Kreachur and other House Elves // Ollivander // Dursley Boat // Fake Mermaid

[Ceridwen]

No: HPFGUIDX 151669

Catlady:
> Then there's the story Magpie mentioned, of brownies who are 
offended
> by being given clothes, altho' gratified by being given a bowl of
> milk. I can understand the concept of someone who does a favor and
> then get offended (and permanently hostile) at being offered pay for
> it, only because I have met humans who do that. I can't understand 
the
> concept of milk not being pay but clothes are pay.

Ceridwen:
I'm thinking that, while everyone needs nourishment, not every 
culture uses clothes.  When they do, not every culture has the same 
sort of clothes.  If the elves show up naked, when they obviously 
have skills to make clothes, shown by their ability to make shoes, 
then their culture is different from the shoemaker's; the brownies 
would also have different ideas about clothes when milk is acceptable 
but clothes are not.  Maybe they're offended at the idea of someone 
trying, in their opinion, to force a different version of culture 
down their throats?

Catlady:
> Second hand shops, yes. In CoS, when Harry goes to Diagon Alley with
> the Weasleys, "in a tiny junk shop full of broken *wands*, lopsided
> brass scales, and old cloaks covered in potion stains they found
> Percy, deeply immersed in a small and deeply boring book called
> Prefects Who Gained Power." (emphasis added)

Ceridwen:
Thanks for this reference.  I'm not sure why just yet, but I think it 
might mean something.

Sandy wrote in
> <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/151568>:
> 
> << Whereas the bricks could be magical the boat is not. It is the 
same
> boat that Vernon used to get them all to the island. And that brings
> up the question of how Vernon, Petunia and Dudley got off the 
island. >>

Catlady:
> Once the storm had passed, in daylight, if the old guy (or his son 
who
> should be looking after him) didn't come (in another boat) out to
> check on the Dursleys, the Dursleys could have stood on the shore
> screaming until someone on the mainland heard them and came to get
> them. It's not as if their rock was so very far out to sea.

Ceridwen:
And after a bad storm, the owner would want to check up on his 
tenants.  It wouldn't be beyond imagination that, in a storm, the 
boat might have gotten away by itself, especially if Vernon didn't 
tie it down properly.

Ceridwen.