Now You Can Leave

The house-elf whipped his head around at the sound.

His enormous green eyes widened, his gaze landing squarely on the window recess.

Harry and Ron were still hidden beneath the Invisibility Cloak. The recess looked empty.

"Dobby heard—heard Harry Potter's voice?"

Dobby immediately hugged the Black Wooden Box tighter.

Without hesitation, he took his right hand off the brass winding mechanism and brought his slender fingers together in front of his chest.

That was how house-elves performed Apparition—

He was about to leave.

Just as Dobby was about to snap his fingers, another voice came from the stone wall behind him.

Low and arrogant, it dragged out the end of every word with an unpleasant chill.

"Dobby, put the box down!"

The voice paused for half a beat.

"Immediately!"

At that familiar voice, Dobby's ears flattened against his head. His raised hand dropped, and he immediately bent down—

Almost without thinking, he set the wooden box on the floor.

But then he realized something was wrong. It was indeed his master's voice, but it carried none of that irresistible magic.

Once he noticed that, he immediately realized he had been tricked and tried to pick the box back up, but he was already too late.

"Accio box."

Cordelia's voice rang out from the eastern side of the cross-corridor.

The wooden box shot away from Dobby's fingertips, flew more than a dozen feet just above the floor, and plunged into the empty suit of armor's open breastplate.

Gavin waved his wand at the same time.

The copper mesh hidden in advance inside the armor's abdomen, inscribed with Finite Incantatem, sprang upward like a metal mouth snapping shut, enclosing the wooden box alone.

At the same time, the breastplate closed and its latch dropped into place.

Two iron rings extended from the