Just where *IS* Sirius' motorbike then?

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 116011


Vekkel wrote:
> > 
> > I've always wondered why the Old Man [Dumbledore] never said
anything when Hagrid told him he was going to return the bike to
Sirius Black. This is the next day and as far as everyone else knows
Sirius betrayed the Potters so why would he not say anything.
> > 
> Angie responded:
> So, at the time the Potter's deaths were discovered, all anyone (DD)
> knew was that Sirius had been the Potter's secret-keeper -- they 
> didn't know yet about Wormtail?  If that's so, then you have an 
> excellent point.  There is SOOOO much I don't understand!

Carol tries to clarify:
I don't think the WW in general knew anything about the Fidelius
Charm. All they know is that the Potters were killed by Voldemort,
their baby son Harry is marked with a scar but miraculously lived, and
Voldemort is vanquished. (How they knew even that much I don't know.
Yes, there wer owls and the Daily Prophet, but the question is how
they knew Voldemort was involved if his body wasn't there and how they
knew he wasn't dead if the body *was* there.

But the Fidelius Charm, which had been cast to keep the Potters'
whereabouts secret, was not common knowledge. Nor was the fact that
there had been a Secret Keeper, much less his supposed identity.
Certainly Hagrid didn't know. DD, of course, knew that James intended
to make Sirius the Secret Keeper and must have suspected that Sirius
was the traitor, but his cautious "No trouble, was there?" shows that
he's not yet ready to jump to conclusions. 

Only when the twelve Muggles are killed and Pettigrew disappears,
apparently murdered by an unhinged Black, does Dumbledore "know" the
identity of the Secret Keeper and traitor. And the WW at large "knows"
only what was reported in the papers, where Black is transformed into
Voldemort's righthand man who killed twelve Muggles and a wizard. If
you look at Stan Shunpike's account of events in the "Knight Bus"
chapter, you can see what the average wizard on the street thinks of
the events twelve years later. Stan makes no connection between Sirius
Black and the events at Godric's Hollow, though he does know about the
Boy Who Lived and Harry Potter's scar. Peter Pettigrew, in Stan's
mind, is only the nameless wizard who "got it" when the street was
blown up. And Madam Rosmerta isn't aware of the Fidelius Charm/Secret
Keeper connection, either, when McGonagall, Hagrid, and Fudge give
their still inaccurate but more detailed version of events in the
Three Broomsticks. In other words, she doesn't "know" that Black
betrayed the Potters, only that he "murder[ed] all those poor people"
(PoA Am. ed. 203).

Carol