A journey "into the thickets of wildest guesswork."

[Jen Reese]

No: HPFGUIDX 161624

Beatrice:
> She takes in Harry and actually embraces the idea of having a 
> house elf. While she probably resents this idea, she cannot resist
> the temptation of having a perfectly clean home.  There are 
> multiple references to how clean the house is, perhaps Petunia has
> a different kind of mother's little helper.  She orders the elf to
> never reveal his / herself to Vernon, Dudley, or anyone,
> especially Harry, but there is a small problem.  This will only
> work until Harry is of age, when he will fully come into his
> estate and the elf as part of that estate. So this elf has secretly
> been caring for the Dursley's (hating every moment I am sure). 
> This is why Petunia seems so startled to hear that Harry is of age
> at 17 - "uh oh, I will lose my slave." <snip>


Jen:  Hehe, I couldn't help thinking as I read this part: "Petunia 
doesn't need a House Elf, she has *Harry*." ;-)

I hope there's something coming about the unnaturally clean house 
and a House Elf might be as good a reasons as any (and likely 
extremely funny when Vernon finds out).  Wouldn't Dobby have known 
and been able to hint to Harry?  He wouldn't be banned from telling 
Harry by the Malfoys because they could care less.  The only other 
problem I see is one of repetition in that Harry already owns 
Kreacher and that's a good storyline.  

There was a theory floating around for awhile that Petunia and Lily 
had a House Elf for a relative somewhere in the distant past and 
that accounted for her unnatural cleanliness and also the Lily's and 
Harry's green eyes <g>.  Still love that one, it's fun and might 
explain how Harry can do wandless magic.  Maybe Petunia only 
inherited the cleaning gene and that explains why she was still a 
Muggle and not magical? Hee, I love far-out theories like this b/c 
really so many of JKR's *are* kinda wild in retrospect, it's just 
once you are used to them being part of the story you don't notice 
so much.

So hey, I could see this one Beatrice!

Jen R.