$581M Project Forced to Reroute Around Dobby's Grave

An undersea power project just took a detour for a dead fictitious house elf. Developers of the $581 million Greenlink electricity interconnector between the UK and Ireland have quietly redrawn its route to avoid the unofficial "grave" of Dobby the elf, reports the Guardian. Project manager Simon Ludlam said fans flooded the company with calls after a BBC segment showed the cable's planned landfall near the spot where Dobby is buried on Freshwater West beach in Wales in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.

"Dobby's grave brings tourists from all around the world down to one of Pembrokeshire's most impressive beaches," local Jack Nicholas, 20, tells CNN. "The memorial has rocks from places such as Italy, Australia and South Africa, showing how far people travel to see Dobby's grave." Ludlam, who initially dismissed concerns over a "fictitious character," said planners ultimately shifted the 125-mile cable so it would steer clear of the fan shrine. In doing so, he noted, "we went quite close to some real Bronze Age remains, but we avoided Dobby's grave."