James's death

[catlady_de_los_angeles]

Original Yahoo! HPFG Header:
No: HPFGUIDX C7283
From: catlady_de_los_angeles
Subject: Re: James's death
Reply To: [Yahoo! #7211] James's death
Date: 8/19/00 2:39 pm  (ET)

> 2. Sirius suggested Peter as Secret-Keeper instead of himself ! Oh,
come on ! Sirius being who he is would *never* have entrusted anyone
else with such a sacred task, at least not without keeping a very close
eye on them !

Sirius DID keep a close eye on Peter. He checked on Peter frequently. On
the night in question, he dropped by Peter's home to check on him, found
Peter absent with no sign of a struggle, and that is why he immediately
rushed to Godric's Corner.

> 3. They performed the Fidelius Charm without the help of Dumbledore
!? Great wizards they were indeed, James and Sirius (or maybe even James
alone ?)

Well, they WERE.

> 4. If the location of James and Lily's house was hidden inside Peter's
head, how come Sirius and Dumbledore knew about it (snip), but what would
have happened if V *had* gone after Sirius as they supposed he would :
since Sirius knew where they were, how would he have kept it secret ?

Well, I think the "going after Sirius" on the theory he was the
Secret-Keeper would have consisted of capturing him and torturing him to
reveal the Secret rather than following him as he travelled. Our Sirius
would never break under torture, but he may have feared that they had
powerful Dark magic to extract the secret from his heart once he was
dead. But following him just would not have worked, because the magic
of the Fidelius Charm would prevent it from working.

I have to re-read the text on Fidelius Charm again, but right now
I speculate the Charm does not remove the secret knowledge from the
minds of non-Secret-Keeeper trusted friends, only from the minds of
outsiders. So it was not removed from Sirius's and Albus;s minds, but
would have been instantly removed from the mind of anyone they told
it to -- which implies that Hagrid was one of the trusted friends who
already knew the location, or Albus could not have sent him there.