Harry squinted around through the darkness. There seemed to ba a cottage a
short way away under the wide starry sky, and he thought he saw movement
outside it.

"Dobby, is this Shell Cottage?" he wispered, clutching the two wands he had
brought from the Malfoys', ready to fight if he needed to. "Have we come to the
right place? Dobby?"

He looked around. The little elf stood feet from him.

"DOBBY!"

The elf swayed slightly, stars reflected in his wide, shining eyes. Together he
and Harry looked down at the silver hilt of the knife protruding from the elf's
heaving chest.

"Dobby -- no -- HELP!" Harry bellowed toward the cottage, toward the people
moving there. "HELP!"

He did not know or care whether they were wizaards or Muggles, friends or foes;
all he cared about was that a dark stain was spreading across Dobby's front,
and that he had stretched out his thin arms to Harry with a look of
supplication. Harry caught him and laid him sideways on the cool grass.

"Dobby, no, don't die, dont't die --"

The elf's eyes found him, and his lips trembled with the effort to form words.

"Harry . . .  Potter . . . "

And then with a little shudder the elf became quite still, and his eyes were
nothing more than great glassy orbs, sprinkled with light from the stars they
could not see.