For disclaimer and author notes please see chapter 1.
1986-01-01 06:00 UTC, Malfoy Manor
Harry woke up in a small, somewhat cramped, bed. If you could call a wooden plank with half of a thin, worn, tablecloth a "bed".
The first few minutes were very confusing. Knowing what was happening, Harry kept his consciousness quiet. He had no idea if the just-grown-to-adulthood Dobby was still in there or not, despite the deal he had made with the man. But after a few minutes of quiet, he realised he was alone in this mind. There was no Dobby here.
God bless you, my little friend; I know you're happy up there, and I'd like to think that, if you were even more different than you were, you'd like what I am going to be doing as you. Having muttered this half-prayer, half-thanks quietly, Harry, or rather, Hobby, left the room.
Walking out of the room he shared with the other Malfoy elf (Nolly, he suddenly thought, as that memory faded in), Hobby stopped just before the door leading to the rear of the kitchen. He paused for a few seconds to get his bearings, and tried to assimilate Dobby's knowledge. Unfortunately, there seemed to be more than Harry had expected - knowledge that nearly made him retch and empty out his stomach, even if it was, at present, empty anyway.
The death-eaters had not really stopped doing any of the things they did while Riddle was alive. They had merely paused for about 6 months, then started right back. The only nod to the changed circumstances was that they stopped trying to do anything to "blood traitors" and half-bloods; only muggle-born and muggles were picked, in both cases they made sure not a single other magical was anywhere nearby.
At the moment there were three prisoners in the dungeons. It was Dobby's job to feed them in the morning; the gruel and dry bread was to be prepared only once a week - no need to waste fresh food on animals anyway.
This was Hobby's first challenge, and in many ways it would define how he intended to go about his second chance and complete his mission: viz. to help the Harry of this timeline - currently a five year-old in a muggle home - lead a happy life free of all the crap that he had gone through in his time. He, Hobby, would play the whole wizarding world like puppets to make sure of that. And he would do it without Harry, Hermione, Sirius, or anyone else even knowing he existed. After all, he was just a house-elf!
The adult death-eaters, of course, deserved no mercy. But the children... well, to be honest, some of the children were not much better; at the tender age of 8 (that is, in a couple of years), Draco would be taught some simple hexes to fire at the prisoners, and he would take great pleasure in doing so. The whole question of "nature versus nurture" did not interest Harry very much, mainly because he was sure Dumbledore was using Harry himself as a test case for this. After all, by that logic he should have been a mean bully. In any case, the "nurture" had already happened, the "nature" had already set - just deal with it and don't waste time playing "what-if", he thought to himself.
He thought about this while he collected the prisoners' breakfast. He threw the gruel and bread into the trash, and quickly made up a fresh batch of soup; warm, but thin - he knew all of them had been starved for weeks and giving them anything stronger would not be a good idea; they would have to be slowly stepped up to real food. While preparing their breakfast, he quickly made himself a large-ish sandwich - finding himself very hungry - and polished it off. He then picked up a few slices of fresh bread, toasted them lightly (no butter, for the same reason!) put them all on a tray, and went down into the dungeons.
The two men were young and strong. Once. Now you could barely see any sign of that - they looked like skeletons, but worse, they looked like old skeletons. Hollow, sunken cheeks, wrinkled skin hanging in loose flabs, bony elbows and knees poking through holes in clothes worn to tatters by dragging themselves away from their captors, in desperate but useless attempts to escape. A scant few weeks was all it had taken to bring them to this, and Hobby nearly wept to see them.
The third person was in much better shape; for some reason she had not been treated as badly, but she was just a child, and Hobby feared for her mental state. She had been here the longest - almost eight months now, if Hobby could piece together Dobby's memories correctly. She was kidnapped a few weeks before her Hogwarts letter would have arrived at her muggle home, surprising her parents with the news that a secret world existed just out of their ken. She had no idea if her parents were alive or dead, and had stopped crying to herself in her sleep. There were no more tears, just as there was no more hope of anything changing. In the beginning she used to try and keep track of how long she was in this hellish place, but now she had no clue. And no interest. Her eyes said it all, as she turned mechanically at the sound of the door opening.
And now Hobby really wept.
Hobby realised he would have to start making a list. Mentally he started it: put this girl back at home, find her parents, protect Hermione and her parents (how?), and finally protect Harry, especially during the incident on his 7th birthday.
That was the "good" list, and there was a lot more to be added (when exactly did Luna's mother die? Could he help Nevile's parents?). He reminded himself that he had to do all this without this Harry even knowing about his existence in any way, shape, or form. He was even more worried about Hermione - she was smart enough to figure out something was wrong if she was even remotely involved with this, and yet he needed to make sure that this timeline's Harry and Hermione became friends as early as possible. Without help from a troll, thank you very much!
Plenty of time for that; got more immediate stuff to take care of!, thought Hobby.
Like today, he said to himself. One of Malfoy's friends, Flint, was expected shortly before lunch for a spot of torturing the prisoners. An unpleasant, crude man, the days he visited were some of the worst for the poor prisoners. He tortured them as if he would be denied the pleasure soon and was trying to make the most of it while it lasted. If the prisoners had been at his home, he would have been at them all the time; none of the prisoners would have survived past a week. This was why he no longer did this himself, but came around to the Malfoys, and maybe others', to take his "pleasure". Oh my God, am I praising the Malfoys, even if only with a back-handed compliment?, thought Hobby.
He started with the girl (how the heck did I have the foresight to ask for knowledge of healing? Anyway, thank God I did!), gently levitating her a few inches while he transformed her so-called bed into something much closer to a real one. At least in softness and warmth, if not shape and height. Keeping her levitated, he replaced her dirty, torn, clothes with fresh, clean, hospital clothes, in a light shade of pink, with a pattern of small blue flowers all over.
He healed her surface wounds, bruises, abrasions, and so on in very short order. A quick scan of her innards showed that other than one bruised - but not fractured - rib, nothing else seemed to be wrong; all the vital organs were in good shape. All in all, he found himself once again surprised by the fact that she was being treated so well.
He would not realise till much later why this was so.
Hobby then turned to the two men, put their soup bowls and bread in front of them on a conjured table, and asked them to eat. "Slowly please; your stomach won't take it if you eat too fast". While they were eating, he gently and lovingly fed the girl her soup and bread, until her dull, dead expression had slowly faded to show some emotion - even if it was just confusion.
After he judged her to have had what she could safely eat at this time, Hobby gently asked her what her name was (Emily MacEgan, apparently), and where she lived (she gave an address in a small town called Corston, near Bath). Hobby then put her to sleep, picked her up and elf-apparated out of Malfoy Manor straight to St Mungo's. He dropped her off at the reception, with a note attached to her gown explaining that she was a muggle-born who had had a really bad accident and needed to get well before she went home. He would come back later for her.
He then jumped to the Flint residence. Marcus Flint was just about the age where he would be starting Hogwarts, and if ever there was a candidate for mindless death-eater wannabe, it was Marcus.
He quietly slipped into the house. The Flint elves knew Dobby of course, but he did not want to meet any of them. Quietly casting a revealing spell and keeping it active, he made his way undetected to Marcus's room.
The boy was still sleeping, legs flung all over, body half under and half over the comforter. Hobby transformed him into an exact likeness of the girl he had just put into St Mungo's, jumped to the Malfoy's dungeons with him, turned himself invisible, and woke him up.
The boy woke up with a raging temper. "Where the hell am I?" Hobby hit him with an imperio: "you are a ten year-old girl. You don't remember your name, if asked, and you will answer no other questions, except to point to those two dead men and scream your head off. Once those men have been taken away, you will eat when you are told to, otherwise you will just sit there."
Then he put the girl to sleep and turned himself visible again.
By this time the two men were openly staring at him, but were too scared to say anything. One of them finally got up the courage to speak up. "Who are you and what will you do to us? Why did you refer to us as dead men - are you going to kill us? And why did you take the girl out in good clothes, then bring her back in her old ones?"
Hobby was quick to reply. "No sirs, I am going to save you, but you may not want to watch what I will be doing before that, sirs; please look away. As for the girl, she is safe, sirs, and this one is a replica".
He looked about the dungeon for something suitable, like a log of wood or something. But then he saw a rat scurrying past, and he realised that was even better. He summoned two rats, then transformed them into exact replicas of the two men. He then ordered the two transfigured men to fight, clawing each other everywhere they could, and finally strangling each other to death.
One of the men, the same one who had spoken up, did not take his advice. He was now retching, though he did not have much in his stomach to actually disgorge. The sight was gruesome enough, but to see yourself as one of the participants? Uggh!
Hobby waved a hand over him to help with the nausea, and said "I did warn you, sir!" Then he healed them of the worst of their injuries, especially those that muggle medicine may have trouble with, or take too long.
Hobby then took both of their hands, and jumped to the back room of a muggle post-office he knew of near Grimmauld Place that was closed at this time, but would open in a couple of hours. He told them that they could tell the cops whatever they wanted, as long as "magic" did not enter into it. They were not allowed to speak of magic to anyone, more for their own sake (who would believe them?) than for the statute of secrecy (which I care two hoots for). They should say they were kidnapped and tortured but then the kidnappers, who were speaking in a language they did not understand, appeared to have some quarrel amongst themselves, and someone just dumped them here and left. They did not see anyone's faces and they think it was a case of mistaken identity.