[HPforGrownups] THEORY: Elves - Naked or Legalistic?

[Margaret Dean]

No: HPFGUIDX 31649

heathernmoore wrote:
> 
> Here's a very surreal question:
> 
>  Shouldn't house-elves generally have to go about, uhm, NEKKID?
> If the very act of giving clothing to a house elf frees them, how
> is this avoided?

They wear things that aren't clothes, e.g. Dobby's pillowcase in
CoS, or Winky's tea towel.  Evidently, for house-elf freeing
purposes, an item only counts as "clothing" if it was originally
made to be worn (even by a doll, cf. Winky's doll clothes later
in the book).


--Margaret Dean
  <margdean at erols.com>