Fidelius Charm/Sirius

[cindysphynx]

No: HPFGUIDX 33706

Marina wrote:

>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.  

OK, good point.  I had forgotten that the revelation has to be 
voluntary.  

If revelation of the location of the Potters had to be voluntary, 
however, why would Voldemort bother to try to track down Sirius the 
Secretkeeper at all?  Voldemort would know it would be futile to 
pursue the secretkeeper, who would just refuse to reveal the secret?  

I wonder if Sirius was worried Voldemort would place him under the 
Imperius Curse and obtain the Potters' location that way.


Marina again:

>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.  

This is the part I have trouble with.  Not because it is wrong or 
anything, mind you.  I have trouble with it because it casts Sirius 
to be cowardly because Sirius is willing to bring an innocent (Peter) 
into the mix to protect Sirius' hide.  Sirius is supposed to be brave 
and heroic at all times in my eyes, so that simply will not do.  <bg>

The only thing I can think of to help the Fidelius Charm make sense 
is to introduce a time element.  In other words, if the backstory 
contains some time constraint JKR hasn't told us about, then it would 
make sense to have as many decoy secretkeepers as you could find.  
Imagine that the backstory is that Voldemort has to kill Harry by a 
particular date, say Halloween.  Then Sirius' decoy plan makes a lot 
of sense, because the decoy plan requires Voldemort to catch Sirius, 
discern that Sirius is not the secret-keeper, kill Sirius out of 
frustration and spite, and then track down Pettigrew.  That might buy 
just enough time for the Potters.  And the best part is that Sirius 
gets to be the hero!  :-)

Cindy