[HPforGrownups] Postal Owls and Recipients

[Jenett]

No: HPFGUIDX 29912

At 3:15 AM -0600 11/25/01, Eric Oppen wrote:
>Personally, I don't think that owls can be traced by hostile (or
>non-friendly) people...otherwise it would be much too easy to find people
>who've gone into hiding.  Who needs Peter Pettigrew (you dirty rat, you
>helped kill the Potters, I'll get you, you dirty rat, you) to find James and
>Lily Potter?  Just send them an owl with some innocuous message, and watch
>where the owl goes!  When you see the owl delivering its message, you've got
>them!

You know, I'm beginning to think it might be simpler than that, on 
the mechanical tracing end. Say Snape, for example, who has excellent 
reason to suspect at the end of PoA that Harry knows where Sirius is. 
If he were to keep track of when Hedwig was sent out, and followed 
her, he'd quite likely figure out where Sirius was  (particularly 
since there aren't that many places Harry in particular is likely to 
be sending an owl during school term.)

If, however, Harry doesn't use an owl that's as easily identified 
with him (Pig,  or Errol, or a school owl) you can't do that kind of 
purely mechanical tracking. You'd have to see which owl he sent out, 
and then followed it,  and that's much  harder to do if the person 
sending is being reasonably careful.

As far as the Potters, presumably that was part of the reason for the 
Fidelius spell - *no* one was supposed to know where they were, 
except the people they told (or knew before the thing took effect.)

I do think there's something in this theory of being able to block 
owlsfrom people you don't want to find you - but it's obviously a bit 
complicated. (c.f. the hate mail Hermione gets. And obviously, owls 
with unwanted but official news get through, too.)

-Jenett

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