Dobby's bat-wing ears trembled, as though he had heard something unbelievable, then oddly curled inward before immediately unfurling like an unrolled sponge cake.
All the water the sponge had originally held seemed to have been squeezed into Dobby's eyes, and eyes and eyelids never welcomed too much liquid-which raised a question: when a biped cried upside down, which way did the tears flow?
Toward the scalp-house-elves had no eyebrows.
The banknotes Brian always kept in his pocket came in handy again-he did not understand why Dobby had suddenly lost control of his emotions, but he immediately turned the hypersensitive house-elf right side up, lest those two trails of tears run all the way to the back of his head.
"Are-you all right?" Brian cautiously asked Dobby, whose feet were now on the ground-Brian was wrapped entirely in robes, his voice disguised too, looking thoroughly shady. Any passerby seeing this scene would absolutely assume he had beaten the house-elf before him.
Dobby's tennis-ball eyes were already very swollen, but with that extra film of moisture, they swelled another size-now they were waterlogged tennis balls, readily bringing to mind a dog abandoned by its owner.
Especially since this dog looked as though he had just been abused-Brian could not help waving his hand. A surge of ancient magic emerged, making some of Dobby's injuries disappear-yes, some. Once many of the fresh wounds healed, they revealed scars from old injuries, and ancient magic could not remove scars.
Heavyhearted, Brian bent down, bringing the scars closer. What he saw shocked him-these scars could never have accumulated in just a year or two.
A nameless flame of anger ignited in his chest, leaving him unable to say anything more for a moment-had this house-elf inflicted these injuries himself, or had his master done it?
Just