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Christmas came and went with the usual fuss and mess that year; Dora and Neville came home about the same time, and they enjoyed a week's worth of wintry outings, including the now-traditional carol-singing for cash in Diagon Alley. Dora and Severus even managed to be civil to each other at Christmas dinner, although Andromeda began to suspect something was amiss from the stiffness of their casual interactions. They weren't at each others' throats anymore, time being the balm if not the solution to all wounds, but there was still a certain frostiness when he asked her for the butter dish or she requested the mashed potatoes.

Padma owled at least once a day and it was evident from her letters that she missed the boys terribly, though Dora teased Neville that Padma fancied him. Padma's writing did betray a certain unhappiness which seemed unusual; Andromeda said it was probably growing pains, and that Harry and Neville would want to spend the hols away from their families soon enough. Neither boy protested too loudly at the time, but that night Neville crept out of his own bedroom and up to the flat above the Tonks', where Harry got out the old squashy bedroll Sirius had given him years before and spread it on the floor for him.

"Harry," Neville said, the edge of the bedroll drawn up around his chin and one of Harry's pillows under his head, "do you ever wish you didn't live with Remus and Sirius?"

"No," Harry answered immediately.

"Me either. About Ted and Andromeda, I mean. Do you think they'd adopt me if I asked?"

"Dunno."

"You ever think about asking Sirius to adopt you?"

"Once in a while." Harry wrapped the blanket closer around his shoulders. "I don't think they get it."

"Get what?"

"Sirius still gets scared I'm going to forget my dad." Harry hesitated. "You didn't like your gran much, did you."

Neville scowled. "She was my gran, Harry."

"Yeah, but you didn't like her. I mean. You have to love your family and all, but I heard Andromeda saying she was awful to you."

Neville was silent for so long Harry thought he'd fallen asleep. "I didn't wish she'd die."

"I didn't say that."

"Well, I didn't. But I'm glad for Andromeda taking me in. I never want to live anywhere but Twelve Grimmauld Place."

"You'll get married and move out and such."

"Not forever yet, though. I mean, not for ages. I like it here."

"Me too."

"What were your family like? The ones you lived with, I mean."

Harry shrugged under his blankets. "I don't remember them much, not anymore. My cousin Dudley was rotten. He broke all his toys and threw fits all the time. My uncle and aunt weren't very nice to me."

"Did you love them?"

Harry thought back to the tiny bed and the single bare lightbulb, the locking door on the closet they'd kept him in.

"No," he said. "I don't reckon I did."

"I don't see why Padma's so unhappy, anyway," Neville decided. "She has two parents and she's always had them. And they're not insane like Draco's mum."

"Sirius says Draco's mum is evil, and she went mad on account of Draco's dad being in Azkaban."

"When my mum and dad went mad they locked them up," Neville said quietly. "Andromeda takes me to see them sometimes."

"I know," Harry replied. Neville sometimes went "away" for an hour or two, and came back tired and shaking, and Sirius told Harry never to bother him when he was like that.

"You want to come sleep in my room tomorrow night?" Neville asked, sleepily.

"Sure," Harry said. "We can have cocoa and read your comics."

Neville mumbled a reply as he drifted off, and Harry slid down into sleep shortly afterwards, wondering if Neville might be the only person in the world who really understood how lucky they were to have Ted and Andromeda, Remus and Sirius.

***

The various branches of the Tonks-Black family were up at dawn on the day the children were to return to Hogwarts in order to prevent a repeat of the last time they'd tried to catch the Hogwarts Express. The Patils still hadn't really forgiven Sirius for that, and they politely informed Andromeda that they themselves would be escorting Padma and Parvati onto the train.

Draco was supposed to be portkeying back to England the night before, but his last postcard had said that he probably wouldn't be able to see anyone until they were on the train. While the rest of them made it onto the platform with the minimum amount of trouble that one can expect from two children, a toad, a snake, and an owl (Ted's Christmas present to Neville), Padma was not to be found, and Draco didn't show until the last possible minute, when he had to run to catch the train.

Padma turned up, shortly after the train left the station, with the explanation that her parents had told her not to leave the compartment until they were well underway. Draco, pink-cheeked from his mad dash, flopped down next to her, sprawling.

"I have never wanted to kick a house-elf in my life until now," he announced. Harry tossed him a packet of chocolate frogs.

"What happened?" Padma asked.

"What didn't happen? First Mendy locked herself out of the kitchen where all our luggage was, and then Dobby lost the portkey, twice, and it turned out he'd gotten the wrong one so Mum had to apparate into town to get another one, and then they lost my trunk, so we had to portkey back to find it. So finally we're all in England and all our luggage is in England and then we realise we left Mendy and Brisky behind."

"In Spain?"

"Si. But by that time Mum said bugger all house elves ever, and she had one of the bellhops at our hotel in London take me to the train station. I hope he got my trunk on board," he added, worriedly.

"What about Mendy and Brisky?" Neville asked. "Your mum is terrible about names, by the way."

"Draco Black Pur Malfoy," Draco said. "I'm aware of this, Longbottom."

"No need to get snippy at me, she's the one who named you," Neville said complacently. "I can't help my surname."

"She's going back to Spain to fetch them, I think. I don't envy them when she does. What a ruddy mess!" Draco declared. "Have you done your Potions project yet?"

"Yeah, Neville did Shrinking Solutions and I did Growth Emulsions," Harry answered.

"Emulsions! That's fourth-year work!" Draco said.

"Well, Remus helped. But only a little!"

"How about you, Padma?" Neville asked.

"I found out who the Heir of Slytherin is," Padma blurted. "And did the basic components of pepper-up potion," she added as an afterthought.

"Who is it?" Harry and Draco demanded in unison.

"Well, all right, I don't have names," Padma said irritably. She looked tired; flyaway wisps were escaping where her hair was tied back in a ponytail, and there were dark smudges under her eyes. "But I did some research and I'm almost positive it's someone in Slytherin. There's eight families who claim to be descended from Salazar Slytherin -- I guess he had a lot of kids," she said skeptically. "Anyway, six of them were confirmed to have died out by the seventeenth century, but the other two didn't die out until 1890 -- "

"That's it then though, isn't it?" Neville said. "If all eight families are dead..."

"Sort of," Padma said. "There's something to do with....well, with the Blacks," she said, glancing at Harry.

"What about them?" Harry asked.

"Well, there were two sons of the Black family and two sons of the last remaining Slytherin descendants, the Altairs," Padma began, digging around in her bag. She took out a big book which was flagged all over, looking sort of like a hedgehog made of post-it notes. She paged through it and eventually flattened it on her knee so that they could all look. It was a family tree written in crabbed script, labeled "The Antique House of Altair, Now Deceased", and it made no sense at all to Harry.

"But there was a rumour that the Black family and the Altair family may have swapped," Padma said. "Because, see, the old houses used to do that -- it's called fostering. It helps spread the bloodlines between the great houses. They think that Altair Black might actually have been an Altair, which would mean that..."

She frowned apologetically at Harry, and turned the page. A photograph of Sirius, very young, looked up at him from a book. Oddly, seeing Sirius' photograph in a big scholarly wizarding book was more surreal than almost anything that had ever happened to Harry. The Sirius in the photograph stared stonily out at them, hardly moving, dark eyes burning with sullen anger. Harry recalled that Sirius had not got on very well with his family.

"Altair Black was Sirius' great-grandfather," Padma said. "So...well..."

"I might be an heir of Slytherin," Draco said, hoarsely.

"Yeah. Or, well, Sirius might. Or Dora -- "

"What happened to the rest of the Altair family?" Harry asked, to cover for Draco's shocked silence.

"They both died in duels -- Marvolo Altair wasn't...wasn't a very nice boy, and he got in a duel when he was twenty six, and then his brother Dux -- "

"Ducks?" Neville laughed.

"Dux, it's Latin," Padma scolded. "Dux Altair, who may have been Dux Black, challenged his killer to a duel and died too. Um. The man who killed him went on to become the Dark Wizard Grindelwald."

"Nothing good at all about that story," Harry sighed.

"I'm not the Heir!" Draco said loudly.

"Nobody thinks you are, Draco," Padma said reassuringly. "But you might be an heir. And if...well, if Altair Black had any...illegitimate children, or any of his children did...it's likely it's someone in Slytherin, if so. Blood sort of...tells true. It...it might be Dora, for all we know."

"At least we know it's not Harry," Neville said. "Ted said all his dad's family were Gryffindor and his mum's family are all Muggle."

Harry looked at him.

"What?" Neville asked, nervously.

"When did he tell you about my mum and dad?" Harry demanded.

"Well, he didn't," Neville replied, looking slightly embarrassed. "I overheard it."

"They were talking about me?"

"Well, last year..." Neville shifted uncomfortably. "There was a row about you going into Slytherin, at Christmas."

"With Sirius?"

"No..." Neville sighed. "They were doing the dishes and I was in the dining room and Ted said you didn't strike him as the Slytherin sort. He said some not very nice things about Slytherins....he doesn't mean them, though," he added hastily. "Andromeda got really mad about it and said if he ever talked about Slytherins like that again she was going to do all sorts of dreadful things to him."

"Was she a Slytherin?" Padma asked.

"No -- but you know..." Neville lowered his voice. "All the Blacks were Slytherin, up until Andromeda, so if Altair Black was really an Altair, that might be why. Anyway, Andromeda said there was no call to say such horrible things about children who were only being their own selves, and Ted said, well, then wasn't it strange that your mum's whole family are Muggle and your Dad's whole family are Gryffindor and even Remus and Sirius are Gryffindors and look where you ended up. And then she got so mad she threw a plate in the sink and left the kitchen and didn't even notice me in the dining room. I've never seen them fight like that," Neville said.

"Blood's tricky," Harry decided. "Besides, it doesn't help at all. We know Draco's not the Heir and Dora certainly isn't and the rest of us aren't actually related to the Blacks. So unless we do everyone's family history back three generations, we'd never know. And besides, everyone says it was just a prank pulled by Bole to frighten Montague."

"What about the chickens?" Neville asked. They all fell silent.

"It wasn't me," Draco said defiantly.

"Of course not. You don't even like trimming hangnails," Padma retorted.

"It might make an interesting report for History of Magic, anyway," Harry said, settling the book on his knee and flipping back to the page with Sirius' photograph. Neville leaned over his shoulder. "He doesn't look very happy, does he?"

"There's a family portrait on the next page," Padma said helpfully. Harry turned the page. In this photograph, Sirius was standing, one hand stiffly posed on the shoulder of an older man with a leonine mane of black hair and the angular Black jaw, the familial resemblance more than obvious. Seated next to the older man (Jupiter Black, d. 1982) was his wife; she wore a frilly white dress, and standing just behind her was another young boy. He had the same dark hair, but his face more closely resembled his mother's -- and his expression was much more cheerful than Sirius', which was just this side of scowling.

"Look at his clothes," Neville said gleefully, pointing to the vaguely Victorian-looking suit Sirius was wearing, with a high collar and unflattering knickerbocker trousers terminating in lacy ruffs below the knee. Harry wasn't looking at Sirius, however; he was studying the other boy, Regulus.

"Sirius never talks about his brother," he said. As he spoke, Regulus -- perhaps eleven years old? -- turned his head slightly to smile down at his mother, and she reached up to place her hand on top of his, affectionately. Sirius and his father, on the other hand, gazed at the camera with identical closed-off expressions. It was unsettling to see his joyful, loud, affectionate godfather so young and so angry. In every photograph Harry had of Sirius at that age, he was at school, grinning and clowning with Remus and James, or making faces in the background, or strutting for the camera.

Harry closed the book, handing it back to Padma. As he did so he glanced up at Draco, and was suddenly struck at the resemblance between Draco and Sirius -- aside from the pale blonde hair and a longer, more narrow nose, Draco's jaw was beginning to sharpen and his face had the slightly foxlike, narrow shape that Sirius and Jupiter Black both had. Harry had never really connected Sirius' kinship to Narcissa because the two never spoke, but for a second he was suddenly and furiously jealous of Draco, who was closer by blood to Sirius than Harry himself. Draco wasn't paying attention, however; he had taken the book from Padma and was looking in the index.

"Thought so," he said morosely. "My dad's not in here."

"Well, neither is mine," Neville replied.

"Your dad wasn't the last heir of the Malfoys," Draco replied. "He's not in any of the books he ought to be in -- books about the old bloodlines and all."

"Well..." Harry looked uncomfortable.

"Yeah, I know," Draco said, without looking up. "I wouldn't put him in a book either, it's not as though he's exactly a credit to wizardkind. The only books he gets into are the ones about You Know Who. He's a nutter, and if he wasn't before he went to Azkaban he is now. And Mum's a nutter because of him. I come from a long, proud line of nutters."

Padma touched Draco's elbow, and he glanced up at her, closing the book.

"It doesn't matter," he said shortly. "It's not like I ever knew him, anyway."

Neville, looking anxious, changed the subject back to their Potions assignments, and after a few minutes Draco seemed to have given up on being bitter over his genetics. They spent the rest of the train ride speculating about classes and Quidditch, until the train pulled up to the Hogsmeade station just past sunset. Hagrid, the enormous groundskeeper, was waiting for them there, and he guided them towards a series of old-fashioned carriages, waiting in the gloom near the road back to the school.

For a moment, Harry thought the stamping, snorting creatures were horses, but as they drew closer, the indistinct shadows resolved themselves into spiny, skeletal creatures with sharp cloven hooves.

"What are they?" he asked, stopping a safe distance away to stare in amazement.

"What are what?" Padma asked, even as Parvati and Lavender were grabbing her arms to haul her towards one of the front carriages. Last year the roads had been out and they'd taken the boats across the lake to Hogwarts, as they had when they arrived during first-year; it was the first time Harry had seen carriages like this, and certainly the first time he'd seen the animals pulling them.

"They're all spiky," Neville said. He looked unhealthily pale.

"Where?" Draco asked, clambering up into the nearest carriage. Ron and Ginny Weasley were already sitting in it, bickering.

"See 'em, do yer?" Hagrid inquired sympathetically. "Not ev'ryone does. Those're the Thestrals. Go on; they won't bite."

"What's he going on about? I swear he's not all there," Draco said, as Harry and Neville warily climbed into the carriage after him.

"I've heard of Thestrals," Ron Weasley said. "They're big horselike things."

"They're pulling this carriage, is what!" Neville blurted. "They're horrible!"

"Our dad says you can only see them if you've seen someone die," Ginny piped up.

"I've seen someone dead, and I don't see them," Draco retorted. Ginny scooted closer to her brother; she was only a first-year, and tended to be shy.

"Who've you seen, then?" Ron asked Neville, in the spirit of casual inquiry.

"None of your business," Neville answered, which effectively killed the conversation. They rode through the Forest in silence, and Neville was out of the carriage like a shot when it stopped, skittering anxiously away from the Thestrals. Draco, on the other hand, walked right up to one, clearly unable to see it, and waved a hand in the air about a foot from its nose. The Thestral snorted. Draco leapt backwards, eyes wide, as a puff of hot air hit his palm.

"Creepy," he muttered, and turned to follow the others into the school. Harry decided that it was not, perhaps, the best way to start the new spring term.

***

Harry's brooding forecast was only confirmed by the screams.

It was the day after they'd returned and Harry was sitting at lunch, working on a Charms assignment he'd forgotten to finish over the holiday and absently eating a sandwich (he later got ten points off his assignment for a mustard spatter on the corner of his parchment) when they started. Along with every other student in the Great Hall, he looked up and towards the main entrance; it was a girl's voice, and not the playful shouts of someone rough-housing in the hallway but a real scream of terror, continuous and solid, pausing only for the next breath to be drawn. The Prefects were already swarming towards the door, but the rest of the students stayed rooted in their spots. Harry only realised he had frozen up when McGonagall rushed past him, followed closely by Snape and Dumbledore. He leapt to his feet and ran after, and as if this had broken the floodgates, the rest of the students began to follow.

Hermione Granger was standing on the big central staircase, about halfway between the ground floor and the landing, facing the Great Hall's entryway. She was pointing at something hanging in midair and having a really tremendous hysterical fit.

"Close the doors," Dumbledore said sharply, even as Harry passed through them. Ignoring Harry, Snape and McGonagall slammed the doors shut, locking the rest of the students in; Harry sidled over towards the little cluster of Prefects who were standing against the wall, staring up in horror. One of them clapped a hand over his mouth and began to retch; another pulled him away down the hall, and the rest followed hastily, leaving Harry in the shadows, staring upwards.

Hanging in the air just below the ceiling, on eye level with anyone coming down the stairs, was a cat. It dangled from a hook pierced through its tail, and it was...dripping. A little red puddle had formed on the broad flagstones below. Hermione had abruptly stopped screaming, but Harry didn't look to see if it was Dumbledore or McGonagall who had silenced her. He was staring at the cat. It dangled limply, like a bit of fur coat that had been dipped in red paint.

"My cat," said a hushed voice. This time Harry did look; Filch was standing in the corridor, Dora behind him. He was staring in horror at the cat. "Mrs. Norris," he said numbly.

"Get him out of here," Snape snarled.

"My cat," Filch wailed, and Harry felt a momentary jolt of pity for him; he might be a horrible man, and Mrs. Norris was an awful, smelly, ill-tempered beast, but neither of them deserved this.

"Dora, get him out of here," Snape repeated, shocked into slipping back into the old familiarity. She grabbed Filch's arm but he pulled away furiously, nearly throwing her to the ground. She was up again in an instant, and Harry saw her poised to leap after him, to subdue him in a less professorial style (and that was the first time he'd really realised she was an Auror, someone who wrestled people to the ground for a living) but before she could, a noise stopped them all.

At first Harry thought that the animal was still alive; it was a piteous mewl, the sound, not a happy-cat sound at all. Filch swallowed convulsively. There was silence for a moment, and then another mewling noise, and the sound of paw-pads on stone, dull thuds, and another cat came streaking furiously out of the shadows near the entryway. Harry barely registered it before the animal rocketed into Filch's arms, clawed its way up his shoulders, and settled itself tremblingly inside his robes, a quivering lump under one of his armpits.

Bewildered silence reigned.

Snape slowly lifted both his hands and made a small, gentle swinging motion with the wand held lightly in his left. Chain clanked, and the dead cat descended slowly towards the floor. Really, it did look like --

"It's just fur," Snape said, crouching to study it where it now floated, a few inches above the puddle on the stones.

"What?" Dora asked. Dumbledore was bent over it now as well.

"It's a bit of fur," Snape repeated. "Fur coat. Pinned together to look like a cat."

"Oh my god," Dora said.

"Real blood," Snape murmured, touching the drenched fur. As he prodded it, something white fluttered to the ground.

"Bet you it's cow's blood," Dora said. Filch had moved to the stairs and nearly collapsed there, clucking and cooing to the certainly very alive Mrs. Norris, who looked as if she'd had the fright of all her nine lives.

"The Chamber will be opened," Snape read. "You will be next."

Filch sobbed, clutching Mrs. Norris so tightly that she let out a breathless, complaining yowl.

Harry was watching Dumbledore now; he was looking thoughtfully at the bundle of fur and cow's blood.

"It cannot be Hagrid," he said. "Not this time."

"He hasn't the imagination for something like this," Snape agreed, disdainfully.

"He never meant to make trouble then, and he would never take such joy in brutality now," Dumbledore remonstrated. "No, this is...far more serious. I think that this time, it is truly the Chamber. Someone either wishes to open the Chamber, or wishes us to believe they are capable of it."

"There is no Heir of Slytherin," said Snape, angrily. "I've been through the records a dozen times. The last possible heirs were Dux and Marvolo Altair."

"Or Altair Black," Dora said softly.

"There is no proof -- "

"But you're thinking it."

"Did I not just say that there is no Heir?"

"For all you know, it could be me."

Snape made a disgusted noise. "There is no Heir. It's a legend. If there is a Chamber and if someone has found it when eight hundred years of careful searching has not, and if they are miraculously the last illegitimate heir of Salazar Slytherin, and if they intend mischief, why go about spattering cow's blood on walls? Why not unlease the cursed thing and have done with it?"

"Such a person might feed on fear," Dumbledore murmured.

"Ridiculous," Snape said bluntly. "I think we should know if there was such a madman in our midst."

"It could be Peter Pettigrew," Dora said. Harry felt something cold and terrifying begin to fill his insides. "I know we've put up wards and that there's no basis for it, but it's possible. He's able to conceal himself, and it would be just like him to pretend to kill a cat."

Dumbledore was looking at her gravely.

"I understand that you must do what you promised," he said, soberly. "Call the Aurors if you feel you must, but I will not close the school."

"I'm not asking you to. I'll call Alastor Moody; I know he knows you." Dora grabbed Filch by the arm, lifting him to his feet and leading him away down the corridor.

"I'll see to it that the house-elves clean up this mess," Snape said.

"I'll speak to the children," Dumbledore agreed. Harry, who had hatched an idea in the back of his head several minutes ago, waited impatiently until they were gone, and then dashed across the corridor, flying up the stairs.

He reached Myrtle's bathroom with a stitch in his side and out of breath; ignoring the possibility that she would screech at him, he burst inside, the door slamming open, and skidded to a halt.

Myrtle was sobbing quietly in a stall, the floor near the far end was flooded, and a house-elf looked up at him from where he was bent over a bucket, scrubbing out the inside. Red dripped from the brush.

"Dobby?" Harry asked, stunned.

***

Harry and Draco ended up getting out of classes for the entire afternoon. So did Hermione, but only because she was recovering, under the influence of a calming draught, in the infirmary.

Harry knew, from spending time with the house-elves in the kitchens, that they could vanish and reappear at will; he also knew that if you got hold of them, actual physical hold, then that particular magic stopped working. The first thing he had done, while both he and Dobby were still in shock, was grab hold of one of the enormous drooping ears. Dobby had shrieked the castle down, with some help from Myrtle, but Harry held on like grim death. In the end, all the shrieking did was summon McGonagall, who was returning from delivering Hermione into the capable hands of Madam Pomfrey.

She had found them and promptly realised that something was dreadfully wrong; she didn't understand Harry over Myrtle's shrill shrieks, but she understood the bloody bucket perfectly well, not to mention the pile of fur scraps in the corner. She'd plucked up the bucket and, summoning Harry along behind her, led the way to the Headmaster's office.

Now Harry sat, Dobby's ear still clenched tightly in one hand, waiting for Dumbledore to appear. Fawkes, the phoenix who had delighted and fascinated Harry when he was a child, was in full flare, and the room was uncomfortably warm.

"Please, please, Harry Potter, friend of Master Malfoy, please let Dobby go. Dobby will stop, Dobby promises to stop, but Dobby will have to bake his head -- "

"You're not going anywhere, you little monster," Harry replied furiously. "Hanging dead cat dummies in the halls! Painting blood on walls! Draco's right, you ought to be kicked soundly!"

"Dobby will let Harry Potter kick him if he lets him go, only please -- " Dobby broke off and began shrieking again in despair as Dumbledore entered.

"That will be quite enough of that," Dumbledore said calmly. Dobby fell silent, gulping. "You may release him, Harry. He cannot escape from this office; the walls are particularly well-warded."

Harry slowly let go of Dobby, who at once grasped his mauled ear and began to stroke it, smoothing out the wrinkles Harry's hand had made.

"Now then, let me see. Do you know this house-elf, Harry?"

"Yes, sir," Harry replied. "I told Professor McGonagall, sir. That's Dobby, he's a Malfoy house-elf."

"Indeed. One of young Draco's family elves?"

At Draco's name, Dobby's lower lip quivered.

"Yes, sir."

The door opened, then, and Draco entered, followed by McGonagall, with her hand on his shoulder. Harry caught Dobby by his spindly arm before he could make a break for the door.

"Ah, here we are. Mister Malfoy, I wonder if you might help us."

Draco looked bewildered. "What's Dobby doing here?"

"That's what we would very much like to find out. I understand some authority over the family elves has been ceded to you?"

"I can tell them what to do, as long as it doesn't disagree with anything my mum says," Draco said warily.

"Excellent. Have you given any orders to Dobby recently?"

"Not since Christmas, sir."

"You have not ordered him to come here? Or smuggled him into the castle with you?"

"He sometimes comes to have a bit of a chat with the kitchen elves..."

Dobby wailed. "Dobby is a good house-elf, he is only doing what is best for -- "

"Dobby, be quiet!" Draco said sharply. Harry looked at him, startled. "This is the Headmaster's office! Behave yourself!"

"Yes, Master Malfoy," Dobby murmured, nervously.

"I'm sorry, sir. Has he done something wrong?"

"Are you aware of what happened during lunch?" Dumbledore asked.

"Well, the Prefects are saying..."

"Ah yes. Rumour, that most efficient of machines. We suspect your house-elf may have had a hand in it."

"I found him in Myrtle's bathroom, washing the blood out of a bucket of water," Harry said. Draco looked green.

"Dobby," he said, in the most authoritative voice Harry had ever heard the mild, highly-strung Draco use, "Did you hang a cat in the hallway?"

"No," Dobby replied.

"Well, that's sort of true," Harry said, glancing at Dumbledore. "It was a dummy. A fake."

Draco crossed his arms, angrily.

"Dobby, did you paint words on the walls last term?" he demanded. "Did you kill a flock of chickens? Did you hang a fake dead cat in the hallway?"

Dobby quivered.

"Master Malfoy must not be angry with Dobby, Master Malfoy loves Dobby," Dobby said. "Dobby loves Master Malfoy and only -- "

"Dobby!" Draco's voice was like a whipcrack. Harry was stunned.

"It was for Master Malfoy's own good! Master Malfoy must NOT be at school! No student must be at school! It is dangerous!" Dobby said desperately. He hopped from one foot to the other. It would have been funny if there weren't still traces of blood on Dobby's hands.

"Dangerous how?"

Dobby's dance sped up. "Dobby cannot tell," he moaned. "Dobby cannot tell secrets!"

"Stop that at once."

Dobby froze.

"Dobby, who told you to do these things?" Draco asked.

"Dobby was not told -- "

"Did you paint that blood on the wall last term? Yes or no, Dobby."

"Yes," Dobby whispered. Only the force of Draco's orders was apparently keeping him from finding the nearest hard surface to bang his head on.

"Did you hang a dead cat dummy in the hall this afternoon?"

"Dobby -- "

"Yes or no," Draco snapped.

"Yes."

"Did you kill the chickens?"

"No."

"Dobby, don't lie to me."

"Dobby did not kill any chickens!" Dobby shrieked. "Dobby would not kill chickens! That is why Master Malfoy must leave! Master Malfoy is not safe!"

Draco looked bewilderedly at Dumbledore. "I didn't tell him to do it, sir. I don't see why mum would."

"Ask him, please."

Draco turned back to Dobby. "Did mum tell you to do these things, Dobby?"

"No," Dobby answered. "Master Malfoy must -- "

"Be quiet, Dobby."

Harry, nearly forgotten, watched Dobby's ears droop. He knew all house-elves had some quirk which made them adore Draco -- they were like puppies eager to show him new tricks. He'd never known why; he wondered if it was this...peculiar, inherent voice of command. The Malfoys were old-money purebloods like the Blacks; perhaps it was something in the blood, from generations of ordering house-elves around.

"Did anyone in the family tell you to do these things?" Draco asked.

"No," Dobby whispered.

"Why did you do them?"

"Master Malfoy must not stay at school."

"Why?"

Dobby began to dance again.

"Fine, fine," Draco said disgustedly. He glanced at Dumbledore again, hapless, as Dobby began to mutter about having angered Master Malfoy and slamming his head in a door.

"I think you had best send him away for a little while," Dumbledore said gently. "Somewhere we can find him later."

"Dobby," Draco said. "You are not to go slamming your head in any doors. Your punishment is to go to the kitchen and tell Brecon to chain you to the main table. You mustn't leave on any account."

"But Master -- "

"You are, in addition, to spend the entire afternoon chopping onions," Draco said sternly. Harry suppressed a nervous laugh. Dobby bowed his head and walked through the door when Draco opened it, vanishing once he was in the stairwell.

Draco flopped down on a chair, sighing with relief.

"That is a peculiar punishment," Dumbledore said. "There's something very soothing about chopping onions, I've always thought."

"If I don't give them a punishment, they hurt themselves," Draco answered.

"Indeed? And when did you begin this?"

"When I was five or six. You can't stop them punishing themselves, but you can tell them to do things that aren't so awful."

Dumbledore mulled this over, thoughtfully. "I can see why they are fond of you, Mister Malfoy. Now, I think Mister Potter has some explaining to do."

With Draco's help and Dumbledore's gentle encouragement, Harry told the whole story -- how they'd gone to talk to Myrtle, the story she'd told them; how he'd overheard about the chickens being slaughtered, and how he'd watched Dumbledore and Snape and Dora discuss the cat. How he'd come up with the idea of trying to catch Dobby in the act and run up several flights of stairs to accomplish it. Dumbledore sat silent and serene, though once or twice McGonagall looked furious at their antics.

"What's going to happen to Dobby, sir?" Draco asked, into the ruminative silence that followed the end of the story.

"There must be further interrogation, I think," Dumbledore said. "He has committed fairly serious acts of vandalism, Mister Malfoy."

"Yeah, but...do we have to tell my mum right now? Can't we wait?"

"You take an interest in Dobby's welfare?"

"Well, if mum finds out, she might actually kill him," Draco said plaintively. "And if she doesn't do that, she's sure to make him do something awful to himself. He's not a bad house-elf. He's never done anything like it before."

"For the moment she need not be informed. The Aurors will, no doubt, wish to speak with him. It is ultimately their decision."

"Yes, sir."

They might have gone back to classes after that, except that Dora arrived shortly, escorting three other Aurors. Harry vaguely recalled Alastor Moody, the peg-legged, rolling-eyed old man who used to visit Sirius and Remus back before they moved to Betwys Beddau. The other two were unfamiliar; a tall, bald-headed black man introduced as Kingsley Shacklebolt and a woman with white-blonde hair and keen eyes named Anne Delphine. So they had to tell the story over again, answering a hundred questions put to them by the three Aurors, while Dora and McGonagall went back to their classes. By the time they were through the rest of the school had gone to dinner, and both Harry and Draco were exhausted; the Aurors agreed to stay the night in guest lodgings near Hufflepuff's dormitory, and have Draco help them re-interrogate Dobby in the morning.

Harry ate in silence, feeling overhwelmed by the afternoon's discovery and just a little bit as though someone ought to have told him what a splendid, clever lad he was instead of implying that he was far too young to be apprehending house-elves in the girls' loo. Cricket, who had saved him a seat, chattered on regardless, so Harry wasn't required to spend too much time thinking about how to reply.

At least the pranks were done with; that was something. Even if Dobby's refusal to admit to killing the chickens was bizarre, no doubt there was an explanation for it.

When they found Completely Headless Nick Petrified and dangling mid-hallway the next morning, Harry got a sinking sensation in his stomach not unakin to that of falling off a broomstick from thirty feet in the air.

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