[HPforGrownups] Re: Houseelves loyalty

[Jordan Abel]

No: HPFGUIDX 159589

> montims:
> taking it further then - Harry has inherited 12 GP, as well as Kreacher.  Do
> people believe that if he sells GP, Kreacher remains as "fixtures and
> fittings" with the house, and belongs to the new owners?

"House-elves come with big old manors and castles and places like
that" - one would assume, then, that if the Weasleys came into some
money and bought such a house, they would then have house elves.

> montims:
>  I would have expected him to stay with the family, notwithstanding all his
> ancestors' heads...

Why? They're house elves, not family elves, and it's never been
ambiguous that it refers to "house" literally as in the place itself,
not "house" as in bloodline/clan/whatever. The line I quoted above is
probably the clearest textual evidence one way or the other, but the
fact that they're based on the Brownies of myth strongly supports this
view, as is the fact that Harry inheriting Kreacher was used as a test
as to whether he'd inherited 12GP. If there was a chance that he might
have inherited 12GP but not Kreacher along with it, it wouldn't have
been a very useful test. If there was a chance of the opposite
(inheriting Kreacher but losing 12GP), it would even have been
dangerous to rely on that test.

> montims:
> For example, the Malfoys - up and coming family

I got the impression that they were a fairly old and well-established
family - i.e. they always had money (but maybe not always will -
there's a theory I read once about Lucius being in serious financial
debt as of book 2 and beyond)

> montims:
> I can't imagine every time
> they move (if they do - my speculation, not canon) they have to leave behind
> (or kill) their house elves and then reacquire others (with the new house or
> at some kind of a market - where ARE house elves bought and sold?).

One would assume that if they did (for whatever reason) move, they
wouldn't buy a house that was small enough to lack elves unless they
had to (and, if they did have to, e.g. the debt theory above, then
they'd just have to live without having any)

-- 
Random832