At the beginning of the sixth novel Dumbledore takes
Harry on a journey to meet Professor Slughorn, a former teacher at the Hogwarts
School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. They convince him to return back to school in
order to teach once again. On their way the home of the Weasley family Dumbledore asks Harry about the subjects he would
like to take during his next year at school and Harry is afraid that he won’t
be able to continue his Potions class due to his weak marks. Thereupon,
Dumbledore answers: “‘Don’t count your owls before they are delivered’”[1]
This
phrase is based on the proverb ‘don’t count your chickens before they are
hatched’. It suggests that a person should “not assume [that he] will have a
thing, or [should] not make plans about it, before the conditions are realized,
or the event has happened.”[2]
This phrase is based on ᴁsop's fable The
Milkmaid and Her Pail which
describes the story of a girl carrying a pail of milk to the market. She thinks
about the chickens she could buy with the money and how she could sell their
eggs and make money with which she can buy an expensive dress and make another
girl jealous. She ends up spilling the milk whereupon her mother tells her to
not count her chicken before they are hatched.[3]
Just
like the milk maid Harry is already thinking about his plans for the future
basing his decisions on predictions of his past performance. He expects to
receive his O.W.L. results in a letter. O.W.L. is an abbreviation for Ordinary
Wizarding Level. In addition to that these letters are always delivered by real
owls. The suggestion to not count his owls before they are delivered is,
therefore, a very clever, ambiguous play on words.
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