The Plan, Dobby, and Harry (3)

Lucius pretended not to see. He turned a page of parchment, frowning as though pondering some important matter. Then he stood, walked to the fireplace, turned his back to Dobby, took a small bottle from his pocket, and poured some powder into the flames.

The flames turned emerald green. He murmured a few words—so quietly that Dobby could not make them out—then the fire returned to orange-red.

This whole sequence had been carefully arranged, meant to make Dobby think his master was busy and would not notice what it was doing.

Lucius stood before the fireplace for a while, then turned and returned to his desk. He took a thick notebook from a drawer, opened it, and began writing. His movements were natural, as if he had completely forgotten Dobby was there.

Meanwhile, the parchment containing intelligence about the Room of Requirement "accidentally" slipped onto the carpet, less than two meters from the area Dobby was cleaning.

Dobby covertly shot a quick glance at Lucius, who was "reading." After seeing that he had not noticed, it hurriedly moved in front of the parchment. Its rag went back and forth across the tabletop, but its eyes remained fixed on the parchment. Its ears stood straight up—that was the distinctive posture House-Elves took when concentrating.

It struggled to use its rather dim little mind to etch the "intelligence" on the parchment into its memory.

Lucius did not look up. He continued writing, the scratch of his quill against the paper sounding like some kind of lullaby, making Dobby lower its guard.

At last, Dobby finished wiping the table. It retreated to one side and lowered its head. "Master, the cleaning is finished."

Only then did Lucius look up, his gaze sweeping over the tabletop before—

"What is this?" His voice abruptly turned