The Draught of Living Death Chapter 13: Dobby's Secret, a harry potter fanfic

The Draught of Living Death

Chapter Thirteen: Dobby's Secret

Harry sat on the edge of his bed cradling the small owl Arthur in his hands. Hedwig sat on Harry's shoulder looking down at the small excuse for an owl. The larger owl's eyes displayed his thoughts. So small, he seemed to say… what use would he be to anyone.

Harry raised a hand and stroked a finger just above Hedwig's beak. Hedwig jumped down to get a closer look at Arthur, but now, instead of seeing disapproval in Hedwig's eyes, Harry instead saw pity and sadness. Hedwig nudged the small owl against its back. With that small nudge, the small owl flew up a few feet and landed next to Hedwig.

"You will watch him, won't you girl," Harry asked the older bird. He heard the door of the dormitory open and looked up as Ginny poked her head in.

"Do you have all your stuff moved?" she asked softly.

"Yeah, just finished with it actually."

"Okay," Ginny blushed, "I can't lift my trunk."

Harry smiled and stood. "You lifted it before, didn't you?"

"Dad's weightless charm wore off. It's only a three day charm. That and my trunk seems to get twice as heavy every time I repack it."

Harry followed Ginny up to her dorm room. "The Boy Guard goes back up in a few hours right?" he asked.

"Yeah," Ginny said, "I'm not sure I want this thing to turn into a slide while you're carrying a trunk down it. Hermione said McGonagall was going to put the charm back up right before everyone gets here."

"One more time," Harry said as he hefted her trunk up, "Why exactly do they take the boy guard down during the summer?"

"Okay," Ginny said as she opened the door for him. "I don't know how long you were in regular school or how much you learned about the immune system."

"Just the basics really. I remember the doctor telling Aunt Petunia that if she kept pumping Dudley with penicillin every year his system would stop responding to it."

"Okay, perfect example. In the Immune system we develop certain antibodies that cause us to recover or whatever, I'm not sure of the specifics. This is something they only teach the Physics of Magic class. Professor Flitwick teaches that to his sixth and seventh year students. Anyway, the world itself has an immune system too. It works as hard as it can to overcome the different types of Magic that occur inside it. Unfortunately as time has gone by, Magic is no longer in the normal order of things, and so the world has started seeing it as a disease rather than a medicine."

"So it fights it then?"

"Yes, it fights it in a number of different ways. You probably had chicken pox when you were a kid right?"

"I never did, but Dudley did."

"Okay, but you also noticed that after he had it that once, he never had it again."

"Yeah, he never had it again. About three months after he had it the first time, he took a red marker and put dots on his face though. Aunt Petunia thought I did it." Harry smiled.

Ginny opened the door to her dormitory. "Well, that's because his system learned how to fight it. Over the years, spells have had to change either in makeup or in words in order to trick nature into excepting it without realizing it is outside the natural order. That is why spells, especially protection spells, are often raised and recast a certain number of time per year. The Spell Guarders are in charge of making sure that the really strong spells aren't cast very frequently."

"That seems to make sense," Harry said as he set the trunk at the foot of her bed. He then turned and sat on it.

"Actually that's why the restrictions on underage wizardry are so strict. They're worried that underage wizards are going to cast spells every chance they get and that it will mess with the magical immune system."

"Yeah, I guess if danger were really the concern, they would find a way to stop toddlers from releasing magical energy the way they do."

"Exactly," Ginny said as she sat beside him on the trunk.

"It's really a nice theory, but have any of the magical spells really ceased to exist?"

"Think about it, Harry, why do you think wandless magic is so rare now? In the days of Merlin, hand wizards were common place. Wizards and Witches who could control magic by thought alone, were rare, but they still existed. Eventually the natural order of the world gained an immunity to the rawness of the unfocused power, so wands were created to direct the magic into specific areas."

"Ah, which is why wands don't work so well when they're broken. The unfocused power reminds the… uh… natural order of the pieces it's immune to, and so it can follow those bits and fight them off, leading to spells backfiring on the wizard."

"Yes, as you saw when Ron had slugs for dinner."

Harry shuddered. "That was not a pretty sight."

"Neither was Lockhart removing all the bones in your arm, but we still remember it."

"Point taken." Harry stood and brushed his pants off. "Where are Ron and Hermione."

"Library, Hermione seems to take solace in that place, even though she knows that the answers can't always be found there. I guess it gives her a sense of control. Harry?"

Harry turned just as he was about to head down the stairs. "Ginny?" he said with a smile.

"I heard something about you, that the summer after your second year you caused your aunt to inflate and float without a wand."

"More of a result of anger release, I had no direct intention of doing that."

"All the same," Ginny said moving towards him at the top of the steps. "Most young wizards grow out of that… that raw unfocused power that comes purely from the will to make something happen, even subconsciously. They train our minds very thoroughly to make sure that stops happening."

"I was angry," Harry shrugged.

"And I've never seen a wizard or witch who released raw energy after the age of nine. After the age of nine, we subconsciously begin to control it, even muggle borns like Hermione."

"So you're saying there's something wrong with me because I can't control my unfocused energy?"

"No, I'm saying there's something special about you because of it. Did you even move your hands when you did it?"

"Not that I can remember," Harry murmured. "I think I just sort of squinted my eyes and it happened."

"There hasn't been a documented wizard in over thirty years who could control their surroundings by will alone."

"Who was the last one documented?"

"A young boy, with a muggle father and a witch mother."

Harry's eyes began to grow wide. "You're joking, right?"

"His name was Tom Marvolo Riddle. It was documented one time when he caused a book in the charms classroom to float off of his desk, touch the ceiling and return to the desk, without ever looking at it."

"So you're saying I've got another reason why I have to face Voldemort?"

"Because you're the only one who has anywhere near the same types of powers as he does."

"That doesn't sound like fun," Harry muttered. "If it's all the same to you, I'd just like to put this aside for a little while until we have to think about it."

"If that's what you want, Harry."

Ginny moved forward and wrapped her arms around his shoulders. "The other kids will be here in two hours," she said. "It looks like everything will go back to normal now."

Harry smiled and placed a finger under Ginny's chin, raising it so that her eyes met his. "You have to be kidding. Me and you are together and you except anything to ever be normal again?"

Ginny giggled and leaned forward to press her lips to his. Suddenly she felt the floor shift out from under her and her and Harry were sliding down the stairwell, crashing into the floor together. Ginny broke into laughter.

"I guess some of the boy guards never go down. The natural order must approve of some of them."

Harry pretended to pout at first, then broke into laughter with her.

"Let's enjoy the next two hours, it's starting to get dark. I want to see the stars with you."

Harry grasped Ginny's hand firmly into his and pulled her off the floor. Seconds later they were chasing each other down the spiraling staircases, arguing about the best lookout point.

~ * ~

Hermione paged through the pile of books she had found on house elves in the library. She looked at the convenient cross-references in the back.

"House Elf Registry," she read aloud. She carefully checked the call number and then walked over to the shelf to attempt to get it down. Seeing it was at the very top, she reached with her fingertips to try to nudge it loose.

"Where's Madame Pince when I need her," she muttered. She considered using a summoning spell, then remembered that Madame Pince had very strict anti-magic wards on the library. She claimed they were to protect the books, but Hermione guessed that the woman liked to watch people search libraries in the traditional fashion instead of summoning everything.

Hermione stretched a little further, just barely nudging the binding of the book then sighing in frustration as she only managed to push it further back. She suddenly felt a shadow fall over her. She gasped in surprise as she felt Ron's body brush lightly against hers as he reached over her head and easily pulled the book down for her. He placed it in her hands and wandered back to his chair.

Stop being silly, Hermione ordered herself, he was just trying to help.

"Thank you," Hermione managed.

"No hardship on me," Ron replied with a grin, and then went back to reading the history of Quidditch book that he had located.

"You know, Ron, if you studied Tranfiguration…"

"…Half as much as I study Quidditch," Ron finished. "So you've told me before. What did you find?" he asked her, trying to avoid the subject she had opened.

"I'm not sure yet," she said. "It's supposed to be a registry and history of all the house elves that work here at Hogwarts." Hermione flipped open towards the back and found Winky's name first. "Wow, this even lists all of her previous owners," Hermione murmured. "Her first owner and her three most recent. Bartemus Crouch, Senior, given to Bartemus Crouch, Jr., given back to Bartemus Crouch, Senior, released for inferior service, given sanctuary by Albus Dumbledore. Wow, the way they phrase that, it's horrible."

Ron had to agree, but he wasn't going to say so. "Look up Dobby. I'm curious now."

"It says, owned by Lucius Malfoy, released for non-compliance, given sanctuary by Albus Dumbledore. Actually all of them end with given sanctuary by Albus Dumbledore."

"So Dumbledore has been adopting the house elves that are released from service for one reason or another?"

"It certainly looks that way," Hermione responded. "I knew he had a big heart, but to adopt so many house elves… that's phenomenal… wait, this is odd."

"What's that?"

"According to this registry, when you helped release Dobby before, it wasn't the first time Dobby had ever been released from service, or the first time he had ever worked for Dumbledore."

"That is interesting, does it say what happened?"

"It says that Dobby was owned by Vincent Malfoy, Lucius Malfoy's father. He was released due to a hereditary question that nullified Lucius' inheritance. Lucius regained Dobby four years later, but that also happened about the same time Harry's parents were in school here."

"So, in other words, Dobby knows something about James and Lily that he's not telling us."

"Well, yes, that and something else very important, that I'm sure Lucius made sure to delete record of… except the one record he couldn't touch. Hogwarts."

"What are you talking about, Hermione?"

"Lucius Malfoy, was a half-blood. Vincent Malfoy was not his real father."

"Where did you find that information?" Ron asked in surprise.

"Underneath the profile of the owner Vincent Malfoy. It says that his wife was caught in an affair with a muggle about eight months before Lucius was born."

"People don't have any secrets around here, do they? You could really find out anything you wanted to about someone in that book?"

"Only if they owned a house elf, and only the information that directly pertains to incidents involving that house elf."

"So there would be a lot of information about Dumbledore in here, right?"

"Not really, since he's not really their… master," Hermione told him, the word 'master' coming out as a half growl. "They are technically residents of the household."

"Oh, well, what else does it say about Malfoy's family then?"

"Her murder was unsolved, but she died shortly after she had Lucius. It says Vincent raised Lucius as his own but never told him the truth, and always vowed that no half-muggle child would ever inherit any of his belongings. Lucius failed to prove paternity, but later on, the Ministry of Magic ruled that because Vincent's name was on Lucius's birth certificate, it still made him his only rightful heir."

"Wow," Ron said so softly it was almost a sigh. "This is more information than I trust myself with," Ron told her.

"Well, you're going to have trust yourself with it, because if anyone finds out we know, we could be the next unsolved murder. It looks like Lucius would do anything to prevent people from finding out who he really is."

"Wow…" Ron breathed again.