.
Dobby clicked his fingers and vanished.