Somewhere in London, at Number 4, Privet Drive Little Whinging. Harry Potter is in his bedroom looking at the picture book that Hagrid gave him at the end of his first year at Hogwarts; he looks at the picture of him as a baby with his parents, then turns the page to look at a picture of him with his closest friends, Ron Weasley, Matthew Stutler, and Hermione Granger; he then hears his owl Hedwig chirping and hooting in her cage.

Harry: I can't let you out, Hedwig. I'm not allowed to use magic outside of school.

Hedwig nibbles at her lock, squawking loudly.

Harry: Besides, if Uncle Vernon--

Vernon: [angrily from downstairs] Harry Potter!

Harry glances downstairs and then looks at Hedwig before closing his book and going downstairs.

Harry: Now you've done it.

In the kitchen, Petunia is working on a cake as Harry enters.

Petunia: He's in there, Vernon.

Harry enters the living room, where Uncle Vernon is getting Dudley dressed up.

Vernon: I'm warning you. If you can't control that bloody bird, it'll have to go.

Harry: But she's bored. If I could only let her out for... an hour or two.

Vernon: [chuckles] So you can send secret messages to your freaky little friends? No, sir.

Harry: But I haven't had any messages from any of my friends. Not one. All summer.

Dudley: Who would want to be friends with you? [bumps Harry harshly]

Vernon: I should think you'd be a little more grateful. We've raised you since you were a baby, given you the food off our table, and even let you have Dudley's second bedroom, purely out of the goodness of our hearts.

Petunia: [to Dudley] Not now, bumpkins. It's for when the Masons arrive.

Vernon: Which should be any minute. [motions for his family to come into the living room] Now, let's go over our schedule once again, shall we? Petunia, when the Masons arrive, you will be...?

Petunia: In the lounge, waiting to welcome them graciously to our home.

Vernon: Good. And, Dudley, you will be...?

Dudley: I'll be waiting to open the door.

Vernon: Excellent.

The three of them turn to Harry with scornful looks.

Vernon: And you...?

Harry: I'll be in my bedroom, making no noise and pretending that I don't exist.

Vernon: Too right you will. With any luck, this could well be the day I make the biggest deal of my career, and you will not mess it up.

Harry goes upstairs as the doorbell rings.

Vernon: [from below] Mr. and Mrs. Mason! Do come in!

Harry hears someone laughing madly in his room. He opens the door to find, a house elf named Dobby bouncing on his bed.

Dobby: Harry Potter! Such an honor it is!

Harry closes the door.

Harry: Who are you?

Dobby: Dobby sir, Dobby the house elf.

Harry: Not to be rude or anything, but this isn't a great time for me to have a house elf in my bedroom.

Dobby: Oh, oh, yes, sir! Dobby understands! It's just that, Dobby has come to tell you- it is difficult, sir- Dobby wonders where to begin.

Harry: Why don't you sit down?

Dobby: S-sit down? S-sit- sit down? [he soon begins to cry]

Harry: Dobby, ssh! I'm sorry!

Dobby cries louder.

Harry: I didn't mean to offend you, or anything.

Dobby: [stops crying when he hears that word] Offend Dobby? Dobby has heard of your greatness, sir, but never has he been asked to sit down by a wizard, like an equal.

Harry: You can't have met many decent wizards then.

Dobby: No, I haven't. That was an awful thing to say.

He then bangs his head on the dresser drawer repeatedly

Dobby: Bad Dobby! Bad Dobby! Bad Dobby!

Harry: Stop, Dobby! Dobby, shh! Dobby, please stop!

From downstairs in the living room, the Dursleys and the Masons are having some wine as they hear the banging from above.

Vernon: Oh, don't mind that. It's just the... cat!

He chuckles lightly, as Mr. and Mrs. Mason look on, being convinced and concerned at the same time.

Dobby: [still banging his head on the drawer] Bad Dobby!

Harry: Dobby, stop! Please be quiet. Are you all right?

Dobby: Dobby had to punish himself, sir. [pushes a stool closer to Harry] Dobby almost spoke ill of his family, sir.

Harry: Your family?

Dobby: The wizard family Dobby serves, sir. [gets up and sits on the stool] Dobby is bound to serve one family forever. If they knew Dobby was here... [shivers] But Dobby had to come. Dobby has to protect Harry Potter. To warn him. Harry Potter must not go back to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry this year.

Harry looks at him in surprise.

Dobby: There is a plot, a plot to make the most terrible things happen.

Harry: What terrible things? Who's plotting them?

Dobby: [trying to resist himself from saying something] Oh, he! Can't say!

Harry: Okay, I understand. You can't say.

Dobby: Don't make me talk. L--

He gets on the desk, grabs the lamp, and hits himself with it.

Dobby: Bad Dobby!

Harry: Dobby? Dobby put the lamp down.

Dobby keeps hitting himself, in the living room, Vernon is still doing his conversation with the Masons.

Vernon: So, when they arrive at the ninth hole--

Dobby's shout is heard, and Vernon hears it upstairs while looking suspicious.

Harry: [trying to grab the lamp from Dobby] Give me the lamp!

Dobby keeps straining until Harry hears Vernon coming upstairs

Harry: Dobby, stop!

He finally grabs it from Dobby, grabs his rags, hides him in the closet, and closes the door.

Harry: Get in there and keep quiet!

Vernon opened the door, stomping into the room, and glaring at Harry.

Vernon: What the devil are you doing up here?!

Harry: I was just...

Dobby slowly opens the closet door; Harry pushes it closed.

Vernon: You've just ruined the punchline of my Japanese golfer joke.

Harry: Sorry. [closes the closet door again]

Vernon glances at the closet door, unaware of Dobby's presence, then lifts his finger as he turns his eyes back to Harry.

Vernon: One more sound, and you'll wish you'd never been born, boy. [He sees the closet door opening again] And fix that door.

Harry: [closing the door again] Yes, sir.

Vernon glares at Harry as he walks out of the room, pulling the door closed; with Vernon gone, Harry opens the closet door to let Dobby out.

Harry: See why I've got to go back?

Dobby removes a sock from his ear.

Harry: I don't belong here; I belong in your world, at Hogwarts.

Dobby sniffs the sock throws it aside and turns to Harry.

Harry: It's the only place I've got friends.

Dobby: Friends who don't even write to Harry Potter?

Harry: Well, I expect they've been--hang on, how do you know my friends haven't been writing me?

Dobby: Harry Potter mustn't be angry with Dobby. Dobby hoped if Harry Potter thought his friends had forgotten him, Harry Potter might not want to go back to school, sir...

Harry: Give me those. Now.

Dobby: No!

Harry attempts to grab Dobby; he dodges, runs for the door, opens it, and races out of the room with Harry chasing after him; Dobby stops at the kitchen doorway, looking at Petunia's cake. In the background, Vernon is talking to the Masons. Dobby glances back at Harry with what looks like a devilish smile.

Harry: Dobby, get back here!

Still smiling in a kind of devilish way, Dobby shakes his head "no" and snaps his fingers, causing the cake to levitate.

Harry: Dobby... Please... No.

Dobby: Harry Potter must say he's not going back to school.

Harry: I can't. Hogwarts is my home.

Dobby: Then Dobby must do it, sir. For Harry Potter's own good.

With a smug look on his face, he snaps his fingers again, causing the cake to float out of the kitchen;

Harry pushes Dobby aside as he steps into the living room to see the cake moving towards the Dursleys and the Masons.

Vernon: One plumber says "Look at all that water.", and the second plumber says "Yes, and that's just the top of it."

Harry holds up his hands in an attempt to grab the cake. Vernon, Petunia, and Dudley all look in surprise to see the floating cake with Harry attempting to catch it as floats toward Mrs. Mason.

Petunia: [nervously] Mr. Mason... Vernon tells me that you're a wonderful golfer.

Mr. Mason: I play, occasionally.

Petunia: Mrs. Mason, where do you get your beautiful suits?

Mrs. Mason: Oh, all of my suits are tailor-made.

Vernon: Dudley, was there something you wanted to say?

Dudley: Pudding.

Vernon: Pudding? What pudding?

Watching from around the corner, unseen, Dobby snaps his fingers again, causing the cake to fall and splatter all over Mrs. Mason.

Vernon: I'm so sorry. It's my nephew. He's very disturbed.

Harry turns around to face Dobby, who backs away. Meeting strangers upsets him, that's why I kept him upstairs.

Harry glares at Dobby with an angry look on his face and says "Thanks a lot, Dobby. I'm going to be in huge trouble now, because of you."

Dobby snaps his fingers and vanishes into thin air.

Petunia: Well, we have ice cream.

Mrs. Mason doesn't look like she's in the mood for ice cream. Petunia and Dudley watch as Vernon drills bars into Harry's bedroom window.

After tightening the bars, he glares at Harry, who glares back at him through the window.

Vernon: You're never going back to that school. You're never going to see those freaky friends of yours again. Never!

End of Chapter 10