Fidelius Charm/Sirius

[lipglossusa]

No: HPFGUIDX 33703

cindy wrote:
> 
> As much as I like Sirius, there is one little problem with his 
> strategy.  He says he feared Voldemort would come after him and he 
> planned to go into hiding.  Got it.  He suggested Peter be 
> secretkeeper as a bluff.  OK.  If and when Voldemort captured 
Sirius 
> and tortured him, Sirius was apparently worried that he would be 
> broken and would disclose the location of the Potters.  Uh, huh.  
> Doesn't this whole plan hinge on the supposition that, when 
Voldemort 
> is torturing Sirius, that Sirius won't say, "You know, you 
shouldn't 
> waste perfectly good Cruciatus Curses on me, as Pettigrew is the 
one 
> you want."  So how does Sirius' bluff make the Potters any more 
safe?


Ok.  Here's what I think.  Sirius thought that Voldemort would come 
after him because he, as James's best friend, was the obvious choice 
to be secret-keeper.  I don't think that Sirius was necessarily 
worried about being tortured and revealing the secret, nor do I think 
the Fidelius Charm is like a memory charm that can be broken through 
torture.  As for the Truth Serum, Professor Flitwick says that the 
secret is IMPOSSIBLE to find unless the secret-keeper CHOOSES to 
reveal it.  Barty Crouch Jr was not under any spells or charms (that 
we know of) in GoF, which is why the Veritserum worked on him.  
Voldemort could dump gallons of the stuff down Sirius's gullet and 
never get a straight answer unless Sirius chose to tell him.  As 
Sirius said, he would have died before telling Voldemort where the 
Potters were or who the secret-keeper was.  I think that Sirius just 
wanted to avoid Voldemort altogether-- just because he would've died 
rather than betray the Potters doesn't mean he WANTED to die, which, 
if he were captured, would have been his only choice.  So by 
switching secret-keepers to someone less obvious, who was 
(supposedly) on their side, both Sirius and the Potters would be safe 
for the time being.

Obviously the Fidelius Charm has a lot of "ifs," which the Potters 
and Dumbledore knew perfectly well.  What it could do was simply buy 
time for the Potters, until they figured out who was feeding info to 
You-Know-Who, catch the traitor, and hopefully find Voldemort and get 
rid of the slimy @#*! once and for all.  

Marina, 
who is waiting patiently for someone to poke cavernous holes in a 
reply to her theory....