[HPforGrownups] The Eagle Owl/Re: Harry's dreams in GoF

[Magpie]

No: HPFGUIDX 165660

> Carol responds:
> We have, IIRC, three references to an eagle owl in GoF. The first time
> is when an eagle owl delivers sweets to Draco and Harry (or the
> narrator, seeing from his pov) assumes that it's Draco's own owl. It
> could, however, be the Malfoy family owl. At any rate, it would almost
> certainly remain at Hogwarts until Draco decided to send a letter
> home, and I doubt that he's the letter-writing type. Even if it
> belonged to the Malfoy family, it wouldn't return home like a homing
> pigeon unless it had a message to deliver. (We don't see him receiving
> sweets again in GoF or any other book that I recall. Please correct me
> if I'm wrong.) And if it's Draco's, it would naturally stay at
> Hogwarts as Hedwig does unless it had a delivery to make.

Magpie:
I don't know about GoF, but the eagle owl is introduced in PS/SS. That's 
where Harry says it brings Draco sweets from home (he may see it again in 
GoF delivering to Draco, I don't remember). I had always wondered if it were 
Draco's or just the family's owl, but when I went back and looked at the 
passage it appeared that the narrator was saying it was "Malfoy's eagle 
owl"--Malfoy being what Draco is usually called in the narrative--and not a 
family owl. That made it seem like the narrator was telling us that as Harry 
had an owl called Hedwig, Draco had an eagle owl.

None of the kids seem to send letters that we hear about much unless it's 
important to the plot. We do hear about Lucius sending Draco articles about 
Arthur in CoS.

Back in PS/SS the Malfoys hadn't been established the way they are in CoS so 
one might say it was easier to say it was Draco's owl, but it also seems a 
logical deduction. We know kids at Hogwarts are allowed a familiar/pet, Ron, 
Hermione and Harry all have one by PoA. Why wouldn't rich boy Draco have 
one? It being an eagle owl may make it stand out from the school owls, just 
as Hedwig, Pig and even Errol rather stand out.

Of course, one might ask whether, if this were Malfoy's owl, Harry wouldn't 
recognize it as such, but if Draco's owl was only mentioned back in PS/SS 
and Harry makes a point of not caring about Draco, he might not recognize 
it. The eagle owl breed could be something JKR didn't mind if only astute 
readers connected as being Draco's owl. It's also possible, I suppose, that 
she personally connects eagle owls with something shady, considering them 
ostentatious or fierce or something so she just used it for both, but that 
seems a bit unfair to eagle owls.:-)

It does seem just natural to think that you've got these three bad guys, one 
of whom has the easiest access to owls since he's at Hogwarts. It might have 
been safer to use a school owl that wouldn't stand out as much as this one 
does, but it would certainly fit Barty's personality to possibly choose this 
one specifically as Malfoy's owl, even if there's of course a slight risk 
that Malfoy might want to use his owl for something and find someone else 
has sent it out.

-m