Still Godric's Hollow House Elves / Arthur an Auror? / Missing Weasleys

[catlady_de_los_angeles]

No: HPFGUIDX 37174

Amanda wrote:

> The fact seems to be that house-elves are unlikely to be attached
> to such a house, whether it is Muggle or magical down to the 
> wainscoting; they live in old manors and castles, yada, yada. Okay.
> BUT, you didn't answer why house-elves couldn't live in Muggle old 
> manors, castles, etc. They would not necessarily be perceived as 
> what they are; their effects would be considered luck or happy 
> coincidence, etc., but they could be there. In JKR's world, their
> attachment to such Muggle places could well have given rise to some
> of our fairy tales.

Okay, I don't know at all if House Elves can or cannot live and work 
in Muggle old castles and so on, if the Muggles don't notice magical 
beings hanging around them and magical things happening. If the 
Muggles did notice magic going on, the wizarding folk would want to 
take the magic away and Memory Charm the Muggles... I thought *that* 
was what the Office of House Elf Relocation did, steal away any House 
Elves who might have come into the possession of Muggles, altho' that 
assumes that the House Elves don't effectively resist being stolen.

How did the House Elves originally become attached to those old 
castles? I think that humans deliberately lured them there with bowls 
of cream or other baited traps, or by House Elf Trapping spells. In 
that case, since the time that wizards hid themselves from Muggles,
no House Elf would have become attached to a House that was occupied 
by Muggles at the time of attachment. 

IIRC our fairy tales have Brownies (Dobbies, etc) voluntarily helping 
(in exchange for bowls of cream, tidiness, and polite treatment) 
homemakers, shoemakers, etc, who live in cottages (and maybe even 
tall, narrow, townhouses, for the shoemakers and tailors) rather than 
palaces. I have great difficulty visualizing a wizarding world in 
which House Elves are unwilling to live in charming cottages, altho' 
I suppose they MIGHT scorn the Burrow, which is described as looking 
like it had originally been a stone pig sty, with additions built all 
over it at random that look like they are held up only by magic (i.e. 
not tidy).

Suzanne wrote:

> Are you saying that wizards cannot live in a house that was built
> by Muggles, that house built by Muggles cannot be magical?

No. I think that wizards can live in a house built by Muggles. But 
the house wouldn't have any House Elves yet at the time that it moved 
from Muggledom to wizarddom, for reasons given in my reply to Amanda 
right up there. If House Elves are attached to the house rather than 
to the family, it would be a *rare* event for any house, despite 
being owned and occupied by wizards, to first acquire House Elves.

> Why wouldn't James and Lily want to raise their baby in a nice,
> warm house? 

Sure they would, but they would choose a charming cottage (like in 
all those Thomas Kinkade paintings) that was kept warm and snug by 
magic. For the same reason that Dumbledore wore a magnificent purple 
outfit with high heeled boots to leave Harry on the Dursley doorstep 
and some wizards camping at the QWC used tents that looked like 
miniature castles: "we can't resist showing off" said Arthur. The 
wizard folk like to look like wizard folk. 

If House Elves are attached to the family rather than to the place, 
James and Lily could have brought a Potter family House Elf to their 
adorable cottage.

Abigail wrote:

> Has anyone suggested the possibility that Arthur Weasly was, at 
> some point before the fall of Voldemort, an auror? The thought came
> to me when I was thinking about the implied closeness between 
> Arthur and Moody. Amos Diggory calls on Arthur to bail Moody out 
(snip)
> My guess is that Arthur worked under Moody, possibly with Frank 
> Longbottom and perhaps Amos Diggory too (after all, if Arthur bails
> Moody out due to old loyalties, it might be Diggory's motive as 
> well.)

Remember the scene when Amos and Arthur question Winky who has been 
found holding the wand that cast the Dark Mark? Amos calls her "Elf!" 
and threatens her, and Arthur tells him not to be so hard on the poor 
thing and speaks to her kindly. Any number of people have understood 
that scene to be yet another example of the two men's personalities: 
Amos is a tough old sod and Arthur is as soft as a marshmallow... I 
mean, and Arthur is a really nice guy.

I always have to be different, right? I understood that scene to be 
the familiar old technique for questioning a suspect, called "Good 
Cop, Bad Cop". When the questioner playing the role of Bad Cop is 
rough and threatening and gets the questionee really scared, the 
other questioner comes in to play the role of Good Cop, sounding 
kind and gentle and sympathetic, and the questionee is so grateful 
for this assistance that heesh trusts Good Cop and tells himer 
everything. I know married couples who use that technique on 
contractors: "Oh, I think that countertop would be fine, but I'm not 
sure what my wife will think" and the contractors think: "Oh, that 
poor guy, married to that virago" and fix the damn countertop. 

To me, Amos and Arthur were falling into the roles automatically, as 
if from old habit, and I therefore guessed that they had worked as a 
team in some sort of investigation and law enforcement job, 
previously in their careers. 

Barbara Jebenstreit wrote:

> Missing Weasley children? What did I miss? Do you mean that there
> was another Weasley child that died during the reign of LV? 

Yes, that is some people's theory for why there is such a big gap 
between Charlie and Percy, that there was another child (or two) who 
died or was stolen. Some people want there to have been one more son 
so that Ron will be a seventh son.   

Btw, I remain troubled by Draco's statement that "all the Weasleys" 
have red hair, no money, and more children than they can afford. 
Sure, he was just quoting Lucius, but it seems to me that Lucius 
would not have thought of saying such a thing unless there was more 
than one Weasley who had numerous children. It could be that Arthur's 
parents had a lot of kids (nice for those who want Ron to be the 
seventh son of a seventh son -- I imagine that there was at least 
one year during Tom Riddle's school days in which there was a 
Gryffindor Weasley in EACH form, so why didn't we see any of them in 
the CoS flashback?) or it could be that Arthur has at least one 
sibling who also has a lot of kids. So WHERE are all those other 
Weasleys? Ron should have at least as many cousins attending Hogwarts 
as he has siblings! Imagine if Athur were one of seven and each of 
them had seven children! Some would have different surnames (Arthur's 
sisters' children) but all would have that Weasley red hair!

> Is that the reason why Crouch senior continually calls Percy by a
> wrong name?

I find it unlikely that Arthur and Molly's missing son was named 
Weatherby Weasley and I find it unlikely that the missing Weasley, 
only a child, was known to Barty Senior the department head of 
Magical Law Enforcement. However, I have a theory that Ludo Bagman is 
such an idiot that he didn't remember that one of Arthur's brood had 
died and therefore provided enough tickets for all, ie one more ticket 
than enough for Arthur and Molly and Bill and Charlie and Percy and 
Fred and George and Ron and Ginny. So Arthur asked the ones who were 
still living at home to choose to whom to give the extra ticket and 
they all agreed on Harry (Ron's friend, Ginny's crush, Fred and 
George's teammate) and then Molly offered to give up her ticket so 
Hermione could also be invited. Molly did that because she was match- 
making, but whether she invited Hermione to be Harry's girlfriend or 
Ron's girlfiend, I have no idea. 

On another tentacle (it's after midnight and I'm getting vague), 
Weatherby Weasley could have been one of the Arthur's brothers... 
The only one we know of is Ron's Uncle Bilius who died from seeing a 
Grim -- I always imagine that Bill was named after him.