Fireplaces (was: Good Writing (was Why now?))

[Susana da Cunha]

No: HPFGUIDX 110882

Del wrote:
"My personal pet peeve being that if Harry could get his head at GP,
and if he didn't intend to take his friends with him to the MoM, and
if he was in such a hurry to get to London, then why on Earth didn't
he take *all of himself* to GP, and checked on his own whether Sirius
was there or not ?"

Alice wrote :
" I don't think that the fact that he could put his head through
*does* mean that he could put the rest of himself through, though.
The primary reason is simply that if he could, it seems like Hogwarts
would have serious security issues: Slytherins of ill repute could be
slinking off to do evil sorts of things, and Seamus Finnegan would be
a regular at the Leaky Cauldron."

Del replies :
"Well no, because all the fires the students can have access to would
obviously be monitored. DD would immediately be informed of any
student travelling by Floo powder and of their destination."



I don't think fireplaces work that way - it's more then just monitoring.

If they did, anyone could barge in on someone's home uninvited. Fireplaces
must have spells preventing that, the same way you can't send an owl to
someone in hiding and follow it (JKR's explanation was: wizards can make
themselves unreachable if they want).

And in Hogwarts case, the fireplaces in the houses must have
spells preventing the exit as well or the students could live without
permission.

The only canon we have on this is Lupin coming to Snape's office on PoA.
<running to get the book... Oh, my sister has it. I'll have to do it on
memory.>

Snape throws powder in to the fire and, without sticking his head on the
fire, says:

"Lupin, I need to see you." - I suppose voice can travel by floo then.

After that, Lupin has no problem coming into Snape's office. So, was "Lupin,
I need to see you" a password authorization? It seems established that magic
is a matter of intent... could be: for someone to get into someone's privet
home, there should be an invitation from someone inside the house.

The fireplaces at the ministry or other public places don't require
invitation (Harry entered a shop by mistake in CS).

I wondered how does a wizard get home. For example: Mr. Wesley wants to
use the fireplaces at the ministry to get home. Does he have a password?
Does he say "The Burrow - Sherbet Lemon"?

My solution is this: if Sirius couldn't be found by an owl from the ministry
but he could be found by Harry's owl, then a fireplace can by jinxed to let
the family in but no one else.

Any thoughts?


Susana