Chapter 034

"Professor Lockhart, I would thank you to refrain from touching my patients again in the future," an ice cold voice said. Harry cut off and looked with relief to the school healer. Thank god for Pomfrey. He would never complain about her potions' tastes or her bedside manners again if she would just keep the lunatic away from him! "Come along, Mr. Potter. I'm going to have to keep you overnight to fix that."

"Dobby," Harry sighed as he woke up in the middle of the night to see the little house elf sitting despondently on his hospital bed. Harry's arm felt like he had thousands of tiny needles thrusting into it but he did his best to keep the pain from his face. It wasn't as bad as it could have been. "So let me guess, you enchanted the Bludger?"

Dobby nodded his head and turned shimmering eyes on Harry. "Dobby is sorry Great Harry Potter Sir but Dobby felt if Harry Potter Sir was hurt badly then he would be sent home."

Harry shut his eyes and counted to ten before responding to the elf. "Dobby. First off, I am sorry for getting mad the first time we met. Second, I do appreciate the concern you're showing as well as the efforts to get around your orders. Third, please stop trying to save my life!"

"But Harry Potter Sir – "

"No, listen to me, Dobby," Harry said forcefully. Dobby stopped what he was doing and just stared at Harry. "Good. Now, your attempts at saving my life – while well meaning – are just putting me in more danger. You understand that that Bludger could have killed me?"

"Not kill Harry Potter Sir! Never kill! Just grievously injure!"

Harry had to stop to take a few deep breaths again. "And if it had hit my head?" Dobby's mouth clanged shut. "Or if it had me while I was a hundred feet in the air?" Dobby started to reach for the nearby potions tray but Harry had been expecting that. He reached out, caught the house elf's arm and forced him to sit back down before the little guy could hurt himself. "Like I said, Dobby. You're efforts to save me are dangerous. I know the danger is whatever monster is in the Chamber. My friends and I are trying to figure out what it is. Just like you don't want to let me be hurt by staying I don't want them to be hurt either. So if you can't give me any information on this can you at least not try to get me to leave anymore before I can help my friends? Please, Dobby?"

"Dobby…" the house elf wrung his hands glancing longingly at the potions tray. "Dobby would respectfully request Harry Potter Sir leaves the school with his friends."

'Well that's some progress,' Harry thought. "We can't leave, Dobby."

"But, Harry Potter Sir, Miss Moany died the last time the Chamber was opened! Harry Potter Sir must be – " Dobby cut off as the sounds of conversation drifted into the room. Both human and house elf turned to look at the door to the hospital wing. Dobby popped away and Harry flopped back into his bed just as the door opened. Professor's McGonagall and Snape, Headmaster Dumbledore and Madame Pomfrey all walked in floating an unconscious Colin Creevy ahead of them. Harry sucked in a breath at the way the younger boy's arms were held in front of his face clutching his ever present camera.

"It is the same as Mrs. Norris, Poppy," Dumbledore said in a low voice.

"There is nothing I can do without those mandrakes, Headmaster. I can't even tell if they're conscious or if their minds are as frozen as their bodies."

"Nevertheless, we must wait. I will speak with Pomona about when her crop will be fully matured."

The teachers moved back out of the room and Harry turned back over thinking. 'You're just going to leave him there? What if he is conscious? Someone could go crazy trapped in their mind without anything to distract them…What is wrong with these people?'

"Okay, Ginny, you've got the rotation list?" Harry asked the young redhead in the Gryffindor Common Room the next afternoon. The girl nodded so fast her hair started fanned out. When he had asked her that morning about getting together a list of Colin's friends who would be willing to sit and talk to him for a bit each day Ginny had barely managed to eke out a quiet "sure" before running off.

"That's great, Ginny," Neville said smiling at her. She shyly returned his grin before handing over the list of people.

"No, Ginny," Harry said pushing it back to her. "You should tell everyone and around the times. Just try to make sure it's for at least 3 hours every day okay?" She nodded again. "Great! Hermione, Nev, we've got to go check that thing right?"

His friends nodded and joined him as they left the Common Room and headed down to the bathroom they were sharing with Myrtle's ghost. Moaning Myrtle could be depressing and a little creepy, but she was nice enough to let them use the room and she kept anyone else away while the trio was gone.

"Harry, do you really think that we're going to be able to keep the rotation going until the mandrakes are ready?" Hermione asked chewing on her lip.

"Well I've got two ideas for that actually," Harry said. "I've been thinking of trying to set up a telly for him."

"Harry you know we can't! Electronics don't work here. It says so in Hogwarts, A History!" Hermione huffed crossing her arms and glaring at him.

"They don't work yet," Harry said smirking. "I've been thinking about it and I figure if I can work a Suppressor into a Local cluster and figure out a way to stamp it onto the machine then we just need to deal with the power issue. Anything with batteries should work fine, meaning if I can't figure out a way to run an electric line in or convert magic into electricity than at the very least we ought to be able to get a radio set up…" Harry trailed off as he noticed that Hermione had stopped in the middle of the corridor and was just staring at him with her mouth wide open. Harry turned to Neville who just shrugged.

"You – you – you've figured out how to make electronics work at Hogwarts!?" Hermione squeaked pointing at him.

.

.

.

.

🎉The novel is available in PDF with more than 400 chapters, visit us in our Ko-Fi store🎉

🎉ko-fi.com/gokublack444🎉