[HPforGrownups] Re: Hegwig

[k12listmomma]

No: HPFGUIDX 173954

>> From Sue:
>>
>> This is a good theory, but in the same scene, Harry also lost his
>> Firebolt.  Is there a chance that JKR wanted to use the lose of
>> both the broom and his pet as a way for Harry to leave behind his
>> childhood?
>
>
> Amy
> Hedwig had to die in this book.  Harry could not use her in book 7
> while he was on the run.  Very much like when in book 4 Sirius said
> not to use Hedwig to send him letters and things.  She was too
> noticible.  Like Hermione put it, Great Snowy Owls are not native to
> England.  Harry using Hedwig would have shown both the Ministry and
> Voldemort just where HRH were.

Shelley:
To put a singular reason on Hedwig's death is a bit shallow. I think Rowling 
considered multiple reasons for offing Hedwig. Only one of them was the 
childhood aspect. I think she also considered what to do with her while 
Harry was camping, but there is an easy way out of that (after all, 
Crookshanks is still alive, because Hermione left her cat at the Weasley's 
when the trio left abruptly, and therefore Hedwig would have also been left 
the same way). Harry's reaction to her death also helped to point out who he 
was (the real one, as the others only had stuffed toys, and wouldn't have 
bothered to react when their stuffed owls got AKed.) She said in an 
interview that she wanted the readers to feel, from the beginning, that NO 
ONE was safe, and the early deaths of Hedwig and Moody do that for me. In 
fact, when I read the death of Hedwig, I thought that exactly- if Hedwig 
wasn't safe, none of them were. I then wondered how far this bloodbath would 
go. It was a great set up for just how dangerous the world had become for 
all of them.