Fidelius Charm

[rja.carnegie at excite.com]

No: HPFGUIDX 19226

--- In HPforGrownups at y..., Amanda Lewanski <editor at t...> wrote:

> For no reason I can think of, I thought the Fidelius Charm was a charm
> for hiding *people*. Dumbledore could have hidden Flamel, but not an
> object. Is this right?

Well, possibly JKR hadn't devised the Fidelius Charm when she was
writing PS - although I get told that she plotted out all seven books
first, and Fidelius is a big plot point.  Anyway, I think we'll agree
that that's an explanation which we can't use ;-)

Dumbledore - no, it's not - Flitwick says it's for hiding a secret,
information, "inside a single living soul" - literally inside the
soul, I suppose. Its effect is to make it impossible for anyone else
to possess the information, as long as the Secret-Keeper doesn't tell. 
One might suppose that it relies on the Secret-Keeper's resistance to
direct magic attack - perhaps requires their conscious effort to
keep the secret - Voldemort theoretically could have come after
Black, as Secret-Keeper, and got it out of him by force.  Or just
killed _him_ - does that break the spell, too?  Or not?

So was Sirius setting Peter up to die by making Peter the
Secret-Keeper - well, there was a war on, everyone had to play
a part according to their talents?  Could be not-so-heroic?

Or perhaps _this_ spell, Peter can do _better_ than Sirius.
Animagus is Transfiguration, but this is a Charm.  Maybe Peter
did less Transfiguration practice and more homework at school?

If the Fidelius Charm is effective on the Philosopher's Stone,
they could have hidden it _in Voldemort's pocket_ and he'd never
find it.  (I have days like that...)

Although I didn't study Latin, "Fidelius" suggests faithfulness,
personal loyalty, so maybe it can't be used to hide just _any_
secret, but personal information - just as our governments are
sometimes concerned to regulate the use and misuse of personal data
but not, usually, of data about the weather.  You can hide people;
conceivably you can hide relationships; but you can't hide possessions -
even a possession so personally important to Flamel as the Stone.
And then the Stone is a _magical_ object, too.

This isn't explicit, anywhere I've seen, but it _feels_ right.
But we'll have to see whether JKR uses the Fidelius Charm again,
and how.  It didn't have a good result the first time, and it's
difficult, which is a writer's hint that "you shouldn't expect to
see this again" (cf. Time-Turner).

Robert Carnegie
Glasgow, Scotland

"I read them all when I was seven and I hated them" - unnamed American
office worker on the Harry Potter books (www.dilbert.com, List of
Stupid Things Overheard)