Sirius time line

[pippin_999]

No: HPFGUIDX 36107

--- In HPforGrownups at y..., "lainaf77" <lainaf77 at y...> wrote:
> I hope this has not been discussed before and I completely 
missed it. 
> I was wondering about the time line of the night James and Lily 
> were killed.  If you can accept the known "truth" that sirius is the 
> secret-keeper (ie, everyone thinks HE is...no one knows they've 
> switched to Peter), then what happens in the hours/days after 
the  murders makes no sense.  Iirc, the only way the potters 
could be  found is by betrayal by the secret-keeper (Sirius). It 
seems to me  that the moment they are found dead, every 
witch/wizard that knew  them would be looking for Sirius.  <<

It was not widely known that the secret-keeper was Sirius, or 
even that there was a secret-keeper. Fudge says in PoA that 
"The worst [Sirius] did isn't widely known." It isn't clear that the 
Ministry was even hunting for Sirius or knew what he'd 
supposedly done until the disaster with Pettigrew. 

>However, not only does Hagrid 
> arrive in time to rescue Harry from the rubble, Sirius loans him 
the motorbike to deliver Harry to safety.  Also, weren't 
Dumbledore and  McGonagall there?  It just seems to me that no 
one put 2 and 2  together at the scene based on the info they 
had.  Does anyone have  any thoughts on this?<<

Hagrid didn't know about the Secret Keeper business, so he had 
no reason to suspect Sirius. And Hagrid didn't tell Dumbledore 
or McGonagall *when* he got the bike from Sirius. We know that 
Sirius went into hiding a week before the Potters were killed. So 
Dumbledore could have assumed that Hagrid was given  the 
bike a week before, perhaps in the same way that Dumbledore 
got the invisibility cloak and the Gringotts key from James.

 The timeline is mirky, but it's possible that Sirius had already 
been captured by the time Hagrid gets to Privet Drive, and there 
was no reason for Dumbledore to say anything. It's also 
possible that Sirius hadn't been captured yet, but Dumbledore 
wasn't suspicious of him, and thought that the Potters had been 
found out in some other way. The secret keeper spell is 
immensely complicated, so Dumbledore might have believed 
he'd made a mistake with it. In that case, he simply knew that 
Sirius would  no longer be in hiding, since he wasn't protecting 
the secret any more, and could have owled Hagrid to return the 
bike. There's more about the timeline at

http://www.i2k.com/~svderark/lexicon/

Pippin