COS Chapter Two: "Dobby's Warning"

[for-diddled.livejournal.com]

* Harry wants to say “What are you?” but thinks this might be rude, so instead says “Who are you?” It’s good to be reminded of how nice Harry was to start with, before Dumbledore’s favouritism removed all his politeness and replaced it with an entitlement complex the size of Hannover.

* Ironically, the only house-elf in canon who wants to be free is also the most servile and obsequious. At times, COS reads like a pro-slavery tract arguing that slaves cannot cope with freedom, and need a good benevolent master to take care with them. He even speaks a sort of Pidgin English like a stereotypical nineteenth-century black Southern slave.

* Dobby’s never been treated like an equal before. This is probably meant to reflect badly on the Malfoys, but TBH his constant toadying makes it rather hard to think of him as one.

* Does Dobby have to punish himself? I wouldn’t be at all surprised to find that he just hurts himself for kicks, without his owners knowing.

* So how exactly could Dobby find time to spy on Harry and intercept his post, and keep doing his household duties to stop the Malfoys from knowing?

* Gosh, Dobby’s really going over the top with the flattery, isn’t he? No wonder Harry ends up liking him so much.

* So what is this plot Dobby supposedly overheard? The diary was given to Ginny, not Harry. Is it the case the Lucius really intended to give it to Harry, and Ginny only got it by accident?

* Actually, that would make a lot more sense. Ginny Weasley being found killing Muggle-borns would be all very well, and might even discredit Arthur; but Harry Potter killing people would be even better, from the point of view of a Death Eater.

* Is there any reason why Dobby can’t tell Harry what the plot entails, other than a half-arsed attempt by JKR to prolong the mystery?

* Albus Dumbledore is the greatest headmaster Hogwarts has ever had, apparently. Well, I suppose that’s probably true if by “greatest” you mean “most powerful”, as opposed to, say, “best at running a school”.

* Harry jumps six stairs without making any noise? Wow, that kid’s athletic!

* Actually, that last point was a bit redundant. Of course Harry’s athletic, he’s the hero. After all, it’s not like clumsy and unfit people ever do anything brave or special.

* So the Dursleys and Masons are making jokes about the Japanese and the Americans. Just in case you’d forgotten that they’re racists, making anything that you do to them perfectly OK.

* So the pudding covered Harry head-to-toe when it shattered? Was there some kind of small explosive device in it?

* Must be rather hard for Mrs. Mason to go outside if she’s afraid of birds.

* I’m not sure why Mr. Mason thinks the Dursleys are playing a joke on him. If he had to explain to them his wife’s phobia, they wouldn’t have known that the sight of an owl would scare her.

* If the magical trace can’t tell who’s using magic, that would give Pureblood kids something of an unfair advantage. They’d be able to practise throughout the summer and pass any spells off as their parents’, whereas Muggleborns wouldn’t be able to practise at all.

* Harry should have realised that threatening his relatives with magic would just make it worse for him if/when it emerged that he wasn’t allowed to do it outside of school.

* I can’t imagine the Dursleys locking Harry away like that. Even if they don’t care about him, they should at least be worried what the neighbours would say.

* Harry, being relatively new to the WW, is still worried about being expelled. Little does he know that he could in fact do pretty much anything, up to and including disembowelling a fellow student in the bathrooms, and get away with light detention.

Comments

[oryx_leucoryx]

And no, Dobby was *not* freed. Lucius Malfoy never "gave" Dobby a sock. Lucius Malfoy threw a sock *away*. Dobby caught it before it hit the ground and declared "Master has given Dobby a sock! Dobby is free!". Malfoy was too rattled by the situation to immediately deny that he had done anything of the sort, and Dobby escaped.

Does this mean the enchantments that bond an elf to his masters remained in effect between Dobby and the Malfoys? This might explain the self-punishment in GOF, but I don't think the events of Malfoy Manor in DH are compatible with this.

[jodel-from-aol.livejournal.com]

A lot of this comes down to just what enchantments *do* bind an elf to his family? And there seems to be a lot of misunderstanding on the subject floating about. In OotP, Kreachur, when ordered out of a room took the oportunity to leave the house for several days and betray the Order insofar as he was able to to a peripheral relative. Most of the Order were astonished later to discover that the elf was not bound to the house itself and unable to leave it.

And he certainly managed to set things up to lead to the murder of his titular master. I think the fact is that *we do not know* what the actual binding between an elf and his family consists of. And that much of any given elf's behavior in the matter is largely a case of habit and custom--or of direct orders from the current master.

For that matter, *was* Sirius even Kreachur's master? Rowling has yet to explain how Sirius came into possession of the property at all since he had been forcably removed from the family's primary document over a decade previous. By all accounts, the house and Kreachur ought to have passed to Bellatrix upon the death of old Arcturus Black in Harry's first year. So far as the Black family went, *Sirius* was no longer a member.

You can massage it in that Arcturus left the house and property to Sirius by will in order to delay the house passing to a cadet line, but it doesn't really play. Although Sirus leaving it to Harry by will seems to have worked, so it's at least possible.

[oryx_leucoryx]

And he certainly managed to set things up to lead to the murder of his titular master.

So do you believe it is possible that the whole diary plot was Dobby's revenge on the Malfoys? He may have been trying to get them in trouble, regardless of collateral damage.

[jodel-from-aol.livejournal.com]

Not the whole plot, by any means. But he piggybacked his agenda onto his master's.

Lucius Malfoy wanted shut of the Diary. I suspect that as a school governor he had heard something of the rumors regarding the fallout of the QuirrellMort debacle and convinced himself that Tom was neutralized. i.e., He didn't need to hold onto the nasty thing any more. Particularly since Amelia Bones was authorizing raids on suspected Dark wizard's homes. Now, he'd been publicly outed a decade earlier, and gotten off with that Imperius defense. The last thing he wanted was to be caught with a cursed item with the Dark Lord's name in it.

Still he had been told that the book would open the Chamber of Secrets and there was likely to be more power available to him with Albus gone. The last time the Chamber was opened, the school had nearly been closed. I think he hoped that the disruption would depose Albus, and get him thoroughly discredited.

As for Harry; I believed for quite a long time that QuirrellMort may have contacted Lucius and *told* him to deploy the Diary. That only got contradicted by HBP. But I still think that at the end of PS/SS Lucius felt that the time was ripe for him to make his own bid for dominance in the ww. Albus was considered an obstacale, even though he mostly confined himself to Hogwarts. People *listened* to him, and that wasn't likely to further Lucius's aims. And Harry was a potential obstacle as well. Draco had failed to attach him, and he was likely to be a part of the opposition. Possibly better to eliminate him now. And do it in a manner which would be likely to discredit him as well.

Dobby, however used the orders to monitor the boy and let Lucius know when he was going to be in Diagon Alley to actually approach the boy and play on his his sympathies. I don't think humans know what exactly motivates elves, but Dobby clearly has figured out that humans are largely motivated by ideals of reciprocation. And Dobby set about not just to make Harry sympathetic to him, but to put him under obligation as well, by whatever means to hand, whether flattery, or advice, or stepping in to "protect" him.

It paid off in the end. Dobby made sure that he was present when his master's plans came unraveled and took advantage of the situation to declare himself free. He hinted to Harry that if his master gave him clothes, even just a sock, he would be free, and Harry at that point in the series was still bright enough to take the hint and put the book in an old sock of Vernon's so that Malfoy would be sure to *have* a sock and have to get rid of it.

[oryx_leucoryx]

OK, so in your version Voldemort did tell Lucius that the diary would open the Chamber. Do you agree this implies he had intended for the diary to be deployed originally in fall 1981 as part of a multi-pronged attack on the establishment of Wizarding Britain? Once Harry was dead Voldemort could attack the school via Severus while have little Barty kill his father, the strong man at the Ministry.

How much was Severus told of the original plot? Or was Voldemort waiting to give him his final instructions in order to avoid Albus' Legilimency?

[jodel-from-aol.livejournal.com]

Yes, I certainly think that Tom intended for the Diary to be deployed at some point in the near future when he gave it to Lucius. It is unlikely that Lucius was a school governor at that point (his only son was just a year old, and he himself wasn't yet 30), but he had contacts, and his father may have been a governor. I *think* that Albus implied that Lucius knew that when it was deployed the Chamber would open, but that may just be fans connecting dots that aren't actually there. It is likely that Lucius was to send the Diary to Severus, either for further deployment, or Severus was to be the target/sacrifice opening the Chamber (thereby removing the only witness that had known the content of the Prophecy).

And I certainly do think that Tom had plans for Barty Jr in the Ministry. Whether to murder his father or to get him under Imperius and control him.

But none of it was to happen until the child of the prophecy had been taken care of.

[jodel-from-aol.livejournal.com]

Opps. Forgot to add: I don't think Severus was told anything of what his part in the matter was to be. He was told to spy, report back (probably through Lucius) and await further orders.

[oryx_leucoryx]

I *think* that Albus implied that Lucius knew that when it was deployed the Chamber would open, but that may just be fans connecting dots that aren't actually there.

Albus says Lucius only expected the diary to open the COS and didn't know it contained his master's soul. But was Albus speaking out of knowledge (how would he know what Tom had once told Lucius back in 1981?) or merely speculating? If Tom simply gave the diary to Lucius to guard and Lucius decided to get rid of it before the Ministry came snooping he might have done the very same thing he did in canon.

[jodel-from-aol.livejournal.com]

Right. It may not be what Rowling tells us directly, but at least it seems to make internal sense.

[oryx_leucoryx]

If the original diary plot was to be set after Harry was dead then there was no need to hide the prophecy. On the contrary, Voldemort would have wanted everyone to know that it wasn't just yet another family of Dumbledore supporters that he killed but the one last hope of Dumbledore's circle. So that wouldn't be the reason to get rid of Severus (though of course since he was intended for the DADA job Voldemort wasn't counting on having him around for more than a year).

[jodel-from-aol.livejournal.com]

Well, it's hard to determine just what was planned, since Tom wasn't any better about sharing information than Albus was.

But it does sound like he wasn't about to let any of his followers know there was a prophecy floating around about his downfall.

Which, when you stop and examine it, is a little unsatisfactory. He owned them. It didn't matter what was prophecised, they weren't getting out from under his thumb while he lived. And he already had a handfull of Horcruxes, so his not living wasn't on the table.

Not that we can't come up with possibilities that *sound* reasonably good, of course...

[oryx_leucoryx]

OK, but doesn't averting the prophecy by killing the savior change things?

[jodel-from-aol.livejournal.com]

Proves it wasn't a "real" prophecy.