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As always, I'm French, and i don't have a beta, so every mistake is my own. If you spot something, don't hesitate to tell me! Also, I welcome reviews and ideas for new chapters. Ideas can be serious, or completely out of the charts too.
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Free
Dobby was free. He was free!
As of ten minutes ago, he'd catch a dirty sock and put down his newly former master down. He fantasized about it so many times, it was a dream come true. The look on Lucius Malfoy's face. He would treasure it forever.
He was free!
But now, what to do? What free elves did? Usually, die, unless they found another wizard or family to bond with. But Dobby was determined to stay free, and to stay alive too. He wanted to work, for sure, he was an elf after all and elves needed work to be happy. But he wanted to be paid too, because he valued his work and so should others. He had never ever met any elf who thought the same.
Never the less, Dobby was determined. Harry Potter had given him the gift of freedom, and he would not squander it! He talked to him like an equal, so Dobby wouldn't settle for less!
What free people did with their money? They all had a Gringotts' account. So, Dobby went to Gringotts. After a short meeting with a teller, Dobby was dejected. To open an account, you needed Gold. Dobby had no money, he had never been paid in his life!
Consequently, Dobby set on finding work. He went to every magical families he knew, to no avail. No one wanted him. They sneered at him, they dismissed him, they insulted him. Someone even tried to kick him, and another one came close to hex him. Strangely, Dobby was invigorated by this less than warm welcome. Harry Potter had his fare share of detractors too. He'd been diminished, snubbed, people even attempted to kill him! But he prevailed, and Dobby would do the same.
Knockturn Alley wasn't a place for little weaklings, but he wasn't weak, Dobby kept repeating himself when he entered the dark and malevolent maze of shady corners and narrow paths. Most wizards didn't know, but Knockturn Alley wasn't just an alley, it was like a complete neighbourhood for the unfortunates and scums of the society. Somehow, Dobby was one too now. In this place, nobody would look too closely at him, nobody wanted to know exactly with whom they had business with, for fear of it being reciprocated. He could work there, where people didn't really care about your size, as long you showed them that you weren't prey. He didn't know if he would end up prey for some of them, but he wouldn't know until he tried, right? He was without master for months now, and he didn't die, his magic wasn't even weaker, contrary to everything every elf had ever said on the matter. It was proof that things people thought were irrevocable weren't.
He was free. He would remain it. If finding work, and pay, in Knockturn Alley was the way to achieve that, he would do it. Eating wild plants was getting tiresome, and he needed to be in highly saturated magical areas to sustain his magic, and consequently life.
Dobby soon became known as The Cleaner. Cleaning was a specialty of elves, and he was really good at it. The fact that he was cleaning bodies without leaving any traces of their existences in the first place, was a very sought out skill. The Aurors were puzzled any time they had to investigate the alleged crime scenes he cleaned out. There was just no proof, not even remnants of magic. No one ever thought a house elf could be responsible for it. Not even his employers. He was just the cleaning service, and they were willing to pay handsomely for it, as Dobby discovers one day.
He had two clients accosting him that day. When they both tried to book him, he told them that he couldn't do two jobs at the same time. Dobby was very annoyed, he would lose clients! But they started to haggle, trying to outbid each other to have his favours. After that, The Cleaner just set up a board in one of the dingy pubs one could find in the alley, on which he put every service he could offer and people could just outbid each other for it. Sometimes, clients asked him for things he didn't officially offer, and if he managed to do it, it would be added to the board. He became very rich.
Elves were very good at absorbing ambient magic, in order to sustain their own. That was how they survived, and why so many of them thought they needed a master (who provided the magic) to live. Dobby developed this talent to the point of perfection, leaving places almost magicless when needed. The Cleaner became sought out any time someone, or something, needed to clean magical traces, mostly dark magic. He became famous for being able to slowly erode curses in objects, and being able to weaken cursed wounds.
Some werewolves befriended him even, after he helped them ease their curses. Hopefully, elves absorbed magic but not the intent of it, so it wasn't harmful to Dobby. He became more and more powerful, being surrounded by so much magic to make his own all the time.
Of course, he opened a Gringotts account the minute he had enough cash to do it. He even got some contracts with the goblins once they understood his potential.
And he became the very proud owner of many, many socks. They were the symbol of his freedom, after all.
Dobby's life changed again when he heard that the Dark Lord had been resurrected. Of course, he had worked for "former" Death Eater, making them pay a very high price for his services. He relished in taking their Gold, and buying socks with it, and investing it in muggle-born businesses after the goblins counselled him to invest. Well, when word got around that Voldemort was rising again, Dobby set out to find how to help Harry Potter vanquish him. His worship of the lad hadn't stopped, it even got stronger (if it could be) when he saw him master task after task at the Tri-Wizard Tournament.
He infiltrated the Malfoy Manor, the only place he swore to never get back to. But his oath to Harry Potter superseded any other, and was stronger that his fear. He slowly, piece by piece, stole magic from any Death Eater he saw coming and going there, along his former masters for sure. He didn't dare to go close to Voldemort, he didn't want to be discovered.
It was a slow-going process, because he couldn't do it too fast, or wizards would realize what was happening. His stints as Cleaner taught him to strategize, to think. In Knockturn Alley, he spent a lot of time observing the fauna and learning. The schemes that worked were the thought-out one, with contingencies and cunning. And smart people learned from what they saw, he wanted to be smart. Smart people also read books, so he read books whenever he could.
He knew a lot of things. He read minds too, it was very useful to know when people wanted to double cross him, so he could triple cross them. Minds were full of useful information, but stupid things too. It was hard, and tiresome to sort them out. However, it was necessary, and Dobby had learned to do it. He was far from the elf he was the day of his Liberation.
His project was slow going, but was bearing fruits. When Harry Potter and his friends battled Death Eaters in the ministry, none of them died. When Voldemort's servants tried to take over the government, they had more trouble than anticipated. Their Imperiuses were weaker than expected. When they attacked Amelia Bones, she had been able to escape. Dobby would sent Harry Potter regular updates on what he learned while entering the minds of some well-known lieutenant of the Dark Side during their magic induced sleep. They foiled some of Voldemort's plans.
Then, scanning Severus's Snape thoughts, he learned about Dumbledore's plan to die. It didn't mean much to him, the wizard was old and wasn't very helpful to Harry Potter as it was, Dobby considered. Guarding a Prophecy that Voldemort wasn't bothered to take himself? Not very cunning if anyone asked his opinion. But no one ever bothered to ask for his opinion. What he learned too, was his plans for Harry Potter. And that wouldn't do.
Let himself be killed? It was unfathomable! Dobby would not stand for that! Horcruxes? They were made of magic! He had never encountered anything he couldn't syphon the magic out of with careful planning. Without magic, they would break apart, for sure.
Of course, in his weekly report to Harry Potter, he told him about it. And he told him he would search for them. He also asked him if he could try to weaken the one in him to the point of extinction.
Harry Potter, of course, didn't know he had a piece of Voldemort's soul in his forehead. Dobby was fuming, he had something like his former master's Diary in his head! And nobody warned him! He saw what it did to Ginny Weasley, he wouldn't let it do the same to Harry Potter!
He searched, and searched, and searched with the help of another elf named Kreacher and found all the remaining tainted objects. The one in Gringotts had proved tricky, but Kreacher managed to trick Bellatrix Lestrange to take him as his elf so he could retrieve it just before Dobby took out the last of her magic away.
Bellatrix died of madness, well even more madness, when she realised she became a squib overnight.
Every day, for many months, Dobby saw Harry Potter in secret every evening. Weakening the magic of the Horcrux without taking his saviour's was a delicate process, but it wasn't so different from any other cursed wounds that he had treated in the past. He had lessened so many werewolves' curses that he was very familiar with the underlying process of it. When magics mingled and clashed, as long as he was focused and didn't linger too long, he could do it.
Anyway, it was for Harry Potter. He wasn't going to botch it. He owed him his life, it was preposterous to think he wouldn't respond in kind.
And one day, it was done. The Horcruxes had been found, and destroyed. All of them. Harry Potter was free.
This was the day Albus Dumbledore died, killed by Severus Snape at the top of the Astronomy Tower, as he was coming back from one of his own Horcruxes' Hunt. Remus Lupin was a witness, and attacked his nemesis. They killed each other in the following duel.
It was a blessing in disguise for the former Death Eater, really.
While this fight was happening, Harry Potter was blissfully sleeping in his own bed. Dobby was at Malfoy Manor, feeding the Dark Lord a sleeping potion after slaughtering his beloved snake. He drained his magic in one burst, and every remain left in those he marked because Voldemort drew on them unconsciously. It was a very painful process, as if you were skinned alive.
That night, Lord Voldemort vanished, the magic sustaining him no longer active.
All at Harry Potter's hand. The one which put a dirty sock in a broken diary and gave it to Lucius Malfoy in defiance. The one which, one of many times, showed the power the Dark Lord knew not.
Empathy. Care. And the will to put his life on the line for something, someone else than himself. The same power exhibited in kind, because his hand made the first move.
Or is it due to Voldemort's hand? After all, if Voldemort hadn't raised his hand to kill Lily Potter, and then try to murder Harry Potter, the baby wouldn't have survived, and been marked. Dobby might have never tried to save his life eleven years later, and Harry Potter might have never freed him in return. Dobby might have never found the scope of his powers and subsequently the means to annihilate Tom Marvolo Riddle.
In the end, Harry Potter lived, Dobby lived, and they led the lives they wanted.