Harry wasn’t listening. He made a grab for the letters, but Dobby jumped out of reach.

“Harry Potter will have them, sir, if he gives Dobby his word that he will not return to Hogwarts. Ah, sir, this is a danger you must not face! Say you won’t go back, sir!”

“No,” said Harry angrily. “Give me my friends’ letters!”

“Then Harry Potter leaves Dobby no choice,” said the elf sadly.

Before Harry could move, Dobby had darted to the bedroom door, pulled it open, and sprinted down the stairs.

Mouth dry, stomach lurching, Harry sprang after him, trying not to make a sound. He jumped the last six steps, landing catlike on the hall carpet, looking around for Dobby. From the dining room he heard Uncle Vernon saying, “…tell Petunia that very funny story about those American plumbers, Mr. Mason. She’s been dying to hear…” Harry ran up the hall into the kitchen and felt his stomach disappear.

Aunt 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.

“No,” croaked Harry. “Please… they’ll kill me…”

“Harry Potter must say he’s not going back to school—”

“Dobby… please…”

“Say it, sir…”

“I can’t—”

Dobby gave him a tragic look.

“Then Dobby must do it, sir, for Harry Potter’s own good.”

The pudding 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 Uncle Vernon burst into the kitchen to find Harry, rigid with shock, covered from head to foot in Aunt Petunia’s pudding.

At first, it looked as though Uncle Vernon would manage to gloss the whole thing over. (“Just our nephew—very disturbed—meeting strangers upsets him, so we kept him upstairs…”) He shooed the shocked Masons back into the dining room, promised Harry he would flay him to within an inch of his life when the Masons had left, and handed him a mop. Aunt Petunia dug some ice cream out of the freezer and Harry, still shaking, started scrubbing the kitchen clean.

Uncle Vernon might still have been able to make his deal—if it hadn’t been for the owl.

Aunt 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.

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<== попередня сторінка	\|	наступна сторінка ==>
Dobby shook his head, his eyes wider than ever.	\|	Harry stood in the kitchen, clutching the mop for support, as Uncle Vernon advanced on him, a demonic glint in his tiny eyes.

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