Secret Keeper

[kiricat2001]

No: HPFGUIDX 56715

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "aja_1991" <aja_1991 at y...> 

> Actually, something bothers me more than this about the whole 
Secret 
> Keeper situation, beyond just who and who wasn't the Secret Keeper.
> 
> The people who knew about the switch of Secret Keeper were:
> (1) James Potter
> (2) Lily Potter
> (3) Peter Pettigrew
> (4) Sirius Black
> (5) Voldemort (through Pettirgrew)
> and...
> (6) Whoever cast the Fidelius Charm
> 
> I think I've always just intuitively assumed that Lily cast the 
> charm... you know, Ollivander telling Harry how her wand was great 
> for Charm work.
> 
> But then, reading your post, I began to remember something else.  
> Flitwick, in the scene in PoA where the Trio overhear about the 
> seeming betrayal of Black... Flitwick, the Charms professor, 
> explaining that the Fidelius Charm is an IMMENSELY complicated 
spell 
> (or words to that effect).  Which raises two problems with the idea 
> of Lily doing the Charm:
> 
> (1) Was Lily good enough at Charms to perform this spell?  If it's 
> that complicated, and she was good enough at charms for Ollivander 
to 
> mention it, it would seem that only she of #1-4 above could have 
done 
> it.
> (2) Can a person who is the subject of the Secret contained by the 
> Fidelius Charm (in this case, Lily) actually cast the Charm 
anyway?  
> 
> My thought is that these points suggest Lily, the only one of the 
> four who would have been able to cast the charm, did not.  So #6 is 
a 
> different person.  Say, Flitwick, or maybe Lupin or Snape...

I'm not convinced you can say definitely that Lily did not cast the 
charm.  The question of whether the charm's subject can also cast it 
is unknown.  However, people can cast charms on themselves - Cedric 
used the Bubble-Head charm on himself in the 2nd Task.  Maybe only a 
truly gifted Charms practitioner would be able to cast a difficult 
Charm such as Fidelius on themselves.  Was Lily that good?  We don't 
know definitively, so we can't rule her out.

Somehow, the thought that only the original four (James, Lily, Peter 
and Sirius) knew about the switch makes me feel more comfortable with 
my interpretation of the story. Sirius never mentions anyone else 
knowing about the Switch. It doesn't feel right to think that there 
was another person involved, because that, to me, dilutes the impact 
of Peter's treachery. The waters get muddied if, not only was Peter a 
traitor, but the potential #6 also was evil enough to let Sirius take 
the fall for what happened. 

Of course, I suppose another possibility is that #6 was not on 
Voldemort's side, and instead, was conveniently murdered along with 
the Potters to hide what s/he knew about the switch. Nah, that still 
doesn't work for me - Sirius had the perfect opportunity to blame 
Peter for that person's death, too, in the Shrieking Shack scene, but 
doesn't mention it.

For now, I'll go with the belief that Lily was indeed a powerful 
enough witch to be the charm caster.

Marianne