House-elf Question

How does it work?

I don't understand how Harry's sock could've freed Dobby when Dobby wasn't bound to Harry...and I don't understand how the Hogwarts house-elves could be freed by Hermione's wannabe hats and scarves...

I mean, does that make sense to anyone else? I thought that house-elves could only be freed by their owners/masters.

I wanted to e-mail Rowling about this, but I can't find her e-mail address...does anyone have it?

You're right, Mione, it was Harry's sock, but it was Lucius who gave it to Dobby. However unintentional and far fetched the act was, JK had deemed it "good enough" to set Dobby free.
Hermione, though, was a bit misguided in her efforts. I don't think any item of clothing laying about the castle would serve the same purpose. JK hadn't any intention of setting more house elves free (in that book) so it's a moot point that Hermione was trying to free them.
I was under the impression that part of the house elves chores were doing the laundry, because the twins had mentioned that Mrs. Weasley had always wanted a house elf to help with the ironing. So, I think freedom must come directly from hand-to-hand.

I always thought that Hermione's hats and scarves wouldn't set the house-elves free. They probably just got offended by her intentions, and refused to clean the tower...

See, what I'm most confused about is the Harry/Dobby thing...I mean, if it wasn't Lucius' intention to free Dobby, should he really have been set free?

There again, I think you're right. Dobby shouldn't have been "accidentally" set free. But JK needed a way to make it happen, and it must've seemed like a good idea at the time.
The series has more than a few mistakes and seriously gray areas, but none of them have any real bearing to the larger points of the story.
Hey, it's a lot to put on paper, with tons of detail and back story - Ithink we could cut JK some slack.

hi
:P

Remember in book 2 though Dobby says that the Malfoys were careful not to hand him even a sock. So, it must have taken some thought to not do it, if you get what I mean. They would never have intentionally wanted to free him... but if they had to be careful to not do the thing that would free him then it looks like to me that it was possible to hand a piece of clothing over, not intending to free the elf... but freeing him/ her all the same.