That question was a precisely cut key.
It slid into the darkest, most fearful keyhole in Winky's memory.
Then it twisted sharply.
"Aah!"
An inhuman scream exploded from Winky's tiny body.
The sound seemed to come from an abyss in another dimension, every inch steeped in the agony of being torn apart and boundless despair.
Her body convulsed violently, bouncing and twitching on the cold flagstones.
Her eyes rolled upward, leaving only two patches of ghastly white.
She broke down.
In that instant, all color drained from Ron's face, leaving it as pale as the wall behind him.
The scream became a solid icicle, piercing his eardrums and driving straight into his pounding heart.
This was the moment.
A light unlike any before burst from Dobby's tennis-ball-sized eyes.
Professor Holmes's words thundered through his mind.
"Learn to walk on your own."
He suddenly rushed out of a shadowy corner of the Kitchen.
Spreading his pitifully thin arms like an angry little bird defending its nest, he resolutely blocked the space between Moody and Winky.
He mustered every ounce of strength, his voice so shrill it almost tore him apart.
"You mustn't hurt Winky!"
"Dobby will protect her!"
"Dobby-is a free elf!"
For the first time, Moody's madly spinning Magical Eye stopped.
It froze.
It locked firmly, relentlessly onto the presumptuous little creature before him.
Across that scarred, deeply lined face.
A cold, twisted smile actually emerged, inch by inch.
"Brave little thing."
Moody's voice rolled from deep in his throat, filled with deadly menace.
"But sometimes, bravery and stupidity are separated by nothing more than a thin layer of skin."
He slowly straightened his hunched body.
His presence changed abruptly.
One moment he was a deranged interrogator; the next, he was once again the uncompromising inspector from the Hogwarts Academic