A multi-million-pound power line built between the U.K. and Ireland had to change course after Harry Potter fans revolted against its planned route, which would have destroyed the location of the grave of the fictional house-elf Dobby, an expert who spearheaded the project revealed in a recent interview.
Dobby, adored by fans for his loyalty, bravery and touching pursuit of freedom, died in Harry’s arms during Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows after he was stabbed with a knife thrown by Bellatrix Lestrange.
In the past, the National Trust, a U.K. non-profit that protects historic buildings, ecologically sensitive areas, and cultural heritage sites for public use, has had to ask fans to stop leaving socks and other painted items at Dobby’s grave as they posed a risk to marine life.
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Socks came to symbolize freedom among the franchise’s fanbase after Harry used one to trick Lucius Malfoy into freeing the house-elf from perpetual servitude.
The £430 million ($CAD 809 million) Greenlink interconnector, which led to a public outcry, has been operational since early last year, according to the New York Times, but not without overcoming this otherworldly hurdle.
The cable hooks the U.K.’s National Grid to Ireland and was supposed to pass underground through Dobby’s grave site, the project’s manager Simon Ludlam told the Energy Revolution podcast in a recent interview.
When Ludlam first announced the cable during a BBC Wales segment in 2019, he was met with heavy pushback from fans.
“After it aired, we began to get calls. Many, many, many calls,” Ludlam, now a managing partner at Etchea Energy, said on the podcast Monday, adding that he had no idea who Dobby was or why people were up in arms about the death of an imaginary being who, in the book, dies in Cornwall.
“The whole thing is fictitious,” Ludlam recalled telling a colleague back in 2019, during his interview Monday.
“No it’s very, very serious,” his said his colleague told him at the time.
Despite the world of Harry Potter being entirely imagined, Ludlam said the problem was impossible to ignore, and the cable was rerouted away from Dobby’s grave.
“We didn’t disturb the beach or the dunes or Dobby’s grave in any way,” James O’Reilly, Greenlink’s chief executive, told the New York Times. Instead, the cables run close to real Bronze Age remains, including urns associated with human burial, The Guardian reported.
Dobby remains free at the beach in Wales.
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