Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire Chapter Notes

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire 

Chapter 21: The House-Elf Liberation Front

• “‘Harry Potter, sir! Harry Potter!’ Next second all the wind had been knocked out of him as the squealing elf hit him hard in the midriff, hugging him so tightly he thought his ribs would break. ‘D-Dobby?’ Harry gasped.” – I just love Dobby. A lot.

• Dobby still wears the sock Harry gave his old master, the sock that set him free, and he later tells Harry that socks are his favourites and makes some for Harry. They have such a huge symbolic meaning for Dobby, they represent his freedom, and so the fact that he gave some to Harry, socks he made himself with wool he bought from his wage is in itself such a meaningful present. I bet adult Harry still has them and treasures them. Now I made myself sad.

• Winky mirrors her old master, Barty Crouch, in some interesting ways. Harry notices that her clothes, unlike Dobby’s, actually match, the same way Barty Crouch could have easily passed as a Muggle at the World Cup. And yet, without her master Winky becomes lost, just as Barty Crouch does, though of course in a very different way.

• It is somehow implied that Dobby and Winky knew each other before they started to work at Hogwarts together (I think even at the World Cup Winky seemed to know who Dobby is). Both elves have been in their families for quite some time, and their ancestors before them. Which means that the Crouch family and the Malfoy family must have had enough contact with each other for their house-elves to know each other. But given how much Barty Crouch loathes Dark Wizards and Lucius Malfoy being publically accused (though never arrested) to be a Death Eater it seems unlikely for them to meet. Perhaps it was before the First Wizarding War? (How old do house-elves get anyway?) It is an interesting detail however.

• It also tells a lot that Dobby couldn’t find work for two years because nobody could be bothered to pay him, and he gets 1 Galleon a week at Hogwarts, which isn’t that much, because he doesn’t want more. The concept of owning a slave (because nothing else is a house-elf) is so integrated in the Wizarding World that people rather own none house-elf than one they have to pay. Nobody even considered that, which again, is quite telling.

• And even Dobby, who likes his freedom and wants to remain a free elf, says he prefers working over too much freedom (Dumbledore offered him 10 Galleons a week and every weekend off instead of 1 day a month). And this again makes me believe House-Elves are programmed in a way of either not wanting freedom at all or not too much. Even someone like Dobby isn’t set up to start a rebellion, he likes to work, he likes to serve, despite his new status. And to most House-Elves freedom is still seen as the ultimate punishment.

• And Hermione, why I totally share her belief that owning House-Elves is nothing more than owning slaves and that the system needs to change, lacks in sensitivity. She firmly believes that everyone needs to share her ideals, humans and House-Elves alike, that Dobby is that ideal instead of an outsider. The fact that Dumbledore doesn’t mind paying Dobby implies that he sees the House-Elf-System probably similar as Hermione. And yet he doesn’t force any of the House-Elves working at Hogwarts to get paid or to get dressed. Winky doesn’t want any payment, because she thinks it is beneath her dignity, and Dumbledore respects that. Hermione is too stubborn (yet) for her actions to change.

• Just imagine though the amount of secrets the Hogwarts-Elves are keeping. Always overlooked  but they know things.

• But the fact that a free House-Elf is technically allowed to tell his old master’s secrets makes it so dangerous to free an Elf. Dobby knows a lot that could get the Malfoys in trouble and it would serve them right for abusing him, but even freed I think part of the old House-Elf magic and how they are bound to their masters is preventing him from doing so.