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Since the Fidelius Charm involves the Secret Keeper having to explicitly reveal the location before anyone can see/enter the house, how are letters delivered(if at all)?

I seem to remember that Harry and the others got their Hogwarts owls when they stayed over in Grimmauld Place in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.

Whoever addressed the letter couldn't have known the location, unless Minerva wrote them all herself. Even if she did, she'd not the Secret Keeper, so it's not her secret to tell(to the letter, or the owl).

Extrapolating, I want to know if Dumbledore re-revealed the location of Grimmauld Place to Kreacher.

And now I'm also curious about the cat that the Potters used to own in Godric's Hollow.

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  • Dobby manages to get to Shell Cottage despite Bill being secret keeper.
    – user46509
    Commented Sep 27, 2016 at 12:58
  • @ATB No, Harry merely gives a description of the location, and Dobby Apparates to outside the cottage.
    – Brindha
    Commented Sep 27, 2016 at 13:03
  • I find that hard to believe. Could have been any cliff top
    – user46509
    Commented Sep 27, 2016 at 13:04

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Owls at least can penetrate Fidelius charms. Harry sends Hedwig to Ron and Hermione who were both staying at Grimmauld Place, before Harry himself learns of their location. After learning the "secret" Harry finds Hedwig is inside waiting for him.

‘Hedwig!’ The snowy owl clicked her beak and nibbled his ear affection- ately as Harry stroked her feathers.

‘She’s been in a right state,’ said Ron. ‘Pecked us half to death when she brought your last letters, look at this –’ He showed Harry the index finger of his right hand, which sported a half-healed but clearly deep cut. ‘Oh, yeah,’ Harry said. ‘Sorry about that, but I wanted answers, you know –’

‘We wanted to give them to you, mate,’ said Ron. ‘Hermione was going spare, she kept saying you’d do something stupid if you were stuck all on your own without news, but Dumbledore made us-’

‘– swear not to tell me,’ said Harry.

Hermione was also receiving her regular subscription to the Daily Prophet while at headquarters.

Creating a hazard like usual, wizards overlooked non-humans when creating the Fidelius charm, and so house elves were able to move freely.

Remember you can know right were the house is, and stand out front, but unless you know the secret, you will never "see" it.

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    Yeah, owls(Hedwig in particular) were very intelligent regarding post delivery. So if Voldemort mailed a cursed envelope to Harry, wouldn't that defeat the point of the Fidelius?
    – Brindha
    Commented Sep 30, 2016 at 11:35
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    @Brindha we've talked about this on site a few times about tracking owls, using owls as weapons, ect it appears that while WE can see how simple it is to do that, Rowling wants us to ignore that simple plot hole, another example would be sending an owl to sirius blck while hes on the run, the ministry could just follow the owl. Though personally i feel like a wizard house could be protected by a spam filter spell :p
    – Himarm
    Commented Sep 30, 2016 at 12:00
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    I'll try looking up similar questions. And yes, it makes sense that places can be made Unowlable, because we know they can be Unplottable.
    – Brindha
    Commented Oct 3, 2016 at 6:43

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