House-elves loyalty - Explained ...sort of

[Steve]

No: HPFGUIDX 159232

---  Kimberly <luv2readhp at ...> wrote:
>
> Tonks:
> 
> 
> > And the biggest concern for me is the one about House 
> > Elves
 I thought that they were bound to the family,
> > not to the building.... How can their allegence be to
> >  the house? Is this some sort of British usage of the
> > word? That `house' means family or something? ...
> 
> Kimberly:
> This is a good question, where does the loyalty of a 
> houseelf truly lie. I had always derived that it was 
> to the family but after listening to HBP ... I am
> questioning whether or not that is actually true.  
> Dumbledore  explains to Harry that Kreacher is 
> "showing signs of not wanting to pass into Harry's
> ownership".   He demonstrates behavior that indicates
> he would like nothing less than to serve Harry, ... 
> However, Dumbledore goes on to say that if Harry is 
> the true owner of Grimmauld Place than he inherits as
> well, Kreacher.  This gives me the feeling that it is 
> not only loyalty to the person ... but also the house 
> .... Hmmm, it made more sense before I worked it out 
> here, now it presents itself as quite tricky. Perhaps,
> the loyalty to the house and family go hand in hand 
> and are inseparable.
> 
> Magpie:
> I thought that House Elf allegiances were to families,
> not houses, and based whatever answer there was on that.
> Clearly it's the person since Kreacher belongs to Harry
> whether he's at Grimmauld Place or Hogwarts. So I don't
> think that's a problem--House Elves are definitely (imo) 
> bound to the family, not the house....
> 
> Kimberly here:
> This is where I think the allegiance to the house comes
> in.  If Kreacher wasn't bound to the house but the 
> family, then he would have passed on to the next blood
> line in the Black family, not the next owner of the 
> house. It seems the ownership of the house takes 
> precedant over the family.  ...
> 
> Kimberly
>

Bboyminn:

First I think we need to make the distinction that I have
made many times before when discussing this, and that is
the distinction between 'the house of Black' (a building)
and 'the HOUSE of Black' (the entire family). 

I believe a house-elf's allegience is to the HOUSE of
Black, that is the family of Black. Remember Sirius said
Kreacher is suppose to obey everyone in the family, but
he was refusing to obey Tonks because Tonk's parents had
been blasted off the family tapestry. So, despite having
to be loyal to the whole family, there is both an element
of personal preference and a hierarchy of obedience. 

Kreacher holds his highest allegiance to his immediate 
family. He is more loyal to them than say the Malfoys or
the LeStranges. Certainly personal preference come in in
a limted way. Dobby certainly knowingly went against the
family he serves when he went to warn Harry. Yet, he did
so in a very indirect way, so I think, in his own mind,
he could some how justify it. Kreacher, knowingly went
against Sirius, his direct and immediate master, and the
current patriarch of his immediate family, when he went
to Narcissa Malfoy with information. Yet in his own 
mind he could justify it because he didn't reveal any
information he was specifically forbidden to reveal. 

So, how does Harry come in to all this. Sirius was the
last living /direct/ decendant of this Black family line.
That makes him the supreme authority over Kreacher. In
a sense, it makes Sirius the super-patriarch. As the
family super-patriarch, Sirius Willed both 12 Grimmauld
Place, all his money and possessions including Kreacher
to Harry, that makes Harry the new Patriarch of Kreacher.
It is, to some extent, as someone else said, Kreacher is
property, and where Kreacher is order to go and who he
is ordered to serve, he must obey.

Consider for example, that Narcissa Black's father had
(hypothetically) several House-Elves. When Narcissa 
married Lucius Malfoy, as part of her dowry or as a
wedding gift, father-Black ordered an elf to go with
Narcissa and serve her new family. For simplicity, let
us assume that was Dobby. Dobby has now been ordered by
the super-Patriarch of the family to serve a new family,
and that is an order he can't refuse to obey. In a sense, 
he continues to serve the House of Black through serving
Narcissa. Yet, he now belongs to the House of Malfoy and
that is where his new loyalty must lie. Again it is a
tranfer of property but more importantly it is a tranfer
of loyalty. Certainly, it wouldn't erase the Black family
loyalty, but the elf's first and moremost loyalty would 
now be to his new family. I suspect if the House of Malfoy
were to commit a grave act against the House of Black, the
elf's loyalty would be strongly divided and strongly 
tested. But offically, it would now belong to Malfoy.

So, by order of the last remaining Super-Patriarch of 
that specific Black family line, Kreacher has been 
transferred to Harry. Whether Kreacher likes it or not
his allegiance and his loyalty have now been transferred
to the House of Potter, and along with that, should there
sadly be any, so to are Kreacher's decendant bound by
the magic of their kind to serve the House of Potter
until they die, or until their ownership is offically
transferred to someone else.

Can I prove it? No, but remember, you heard it here 
first.

Steve/bboyminn