Fidelius charm?

Jacqueline Hendries psychchick04 at yahoo.com
Wed Aug 7 20:45:39 UTC 2002


No: HPFGUIDX 42272

Ellie writes:

>> Now, my question is this: is the Fidelius charm *completely* broken
the moment the Secret keeper divulges his secret? In other words,
having given the information to one person, is it then freely available
to *everyone*. If so, then Pettigrew having divulged the secret, Snape
may well have been able to find his way to Godric's Hollow in advance
(the details of their whereabouts were immediately known by Hagrid,
presumably via Dumbledore, thus implying that they did know in advance
where the Potters were and that the Fidelius Charm gave some kind of
enhanced amnesia, or an inability to find them/discuss their presence
in the place where they knew they were).

But this poses a problem. As soon as Pettigrew told Voldemort the
secret, the Potters' whereabouts would no longer be secret, Dumbledore
would have (or certainly could have) realised that the secret had been
divulged, the Potters might have been surprised by visitors, there are
all sorts of possibilities. It would be too risky to do it in advance.

So if the Fidelius Charm *is* made completely void by the Secret
Keeper's divulgence, then the only sensible course would have been for
Pettigrew to take Voldemort to Godric's Hollow, before telling the
secret to Voldemort and allowing him to find them. Snape could only be
present if Voldemort chose to take him along and he could only have
been the one to warn Lily if Voldemort sent him into the house first.

OTOH, perhaps the secret does not become generally available on its
divulgence. In this case, Voldemort and those whom he told would be the
only ones to know and again, Snape could only be there by invitation as
he wouldn't be able to find the Potters.

In this scenario, the charm is broken only by the Potters' deaths.
Except.....Harry was still alive, so the charm still should have still
worked, shouldn't it?

I think the first version of the charm is correct. Otherwise, how did 
Dumbledore know that something had happened, how did he know to
despatch Hagrid (and incidentaly, where did he go, since it was
apparently not Godric's Hollow and he was evidently not at Hogwarts?
Summoned to the MOM, I presume.) <<<<

My response: From the way they described it in the book, I had always
believed that the Fidelius Charm only prevented a certain person or
group of people from seeing the Potters. This was why Sirius,
Dumbledore, Hagrid etc. knew where they were and Voldemort, DEs etc.
did not. The only problem I can see with that scenario is that they
didn't necessarily know who to trust at that time (well, obviously,
huh?), but it is possible that they could cast the spell in such a way
that hid them from all "untrustworthy parties" or would only show them
to a specific few people that had to be mentioned in the spell. I never
thought that it would keep them hidden from *everyone*, however, and
I'm not sure what if anything in the book points to that. 

Anyway, I'm pretty sure the Fidelius only hides you from certain
people. Perhaps part of its power is that even if someone *not*
specifically protected against found out and told Voldemort where they
were, Voldemort wouldn't be able to see them anyway. I think that for
the Charm to be broken, the Secret Keeper specifically has to divulge
the information to the person(s) that the charm is to protect against.
So, the only way Voldie could have found them was for Wormtail to have
told him (which, obviously happened)... even if Sirius or Dumbledore
himself told him where they were hiding, he wouldn't have been able to
see them/kill them.

Just my theory, though...

~ Aloha

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jackie04 at brandeis.edu

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