Malfoy as a spy & Eagle Owl

[Steve]

No: HPFGUIDX 60866

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Jenna Tichon" <jtichon at y...> wrote:
> Hi everyone :)
> ... Malfoy having an eagle as a pet and then later on several other
references to eagles.
> 
> Harry's dream sequence in Divination .... 
> ... Harry seeing an eagle flying behind the owlery in the middle of 
> the night.
> Makes me wonder if maybe Malfoy has been acting as a spy inside 
> Hogwarts on behalf of his father. 
>
> Jenna

bboy_mn:

As someone else pointed out, it's not an eagle but and eagle owl.

The Malfoy family's owl is an eagle owl, and it brings sweets and
cakes from the Malfoy home to Draco at the school then turns around
and goes back home. So the owl really isn't Draco's and doesn't hang
around Hogwarts.

When Harry is in the owlery having just sent some food to Sirius, he
stands looking out the window of the owlery watching Hagrid digging
the niffler pit. An eagle owl flys through a coul of smoke rising from
Hagrid's chimmey, flew around the owlery, and disappeared. This was
the owl bringing a message from Voldemort (or possibley Wormtail)
telling Fake!Moody that Crouch Sr. had escaped. (GoF AM Hb pg 340)

When I figured out who this owl was from, and what it was for, I
always thought that was very strange. Why an eagle owl? Certainly,
that would be a very distinctive and unusual owl. Tawny, barn, grey,
and screech owls are far more common.

My first thought, much like you, is that it was an owl borrowed from
Lucius Malfoy. In the graveyard scene, Voldemort doesn't seem very
hard on Malfoy, so I wonder if they had met previously, and Voldemort
had already expressed his anger and got it out of his system. Where
else would Voldemort get an eagle owl unless Crouch Sr also had an
eagle owl at his house. 

In the Divination dream Harry rides on the back of an eagle owl to the
Riddle mansion, an owl that brings Voldemort the message that Crouch
Sr has been killed. Presumably the same owl that Harry saw earlier
when he was up in the owlery. 

So, I don't think Draco is a spy because of the eagle owl, but I
definitely think there was some significants to it being an EAGLE owl
as opposed to some other type, but for the life of me, it remain a
mystery.

Two marginal explainations come to mind-
-Lucius Malfoy is already helping Voldemort, and it was his owl.
-The alternative is that eagle owls are usually owned by rich people,
and like the Malfoys, the Crouches, who I have assumed are rich, also
had an eagle owl. 

Just a thought.

bboy_mn