What were you doing, Dobby?" asked

What were you doing, Dobby?" asked Harry in his softest voice.

"Punishing myself, sir," said Dobby weakly. "For spilling chocolate, sir."

Harry shook his head slowly. He flung the piece of wood aside and put his hands on Dobby's tiny shoulders. "You were taken ill, weren't you, Dobby?" he said in his most calming voice. "Your illness is making you say some very strange things right now. Why would anyone want to punish themselves?"

"Ill?" Dobby looked up at him, dazed, with huge gooseberry eyes. "No, Harry Potter, sir... Dobby is not ill, just careless, sir. House elves are meant to serve their masters, and they must punish themselves if they make any mistakes."

Harry didn't know whether to laugh or cry at this absurd statement. "No, no, Dobby! That's just silly. It must be your illness making you think odd thoughts like that. Here!" He gave Dobby another little spark of his magic. "Do you feel better now? Are you able to think straight?"

Dobby stood silently for a moment, a baffled expression on his small wrinkled face. Then he lit up in a smile. "Yes, Dobby is feeling a lot better now, Harry Potter sir."

"You don't want to punish yourself any more, do you?" Harry watched the elf anxiously.

Dobby shook his head. "No, Mr. Potter." He sounded slightly surprised at his own words. "Dobby doesn't want to punish himself any more because... because..." He appeared to be searching for the right words. Then he nodded: "Because it hurts! And Dobby doesn't actually like getting hurt."

"Of course you don't," said Harry and patted Dobby on the arm. "I mean, who would? And to punish yourself for spilling a little chocolate is just..."

"Silly!" The elf's eyes were shining now. "That's what it is, Mr. Potter. Just plain silly!" He giggled a little. "Why would anyone think to do something that ridiculous in the first place?"

"I have no idea," smiled Harry. "Here, why don't we share the chocolate?"

Dobby settled himself comfortably among the plump cushions on Harry's bed and they passed the mug of chocolate back and forth, taking turns sipping the hot sweet liquid.

"Dobby really should be getting back to scrubbing the cellars," muttered the little elf after a while. "But Dobby is feeling very tired, Mr. Potter. Dobby worked all night baking bread for Mr. and Mrs. Malfoy, and now Dobby would like to take a nap." He curled up among Harry's blankets.

"You do that, Dobby," said Harry and gave his new friend a quick hug.

"Ouch," muttered Dobby sleepily. "There is something sharp in your robes, Mr. Potter."

"Oh, sorry about that!" Harry reached down and felt his diary inside his robes. "Just my diary. The one Mr. Malfoy gave me."

"Diary?" Dobby's eyes suddenly flew open. "Harry Potter must not use that diary! Dobby heard Mr. Malfoy talking about it, and Master was saying that there is something hidden in it. Master said that it would be clever to give the diary to the Potter boy, since he will not understand the danger until it is too late... Harry Potter must not touch the diary!"

"Danger?" Harry sighed a little. "Oh, no! Is your head still bothering you, then? Don't worry, Dobby. Of course Mr. Malfoy would not give me a dangerous present. You are just feeling a little unwell still, that's all. Get some rest now."

"All right, Mr. Potter," breathed Dobby and closed his eyes.

Harry sat and watched him for a while, making sure that the little elf was comfortable. When Dobby was sleeping soundly, Harry reached into his robes and pulled out the diary again, opening it to the page where he has left off.

Hello, Tom, he wrote. I'm back.

He stared at the blank page for a moment, suddenly anxious that Tom wouldn't respond. But then black ink bloomed across the page, and lovely curvy letters appeared in the diary.

I have missed you, Harry. It's very lonely in here, without someone to talk to.

Harry felt a stab of pity for poor Tom. Of course he must be lonely in there, deep inside that silent book! I wish you could come out here for a moment, so I could see you, wrote Harry.

I wish so too, wrote Tom back.

Come out, whispered Shard in the back of Harry's mind. Come, Tom, come...

...

It was lovely to be back at Hogwarts again. Harry had appreciated the Malfoys' kind invitation, of course, but it was wonderful to arrive back at school and see all his other friends as well.

Ron's older brothers, Fred and George, pulled Ron aside and examined him closely for any signs of Slytherin contamination after his stay with the Malfoys, but in the end, they decided that he was unharmed.

"It makes me nervous when you spend time with that Malfoy boy," muttered Fred. "From what we have been hearing, you didn't even pull any proper pranks on the Malfoy family when you stayed with them. How could you waste such a splendid opportunity? Young Harry here, on the other hand, seems to have made a little more of an effort, judging by Draco's whining about his family's house elf who suddenly decided to take a week's holiday in Majorca. Nice use of fairy magic, Harry! But what about you, Ron? Did you put as much as a small dungbomb in Draco's sock drawer? No, you did not. Acted all chummy toward the boy, from what we hear. Did you know that Draco has been going around school saying things about our family ever since you got back from Christmas break?"

Ron stared at him in alarm. "Malfoy's been saying things about us? What sorts of things?"

George leaned a little closer. "He's been saying that the Weasleys are "not a bad sort of family", and that we are of "an ancient pure-blood lineage"..." His ordinarily pale face was quite flushed with indignation.

"Er... Okay-?" Ron gazed blankly at his brother.

"Okay?" Fred glared at him. "Are you off your rocker, Ron? We can't have Slytherins going around saying that sort of thing about our family. How in the name of Merlin's most moldy underwear am I going to win the heart of a stunning girl named Johnson if people keep spreading the rumor that we are some sort of stuffy pure-blood wizards related to the Blacks and the Malfoys? You are not making life easy for us, Ron. Have you no consideration for your family's Muggle-loving reputation?"

"That Malfoy boy could be a bad influence on you. We haven't seen any signs of corruption in you yet, but we are watching you very closely," said George gravely. "I'm warning you, Ron: The moment we catch you trying to add any little marble and silver touches to your room at home, or complain about Dad's salary or Mum's jumpers, we'll tell Percy who's been stealing his buttons."

Ron turned light pink. "You wouldn't... Hey, how do you know about the buttons?"

"Oh," said Fred airily, "we have our ways of knowing about the comings and goings around the castle, little brother."

"What ways?" asked Harry curiously.

George grinned. "That is for us to know and the two of you to find out. Or not find out. We'll keep an eye on you both, for your own safety."

Fred breathed something in his twin's ear that Harry couldn't quite catch. Something like "And next time, we will not assume that any fragmented letters squished into the back of someone's dot are just a typo, or part of his turban..."

George whispered something back, and Fred frowned. "Harry's dot? Oh, don't worry about it. I'm pretty sure that's just his fairy magic making the dot a little funny..."

...

That night, after everyone else was asleep, Harry wrote page after page in the diary. He wanted to help poor Tom feel better about being trapped inside the diary, so he tried to think of nice stories to tell him. Tom liked hearing about the forest and about the ancient magic of the fairies, but most of all, he loved to hear about school.

Tell me more about Hogwarts, wrote Tom. Tell me about the flickering torchlight along the corridors, and the damp rising from the dungeons. Tell me about the scent of leather and dust in the library, and about the blue light slanting through the arched windows in the Great Hall... I miss seeing it all. I felt at home there. It was the only place that ever felt like home.

And Harry wrote and wrote, and Tom wrote back, until it was nearly morning.

Tell me about that beautiful red stone again, wrote Tom. Tell me what happened to it. Where is it now?

Harry smiled. How curious, that Tom seemed to have fallen instantly in love with the idea of that beautiful stone, just like Quirrell had!

Harry was struggling to keep his eyes open, but he added quickly to the diary: Oh, I think Dumbledore must have destroyed it. Seems a pity, doesn't it?

Yes, a pity, agreed Tom. It would be so lovely to see the stone, just once...