Did Sirius have a knife?

[Grey Wolf]

No: HPFGUIDX 59472

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Susan Miller" <
constancevigilance at y...> wrote:
> Discussing Sirius' acquisition of knives, "Grey Wolf" wrote:
> 
> The only difficulty with buying the knive by post is that Sirius 
> doesn't have a place where he can pick it up. Even if he does have a 
> house, I should imagine the MoM was waiting for him there.
> 
> Constance (me):
> 
> Wolf, I'm surprised at you! While I don't really support the idea 
> that Sirius bought a knife from the Sears catalog, there would be no 
> difficulty shipping it to him. Owls have found him in a cave, touring 
> the tropics, and in concealment in who knows what other locations. so 
> I think he would be able to receive a purchase quite easily even 
> without an address.
> 
> ~ Constance Vigilance

I discounted Sirius buying the knife from the WW for two main reasons, 
Constance. 1) It seemed to be a normal, absolutely non magical knive. 
It did not vibrate or otherwise serve any other purpose than being a 
normal knive. Granted it may have a "never-dull" enchantment, but it 
certainly didn't sound like it. 2) Most importantly, while muggles seem 
to be tricked by false names but real directions, wizard post does 
require you to give your real name so the owl can find you and in that 
case we're back to the problem of "who would sell something to the 
infamous turncoat and assassin Sirius Black"?

Granted, now that you mention it, I realise that if Sirius is, as it 
seems, a WW-raised wizard (i.e. he has never lived in the muggle 
world), it is doubtful he'd have a non-Gringotts bank account from 
which to pay for the knive, and if he has to stop to steal muggle 
money, he might as well just go ahead and steal the damned knive in the 
first place.

Before you all jump to the question, let me say that it is not at all 
cut and dried that Sirius is WW-raised. Harry implies in his letter in 
GoF that Sirius should know what a computer is, when he describes 
Dudley's console as a "kind of computer you play games on". Of course, 
Harry *has* written three other letters that summer, IIRC, and might 
have explined computers before (and considering how much time Sirius 
has been in Azkaban, and before that in the WW, he might have needed it 
even if he was raised in the muggle world). Sirius also has an 
(enchanted) bike, which could indicate passion for muggles (but then, 
the MoM has ministry cars, and we know that the average wizard doesn't 
really think much of the muggles).

Anyway, back to the post, you are right to be surprised, Constance. I 
should've paid more attention to the details. Sorry, will try to be 
more careful. One thing is true: I am more and more convinced that 
Sirius simply broke and entered a muggle house and took their cleaver. 
We know he's not shy when it comes to entering people's homes, and at 
the time he was desperate, haunted, being prosecuted and mad enough to 
commit the crime he was imprisoned for.Sirius certainly didn't act like 
an innocent man.

Hope that helps,

Grey Wolf