Harry Potter The Long Lost Malfoy

"So I was wondering if I could have Dobby as my personal elf."

Mr. Malfoy choked on his tea.

The Malfoys had seemed hopeful when Harry came down to breakfast that morning. Mrs. Malfoy had beamed and given him a biscuit. Mr. Malfoy had given Harry several smiles over the top of his newspaper. Draco had scooted his chair over to sit exactly beside Harry's and kept trying to make plans to fly with him.

Harry had smiled and answered them and eaten the biscuit. And now this.

"Why, Henry?" Mr. Malfoy asked, putting the paper down and giving Harry his full attention.

Part of Harry froze, remembering what happened when Uncle Vernon did that. But he forced it away, and reminded himself with a deep breath that this was the Malfoys, not the Dursleys. And Healer Letham had reminded him that if he wanted to get them to agree with him, he couldn't treat them like they were evil or monsters.

"Because I think we would both be happier that way," Harry said. "Dobby is really miserable, and I'm miserable because he's miserable."

"Dobby!" Mr. Malfoy called, without taking his eyes away from Harry's face.

Dobby appeared, but immediately flung himself on the floor and lay there like a tossed-aside doll. Harry swallowed and didn't say the angry things he wanted to say. They wouldn't help. Sulking in his room for days hadn't helped. He needed to do this for Dobby, not himself, the way Healer Letham had said.

"What have you been telling Henry?" Mr. Malfoy demanded.

Dobby started to tremble, but Harry intervened before he could say anything. "He isn't to blame. I am. I asked him what the elf quarters were like, and he said they were cold and dark. And he said that you punish him by making him shut his ears and fingers in things. That—that reminds me of what I endured with the Muggles." He ignored Mrs. Malfoy's sharp gasp and the way Draco leaned against him for a minute, just staring at Mr. Malfoy. If he had to use this to get sympathy, then he would. It was less important than getting help for Dobby. "So I thought, if he served me, then he could be happy, and I would be happier."

Mr. Malfoy, oddly, had something like a smile lingering around his lips. "You are trying to make this a bargain, Henry?"

Harry twitched. He hadn't thought of it like that. And it made sense that Mr. Malfoy would be happy if he was. It was probably a sign that Harry was acting like a pureblood, or a Slytherin, or something.

But in the end, Harry swallowed and stared straight at Mr. Malfoy and said, "If I can."

"One thing concerns me," Mr. Malfoy said, his hand lingering for a second on the edge of the table before he glanced at Dobby. "If you feel sorry for all our elves, then will you demand that all of them be assigned to you? That is unsustainable."

"No." Harry folded his arms. "But you could cast some spells to make the quarters light and warm, couldn't you? And you don't have to order them to not shut their ears and fingers in the doors and things like that. They could serve you better if they weren't in pain all the time. If they were happy."

Mr. Malfoy stared at him. "We keep the quarters dark and cold because the elves like it that way."

"Yes, Henry," Draco added, squirming around on his chair as if he wanted to try and bring himself into Harry's line of sight and break the staring contest he was having with Mr. Malfoy. "House-elves are just—different from us. They enjoy the dark because it lets them sleep better. And they like the cold because they have lower blood circulation than we do."

Harry stared at him for a second, then at Dobby. Dobby had lifted his head and was looking at Harry with his tears once again quivering in the corners of his eyes.

"Dobby? Is that true? Do the other elves like the sleeping quarters?"

Dobby took a long, deep breath, and then he looked down and whispered, "No, Great Master Harry Potter. They not be liking it."

"Do not call him that!"

Mr. Malfoy's voice flicked like a whip, and Dobby wailed and buried his face in the carpet again. Harry glared at Mr. Malfoy. "I asked him to call me that. If you want to get angry at someone, get angry at me."

"Have we made so unsuitable a home for you?" Mrs. Malfoy asked, and her voice was so pleading Harry glanced at her. She was holding a hand out to him, and her voice was soft and upset. Harry gulped. He didn't even like seeing Aunt Petunia upset. He hated it more when it was his mother.

Except that it was still hard to feel like she was his mother, and Harry used that to push back the impulse to just immediately give in.

"No," he whispered. "But I'm not used to it, and I know that you kept the house-elves away from me, and you punish them like the Dursleys punished me. Is it really so strange that I sympathize with them? That I want to keep them from being hurt?"

"That is not strange," said Mr. Malfoy, his voice sounding a little strangled. "But when you ask to be called by that name, it makes us wonder if you wish to go back to them."

"No!" Harry glared at him. "But at the time, I didn't feel much like Henry Malfoy. And you still—you could do so much with magic, so easily. You could make the elf quarters better. You could cook your own food. You could clean up spilled tea. Why don't you do it? Why do you abuse the elves and make them punish themselves?"

"They do like the dark and the cold," Draco insisted. "That's the way it is."

"You just heard Dobby say they didn't!"

Draco folded his arms and gave him a stubborn glare that Harry was sure echoed the one on his own face. "Well, we didn't know."

"Now, you do. So fix it."

"Boys," said Mr. Malfoy sternly. Harry turned back to him, while Draco gave a little huff and glared at his plate.

"I am not averse to making a bargain," Mr. Malfoy said. "So. You want us to improve the elf quarters?"

....

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