House elf Ownership/possesion

[tex23236]

No: HPFGUIDX 36886

--- In HPforGrownups at y..., Melanie Brackney <ilovbrian_99 at y...> wrote:
> 
> But didn't the Malfoys own Dobby? Well, maybe they thought they 
did, but Dobby's always messing up along with his rather open act of '
rebellion' in CoS suggests to me that as far as HE was concerned, 
they were simply a subtitute or host family, until Harry was old 
enough to take him on.
> 

I wonder if Dobby was stolen from the Potters.  We don't know 
LV came to the Potters alone. Could Malfoy have been with him?
So, LV is gone, Lucius is kicking around in the wreckage of the house
and finds Dobby.  So, he takes him home to Narcissa as a consolation 
prize, and does some kind of ownership magic on Dobby to claim 
him.  Something like a weak form of the Imperius charm, perhaps,
that Dobby can pull out of, now and then.

Tex