Dobby cautiously came forwards and stood staring up at him. Harry looked back down, and nodded encouragingly. "I know that you can't tell me anything about the evil plot in the school. I'm not asking that. I'm just asking how the Malfoys treat you."
Dobby swallowed. "They bes getting upset when Dobby be being stupid and slow. They tells Dobby to shut his ears in the oven and his fingers in doors. And they gets upset if Dobby spill the tea. They tells him that he's a bad elf and send him off to sit in the elf quarters in the kitchen and think about what he's done."
"What are the elf quarters like?"
"Cold. And dark."
Like the cupboard.
Harry felt the sickening spiral of emotion unfolding in the center of his chest again, but this time, it was a lot colder. Like the cupboard. Like the elf quarters. And ready to burst into flame again at a moment's notice.
"Thank you, Dobby," he said. "I'm going to try and do something to get this changed. They don't have the right to treat you like that, or the other elves."
"Master Harry Potter must not be doing that!" Dobby whispered at once, harshly, his eyes darting around as if he thought one of the walls was going to come to life and hurt him. "The Masters Malfoy would be knowing that you is knowing, and—and—"
"You think they would make it worse for you?" Harry asked. He could understand that. The Dursleys had reacted like that when they thought someone had figured out what Harry's home life was like, even though no one had ever cared enough to actually help him.
Harry tried to stuff the bitterness back into its own cupboard in his mind, but it was hard.
Dobby bobbed his head so fast that the tears forming in his eyes flew away and landed on the floor.
"All right, I won't do that," Harry said, and reached out to pat Dobby on the head, ignoring the way that he immediately burst into wails of adoration. There was a time that he might have done the same thing, if someone had ever cared enough to pay attention. "But I'll figure out some way, okay?"
"Master Harry Potter is being great," Dobby breathed, and then he picked up the tray and vanished with it.
Harry lay back on his bed and scowled at the ceiling. Now he just had to figure out what the best thing to do would be. Should he ask for Dobby to be his personal elf? Or would it be better if Dobby was permanently free and could leave behind Malfoy Manor forever?
A wave of homesickness washed over him—for Hogwarts, nowhere else. The Dursleys' house had never been home.
But more and more, it was seeming as if Malfoy Manor probably wasn't, either.
.....
"Mind-Healer Letham has been waiting on you for the past half-hour."
Mrs. Malfoy's words were probably meant to be a gentle scold, but Harry could only hear echoes of all the times that Aunt Petunia had ever said he'd disappointed her and the like. He nodded back to Mrs. Malfoy and walked into the small grey sitting room where it seemed the Mind-Healer was.
It was a surprise to find out that the Mind-Healer was a woman, even though Harry hadn't heard her first name. He'd just assumed "Healer Letham" had to be a man. He took a deep breath and walked towards her through the low grey couches and stuffed chairs, trying not to compare her to Mrs. Figg, even though she looked about the same age and had grey hair.
No smell of cats around her, though. At least there was that.
And then the woman glanced up as Harry came to a halt in front of the couch where she was sitting, and he only barely kept from jerking back. Her eyes were a piercing, clear blue, and she looked at him as if she was going to use her eyes like spoons and scoop the inside of his head out.
No. Definitely not like Mrs. Figg.
"Mr. Malfoy? A pleasure to meet you." The woman gave him an odd, shallow bow without rising from the couch. "My name is Marianna Letham. I'm pleased that you could join me."
Harry flushed, although he didn't actually hear sarcasm in those last words. "Um. Yes, Healer Letham. Thank you."
He found himself glancing over his shoulder at Mrs. Malfoy for reassurance, then remembered that he was angry at all of them and he shouldn't be doing that. He jerked his eyes back around, and heard his "mother" sigh a little and retreat. The door of the sitting room closed, and Harry stared at Healer Letham and wondered where she worked.
It occurred to him that that was a good question, especially if the Malfoys were paying her to be here and wanted her to "heal him" of certain things. So he sat down and asked.
"I used to work for St. Mungo's," said Healer Letham, rearranging herself a little so that she was sitting with one leg tucked up beneath her and the other dangling down towards the floor. It looked uncomfortable for a woman her age, but Harry wasn't going to mention it if she wanted to sit that way. "But they wanted me to treat too many people who hadn't a thing wrong with their heads, who were cursed and should have been seen by the Healers in the Spell Damage Ward. So I left and became a private Mind-Healer working with children."
"That doesn't make sense, though. Why would they want you to work with people who were cursed?"
....
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