"Your Owl Will Find Me"

[Cindy C.]

No: HPFGUIDX 29844

Heidi wrote:

>Hogwarts owls 
> seem to be able to find current and prospective students when 
> carrying official mail from the school, and the Ministry owl finds 
> Harry in the begining of CoS, which begs the question of why the 
> ministry owl couldn't find Sirius, but I am willing to allow 
> the "Harry is Special" theory on that matter. 
> > 

accio wrote:

> Perhaps rather than just not being receptive to unknown mail, there 
> is a charm to block specifically unwanted mail. So through his 
filter 
> he could allow owls from dumbledore and harry would MoM owls would 
> just fly in confused circles.
> 

Hmmm.  I doubt that there is a charm for this purpose, or at least, a 
charm that Harry or Sirius uses.  Sirius most likely doesn't have a 
wand, and most spells other than fairly simple ones seem to require a 
wand.  As for Harry, we know pretty much every spell Harry has ever 
learned, and this doesn't seem to be among them.  

As for the MoM owl in CoS, I don't think Harry would choose to have 
his guard up such that he won't receive MoM owl post.  If Harry were 
to receive an owl from someone who works at MoM like Percy, Mr. 
Weasley, or Fudge, he'd likely be receptive to it.  The consequence 
of Harry letting MoM owls find him is that he gets bad news 
(reprimands) as well as good news.

For current students, I would think they'd be receptive to receiving 
Hogwarts mail.  After all, Harry needs to receive his school list, 
among other things.  In PoA, Ch. 1, McGonagall sends Harry his list, 
Hogsmeade permission slip, and tells him when the Hogwarts Express 
departs.  

For prospective students, I suppose that Muggle prospective students 
don't have their guard up against Hogwarts or MoM owls because they 
have never heard of it, and those from wizarding families are eagerly 
awaiting admission to the school (like Ginny) and are receptive to 
receiving a letter from Hogwarts.

I suppose that while we're on the subject of the limits of owl post, 
maybe we can deduce that owls also can't find people in their 
animagus form.  If they could, Sirius could have had an owl find 
Peter once Sirius had escaped, perhaps with a note strapped to the 
owl's leg that the rat was really Peter Pettigrew.

Cindy