A soft pop sounded in the back of number four Privet Drive as Dobby Apparated onto the Dursleys' neatly cropped lawn. Three other pops followed as the other elves appeared.
Dobby pointed upwards. "There is Harry Potter's bedroom window."
"But is he there?" asked Pokey. He peered nervously around the garden as if expecting a human to jump out and attack them.
"I don't know. And if he is not there, does it mean he will come back in the evening, or tomorrow, or months from now?" Dobby stared up at the bedroom window and scratched his pencil-like nose. "If we don't find Harry Potter in his room, we will have to talk to the woman in the house."
Pokey translated this for Pat!k and Tadatada. "They say, let's go talk to her," he said.
Dobby slowly replied, "But the humans in this house are not very nice." He considered for a moment, then seemed to come to a decision. "Let's Apparate right into Harry Potter's bedroom first. If we are lucky, he will be there and we won't have to talk to the woman."
Pokey looked at him strangely, but nodded. He said a few quick words to the two wood elves, then raised his arm in preparation for the turn.
"Wait," said Dobby.
Pokey paused with his arm in midair and looked at him.
"I should tell you... they're Muggles."
Pokey's eyes widened. "You... might have said something before, Dobby."
"I was so excited, you know, going to see Harry Potter and all! I didn't think to."
Pokey sighed. "So five elves in their house might be a wee bit of a shock?"
"Might? Will. Definitely."
Pokey's brow furrowed. "But... you've been here before, you said."
"Yes, but the Muggles didn't see me. They only saw their cake float about and fall on the floor, and they thought Harry Potter did that."
Pokey gaped at Dobby. "You framed Harry Potter? I thought you were his friend!"
Pat!k tapped Pokey on the shoulder.
"I was! I was trying to keep him safe. It's a long story..."
"You must tell me sometime," said Pokey, giving Dobby a piercing look. He turned to the wood elves and translated. From the brevity of his speech, Dobby guessed that he'd left out the part about the cake.
Once in the bedroom, Dobby saw that the trunk and owl cage were missing. In addition, the room was dazzlingly tidy. The floor shone. The bed had hospital corners. It didn't look like a room that Harry Potter lived in. "Oh dear," said Dobby, "I think Harry Potter has moved out."
Pokey repeated this to Pat!k and Tadatada. Tadatada put Ch!kch!k down, walked to the door and gave it a push. It swayed open. She turned back, said a few words and walked through the door with Ch!kch!k trailing behind her. "She says, let's go find somebody and ask where he's gone," Pokey translated. Pat!k glanced at Dobby and Pokey, beckoned to them and followed his mate and child out the door.
Dobby looked unhappily at Pokey. "These are not nice people," he repeated.
"You'd better go before me then, Dobby; I'm old and brittle," Pokey declared cheerfully.
Dobby moved reluctantly to the door. He patted the stack of hats on his head. "I wish I'd worn more hats," he said before summoning his courage and heading through the door.
Tadatada and Pat!k stood still at the top of the stairs, ears extended, listening. Tadatada said, "The only sound of movement I hear is coming from below."
"Agreed," said Pat!k gravely. "Some sort of large animal is moving about down there. Probably a human."
They all clambered down the plush carpeted stairs, backwards, as each step was much too high for an elf. Halfway down, Pokey began grunting with effort. "This is too much hard work for an old elf like me. Why don't I Apparate down?"
"Feel free, Pokey, sir," responded Dobby, "but then you will be ahead of us, not behind us."
"Never mind," said Pokey weakly. Dobby stifled a giggle.
At the bottom of the stairs, the sitting room loomed. A beige sofa by the front door towered over the elves. Their feet sank into an immaculate cream-coloured shag rug. Across the room was a doorway with no door. The sounds came through that doorway. Slowly the elves approached it.
Petunia was in the kitchen, preparing dinner. She mercilessly scrubbed a pile of vegetables and attacked them with a potato peeler, her mouth set in a grim line. Petunia was a housewife who hated housework. She hated every moment of the washing and scraping and slicing, hated the daily drudgery of it and the constant standing that brought about that throbbing in her lower back. Yet every day she did it and did it flawlessly, for to see surfaces gleaming and meals steaming and her husband and son greedily feeding their faces gave her a sense of accomplishment. It eased the gnawing feeling of inadequacy that she'd carried ever since her sister Lily had turned out to be the special one, the one who could do magic. Petunia could feel she was worth something because she could keep a pristine home and have a normal family. This made her feel a bit better for a while, until the next day, when she'd have to do it all over again.
She was arranging carrots, onions and potatoes around a pork roast when she happened to glance up, and saw three little creatures with batlike ears peeping through her kitchen doorway.
Petunia let out a blood-curdling screech. The only response to this was two more little heads appearing above the shoulders of the first three.
She sidled over to a corner of the kitchen and picked up a broom, her eyes never leaving the hideous little abnormalities in her sitting room. She waved the broom at the doorway. "Scat, you vermin!" she cried. "The Potter brat is not here, so--" she froze, broom in midair, as another element of the alien little tableau clicked into place.
The three elves in front were naked, and two of them had all the accoutrements of an adult man and woman brazenly, shamelessly hanging out, right there on the threshold of her spotless kitchen. They were in fact more naked than an adult man and woman would be, for neither had so much as a strand of hair anywhere on their bodies.
Petunia let out a shriek of rage and dashed at them, broom held high. The elves scattered across the sitting room carpet.
"How dare you!" she screamed as the broom thumped down hard on the spot where Pat!k had been seconds before. "Naked, in my house!" Wham went the broom behind Tadatada's heels. "On my lovely clean wall-to-wall carpeting!"
"I told you to wear the towels!" Pokey cried, dashing about waving his arms and in his panic, letting go of the towels so that they fluttered about the sitting room. One draped itself over the sofa back and two others floated to the carpet.
"Have you no decency!" Petunia howled. She raised the broom over the cowering figure of Ch!kch!k, who was trying to crawl backwards under the sofa.
Another, much higher-pitched shriek rent the air, and sky-blue light flashed from Tadatada's magic stick. Petunia froze, her limbs akimbo. Her feet left the floor and she bobbed lightly in mid-air. The broom slipped from her loose fingers and dropped to the carpet.
Tadatada stomped towards Petunia. "You evil creature!" she cried. "Threatening my baby!"
"Oh no," moaned Dobby, wringing his hands. "We are going to be in such trouble..."
"She's a Muggle, Dobby," Pokey reminded him.
"Oh, right." Dobby released his arms to his sides in relief.
"Tadatada, don't!" cried Pat!k as Tadatada raised her stick for what would be, judging by the look on her face, a punishing swipe.
"She tried to harm my child!" cried Tadatada, turning to Pat!k as he ran up to her.
"I don't think she would have done it, Tadatada. She saw it was a child. She paused; you saw her, didn't you?"
"I will make her very sorry she ever dared to raise a stick against my child," declared Tadatada, eyes burning.
"No no no no..." Pat!k pleaded with her as he pulled her magic stick down towards the floor, "You mustn't, she's our only way to find Harry Potter!"
Tadatada sighed heavily. "Remind me again why that's important?"
As Pat!k repeated the vision and all its implications to Tadatada, Pokey approached the floating, bobbing Petunia, at first gingerly, then with more confidence as it became clear she couldn't move at all. He bowed low before her, the front corner of his towel grazing the carpet. "My dear mistress," he said, "please forgive the intrusion. As well, please forgive the behaviour of that naked elf over there. You see, she is only concerned for her child's safety. I am sure that you, as a mother, can understand that."
There was no response. From his bent position, Pokey raised his head. Bent over like that, he could only see Petunia's legs. He straightened up and tilted his head back. Petunia's mouth gaped motionlessly open.
"Oh, pardon me," he said, "I didn't realize you couldn't speak either. Let me fix that..." But however he waved and finger-snapped, his magic seemed unable to penetrate Tadatada's stronger spell.
He turned. "Tadatada, release her mouth, please."
"Only her mouth," replied Tadatada, still glowering at Petunia. "Nothing else."
"Oh no, of course not. If you release anything else, she'll try to hit us again."
"Fine," muttered Tadatada. She aimed her magic stick at Petunia. A little glob of blue light zoomed from its tip and hit Petunia in the mouth. She spluttered and cried, "Get out of my house NOW, you little monsters!"
"Only we need information, please--" began Pokey.
"Think you can just walk right in to MY house, no knocking, no ringing the doorbell, just sneaking in like a bunch of ugly midget thieves--"
"But don't you see, dear lady, we're much too small to reach the doorbell!" cried Pokey, clasping his hands.
"No worries, Dobby is not insulted!" Dobby sang out happily. "Dobby heard much worse things than 'ugly midget thieves' from his old masters every day, oh yes he did."
"Don't hand me that!" yelled Petunia. "Don't tell me you couldn't use magic to ring a doorbell!"
"Mistress makes a good point; Mistress is very clever." Dobby nodded vigorously.
"Be that as it may," said Pokey, "We really need to know where Harry Potter is."
"He's not here!" bellowed Petunia as she continued to bob gently up and down.
"Yes, we realize that, and we were hoping--"
"Pokey, translate!" Tadatada interrupted irritably.
"...We were hoping you could tell us where he is."
"Pokey!"
He turned. "A little patience please, I am trying to negotiate, and you might want to modify your tone." He sniffed, and turned back to Petunia.
"Oh, you were hoping. And why should I do that?"
"Because once we know where we can find Harry Potter, we will leave."
Petunia considered this. "As soon as I tell you, you'll go?"
"That's right."
"And you won't come back?"
"I sincerely hope we will never see each other again," Pokey promised.
"Will I be able to move again after you leave?" asked Petunia.
"Yes, yes, as soon as we're ready to go, we'll undo the spell."
"All right," Petunia said. "He said he was going to live at The Burrow."
"The Burrow," Pokey repeated.
"That's what he said. His friends from school came to get him."
"His friend Ron Wheezy?" Dobby asked.
"Yes, that's right. Now put me down NOW!"
"Thank you very much, dear lady," said Pokey, gesturing wildly at all the other elves. Tadatada took Ch!kch!k's hand and led her to Pokey's side. All the elves stood in a line facing Petunia.
"I'm not interested in your thanks, put me down NOW!" she shrieked, turning red in the face.
"Dobby, do you know where that is?" asked Pokey. "The Burrow?"
"Dobby knows all the estates of the pure-blood wizards--I mean, I know all the estates of the pure-blood wizards," he amended, switching from slave-speak to peer-speak.
"Then we're ready to Apparate. We'll all follow you." He switched into wood-elf. "We're going to follow Dobby. Tadatada, get ready to release the spell. As soon as you do, we'll Apparate." He had a moment of worry that Tadatada would argue, but he saw that she gazed downward, as if ashamed of herself. She nodded.
"What are you waiting for!" the enraged Petunia cried.
"Dobby, as soon as Tadatada breaks the spell, you Apparate. Tadatada, go!"
Another large jet of sky-blue light flew through the air and burst over Petunia. She fell a few inches and staggered for a moment, weak-kneed. Once she regained her footing, she looked around for her broom. She snatched it up and swung it through the air, but the elves were already gone.
Later that evening, Vernon commented on the new dish towels. "I haven't seen these before," he said, fingering one. "Unusual crest."
"Oh, I picked those up at a car boot sale," Petunia casually remarked as she checked the internal temperature of the roast.