For Harry Potter Afficianados Only - Spoiler Alert!

If you are not a fan of The Boy Who Lived, please skip this. If you have not read HP Books 1-6, please skip this, because I might just spoil the surprise if you do decide to read them.

First of all, I have to admit that I am a huge Harry Potter fan. I won't detail the depth the my devotion, but it is pretty deep.

I recently listened to the audio of Book 2, The Chamber of Secrets, and I believe that Dobby knew that Riddle's diary was a horcrux and that is why he was so adament about keeping Harry from going back to Hogwarts. In Chapter 2, "Dobby's Warning", Dobby tells Harry that Lord Voldemort has "powers Dumbledore doesn't...powers no decent wizard..." I think Dobby is talking about horcruxes. JK Rowling said while writing Book 6, The Half-Blood Prince, that there was a connection between Book 2 and Book 6. Obviously there is a connection because in Book 6 it is revealed that Riddle's diary, which appeared in Book 2, was actually a horcrux.

The idea that Dobby knew the diary was a horcrux makes a lot of sense to me. It would explain his extreme agressiveness in trying to keep Harry away from Hogwarts. It also suggests to me that other house elves know about the horcruxes. One of the theories that I have seen bandied about on some of the HP websites is that Kreacher helped RAB (widely believed to be Regulus Black, Sirius' brother) obtain the real locket horcrux, which is actually at 12 Grimmauld Place (it appeared in Book 5, Order of the Phoenix, when Harry and the Weasleys were cleaning the drawing room in Chapter 6, "The Most Noble and Ancient House of Black"). If Kreacher helped Regulus obtain the locket horcrux and perhaps had to help drink the nasty green conconcotion that it was immersed in, it would explain why he is so crazy.

I believe the house elves know more than Harry and his friends realize. I also believe that they still have a role to play. The appearance of the fountain in the Ministry of Magic, with the golden figures of the wizard, the witch, the centaur, the house elf, and the goblin, and its destruction at the end of Book 5 seems to foreshadow the importance of all these creatures to the plot of series and the fact that their relationships will change by the end of the series. I believe that the house elves will all be freed at the end of the series.