Before the duelling club could commence again, it was time for the quidditch season to begin again. It was the first match of the season and between the rival houses of Gryffindor and Slytherin. As far as I can remember, this is the match where Harry is struck by the rogue bludger and sent to the medical wing under Madam Pomfrey’s tender ministrations.

I wondered if Dobby would bewitch the bludger this time around. I really hoped he did; I had plans for that lovable little house-elf. He was as loyal as can be and would be a good helper in my own plans.

The morning dawned with fabulous weather and all the students made their way to the pitch to see the match. The Gryffindor team was all pumped up for the first game of the season and the Slytherin looked like the normal collection of gorillas other than the notable exception of Draco Malfoy. The rich brat got on the team using money, exactly like canon. I purposefully left late for the match and made my way to the grounds on my own. On the way I cast the disillusionment charm on myself and stood there on the ground under the raised stands.

My plan was simple. Since the bludger was continuously following Hary, I was hoping Dobby would be somewhere nearby controlling it. I planned to talk to him so that I could tell him my plans and get him to lay off Harry. The match begun and the players took off. I was keeping a careful eye around to see if I could spot Dobby. I knew it was bit of a long shot but the chance was too important to mess up. About 10 minutes into the game, the bludger began to steadily go after Harry only and I started looking forward for the little elf. Finally, after about another 10 minutes, I saw the elf crouching under one of the stands of the commentator box. I slowly made my way towards him, having already cast muffliato on myself, so as to not frighten him. I knew it would be difficult to magically capture him as I couldn't cast anti-elf wards yet or rather, hadn’t learnt them yet. So, I thought to come out straight and try to talk it out. Dobby was a relatively smart elf and should be amenable to talking.

“Psst! Hey Dobby!”, I called out from abut 10 feet away,

The little elf sort of stiffened up in fright and turned around towards me. He looke d a bit surprised to see no one before he clicked his fingers. He turned towards me, where I stood with the disillusionment charm broken and asked, “Who be you? How be you knowing Dobby’s name?"

I tried to give as comforting smile as possible and said, “I know about you Dobby but I will tell you some other time how. I want to help Harry as well, just like you are trying. So, I wanted to talk to you about it.”

“You be helping great Harry Potter Sir? Youse be great person too. But Dobby must do his part. Hogwarts is not safe. Great danger is there. Harry Potter Sir must stay safe.”

“I know about the Chamber of Secrets, Dobby. As well as the diary.”

“Y-y-y-ou know? How? Master Malf-”, and he went rigid and started hitting himself on the support beams going, “Bad Dobby! Bad Dobby!”

I chose that moment to fire off a stunner and got him right on the back. After prying his fingers away from the beam, I conjured a small pallet for the two of us and used rennervate on him.

“Thank you! Thank you for saving Dobby! You being a great person as well!”

“All right Dobby! I see you are a good house-elf who tries to protect their master’s secrets. But I don’t want you to punish yourself. So, what we’ll do is, I’ll speak and you listen; you can’t punish yourself if the person already knows your master’s secret. If you feel you have anything important you can tell me, you may do so.”

“Yes, great sir. But what be your name?”

“My name is Darius, Dobby. Now the problem is your plan to save Harry will not work. He loves Hogwarts too much to leave easily. So, we will go about it from another angle. We will make Hogwarts safe instead. You know there is great danger in Hogwarts from your master as well as about the Diary but you don’t know what it actually is. None of the Hogwarts elves do, or they would have informed the staff or headmaster about it.”

“Yes, Darius sir! I be not knowing the exact danger. But I know about Chamber of Secrets opening and I be felt the vile magic in Diary. Very dark, very evil. No normal person can do that.”

“You are absolutely right, Dobby. No normal person did that. But we will speak of that later. The true danger with the opening of the chamber is that there is a 1000-year-old basilisk inside it.”

Even Dobby couldn’t help but gasp at that. He looked even more determined and stared at me. “You being sure? And can youse save Harry Potter Sir and everyone else?”

“I am sure Dobby. Now, about my plan; I know you will start hitting yourself if I ask you, so I will tell you outright – I plan on tricking Lucius Malfoy into freeing you. And if you are agreeable to it, would like to bond with you.”

“You be wanting to bond with Dobby? Truly?”

“Yes Dobby! Most definitely! I know you can’t do anything to secure your release yourself, so, I will be taking care of that. But I know elves can hear when somebody calls them. They only have to unconditionally answer to their masters but can choose whether to do so or not when it comes to any other. So, I want you to answer my call, unless, of course, if you are serving the Malfoys at the time. Can you do that, Dobby?”

See, what I understood of Dobby was not that he wanted to be free, but that he wanted to be free of the Malfoys. My studies indicate that House elf physiology requires them to be bonded to an individual wizard, a wizarding family or a magically saturated wizarding dwelling, like Hogwarts. They live in a symbiotic relationship and share his/her magic in exchange for performing services. The alternative is a slow and prolonged death from lack of magical power. It is a painful way to go. This way, I could hit two birds with one stone; get Dobby away from the abusive Malfoys and get a house-elf of my own, one of them would be dead useful.

“Yes, Darius sir! Dobby does that!”

“Alright Dobby! That’s all for now. I hope to see you again soon.”

“Thank you, great Darius Sir! Dobby will leave now. But before leaving, Dobby makes one last attempt to make Harry Potter leave Hogwarts.”

And with a click, he disapparates away right in front of me. I look up just in time to see Harry get hit by the bludger, somehow maintain his balance and then lunge forward to get the snitch before coming down and collapsing on the pitch. I forget about Dobby for a second and rush onto the pitch. I can only hope I get there in time before that prat Lockhart.

I skidded to a stop just in front of crowd and was just in time to see Lockhart kneeling on the pitch and rolling up his sleeves. Before he could cast the spell, I shouted, “PROTEGO!” and put up the strongest shield I could. By this time Lockhart had swung his wand down and the coloured jet of light impacted my shield and was immediately bounced bac at his wand arm.

Oh, this was so much better than I hoped. I was merely trying to shield Harry from the nincompoop removing all his bones but the rebound de-boned him instead. It was amazing. He took one look at the arm, rolled his eyes upward and straight out fainted. None of the students bothered with him. Madam Hooch along with a couple of girls like Lavender and Parvati took him up to the Hospital wing. The Gryffindor team had long since taken him up to the medical wing on a stretcher I had conjured up.

I visited Harry later, just to check up on him. The Gryffindor team and Hermione were still there though I could see madam Pomfrey starting to get irritated.

“Hi Harry! How are you doing?”

“Hi Darius. I’m fine. Madam Pomfrey told me I would be fixed up in no time. I just have to take a minor potion and she will work her magic on me to heal me up. I should be out of here in another 1 minutes. Thanks for the shield though. Lockhart’s going to be here for the night, after he is fed something called skele-gro. Something which the rest of the team has assured me I do not want to drink.”

“Think nothing of it. The man has had no medical training whatsoever and is not a certified healer by any means. Being a healer is one of the most challenging careers and I don’t want an unqualified man messing up my friend. As you saw earlier, he has completely removed the bones from his hand instead of healing them.”

I turned to the rest of the team after this, “You lot should keep this in mind as well. You are quidditch players and are likely to get injured once in a while. Immediately come here and get yourself treated.”

Madam Pomfrey had walked up at this time. “Well said, Mr Icarus! 20 points to Gryffindor for the correct explanation of medical protocol. Never get yourself healed by unqualified personnel. You are more likely to end up in bed than stay off it. Now, off with all of you. Mr Potter will be in excellent condition in 15 minutes and thereafter re-join you in the Gryffindor tower.

The team, Hermione and I waited outside for less than the promised 15 minutes before harry came out, fit as a fiddle. We all headed up to the Gryffindor tower for celebrating the victory. Well not so much celebrating for me; I headed up to my dorm to do some more studying on Arithmancy. The subject was so interesting and I could see what went into the creation of spells.

Arithmancy was a numerological study. It could be used for anything from using numbers and several other variables to predict the future to creating mathematical models of spell functions for modifying or creating a spell. I had only touched on the basics of the subject to create the fortis memoriae and with further study, was confident to do so much more. It would also tie in nicely with my Ancient rune studies in the creation of magically enchanted objects.

I was at peace that night and settled in to meditate for the night but something didn’t feel right. I was relieved that there would likely be no incident tonight as without Harry’s presence in the medical wing there was no reason for Colin to visit him at night. But there was a lingering sense of foreboding. I cleared my mind though and started meditating for the night.

My inner body channelling was coming along nicely. Though the effect wasn’t as startlingly prominent as in the initial years, it was still an astonishing pace at which my magical powers increased. By the end of this academic year I should be well past the equivalent of a normal witch/wizard and headed into the ranks of the powerful; at least speaking in terms of raw magical power. I had perused a good bit of the Hogwarts library on any record of any similar methods and only found a few books on the method in a travelogue book about the Asian nations. I will have to look into it further later but I think age plays a very important role in this method. Starting the training as young as possible is the only way to circulate the magic throughout the body without damaging it. Only when the total amount is small enough, can the body acclimatize to the effect of the circulating magical powers. I suspect any adult or even teen trying to do the same would feel a backlash from their own magic or even worse if they try to force it. I got lucky with the discovery at a very young age.

The next morning, I headed down from the dorms to the common room as usual when I noticed the sombre mood in the common room. I didn’t need to be a seer to notice something bad had happened. I looked around and thankfully saw Colin on a small stool, so, it was not his petrification.

I soon found out I was wrong. It was a petrification but not Colin’s. Lavender Brown and Parvati Patil had been found petrified at night near the hospital wing. They both had been carrying ‘Get Well’ cards, supposedly for Lockhart. The two of them had compact mirrors in their hands.

I, of course, knew what the likely sequence of events was. The girls must have sneaked down to pass Flophart the cards. They must have been doing up their make up when they saw the basilisk eyes and were thus petrified.

I can only breathe a sigh of relief that the girls aren’t dead. This was an extremely close call which could have gone very wrong. I guess the future has started shifting beyond my anticipations. I shall have to be even more careful from now.