Possible Error

[Kimberly]

No: HPFGUIDX 12197

--- In HPforGrownups at y..., Meredith Wilson 
<aviationoutreachcoord at m...> wrote:
> I just read that part myself and thought the same thing!  
> 
> Here's another question, brought up to me by a friend of mine this 
weekend.
> 
> We see several times (most specifically in GoF when Hedwig is 
finding
> Sirius) that when sending owl post, the owls can find people pretty 
much
> anywhere they are, right?  Why then in PoA did nobody ever send an 
owl to
> Sirius and just follow it on broomstick to find his whereabouts?
> 
> I told him that there had to be some kind of charm that allows 
someone not
> to be found by owl post if they're in hiding, but he said that 
wasn't a good
> enough answer and so I now turn to you.  If anybody has an answer, 
it has to
> be you guys!
> 

Ok, here are my various ways to try to bail us out of this one:

The first thing that pops into my mind is that owls are very smart, 
and clearly in JKR's world, magical in some way.  I get the 
impression that they are rather proud, and judging from the number of 
times forms of the word 'indignant' are used in reference to Hedwig, 
I'd think they wouldn't be too keen on being used like that. I'm 
pretty sure they could shake a wizard on a broomstick if they wanted 
to.  Especially when, in talking about broomstick flying JKR refers 
to 50' as being high, I have to wonder if broomsticks can follow owls 
very well.   
Also there is definitely some sort of magic involved in the owls 
being able to find people wherever they are.  
Maybe the owl has to know the person, or to have delivered to the 
person before, knowing where they were, and after they 'know' the 
person, they can find them anywhere?  Can't remember if Hedwig had 
delivered to him or met him at all before he went into hiding, so 
that one's especially tentative.  
Or how about this?
Remember what Dumbledore did with the Mirror and the Stone?  He made 
it so that you could get the stone if you just wanted to *find* it, 
but not if you wanted to use it.  Seems like Arthur wrote something 
along those same lines into the Muggle Protection Act, didn't he?  
You can mess with muggle artifacts, but only under certain 
circumstances, and it's the intention that matters.  Maybe there's a 
similar thing at work with owl post - the person can be found if the 
intention is simply to send a letter, but you can't use it to track 
them?  Kinda far-fetched, but the best I can do at the moment.

kimberly,
Who'd really like to know the real reason, now that you've got me 
thinking about it!