"The Malfoy family does have a very large estate, so they certainly have house-elves. But that doesn't necessarily mean one of their house-elves did it," Mrs. Weasley said, without drawing a firm conclusion.
"But judging by your description, Harry, that house-elf doesn't seem to have meant any harm. House-elves possess very powerful magic, so much so that for a time they were trained as magical assassins. Later, though, the practice was banned throughout the Wizarding World."
"But no one can guarantee that the Malfoy family isn't secretly training a house-elf assassin, can they? It wouldn't be easy to find proof of something like that." Ron actually resented Draco a little more than Harry did.
After all, whenever they actually faced each other, Draco had always been on the receiving end of Harry's beatings. Ron, however, had never come out ahead in his few encounters with Draco. Instead, Draco's vicious tongue had left Ron fuming for ages.
"That's unlikely," Percy said, rejecting Ron's view. "What wizards need most from house-elves is loyalty and obedience. To achieve that, wizards put in hundreds of years of effort over dozens of generations. The existence of house-elf assassins would undermine that plan. If house-elves dared to kill wizards, it would be bad for efforts to tame them."
Seeing both Harry and Ron staring at him in surprise, Percy smiled faintly. He looked perfectly nonchalant, but everyone could see how pleased he was with himself. Still, he tried to sound casual as he said:
"It's covered in upper-year History of Magic. You'll get to it in a couple of years."
Their discussion of Dobby came to no conclusion. Mrs. Weasley thought they should wait until her husband, Mr. Arthur Weasley, came home before discussing it further-the hand for Mr. Weasley on the clock had originally