This has been proven in the books, correct?

Yes, im not sure if they have ever stated that it is magic, or just that owls are very smart. However, it is relatively safe to assume that magic has to do with it.

Is there a separate question involved?

Haha, yes, your spot on. So since we know owls can find anyone to make their delivery... why didn't anyone ever address a letter to Sirius Black and then follow/track the owl to find and capture him?

Hmm....I've never even thought about that. Maybe the sender has to know where the receiver is? But no, Harry sent sirius letters when he didn't know where he was. Maybe the person getting the letter has to want to be found?? I dont know, this is a very interesting question. I'm going to have to think about this and come back...

Okay, exactly! I was like 'Wait... it's so simple...'. So hopefully I get some good responses in here. [color=#006600]

Sure, the owl can find this person and give him the letter. But unless the letter is being magically traced, no one would know where Sirius was. It's pretty much as simple as that. The owl is just the deliverer.

If there was such a huge manhunt for Sirius though, I would think they'd send someone on a broom to follow the owl to his location..

It's interesting thoughts! I've never thought of it that way, I've woundered how the owls could deliver the letters to the right place, but I've never thought further. There are much things like this in all books, and fanfictions too. I just read one today where the main characters (a witch and a wizard) was chased, but they never appareted, and I'm sure they could. Most wizards and witches can once they are old enough. But on the other hand, if they would have apparated, then it wouldn't have been so exiting, it would have been to easy. I guess it's exactly the same in this case with sirius. And the author can't think of everything either

I was always under the impression that owls were just really good at finding the recipient. MrSparkle07, owls were being intercepted and followed, so Harry had to use the name Snuffles instead of Sirius when sending him letters. There are just too many birds flying around, whether pets of wizards, or just normal birds, to bother checking them all to see if one is carrying a letter to or from a wanted man.

As for the Ministry itself sending out an owl to find Sirius, you have to remember that Sirius is a very experienced wizard and is somewhere down in the tropics. The Ministry most likely did send out an owl to find Sirius, but:

1) Sirius set up spells to cancel the tracking spell once it was within a certain range of him, or

2) the owl had to fly so far to get to Sirius, the tracking spell fell out of range. The Ministry, being full of the pompous, self-righteous fools that it is, most likely set up the tracking spell to stop once it went outside Europe.

Or so I would assume.

Or perhaps Sirius killed the owl when it arrived. That would make sense too, and it would provide food for our dear Padfoot. The owl probably did find him, but never made its way back to the Ministry to report.

And kill a way to talk to Harry in the process? I doubt it. Besides, the tracking spell would have already showed the Ministry where Sirius was, and the spell would most likely be put on the parchment, because I'm sure there's many spells on the owls to make them survive the harsh weather, get more energy out of food than normal, etc.

Whether the owl has a spell on it or not doesn't matter. Why didn't the ministry just send an owl to sirius (whether with a trace or not), and get on a broom and follow the owl to sirius? This seems like an obvious thing to do if they were searching for him so heavily.

That does seem like a really obvious solution to finding Sirius. It looks like Jo must've overlooked that part. If someone ever gets a chance, though, they should ask her about it. Because using the owl to trace Sirius would be really easy!

~alyssa~

That is a pretty easy way, but then again... If you would write a book like that, it would take the whole fun out of things! Umm, but maybe Sirius had a charm over him that somehow he could only be found by owl by someone who wanted to find him... We need to ask Jo about this because it is quite confusing. That's the only explanation I can come up with.

I think it would be fantastic if someone could ask Jo whenever there is a chance!

Meanwhile, I guess I can pretend that Sirius had a similarity to the Mirror of Erised, in that yes, he can only be found by those who wanted to find him for the right reasons..?

I think there is magic to do with it. If you were to take a barn owl from your current residence and attach a note to its leg, it wouldn't know where to go. That's just the magic of Harry Potter