House Elves' Magic and Possible Involvement with LV

[Grey Wolf]

No: HPFGUIDX 83118

> Granny again responds:
> 
> Yes, this is good.  But I'm still curious about the reason for 
> Winky's extreme unhappiness and alcoholism.  She's still in servitude 
> at Hogwarts. I suspect that something is on her conscious.

There have been a few theories about what went on in the Crouch 
household. Unfortunately, when they came around I wasn't paying that 
much attention to the list, so I am fuzzy on the details, but there was 
one in particular about Winky taking the role of mother and wife which 
explained quite neatly all of the problems.

I don't go that far, though. Winky is crushed because she's been thrown 
away from her family. I don't see consciense problems, more like deep 
worrying. Notice that she constantly wonders what will happen to Crouch 
Sr. now that she's not there to take care of him. Of course, she might 
feel that she is in some way responsible for having been socked, but 
many people that go through similar experiences tend to think "maybe it 
was my fault" even if it wasn't (for the record, I think it *was* her 
fault, since it was she that bullied Sr. into allowing Jr. to go to the 
Quidditch Final in the first place and then not doing her job properly 
- she must have known that a Quidditch match would involve sitting 
somewhere high - but I think that the socking was excessive and 
dangerous).

At any rate, IMO, Winky's alcoholism comes from a depression caused 
when she was cut away from her family, the family she was bound to 
serve and that had come to love and certainly felt deeply about.

> Grey Wolf:
> 
> "...I see Dobby as the great Elf exception..."
> 
> Granny again:
> 
> No, I have to disagree.  We saw in Book 4 (kitchen scene with Harry, 
> Ron, Hermione) that Dobby's not proud of his "freedom".

I disagree. Dobby is very proud of his freedom, and he demonstrates it 
clearly by keeping his clothes perfectly clean and buying more with his 
pay. He asks not to be taken into Hermione's wild Elf Freedom scheme 
for what seems to me a good reason: nothing good will come out of it. 
He knows his fellow elves much better than Hermione does, for starters, 
and knows they won't be pleased by her ideas (which at that point are 
absolutely useless for the elves, particularly for some as well treated 
as the Hogwart elves).

Dobby still has to work with them, and not everyone is cut out to be a 
politician. If, for example, Dobby had had trouble being accepted by 
the other elves for being free, he might not want to reopen the battle, 
and I understand that choice perfectly - I don't drink or smoke, but I 
don't make an issue when my peers do and viceversa, and I certainly 
won't join the side of the first campaigner that comes by claiming that 
everyone must stop smoking and drinking for their own good. Hermione is 
doing precisly that, in the kitchen scene, with her half-cooked ideas.

> So, he's not such an exception; 

Yes he is. So far, he's the only elf we know of that has voluntarily 
traitioned his family, the only one that has readily accepted clothing 
and the only one that has wanted to work for money and wanted days 
free. That makes him the great exception, in my opinion.

> and don't forget he's secretly collecting Hermione's Elf clothing so 
> that other house elves won't be freed.

False. He is *not* collecting them in secret, in so far anything an elf 
does is in secret. The other elves were offended at Hermione's plot (I 
would've, too - I think that what Hermione did was grossly unethical 
and she's lost quite a bit of standing in my eyes because of it) and 
*stopped* cleaning Griffindor Tower. Dobby took on the entire job and 
since those hats and other clothings were there to be picked up by the 
elves cleaning the room, Dobby picked them up. 

He didn't pick them up so that the other elves weren't freed - the 
other elves had already seen them and decided against being free. Dobby 
was just picking them up because they were a (bad intentioned) present.

Hope that helps,

Grey Wolf