[HPforGrownups] House-Elves and the Weasleys

[Carol Bainbridge]

No: HPFGUIDX 47860

Acire wrote:

>Granted, house-elves are probably passes on in families, as Winky
>later tells HHR that her mother and her grandmother were serving the
>Crouches. However, house-elves don't need to be paid (unless you're
>talking to Hermione). And, now, there's a certain house-elf who has
>lost her job...Yes, Winky. The Weasleys are a great family, and I'm
>sure Mrs. Weasley would make sure Winky wouldn't be overworked or
>antyhing....So why couldn't the Weasleys pick up an elf that had
>been dismissed?

Phyllis:
>It could be that having an elf is being presented
>to us by JKR as a status symbol:  you are rich, you have an elf.  You
>are not rich, you do not have an elf.

Suzanne:
>Or maybe the house elves discriminate against certain
>wizard families and don't want to be associated with a
>poor family, or one that hasn't been around for ages <g>.

Good points.  I've wondered this myself, although I've wondered more about 
why Dobby didn't go looking for work with the Weasley's.  He says that he 
was looking for work for 2 years before coming to Hogwarts.  Were there no 
house-elf-free families that would be happy to find a house elf?  There 
must be more to it than what we're seeing so far.  Perhaps it's the 
magical, binding contract that costs money.  Maybe a poor family would be 
delighted to have a free house elf, but there is a regulatory commission or 
some such thing.  (Much like the regulations for animagi.)  In order to 
have a house elf, the wizarding family must pay for the very powerful 
binding contract.  Once the contract is in place, the elf and its family 
are bound to the wizarding family.  The wealthy families that could afford 
the elves would not want a dismissed elf and the poorer families that would 
take a dismissed elf can't afford the contract fee.  Maybe too only 
families that already have house elves are entitled to new ones.

Acire:
>Also, how many house-elves would a family have? Winky was the only
>elf to serve the Crouches; When Harry indirectly frees Dobby, Lucius
>says "You've lost me my servant". Not '*one* of my servants',
>but '*servant*'. Would other families have reason to have more house-
>elves?

I've wondered if each person in a family gets a house elf.  So Lucius lost 
*his* elf.  Does Narcissa have one too?  Draco?  If one family has one 
house elf that is passed down in the family and the family has several 
children, who gets the elf?  Does the elf go with the oldest?  When?  Do 
the children do without an elf until both parents die?  (Which would be 
quite a while given that witches and wizards live a long time.)

>Lastly, how do...um...we get baby house-elves? Would it be anything
>like slave trade, where plantation owners picked the slaves with the
>best qualities and "mated" them? Because while Winky mentions her
>mother and grandmother, she doesn't mention any males. Perhaps she
>doesn't know her biological father? Perhaps her mother didn't even
>know him that well? If that's true, I'm going to start thinking of
>joining S.P.E.W.

That was something I wondered too, although I concluded that the situation 
was probably closer to that of Victorian/Edwardian England.  Servants had 
to get permission of their employers to marry, and quite often the couple 
did not originally work in the same house.  I'm not familiar enough with 
the system to know what happened once the marriage took place.  However it 
worked, it seems that in the wizarding world, many details would have to be 
worked out.  Financial agreements, perhaps.  And maybe this was another 
reason only wealthy families had elves.  It still doesn't answer the 
question of how families got elves to begin with or how many they have, etc.

Suzanne:

>Is the Malfoy family the exception in treating their house
>elf badly?

According to Dobby in CoS, all the house elves were treated like vermin 
during Voldemort's time, but he is still treated like vermin.  I would say 
that it's possible there are some other families out there -- like the 
Crabbs and Goyles -- who also still treat their house elves badly.  But in 
general, they are better off now that Voldemort is gone.

Suzanne:
>I hope to find out why they are bound to *their* families
>the way they are and why Dobby seems to be the only one who
>rebels against his "master".

Dobby seems to be a very special HE.  However, I can't help but wonder if 
part of his behavior is triggered by the way he is treated by Lucius.  He 
knows that the other elves are no longer treated so badly and this is a 
direct result of Voldemort's disappearance, for which Harry gets the 
credit.  Dobby rebels against Lucius, not simply to rebel, but in order to 
help Harry, the "savior" of most elves.

Suzanne:
>Was Winky, for example, treated well before the happenings
>in GoF?

I would think so.  We have no indication that Crouch was cruel to his 
elves.  He seems to have had a good relationship with Winky since she was 
able to talk him into letting Barty Jr. go out to the Quidditch match.  I 
can't imagine Lucius agreeing to anything Dobby suggested.  I can't even 
imagine him having any kind of conversation with Dobby at all.

Suzanne:
>If I were Dumbledore, I'd contact the house elves for the fight
>against Lord Voldemort.
>They certainly seem to have very strong powers.

When I first read GoF -- and thought about how they'd make a movie of it -- 
I kept thinking that the whole house-elf subplot was there to tell us about 
the attitudes of the wizarding world -- and that it could all be cut out 
quite nicely from a movie.  However, as I thought about it, I decided that 
Hermione is setting the wheels in motion for exactly what you suggest.  I 
think the house elves are definitely going to rebel.  We know rebellions 
have occurred, if not with house elves.  Goblin rebellions are mentioned 
over and over throughout the books (which makes me wonder what's going to 
happen with the goblins in the final showdown).  I suspect that the HE at 
Hogwarts will be the first to gain their freedom (since Dumbledore is 
already willing to grant it) and that they will be instrumental is 
enlisting the aid of the rest of the house elves.  JKR has Hermione working 
hard with the elves for some reason and I no longer think it is just to 
show us how oppressed the elves are or how terrible the attitudes towards 
them are.


Carol