OOP - Hedwig and Owl Post

[Wendy St John]

No: HPFGUIDX 63362

Hello!

I was just thinking about one of the (many!) disturbing events in OoP: when
Hedwig appears (in Chapter 17) during Professor Binns' class with a letter
for Harry, and she has been injured. My take on this is that she was
injured when she resisted having Harry's letter monitored by Umbridge's
regime (who exactly was monitoring the incoming and outgoing mail? Filch I
suppose). I wonder whether or not Hedwig was successful in getting the
letter through without being read.

It also makes me question the whole system of Owl Post. I had always
believed that there was more to it than just strapping your letter to an
owl and telling the owl where to go. How would the owls know where to find
the addressee if not for some form of magic governing the whole thing? (It
can't be the address, as Harry corresponded with Sirius without ever
knowing where he was). So I would have thought it impossible for someone
else to intercept a letter addressed to another person, because of this
same magical "system" (for want of a better word). If owl post can be
tampered with like this, than what is to stop the Ministry (or anyone,
really) from using owls for other purposes? In the Ministry's manhunt for
Sirius, for example, why not just address a letter to him, send it off, and
follow the owl to his hiding spot?

I suppose it can be explained that Umbridge can magically control what
comes in and out of Hogwarts, but somehow I really don't like that
explanation. I rather preferred to think of Owl Post as being somehow more
tamper-proof than that. So I found that little detail to be very disturbing.

Just some thoughts :-)


Wendy St John
hebrideanblack at earthlink.net