A story in which Dobby returns a favor...
This story assumes that you are familiar with the Harry Potter series.
[Insert please don't sue me disclaimer statement here]

*~-._.-~*

It was well past the midnight. and silence finally reigned in the Gryffindor common room. It took a long time for the students to calm down after the feast that was held to welcome back the petrified students. All of the students were in bed but one, Harry Potter. He was sitting in the common room staring out the window,melancholy, going over his harrowing day. For him the day was not just exciting because he was able to welcome back one of his best friends, who had been petrified for weeks. No, he had to have more excitement than anyone else in the school. He fought both a basilisk and the shade of an evil wizard, and lived to tell about it. Not only that but he managed to trick Lucius Malfoy into freeing his (slightly crazy) house elf.

Harry smiled at the thought of the newly-free elf and whispered its name, "Dobby"

Suddenly there was a crack and the elf appeared behind Harry.
"The great Harry Potter,Sir, calls for lowly Dobby?" the elf asked while bouncing in place with excess energy.

A startled Harry answered, "Oh, sorry Dobby. No, I... well yeah, but..." Harry took a breath and gathered his thoughts. After a long pause and with a faraway look in his eye he asked, "Dobby, what's it like to be free?"

Dobby saw the seriousness in Harry's question, and tried to talk calmly. He explained that he had been born into the Malfoy family, and never new anything but abuse. While he loved to work he did not like the unjust punishments he received.

"I know exactly how you feel, Dobby," Harry said.
"The great Harry Potter, Sir understands how a worthless house elf feels?" Dobby asked, incredulously.

Harry then shared with Dobby his history. He explained how life with the Dursleys was not much different than Dobby's life with the Malfoys. It was cathartic for Harry. He tried to never of his life outside of Hogwarts with his friends, because he knew they would not be able to understand. Here he was sharing things he had never dared to before, with a house elf no less, and he felt lighter for it.

Dobby listened to Harry, and felt a certain kinship with him. "The great Harry Potter set Dobby free," the elf said, looking straight into Harry's eyes. "Dobby will set Harry Potter, Sir, free."

Maybe it was the little elf's attempt at being serious, but Harry just nodded at him, and returned to looking out the window.

Late in the evenings leading up to the end of school, if one looked (which no one ever did), the two could be found talking, sharing and planning.

*~-._.-~*

The ride on the Hogwarts Express was rather uneventful for Harry and his friends. He decided to just sit and listen to the clack-clack of the cars gliding over the tracks and watch the scenery flash by. He barely joined in the conversations going on around him, satisfied to just soak up the atmosphere of being with his friends. Unlike a year previous, he was actually looking forward to returning to the Dursley's house.

At King's Cross Station, Harry said goodbye to his friends and departed with his Uncle Vernon. The whole ride back to Privet Drive, Vernon was vitriolic and verbally abusive to Harry. Most frustrating to Vernon was that he could not seem to get a reaction out of Harry - hoping as he was that the boy would talk back to him and give him a reason to punish him.

Once they arrived back to the house on Privet Drive, Vernon snapped at the boy to remove his trunk from the boot of the car, and stormed into the house. Harry did not remove his trunk, knowing that Dobby would take care of that for him. He waited a bit before following his uncle into the house. When he saw that his three relatives were about to sit down to dinner - without him of course - he called out "Family meeting, in the living room... NOW!" and stormed off to the living room to wait for them. He knew they would follow, if for nothing else then to punish him for trying to order them around.

"What's the meaning of this, boy?" Vernon blustered.

"New rules, Uncle dear," Harry responded, cheekily.

Before Vernon could work himself up into an full blown fit - or haul himself out of his favorite chair in order to smack the boy - Dobby popped in. After his relatives calmed down from their shock, and stopped squeaking and squawking, Harry explained -

"We all know that I can't preform magic when in this house. Well, this is my friend Dobby - and HE can. So it's going to be like this - you are going to start treating me like an equal part of this family, unless you want me to start acting like the criminal that you have convinced everyone that I am."

"You can't make demands on us, you freak," declared his uncle.

"Dobby," Harry calmly called, "The vase."

With a 'snap' of his fingers, Dobby made the vase on the side table disappear. Petunia squeaked.

"You see guys," Harry explained, as one would to a toddler, "When you live with a criminal things go missing. Take that nice new car in the driveway - one day you may wake up and it wont be there. Then when you call the police, they will find it hundreds of miles away. Of course you'll tell them it was me, a twelve year old who can't drive mind you - but you will try to convince them that I had something to do with it. Of course, I will have an alibi, and they will have no way of tying me to the crime. As a matter of fact, they may start to think that you were trying to bilk the insurance agency. And then, while they are here as part of the investigation, I may just start to remember my improperly healed broken arm, and the crack in my head that was never stitched or treated, and the fact that my door has locks on the outside. and imagine what their surprise will be when you tell them not to believe me because I go to St. Brutus' and they find no record of me there, but do at Thor W. Sag School for the Gifted in Scotland, affectionately known by the student body as it's anagram: 'Hogwarts'...
"So, unless Dudley and I are treated equally from now on, things may go missing. fires may be set, people may get hurt... you never know what might happen, living with a 'criminal' and all. I will do chores if he does. I will be fed normal portions. I will have the same curfew and other rules. Understood?"

When all of his relatives nodded to confirm they understood he told Dobby to return the vase.

"Must I, Harry Potter, Sir?" Dobby complained.

"Yes Dobby, you must."

"But it truly is ugly," Dobby said by way of explanation.

Harry just shrugged, but gave him the 'hurry up' sign.

'Snap' and the vase was returned.

After dinner, which Harry was reluctantly included in, Harry brought up another topic with his aunt and uncle.

"Aunt Petunia, I need some money for decent clothes."

Apparently, it was his Aunt's turn to vent her spleen. "You terrible child. First you threaten us, and now you want to take Vernon's hard earned money, when what you have is perfectly fine!" she screeched, as Vernon and Dudley nodded their heads in agreement.

"Dobby," Harry called out, and the elf instantly appeared. "Please show my family exactly what 'perfectly fine' is."

With a wave of Dobby's hands and a 'clap', all of the Dursley's clothes were transformed into those similar in style and proportion and Harry's clothing.

"Thank you Dobby, now we are all dressed as my aunt thinks is appropriate"

Petunia was too shocked to respond, but Vernon, whose color had become quite an interesting shade of red, was never one to hold back on saying what he was thinking.

"Boy, this is an outrage! We are decent people we can't be seen dressed like this. You tell that slave of yours to change us back this instant!" he demanded.

Harry looked over his relatives. Dudley was in clothing that could have been Vernon's hand-me-downs, they were so large. Vernon's clothes were also too large for his enormous frame, and quite worn out looking. Aunt Petunia was dressed in clothes that probably came directly out of Harry's trunk. She looked raggedy and ill-kept. Her thin frame reminded Harry of his own, and it made him realize just how he must have looked to others all for his whole life.

As Vernon's rant died down, Harry simply held out his hand, waiting for some money to be put into it. Vernon handed over a wad of bills, not even bothering to count it.

Harry smiled. "Now that wasn't so difficult, was it?" he asked sarcastically.

Dobby then waved his hands and the Dursley's clothing was all returned to it original form.

*~-._.-~*

Well past midnight, a few nights later, Harry was staring out of the window of his bedroom window, melancholy. He was thinking about how things had changed for him. He knew he should be happy, finally being treated decently by his relatives, finally not being treated as free summer labor. Yes, he knew it was only because of the threat of Dobby that they were behaving like this, but it gave him a taste of what could have been, what should have been.