More Fidelius Charm

[Steve]

No: HPFGUIDX 130562

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Catlady (Rita Prince Winston)"
<catlady at w...> wrote:
> ...edited...
> 
> Rose Red wrote in
> http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/130172 :
> 
> << Pettigrew was the only person who could let anybody know where
> the Potters were. Hagrid delivered baby Harry to his Aunt and Uncle.
> Ummmm....is it just me or there is a huge non-sequitor here? Somehow
> the news got out, and only Pettigrew could let people know there was
> even news to tell. >>

> Catlady: 
> As we saw in OoP, the Secret Keeper can 'tell' the Secret via 
> written note. I figure that Peter wrote such a note to Sirius, and 
> ... to Dumbledore .... He could have written another note to Hagrid 

> wherr009 wrote in
> http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/130249 :
> 
> << Who performed the Fidelis (sp?) charm to hide the potters? Was it
> James or Lily or someone else? >>

> Cataldy: 
> I think it must have been James or Lily or Sirius or Peter, ...; it
> apparently never occured to Sirius that he *did* know that Peter was
> the Secret Keeper and where Peter was hiding, so he *could* have 
> been made to reveal that to the bad guys, ...
> 
> ... (Of course I am jumping to the assumption that the person who
> casts the spell must know who the Secret Keeper is, probably must 
> cast it on him in person.) 
> 
> Further, I assume that Peter didn't cast the spell because he was
> the magically weakest of the four. If the Fidelius Charm requires 
> to be cast by a person who is neither the Secret Keeper nor the 
> Secret's owner, then it would have been Sirius.
> 

bboyminn:

I think there are far too many detail missing from our knowledge of
how the Fidelius Charm works. For example, only the secret keeper can
reveal the secret. But exactly what is the 'secret'. 

Let's use 12 Grimmauld Place as an example. Is the postal address of
'12 Grimmauld Place' the secret, or is it the building itself. In
otherwords, is it the revealing of the location of the building or the
revealing of the building itself that is reveal as the 'secret'. 

Still slightly foggy I'm sure. Harry knows the secret, he knows that
the /protected/ address of the Phoenix Headquarters is '#12 Grimmauld
Place; London, England'. Does the Fidelius Charm magically prevent him
from speaking those words in any circumstance where he could be
overheard? If he were walking down the hallway about to speak those
words and some one was listening in to his conversation, would he
magically forget the address, would he simply be struck mute - unable
to utter those secret words, or what? As an alternative, would he be
able to speak those words thereby revealing the address, but the magic
around 12 Grimmauld Place would not allow the PLACE to be reveal
because the address had not been given by the Secret Keeper. 

Let's say for example that Neville overheard Harry speak those words.
Then later in an emergency Neville rushes to #11 Grimmauld Place (yes
Eleven). He sees #11, he sees #13, but to his eye and to every means
of preception he has, magical or normal, he can't find #12. As far as
he is able to determine, #12 simply doesn't exist. So, in a sense, he
has the secret, but he doesn't have THE SECRET.

So, now I think you probably see my point. Harry has revealed the
address to Neville, but Harry has not revealed the secret. Neville can
know where it is, but knowing where it is doesn't not allow him to
find the place because the place continues to be hidden by the charm
because it was not the Secret Keeper who reveal the information.

I'm not say that this is how it does work, just pointing out that
given how little we know, this is how it might work. 

To further compound the confusion, we are assuming that the 'secret'
is the location, that it is, the place, the building itself that is
the secret. But nothing has be specified indicating that that's how
the harm has to work. Why couldn't Lily and James themselves be the
secert rather than their house in Godrics Hollow? To protect Lily and
James it would still have to be their /location/ that was secret, but
if the Charm hid them rather than the house, then the protection would
follow them were ever they went. It's the difference between making
'the location of Jame and Lily' a secret, and making the house at #10
Spinners End, Godrics Hollow, Powys County, Wales the secret.

Remember, Prof. Flitwick said Voldemort could have been looking in the
window, and he still wouldn't have been able to find Lily and James.
While we can't really lend much weight to that statement, it does
imply that a circumstance where you can find the house, but not the
people is possible.

Further, if the house itself is the secret, then James could have cast
the Fidelius Charm, because it's not himself that he is enchanting,
but the house, and only as a secondary efffect is he protected by
being in that house. That means that anyone, not just James and Lily,
would also be protected by being in the house.

I'm not even saying that this is right. I'm just trying to point out
that many of us are operating under easy assumptions that aren't
really supported by direct knowledge.

We can reasonably assume that critical people knew where Lily and
James were. Someone had to bring the groceries, someone had to bring
them news. Can you apparate into and out of a Fidelius protected
house. We didn't see anyone do that at Grimmauld Place. Entrance by
Apparation would certainly solve some logistical problems, but would
access be limited to people who had officially be given the secret?
You would certainly /want/ it to be limited, but we don't know that it is.

Again, my real point is nothing more than trying to encourage us to be
careful about unfounded assumptions that are commonly being made about
the nature of the Fidelius Charm and how it works. In the scenario I
outline above, it's possible to give out the address without revealing
the secret. 

-Minor Points-

-Logically, some people had to know where James and Lily were hiding
and have access to that place. Again, simple things like groceries
have to be dealt with.

-We don't know how the Fidelius Charm can be broken. Was the house in
Godrics Hollow revealed, meaning the secret broken, when the house was
destroyed? Was it literally because the house was destroyed or was the
revealing of the secret a side effect of the sudden burst of general
but powerful magic when Voldemort's spell rebounded? Or is the answer
as simple as Dumbledore and Hagrid knowing the secret.

Too many assumptions; too little information.

steve/bboyminn