house elves & laundry (trace of OoP at end)

[Steve]

No: HPFGUIDX 65744

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, Maidlyn <montysgirl79 at y...> wrote:
> 
> 
> --- Rachael <bratty_jedi at h...> wrote:
> > House Elves can only be freed by getting clothes from their master
> > (s), so what about laundry?  Any suggestions other than I need to
> > stop obsessing over Harry Potter so much that I wonder about 
> > trivial things like this?
> > 
> >
>  I don't really have an answer to this but I was
> wondering exactly the same thing earlier this evening.
> It does seem slightly odd that wizards would have to
> do their own laundry. Can you imagine Lucius Malfoy
> washing his underwear? Perhaps they have to actually
> *give* them clean clothes? Or perhaps they just
> collect the dirty laundry from somewere or something
> and because the wizard hasn't *given* the elf the
> clothes then they aren't free? Basically I have no
> idea.
> 
> Maidlyn

Note: only the last paragraph deals with OoP, and does do in a vague
and indirect way.

bboy_mn:
Let's not forget things like scouring charms (Hermione teached
Neville, also seen again in OoP), levitating charms, summoning charms,
banishing charms, and what I call transfer charms. Transfer charms are
charms that transfer things from one location to another. IE:
Dumbledore transfers squashy purple sleeping bags into the Great Hall
while the teachers search for Sirius Black. The elves transfer food
from the house tables in the kitchen to the house tables in the Great
Hall. So I see no reason why laundry could couldn't be handled
completely without any physical contact. 

Also, let's keep in mind that the elves must be 'given' or 'presented'
clothed. Touching a pair of pants doesn't free you if you are an elf,
you must by some stretch of the definition be given clothes. In a
sense, Malfoy did not give Dobby a sock, Malfoy simple tossed is aside
and Dobby caught it, but it appears that it was tossed directly to
him, whether accidental or on purpose is irrelevant, an article of
clothing came directly from Master to slave, and that was sufficient
to free Dobby. However, if Malfoy had tossed the sock in another
direction and it landed on the floor, Dobby would not be freed by
going over and picking it up.

In addition, it is my theory, that there is NO binding law or magic
that hold a house elf enslaved to the house he/she serves. The only
thing holding them is their own elfin honor. They have sworn to serve
a family house, and it is THE MOST horrendous breach to violate that
oath. However, if an elf gets feed up an walks away from his job and
his family, there is nothing anyone can do about it. He suffers
dishonor, disgrace, and total banishment, but no force of magical or
statutory law.

All the elves we've seen DO wear clothes. Dobby originally wore a
pillow case, which, let us note, is technically not clothes, and the
Hogwarts house elves wore tea towels with the Hogwarts crest on them.
Again, tea towels are technically not clothes. Another house elf,
which for the moment will not be identified, wore what appeared to be
a rag as a loincloth. So does a random disgarded rag qualify as
clothes? I think not.

So, my theory on the fact that by function more than definition, is
that the elves do where clothes. So where do they get them? Well
first, in the example we have seen, as I pointed out above, what the
elves are functionally using for clothes are techically not clothes.
No one would consider a pillow case clothes. 

Next, I think perhaps the elves forage for disgarded scraps of
material that can be used for clothes. I seriously doubt that the
pillowcase that Dobby wore was a brand new shiny pillow case when he
first got it. I suspect it was an old disgarded pillow case that Dobby
got out of the rag bin, or out of the garbage. Since is had been
discarded, it no longer belonged to his owner, and in the case of a
rag, it no longer qualifed as clothes. Since these items had been
disgarded, their ownership was in limbo, they had no owner and were
therefore free for the taking.

Let's go back to the example of the Hogwarts house elves, they
obviously have nice matching tea towels that they wear. How can this
be? These do not appear to me to be rags, my impression is that these
are still in good shape, so there are not disgarded or abondon towels.
Again, we come back to my two main points towels are not clothes by
any definition. Second, the towel have been made available, and may
still belong to Hogwarts and therefore must be cared for, but they are
still available for use by the house elves. Simple being there and
available does not make the 'given' or 'presented'. 

Also, it obvious that the house elves have a sense of modesty since
they wear what are functionally clothes, but at the sametime they
associate clothes with something that is less than desirable which is
freedom, or lack of a house to serve. So while house elves do wear
clothes, they do so in a very minimal and modest unassuming way.





*** OoP NOTE: ***

The next part deals with events in Order of the Phoenix, but I will do
in a vague and general way in an attempt not give away any of the
story. So this will probably qualify as more of a teaser than a spoiler. 

*** - - - - - ***






There is a misguided attempt to free some of the house elves, although
the logic behind it is somewhat flawed. In the days of slavery in the
USA south, I could not come from the north and hand out proclimations
of emancipation to every slave I saw, and have anyone including the
slave consider this a valid freeing of a slave. A slave can be set
free only by the person to whom the person is enslaved, and I think
that would include anyone in the immediate family of the house to
which they are enslaved. So randomly laying around 'proclimations of
emancipation' and hoping a slave will pick it up and suddenly be free
is... well, like I said, flawed, naive and misguided. 

Just a thought.

bboy_mn