Questions about Apparition (Was: Why Sirius did not apparate into GH?)

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 164206

Dana wrote:
>  
> I have seen in the archives (yes, yet again) that many wondered why
Sirius used an enchanted motorcycle to go to GH instead of apparating
or even why he did not use this in POA. I think the answer is rather
simple. Apparations are monitored by the MOM and in VWI it was
believed that LV had spies in the MOM, so it would not have been wise
to use this way of transportation to visit James and Lily even if the
location it self was protected by the Charm, it would still give a lot
away about the location itself. Of course this is why he could not use
it in POA they would have tracked him down. When Sirius went to see
the Potters after not finding Peter at his hiding location, he did not
know anything had happened to them so it would still be stupid to just
apparate to the location because if there were okay than he would have
Jeopardized the safety of everyone visiting the Potters not just
theirs, only after he saw what happened did he not need it anymore.
Just my simplistic theory of course.

Carol responds:

*Is* Apparition/Apparation monitored by the MoM? If so, why doesn't
Rufus Scrimgeour know where Dumbledore went on the day of his death? 

As for Sirius Black at GH, I think that he just preferred the
motorcycle (which he "loved," according to Hagrid) and didn't think
about Apparating to the Potters. It was his usual mode of
transportation just as a 1991 Ford Taurus is mine.(And, of course, JKR
needed the flying motorcycle for the plot and for the humorous effect
of having Hagrid riding it.) 

Of course, if Apparition *is* monitored, flying on Buckbeak after the
events in the Shrieking Shack would have been safer for Black than
Apparating, but wouldn't the MoM have been able to trace his movements
*before* that and know before Dumbledore did that he was in Hogsmeade
(or had somehow gotten past the Dementors a second time and was on the
Hogwarts grounds, which DD didn't know until he slashed the Fat Lady's
painting on Halloween)? The Dementors were guarding the entrances and
searching the Hogwarts Express weeks (nearly two months?) before
Harry's "Grim" showed up at the Quidditch game, and Hermione reports
at some point that Black has been sighted (I forget when and where
because, unfortunately, the uncanonical film version is more vivid in
my mind than the book version).

However, *if* Apparition can be monitored, the MoM would know not only
where Dumbledore went on the day of his death but that Narcissa and
Bellatrix had Apparated to someplace near Spinner's End (not the
street itself, but the town) around the second week of July (which
would make Spinner's End an unsafe hideout for Snape if it isn't
already). Might that be the reason that Narcissa, a DE's wife visiting
a supposed DE, didn't Apparate directly to the house itself, not
because she was protecting Snape's whereabouts but because she didn't
want the MoM to know where *she* was going? (Surely, she didn't avoid
landing on his doorstep out of courtesy like Dumbledore's in not
Apparating directly to Slughorn's "borrowed" Muggle home. And I don't
see how she could not know the exact address since she ended up there
eventually. Possibly, Snape had anti-Apparition spells on the house
that forced her to land half a mile or so away?) 

And yet, if an Apparator's movements could be traced by the MoM, why
would Bellatrix, a wanted fugitive, dare to follow Narcissa? (Surely,
she'd care more about staying out of Azkaban than keeping her sister
from visiting Snape?) Maybe the MoM merely knows that *someone* is
Apparating, just as they know that *someone* performed a Hover Charm
at the Dursleys in CoS and that *someone* cast a Patronus in a Muggle
neighborhood in OoP. That makes more sense to me than having the MoM
know who Apparated where. Fugitives like Bellatrix (and now Snape)
would be easy to catch if that were the case, and the WW would be a
virtual police state, with everyone's movements monitored, rather than
the corrupt and hopelessly inept bureaucracy it appears to be. 

And while we're exploring this topic (Apparition/-ation), how did
Bellatrix, who clearly didn't know where Snape lived ("He lives
*here,* in the Muggle dunghill?"), follow Narcissa? If the Destination
(one of the three D's) can be a *person* (Narcissa, in Bellatrix's
case), why can't the Aurors just locate fugitive DEs and Voldemort
himself by mentally naming the person as their destination? (Could
that be the means that the DEs used to find Voldemort in GoF, or were
they already familiar with this Muggle father's burial place, in which
case, they'd know that LV was a Half-Blood?) If, like owls, a witch or
wizard can find a person without knowing his location by naming the
person as their destination ("Padfoot is Sirius, Hedwig. Find him,
okay?"), the Aurors' job would be all too easy, and it wouldn't have
taken Moody six months to track down Karkaroff during VW1. (And how
did the DEs, who *don't* monitor Apparition, track him down to kill
him, anyway?)

So, do plot needs override consistency and logic not only for young
Sirius Black and his flying motorcycle but for Apparition in general,
or am I the only one who's confused?

Carol, pretty sure after thinking about it that the Aurors can't track
a person down by monitoring his Apparition but still having more
questions than answers on Apparition in general