They are sexually dimorphic and have affectionate relationships so it stands to reason they do.
Sure. Where else would little house elves come from?
Where would they find the time? I suppose the elf’s master could order the elf to have relations with another elf…
I think I’m going to hop off this train of thought while I can still look myself in the eye in the mirror.
I would really like to say that this is the strangest Harry Potter discussion I’ve been a part of. sadly, this would not be anywhere near the truth.
I thought it went without saying, given, as you say, they’re sexually dimorphic. They have ancestors, so they don’t simply arise magically in the house they’re attached to, nor are they created by magic. What’s more, Dobby seems in love with Winky.
What confuses (and disturbs) me even more are the Dementors. In 2000, Rowling told the Canadian Press:
But in the first chapter of Half-Blood Prince, we’re told the Dementors are breeding. Does that just mean they’re arising in places where there’s decay, that they’ve learned to breed, or that Rowling decided to change the rules…?
The term “breed” is not really too specific. It doesn’t always refer to sexual reproduction. You could describe someone’s kithcen (not mine) as a “breeding ground for germs.” One of the characters saying this doesn’t indicate any change in the Pooterverse, as far as I can see.
When I first read the thread title, I thought “Well who else *would * they have relations with?”
You DON’T want to see this answered…
Or, at least I don’t.
Our little group of friends discussed this, actually. We reckoned the fog at the beginning of the book was a cloud of Dementor sperm. :eek:
Someone’s written fanfic about it already, I’m sure.
::shudder::
“Sexual relations”? Please, these are children’s books!
…the term is, “sexual congress”.
And if there already half-giants like Hagrid and part-“Veela” girls like Fleur in the story, who’s to say a half-house-elf (condo-elf?) is impossible?
Yeah, but half house elf, half what? Grindylow? Hinkypunk? The weird thing on the trees (bowtruckles?)
Veelas are at least humanish, as are giants. I see house elves more like the goblins–they may talk and walk on two legs, but that’s about it as far as human characteristics…
Do they have o’possums in England?
You and me both 
Doesn’t Winky say in GoF that she has been serving the Crouch family for her whole life, like her mother and grandmother before her? (I suppose they could reproduce by parthenogenesis, but since there are male house-elves too, this seems unlikely.)
I do wonder where you go to meet other house-elves if you’re a servant to an individual family, rather than an employee of a place like Hogwarts which has lots of house-elves, but maybe the Crouches had neighbors.
They have. I’ve found some.
cringe
I’d say so simply because there hasn’t been any other mention of how else they can be created. Unless they’re asexual like Smurfs and just sort of appear.
Remember that the Dementors were going around spreading misery and despair, hence creating better conditions for more Dementors. They mentioned that half of England seemed to be under a malaise.
[Jayne] The elves are in Congress? [/Jayne]
A question that never occurred to me until this moment. But, having the kind of imagination I have, I’m now getting an image of a House-Elf House in Knockturn Alley, where the more depraved denizens of the wizarding world lay down a few knuts or sickles for a taste of elf-flesh . . . And some of the clients might be gentlewizards in reduced circumstances, who lost their virginity to one of Pater’s house-elves back in the day. (It’s not much different from the way American slaveowners used their slave women.)
**First Law of Fanfic: **If you can conceive of a fanfic, it has already been written.
They call it “Parliament” over there.
But Rowling has said in interview that Flitwick is part Goblin, so that’s happening, too :eek:
True, true.
And isn’t the Second Law something like:"…and made it much worse that you would have imagined"?