What Kreacher knows

[Wanda Sherratt]

No: HPFGUIDX 74722

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "amanitamuscaria1" 
<saraandra at w...> wrote:
> ME - but Ron says, about Dobby in CoS, 'House-elves come with big 
old 
> manors and castles and places like that, you wouldn't catch one in 
> our house...'
> Although Fred says in the line before that '..whoever owns him 
will 
> be an old wizarding family, and they'll be rich'
> To me, it sounds like you maybe have to fulfill all three 
conditions.
> Doesn't clear it up, as we don't know if Harry might inherit the 
> house, or if the Potters are an old wizarding family.

I guess one can debate this a bit, because the word "house" has two 
meanings.  A building, like 12 Grimmauld Place, and also a family.  
I was always taking "house" in that sense, that a house elf served a 
house in the sense of the family members.  Like "the House of 
Windsor"; Sirius is the last surviving member of "The Noble and Most 
Ancient House of Black".  If the family dies off, then the House is 
extinct, so what happens then?  There are more distant relatives, 
but I'm not so clear if the house elf's servitude is transferrable, 
the way a piece of property would be.

Wanda