Potter’s Fidelius/Sirius Imprisonment caused by Evil!Fudge

[animagi_raven]

No: HPFGUIDX 43877

Barb's message #43752 from Fri Sep 6, 2002 11:41 am:

<STARTING HALFWAY IN>
erisedstraeh2002 first:
>> I'm wondering if JKR initially planned to have someone other than 
>> Sirius be the original secret-keeper for the Potters (Lupin, 
>> perhaps?). This would explain the problems with the references to 
>> the bike in PS/SS, and would also explain why Dumbledore shows no 
>> surprise when Hagrid tells him in PS/SS that he borrowed the bike 
>> from Sirius (at this point, Dumbledore still thinks Sirius was the 
>> Potters' secret-keeper, so wouldn't he have had been startled that 
>> Hagrid used a betrayer's bike to transport Harry to Privet Dr.?).
<LITTLE SNIP>
Barb Second:
>As you noted, Dumbledore didn't bat an eye at Hagrid's mention of 
>Sirius. If JKR had had the Secret Keeper concept in mind at the 
>beginning of the series--which I believe she came up with later--
>Dumbledore SHOULD have been alarmed about Hagrid mentioning him. 
>I believe you've hit on something here.
<SNIP REST OF MESSAGE>

Animagi_Raven apparates in shouts "Dark Mark" and starts
blasting stun spells around at random.  He manages to stun two
garden gnomes, a handful of flobberworms, and one cabbage that
smells like an elderly English woman.  He then dusts himself 
off and goes on to state:

There could be two other reasons for Dumbledore's lack of
reaction to hearing Sirius's name:
1)  Dumbledore may not have known at that time who the secret keeper 
was and was not going to jump to a conclusion.  Remember, Sirius and 
Dumbledore were both offering to be secret keeper and the Potters 
could have gone with Lupin or Peter (not smart but there you are).  
Maybe Dumbledore was not sure who they had chosen.  The confrontation 
between Peter and Sirius may not have taken place by the time he met 
Hagrid or he may not have heard about it yet, being away from 
Hogworts.  The confrontation may been what made everyone (including 
Dumbledore) think it was Sirius.

2)  Dumbledore may not have known that a Fidelius Charm had been cast 
yet.  Remember, it was supposed to be secret and to that end the 
fewer people that knew details the better.  Dumbledore was obviously 
monitoring them because of the speed with which Hagrid reached the 
house – I just realized that Sirius must have been monitoring the 
Potters, also apparently independent of Dumbledore.

So how could Dumbledore not know that the spell had been cast?  I 
looked for examples of how a Fidelius could work based on other 
spells and the one that IMO is the most similar is the spell that 
causes Hogworts to be unplottable and uninteresting to Muggles.  This 
spell is selective since Muggles will ignore Hogworts, but does not 
seem to affect non-Muggles.  Could a similar spell hide the Potters 
from just about everyone?  Close friends could be excluded and Sirius 
and Dumbledore could maintain their surveillance of the Potters and 
may not have even known that the spell had been cast.

On a related note for Sirius:  This probably has been discussed 
before but not in a while so maybe some of the new people will be 
interested.  I looked through the archives and found vague references 
last November but not this complete thought:  When Sirius was 
captured he probably had a wand.  This is a good bet since he and 
Peter were facing off.  Sirius claims that he was not given a trial 
before being sent to Azkaban.  He was definitely not defending his 
innocence but there was another piece of evidence that could have 
helped him *if there had been a trial* - his wand.  At the QWC in 
GoF, Amos Diggory replays the spells cast by a wand with Priori 
Incantatum.  In PoA, Sirius says that Peter cast the spell that blew 
up the street.  Therefore the spell would have been on Peter's
wand and not on Sirius's wand.  If a person in the MoM wanted
Sirius locked away (cough*Fudge*cough) and knew that the wand would 
exonerate him, then there would be no point to a trial.  Is this a 
point for Ever-So-Evil!Fudge as opposed to just Apathetic!Fudge?  
Because if Sirius could be proved innocent that would leave the 
Potter murders still under investigation.  But if Fudge could be 
shown to have been the one that caught the Potter's murderer (all 
right, accessory to murder to be precise) that would help his 
prestige.  Something helped his prestige – he became Minister,
after 
all.

Animagi_Raven – who has not been as afraid to apparate since he
left his brain behind that time.


"What person in your life would you like to have replaced with a
CG (computer generated) character?  It would involve you talking into 
blank air until the character was dubbed in by the computer."  
Mysteriously, both people that I posed this question to voted for 
*me*.