Secret Keeper Switch (WAsRe: choices / Mama Fridwulfa / Secret Keeper switch

[mhbobbin]

No: HPFGUIDX 110918

On the matter of Secret Keeper Switching:- 

mhbobbin wrote in
> http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/110713 :
> 
> << Sirius Black declined to be the Potters' secret keeper because 
he
> himself was planning to go into hiding. >>

> "Catlady (Rita Prince Winston)" wrote:
> That is not the way I understood it. I understood that the original
> plan was that the Secret Keeper would also go into hiding, to avoid
> being caught and tortured to give up the secret. But Sirius's 
clever
> idea was that he would pretend to be the Secret Keeper and NOT go 
into
> hiding, so that LV would catch and torture him instead of the real
> Secret Keeper. (Why did he think that he would be less likely to
> reveal under torture that Peter was the real Secret Keeper than to
> reveal the Secret?) The real Secret Keeper DID go into hiding.

> snip snip. CatLady cites two passages in the Shrieking Shack 
scenes.


mhbobbin now:

That all may be true once a person is a Secret Keeper.  My original 
Post was was in the context of the Longbottoms and whether it was 
appropriate for Aurors to go into hiding. My point was that times 
were so dangerous that even Sirius Black planned to go into hiding. 

I may be incorrect when I state that Black declined because of this 
but for canon support of Sirius' original intent and mindset--which 
may or may not have changed later-- I cite PoA, Chapter Ten: The 
Marauders' Map.  The conversation is the one in the bar that Harry 
overhears. Per Professor McGonagall: "James Potter told DD that 
Black would die rather than tell where they were, that Black was 
planning to go into hiding himself... and yet, DD remained worried." 
Had this line been utttered by Fudge rather than McGonagall, I would 
discount it. Likely, McGonagall heard about the conversation between 
James and DD from DD himself.

Once Black switched the SK role with Pettigrew we don't know whether 
he  then went into hiding or not. Given that he was a big risk-
taker, he may have chosen to remain where he could be a decoy, 
leading DEs away from Pettigrew and the Potters. However, the 
climate that they made these decisions in was so dangerous that even 
risk-taker Black had been considering hiding. I'm not trying to be 
overly picky but this sequence of events is still high on my list of 
favorite mysteries. 

mhbobbin