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| Dobby & Kreacher |
In Hogwarts today, The Stones and The Grandma have been talking about slavery and freedom in the wizard's world with two nice elfs, Dobby and Kreacher, treated as slaves by their masters.
Slavery is any system in which principles of property law are applied to people, allowing individuals to own, buy and sell other individuals, as a de jure form of property. A slave is unable to withdraw unilaterally from such an arrangement and works without remuneration.
Slavery existed in many cultures, dating back to early human civilizations. A person could become enslaved from the time of their birth, capture, or purchase.
Slavery was legal in most societies at some time in the past but is now outlawed in all recognized countries. The last country to officially abolish slavery was Mauritania in 1981. Nevertheless, there are an estimated 40.3 million people worldwide subject to some form of modern slavery.
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The most common form of modern slave trade is commonly referred to as human trafficking. In other areas, slavery continues through practices such as debt bondage, the most widespread form of slavery today; serfdom; domestic servants kept in captivity; certain adoptions in which children are forced to work as slaves; child soldiers; and forced marriage.
The word slave is derived from the ethnonym, ethnic name Slav. It arrived in English via the Old French sclave. In Medieval Latin the word was sclavus; in Byzantine Greek σκλάβος. At a very early medieval date, when Christian government in most of Europe had collapsed, trading expeditions to eastern Europe brought back Slavs as slaves. An older interpretation connected it to the Greek verb skyleúo to strip a slain enemy.
The Grandma wants to add another kind of situation that she considers slavery. It is economic slavery that is produced when you are a victim of the economic social rules nowadays. This social pyramid that has not changed since the origins of humanity and this economic system that allows that, every time, rich people have more and poor people have less creating a big hole between one social range and the other and destroying the middle-class, the real motor of any society.
Before talking about Dobby and Kreacher, The Grandma wants to offer a new Cambridge Key English Test A2 to practice and study.
Dobby is a male house-elf who served the Malfoy family. His masters were Dark Wizards who treated him cruelly. He disobeyed his masters and tried to warn Harry Potter of the plot to have the Chamber of Secrets reopened. He came to know this via the contact between his masters and Lord Voldemort.
At the end of that school year, after Harry had vanquished the memory of Tom Riddle and slayed the basilisk in the Chamber of Secrets, he tricked Lucius Malfoy into freeing Dobby. Harry accomplished this by placing the Diary of Tom Riddle inside his own sock. Lucius disgustedly ripped the sock off the book and threw the sock into the air, where Dobby caught it.
More information: Wizarding World
Harry's only request in return for granting Dobby freedom was for Dobby never to try to save his life again.
Dobby suffered a period
of unemployment, during which he was often ostracised for having no proper shame in regards to being out of work. He was generally pleased
to be free, although he did enjoy working as a hobby.
Dobby was ecstatic to be
out of the abusive hands of the Malfoys, but equally pleased to join
the Hogwarts staff. At Hogwarts he could come and go as he liked, did
not have many tasks, and those he did have were fairly simple.
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| Dobby |
Dobby was the resident house-elf of Malfoy Manor, serving Lucius Malfoy, his wife Narcissa, and their only son Draco. They treated Dobby with unkindness and cruelty, often reminding him to perform extra punishments on himself when he did something disagreeable to them. The Malfoys were harsh and abused Dobby often.
Dobby was threatened many times during his time serving the Malfoy family and told Harry Potter that he was accustomed to death threats, because he received them five times a day from the Malfoys. Though he always did as he was told, he knew that their behaviour was wrong and he longed to be free of them.
Dobby is a house-elf, much shorter in stature than humans, standing only about 1.06 m. He had large, tennis-ball-like green eyes, a pencil-like nose and long, bat-like pointed ears.
Before he was given
freedom, he wore a body-covering pillowcase. Later at Hogwarts, he wore a
mismatched variety of jumpers, shorts, and socks.
More information: Wizarding World
Dobby is a brave, loyal house-elf, willing to put himself in dangerous situations when he knew it to be the right thing to do. He was also very loyal to the few friends he had. He considered himself to be a good house-elf, though other house-elves seemed to find his desires and proclamations of being a free house-elf to be shameful.
According to the Oxford English Dictionary, a dobby is an old English word for a benevolent elf that would perform household tasks secretly in the night, like the elves in tales of the elves and the shoemaker. However, just as those elves disappeared when the shoemaker made them shoes, so the dobbies were said to disappear when offered clothing. Also called a Brownie. A dobby is also a small mechanical part in a loom that enables the weaver to create small geometric patterns.
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Dobby is used to death threats, sir.
Dobby gets them five times a day at home.
Dobby
Kreacher was a male house-elf who served the House of Black with fanatical loyalty for most of his life, until he was left to Harry Potter upon the death of Sirius Black.
He was particularly fond of his mistress Walburga Black but whose portrait still shrieked orders from the wall in the front hall of the Black house. After Mrs Black's death, Kreacher let the home fall into disarray, doing little, if any, cleaning.
He was also fiercely loyal to Regulus Black, and later to Harry Potter whom he fought for in the Battle of Hogwarts alongside many other house-elves. Kreacher survived the final battle of the Second Wizarding War; it is unknown what happened to him later in life, though he died at some point after Albus Potter went to Hogwarts.
When Lord Voldemort told Regulus Black that he needed a house-elf, Regulus
volunteered Kreacher, saying it would be an honour to serve the Dark
Lord.
Voldemort took Kreacher to the Crystal Cave and forced him to
drink the potion in the basin so that Voldemort could place Salazar
Slytherin's Locket in the basin.
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| Kreacher |
The potion, the same one Dumbledore drank, caused Kreacher to have nightmarish delusions, intense stomach pains and made him dehydrated.
Voldemort then left, leaving Kreacher to drink from the lake, as any water conjured evaporates, and die at the hands of the Inferi. However, Voldemort, in his arrogance, had never cared to learn that House Elves can apparate out of locations that Wizards and Witches cannot, so Kreacher, using his own special type of magic and not contained by the enchantments on the cave, was able to disapparate from the cave and follow his master's orders, to come home when he finished his task.
Kreacher is considered somewhat of a liability by the Order of the Phoenix, who used the Blacks' house as headquarters; as a house-elf, Kreacher overheard sensitive information, but was forbidden to disclose it.
Like all house elves, Kreacher was considerably smaller than a human. He was described as having a bulbous, snout-like nose, bloodshot eyes, many folds of skin, and white hair growing out of his bat-like ears. Dobby also knocked out half of his teeth with a punch in 1997, and it is unclear as to whether he had them magically grown back.
Kreacher was very loyal to all the members of the Black family except Sirius Black, whom he hated because he treated Kreacher poorly. He had a strong bond with Sirius' brother, Regulus Black and was devastated by his death.
Kreacher was usually hostile, bitter and miserable and had a habit of insulting people, including his masters. He frequently called Hermione Granger a Mudblood. He hated taking orders from those he hated, often giving them a dirty look or a biting remark.
Kreacher's name is most likely derived from the word creature. Reminiscent of the German Kriecher derived from kriechen, meaning to creep, crawl, cringe, grovel, tuckle, or fawn upon."
More information: Wizarding World
Kreacher is what he has been made by wizards, Harry.
Yes, he is to be pitied.
His existence has been as miserable as your friend Dobby's.
Albus Dumbledore
