There wasn't a shred of light in the pitch darkness.
Dobby slowly opened his eyes; the blackness around him instinctively made him close them again. He seemed to be praying for some change the next time he opened his eyes, but evidently, it was of no use.
Feeling his limbs still somewhat stiff, Dobby reached out with hope, intertwining his three fingers—
"Snap—"
With a crisp snap, a hazy deep blue glow began to light up around.
Realizing his magic had lost its effect, Dobby's eyes filled with growing panic; he stared in horror at the surrounding blue light—the source was deep blue runes carved onto each of the iron bars, and Dobby finally saw his predicament—
He was imprisoned by that person in a cage.
"...Awake?"
After a mumbling voice, the next moment, the black cloth covering the cage was torn away, and dazzling daylight flooded in like a tide. Having gradually adapted to the dark, Dobby instinctively covered his eyes, his broad ears pinned back as he shrunk and took two steps back.
But there wasn't much space in the cage; he had only stepped back two paces before he bumped into a bar.
"Damn, why doesn't your cage burn people?"
The man swore unhappily, throwing the black cloth clutched in his hand to the ground, then cautiously leaning forward to withdraw his arm through the gap in his own cage. "Differentiation, bloody hell..." The man swore as he sat back within the safe zone.
He looked at the house-elf curled up in the corner of another cage, smacking his lips curiously.
"...Hey, what did you do to end up here?" he asked loudly.
But the other did not answer him, and the elf, having adapted to the surroundings, quickly grasped. It looked around, raising its head to see the surroundings. Blinding sunlight trickled through the cracks in the ceiling, with countless stacks of heavy books forming walls, creating partitions in the room from its perspective only allowing a clear view forward—
A towering cabinet connected to the brown-yellow ceiling, filled with a variety of magic materials at the top, a cauldron burning with a small flame at the bottom, bubbling and emitting thick smoke. A deep yellow Diricawl perched atop an armor-clad dummy's head but vanished with a "puff" before Dobby could react.
"Hey! I'm asking you a question!" The man slammed the only cage panel not burning with his hand, shouting loudly.
"...Dobby, Dobby did nothing wrong!" Dobby mumbled timidly, retreating to the farthest corner from the man. Hugging his knees, his eyes, almost the size of ping-pong balls, gleaming with tears, "Dobby is only trying, trying to save Harry Potter's life..." As he uttered Harry Potter's name, he unhesitatingly lifted his hand and slapped himself hard twice.
"Hiss—"
The man's face twitched, and he asked again, "Harry Potter, that punk who killed Voldemort (Dobby shivered and squeezed his eyes shut at the mention)? You're going to save him? What do you mean... That kid... oh, the kid should be going to school."
So, is this Hogwarts?
No wonder that William often leaves for a long time… is he attending classes?
William never revealed anything useful to the man, and not even one pattern of "Hufflepuff" or "Hogwarts" had ever appeared on him—Fenrir once speculated about William's identity, but never considered him as a student.
Ridiculous, a student wielding that "Crucio" harsher than Voldemort?
… Maybe a Professor, perhaps?
But… wouldn't he be a bit too young for that?
William's magical prowess, far beyond his youthful appearance, left Fenrir utterly perplexed.
"...Hey, you're called Dobby, right?" Fenrir shook his head, continuing to ask (he hadn't spoken to anyone other than William for months, finally having a sentient being to converse with), "Whose elf are you?"
"Dobby, Dobby can't tell you!" Dobby shouted shrilly, covering his large ears together, "You're bad, you're that Dark Lord's (he continued to shiver) servant, Dobby doesn't want to talk to you!!"
"...Your master ordered it… wait, you recognize me?" The man frowned, suddenly realizing something.
"Dobby won't tell you!"
"Is that so? Then while you're locked up here, how can you save that... Harry Potter?" Fenrir smirked, not in a hurry, "Did your master give you orders for this? To protect Harry Potter?"
"...No, it's Dobby's own mission." Dobby hesitated, looking around in confusion, "Dobby must protect Harry Potter because of the Dark Lord's… ah! Master told me to keep it secret!" He realized, quickly standing up, and violently bashing his head against the bars, "Bad Dobby, daring to defy Master's orders, bad Dobby... bad Dobby, bad Dobby!!"
"Because of the Dark Lord..." Fenrir muttered, watching the bleeding, headlong-elf, he pounded the cage again, "Stop bashing, your Master can't even see you—besides, you won't escape this cage even if you kill yourself banging."
But Dobby remained silent, continuing to bash against the bars.
Until he eventually fell unconscious—
…
"...What did you do to it?"
Looking at the bloodied, unconscious elf in the cage, William frowned after being "tortured" through two classes by Lockhart—that damn fool turning lessons into dramas was bad enough, but he even dragged people up to act...
This forced him to endure a whole session of Marcus Flint's rendition of a "cream boy."
Sigh, he remembers a hundred years ago Slytherin was quite decent. Despite the slightly high ratio of black wizards, most of the students had real skills, not to mention Ravenclaw's black wizard ratio wasn't that low either.
Like his friends in Slytherin, Sebastian Saru and Ominis Gaunt… they were his Dark Arts initiation mentors after all.
Moreover, just having a bit of dark magic doesn't make one a black wizard; such black-and-white notions are mere stereotypes of first-year wizards.
But now Slytherin… uh, greasy-haired dandy, lazy ruffian, and even hulking trolls—really makes you want to Avada Kedavra… ahem, this is getting obsessive.
And, the other houses aren't much better… Can't be because he spared no effort back then, slightly overkilling some black wizards, causing British magic to fall into decline, right?
Moreover, how many did he kill?
Units, tens, hundreds, thousands…
It's surely the fault of Voldemort, since he started the Wizard War… Call it a war, it certainly killed more than he did in those years.
Hmm… It's definitively like this.
All Voldemort's fault, he truly deserved to die.