The Longbottems (was OoP Book Covers also The certian room)

[David Burgess]

No: HPFGUIDX 54591

> --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, Lea <d_lea25 at y...>; wrote:
>
>> Which begs the question - is it possible to become a Secret Keeper
>> if you are insane?  Do you really need a "mind" in order
>> to receive/keep a secret?

I'm new, so bear with me if all of this has been covered before.

My expectation would be that, to receive the secret, you would have to
accept the secret.  In order to do that, I would expect you'd need to be
aware of your surrounding and self-aware.  The willingness to accept the
secret and keep it implies both consent and assent, neither of which would
be possible without concious thought.  So, in my reading of the limited
information we have, it would seem to me that a mind is definitely
required as a prerequisite.

>
> You know... If you don't need a mind to Keep the secret, then the
> secret is safest to be put into a Dementor-Kissed person! It is
> possible the Secret Keeper takes the secret to the grave - in which
> case the DEs would just *kill* anyone knowing secrets they don't want
> known by anyone.

We know from canon that the "soul" is the repository of the secret in a
Secret Keeper, not the mind.  Since the Dementor's Kiss extracts the soul
(but not necessarily the mind?) from the person, the secret could not be
harbored in such a person.  IMHO, JKR strays onto dangerously theological
ground in this whole area.   Granted, going with something like
"emotions", "feelings", or even "willingness to live" would have been
safer, but would have lacked the emotional impact.

As for keeping the secret to the grave, I agree.  There is plenty of prior
art on "taking a secret to your grave" and the level of devotion this
engenders.  It would be quite against the grain for JKR to have Secret
Keeping be thwarted by something as simple as murdering the SK.

These issues, of course, offer some interesting downsides to the whole
system.  I've been worried about with this line of reasoning is the
question of inadvertant disclosure, totality, degree of separation.

Suppose, for example, that the secret keeper is supposed to keep a secret
like "James and Lily's young son Harry is in hiding with his aunt and
uncle on Privet Drive."  Who is the secret a secret from?  If the spell
works in totality, how would Petunia be able to find him?  OK, so some
people know where's he is and some don't.  At what point is the secret
really a secret, and when isn't it?  Flitwick's description makes the
spell extremely powerful, but at what degree of separation does it stop
working?  On the other hand, what would be the point of the Secret Keeper
spell if the guy down at the filling station could tip someone off
inadvertantly?

>
> But Longbottoms... Maybe they can be healed by phoenix-tears? By
> phoenix-song? Some other music? (Remember Dumbledore: "Ah, music,
> magic beyond all that we teach here" in PS) Is Harry *ever* going
> to  learn how to play that flute Hagrid gave him for christmas?

In my study of the canon, I can't really see anything that would lead me
to believe that Neville's parents' condition has any hope of improving. 
Clearly, the obvious stuff would have been tried, especially since
Neville's father was incapacitated in the service of the Ministry of
Magic.  While it might be hard to accept, this may simply be a plot device
to explain why Neville is in the situations he is most of the time.  Of
course, I wouldn't want to minimize the effects of this on the storyline
(Harry isn't the only orphan at Hogwarts, etc.) but I don't think there
will be a Happy Ending for Neville's parents.

I'm not minimizing the impact of the disclosure.  In fact, I even got the
impression that in GoF Moody!Crouch might have felt bad about what
happened to Neville's parents.  The DE are hard to read, but some of them
certainly could feel some guilt about some of the things they had done in
pursuit of Voldemort's ultimate goal(s).

As far as the flute goes, I have no theory on that at all.  I believe that
just about every detail is there on purpose, but some of them may be there
as transitory color.  It could be that the flute will make another
appearance (other than just something in Harry's trunk) but I doubt it
will be an important part of the future story.  On the other hand, if
Hagrid dies in OOP or book 6, it would be the perfect tribute for Harry to
return it at a funeral.

-- 
Dave Burgess