Lucius Malfoy's Ambition and Dobby's Motivation

[Hannah]

No: HPFGUIDX 126718


Hannah originally:
> > I do think Dobby acted of his own volition, having heard what 
Lucius
> > planned, and fearing that Harry would be endangered.  Whether 
there
> > was an actual specific threat to Harry, or whether Dobby was just
> > concerned that he'd be hurt accidentally, I don't know.

Thursday replied:
> But what I don't understand is *why* Dobby would do this.  Yes, 
Dobby is apparently a *very* unusual house elf but this just seems 
so far out of house elf norm.  This wasn't an impulsive act.  Dobby 
was stopping Harry's mail all summer.  He continued interferring all 
the way thru the school year.  It seems to me so far out from the 
norm that I started looking for options, hence the 'LM sent Dobby' 
theory.  I would be very interested to see more complete arguments 
for the 'Dobby acts on his own' theory.
> 
Hannah:  
For the very reason Dobby said he did it.  Because he cared about 
the great Harry Potter who made LV go away and improved the lives of 
the majority of house elves, and he wanted to warn him.  I don't see 
Dobby's behaviour here being inconsistent with the little we know 
about renegade house elves from canon.

In OotP, when DD is talking about Kreacher, he says that the elf 
couldn't reveal information that he had been directly ordered not 
to.  But he managed to bend the rules when a direct order wasn't 
prohibiting him.  So unless Lucius said to Dobby 'don't go and warn 
Harry Potter' Dobby is still able to do it.  Dobby knows that his 
master wouldn't approve, and that he is acting against his master's 
interests, hence the need to punish himself. Furthermore, in OotP we 
see Dobby breaking a direct order, from Umbridge, in tipping Harry 
off about the raid on the DA.

If Lucius sent Dobby, it undermines the whole character and purpose 
of the elf.  He'd have lied to Harry, and carried on lying after he 
was freed.  It doesn't tie up with Dobby's very real dislike of his 
master.  It dpesn't explain why Dobby indicated to Harry the Lucius 
was the one that handed Ginny the diary in the first place (at that 
stage, it couldn't possibly have helped Lucius).  Why did Dobby 
injure himself if Lucius had told him to act?  And why was Dobby 
unable to tell Harry certain things?

I think Dobby's desire to warn Harry is in line with his character 
development throughout CoS, GoF and OotP.  While the behaviour is 
far out from the house elf norm, I think it's not any more far out 
than Dobby's actions in GoF, for example, which are canonically of 
his own volition.  And we've seen from Kreacher that Dobby isn't the 
only elf who's willing to go a long way to insubordinate and break 
the spirit of the rules that govern elves.

Anyway, that's a more complete picture of why I think Dobby acted of 
his own accord.

Hannah