The Fateful Night (VERY long)

[GulPlum]

No: HPFGUIDX 42303

Pippin wrote:

> Sirius, in his account of events at the Shrieking Shack, does not 
> mention Hagrid, or the motorbike, or trying to take Harry with him. 
> I maintain that we cannot state as fact that the person Hagrid 
> met at Godric's Hollow was Sirius. 

Err... Sirius doesn't actually get a chance to get that far, as he 
gets emotional upon recollecting the view of the destroyed house, 
whereupon Remus changes the subject back to Peter. Sirius' timeline 
account basically jumps to catching up with Peter "the next day".

However, Sirius *does* manage to say that he was there, and thus 
Hagrid's tale and his do not contradict each other in any way. 
Furthermore, how did the motorbike get there? 

If Hagrid didn't meet Sirius but a polyjuiced Pettigrew, where did 
the real Sirius get to? The need for anyone to have pretended to be 
Sirius simply doesn't make sense, neither for the plot or the meta-
narrative. 

> It is  
> hard for me to understand why Sirius would have wanted to take 
> Harry with him if he was a) overwhelmed with grief for the Potters 
> b) bent on finding Peter and c) knew that Dumbledore was taking 
> personal responsibility for Harry's safety. 

He was Harry's godfather and (presumably) had sworn to care for him 
if anything happened to James. It would be natural for him to 
consider this *just* such an occasion. Presumably precisely *because* 
he was overwhelmed, he needed persuading that putting Harry into 
Dumbledore's care would be the the better option, at least 
immediately.

Furthermore, he presumably demanded something of Hagrid to prove that 
he *was* acting on Dumbeldore's behalf. 

All in all, I don't see his initial reluctance to hand Harry over in 
the slightest bit suspicious.

> I do not think anyone needs to have been there to tell 
> Dumbledore what happened. If the MOM knows when a 
> hovercharm is used on Privet Drive, surely Dumbledore could 
> have a way of knowing when an AK has been used at Godric's 
> Hollow. 

Not to mention that the Secret Keeper spell had been broken. I'd have 
expected this to have been a sufficient alarm bell. Whether or not an 
integral part of the spell, I'd expect Dumbledore to have included 
some such measure when it was cast.

This, however, raises another question: if, as I surmise, the broken 
spell drew attention to itself, there must have been a very brief 
delay between that and the AK being cast (nobody, not even 
Dumbledore, seems to have had time to react in the interim). This 
would therefore indicate that at least Peter accompanied Voldemort to 
Godric's Hollow, and made the necessary disclosures to break the 
spell on the spot.

> I think that the sacrifice counterspell is something that Lily and 
> Dumbledore may have discussed beforehand, with Dumbledore 
> never thinking that she would actually try it. 

By the very nature of mother love being what toppled Voldemort and 
the JKR's tone when talking about it, I wouldn't expect any conscious 
spell or other procedure to have been necessary when invoking it. 
Furthermoew, at the beginning of PS/SS, when talking to McGonnagal, 
Dumbledore appears to know no more about what had saved Harry than 
anyone else.

Mother love just *is*, it doesn't need to be invoked.