Disclaimer: All of this belongs to JKR

Sorry I haven't updated in a while. I've been traveling and haven't had the opportunity to get to a computer with internet connection.

Anyway, in light of the HP6 premier........here's something new!

Hope you enjoy!!!

Dobby's Greatest Secrets

He was born free. Unlike all other house elves who begin work the day they're born and continue to slave for their masters until they die, he was born free. He didn't work until he was several years old. He didn't do anything but play with his young master and keep him company until he was at least four. When he was born, his mother took pride in keeping him from all work that was thrown at him and his masters realized that such a young elf could do nothing useful for them. They gave him to their son as a present, entrusted him into their son Lucius' care until he was old enough to do solid labor for them. And he liked Lucius. They were friends, and the young Malfoy didn't treat him badly or like an inferior until he left for school. He got a rudimentary education with Lucius, learned to read and write the basic letters and could do simple arithmetic. And all of that, everything he'd known and seen since he was a baby, set him free. Because, unlike every other house elf, he had his own mind, his own thoughts, his own unique character. And he……he was always free.

From the moment he was born, his mother began telling him stories, wonderful stories of a mysterious world beyond Malfoy Manor, a world filled with all kinds of creatures, centaurs, giants, and even the occasional freethinking liberal wizard who wouldn't treat him like vermin. She narrated wild fantasies of a magical school built like an old, gothic castle with a headmaster with long white hair and flowing robes who was kind to everyone and students of all colors and creeds who came together in a great hall with a ceiling enchanted to look like the sky above. She told him about her travels when she was a girl and she went with her mistress everywhere. She told him about how her mistress met Master Abraxas and how they got married and how she helped her mistress cress for the wedding in a robe made entirely of white silk and diamonds and how she helped her through her labor during which she delivered a healthy boy named Master Lucius. His mother told him everything, created a world for him much larger than the small cupboard where they lived with all his siblings who became laborers under the Malfoys. His mother forced him to dream of a world beyond his life here, told him to always look to the horizon for something better, for a world more illustrious and grand than he could even imagine. And she taught him more than any other person in the world.

When his mother died, he became the private, personal servant to Master Lucius. He did everything for Lucius, took care of him so well that Lucius's mother never once had to do anything for her son, never once had to comfort him or give him his school books or clean his room. And he took pride in his work. Like every other house elf, his mother's stories faded into myth and his world began to revolve around the young master. His world was Lucius and Lucius's comfort. His world became the room where he grew up and the Slytherin dormitory where to did everything, even homework, for his growing master, for the master who was slowly emulating the cruelty of his parents, for a master who never once showed him love or kindness or gratitude, for a master who used him to play cruel pranks on people or to practice curses on, for a master he grew up serving, but grew to hate.

But no matter how much Lucius Malfoy abused him, he never dreamed of freedom, not until he met James Potter. Master Lucius was in his seventh year and Dobby had a deep cut down the side of his face from a recent……experiment of master. He had gone to deliver some of Master Lucius' robes to the laundry elves when a boy carrying his own clothes down stopped him and asked him who he was. When he told him, the boy scowled, a deep, almost hateful look that shook him to his core. But when the boy saw that he'd scared him, he bent to shake his hand, offering to him like he was an equal. My name is James Potter, the boy had said, smiling at him. He told him that, at home, house elves weren't slaves, weren't petty servants who could be abused at a moment's notice. The boy had helped him carry the pile of laundry before healing his cut and offering him half of his breakfast bun. The boy asked him to come for a walk with, treated him like an equal, like a friend, and he found himself confiding in this boy, and he found the boy confiding in him. They became friends and over the course of an afternoon, Dobby began to dream again. He began to look again, just beyond the hills of the Scottish Bluffs that surrounded Hogwarts. He began to look for freedom, to learn for his own pleasure, to want more than anything else what his mother's stories had taught him was possible. A home. Respect. Love. The chance to be his own person. And he turned and swore to James Andrew Potter that he would never forget who he was again.

But he did. Because when Lucius Malfoy found out that he was talking to Potter Boy, when Lucius Malfoy found out that his house elf, his slave was thinking, dreaming, wondering of a place beyond the hills where he would be free, his rage was terrible. His rage was beyond anything Dobby had seen before. It was like his master was replaced by a devil, like his kind companion who had turned cold had unleashed the daemon within him. And Dobby feared for his life that night, when Lucius stood over him, wand in hand, eyes burning with a maniacal fire. He'd never felt so much pain before, but the deed was done. The seed was planted. The doubt had come. And he could never be just a simple old house elf again. He could never obey without wondering why life had condemned him to this position. He could never take pride in his work the same way again. He could never work for the Malfoys without understanding that it was slave labor that fueled the world he was born into. Slave labor. And suddenly, the world became bigger, darker, and brighter than ever before. Suddenly, he under understood and he had a purpose. To be free, to be truly free. And he fought for his freedom with every breath in his body until the day he died.

When Lucius married Narcissa, he thought for maybe a second, for fraction of a lifetime, that his master would forgive him, that he would stop hurting him and devising ingenious punishments for him when he failed to do – as he so often did – what his master required of him. He thought for a minute that maybe Lucius would fall so completely in love with this beautiful and passive nymph that he'd discovered in school that he would forget all about him, all about the little house elf given to him as a gift so long ago and let go about his work without any problems, without any curses or punishments, and let heal for the first time in years. He thought for a fraction of a second that maybe Mistress Narcissa, whom he'd heard Master Lucius call a gem, a pear, a white lily, and every other name he could think of, for whom he'd seen Master Lucius spend hours pouring over books of poetry to win, for whom he'd seen Master fight for, kill for, do anything for……..he thought that maybe Mistress would be caring, would be kind to him, would be like flower petals, softening her husband and helping him reconcile with the kindness that he'd seen in him before. But when Narcissa's eyes first turned on him, he knew that he would never again find happiness with the Malfoys. Because she was stone, beautiful and cold and everything that his master deserved, a vile, simpering, weak maiden who could no more oppose her husband and stand on her own feet than a bas relief could exist without the wall behind it, than a creeping rose bush could stand without a post.

But when Draco was born, he fell in love with the innocent life held in Mistress's arms. He fell in love with Draco's smile and his warm eyes and the passive gentleness captured in the baby Master's grin. He wanted to protect Draco, to do anything for him, to care for him the way his mother cared for him, to teach him to love and trust and understand, and to be free. And whether because they trusted him or because Mistress and Master just couldn't be bothered to raise their own child, they ordered Dobby's sister to take care of him and for Dobby to help. They put him in charge of the nursery, in charge of care and entertainment, in charge of their son for the first five years of his life. And in those years, those glorious years, he knew that he could love again. He knew that he could forgive Master Lucius and live with them and be happy as their equal, as a respected member of the family. But when Draco was taken out of his care and given to a human pureblood nanny, he knew that it was just a fantasy. When Draco emulated his father in every way, he knew that he couldn't stay. He could never by happy in Malfoy Manor again.

Then, when Master Draco was twelve years old, he heard rumblings of a Dark order once more. He'd been hurt by Voldemort and his master during the last war. He had rejoiced with the rest of his kind when the Dark Lord was overthrown by young Harry Potter. He had celebrated with Young Master Draco. But when he heard of his Master's plan to destroy Harry Potter, to pass off one of the Dark Lord's old school things to young Ginny Weasley, when he heard of the Chamber of Secrets and the terrible things that were destined to happen in Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, he knew he had to help. He had to warn Harry Potter. He had to save the life of the Boy Who Lived, who had saved them all, and to whose father he owed a life debt. He was forever bound by the memory of James Potter, and he had to help his son, or he could never know peace.

He did everything for Harry Potter. He saw everything in Harry, the same promise, the same light and the same hope that he saw in Harry's father, James, in the boy who treated him like an equal for the first time in his life and taught him to look beyond the hill to life that was waiting on the other side. So he protected Harry, fought a secret war for him, did everything for him, because he knew that Harry Potter was the only hope they had. So, when Harry set him free, when he went to work for Hogwarts and met the great Albus Dumbledore for the first time and he was treated like an equal, he knew he was happy. When he met Hermione Granger and talked to the friends of the Great Harry Potter, he knew that he was free. When he received his first wages, he knew that the valley on the other side of the hill, the life that James Potter had promised him so long ago was here.

But then, Voldemort returned, and his Harry Potter was in danger, was being hunted like an animal and the great Albus Dumbledore was dead. He didn't know what to do, or where to turn, so he found Aberforth. He saved who he could and fought whatever battle he could. So when he heard that Harry Potter and his friends had been captured, he couldn't stay. He knew that he would die saving them. He knew that it was his last mission. But he owed a debt to both Harry and his father. They gave him his freedom. They taught him to dream. So when he died, he could finally rest in peace. Free at last.

PLEASE REVIEW!!! I'd love to hear from everyone with suggestions. What you liked, what you didn't, what I could improve on, and any character you'd like to see.

:-D and thanks for all the reviews I've already gotten.