Voldie's Wand and other details

[lolita_ns]

No: HPFGUIDX 140354

>> Amiable Dorsai:
> 
>   I see the sequence of events something like this: Late Monday 
night,
> or very early Tuesday morning, Voldemort shows up at Godric's Hollow
> with Peter Pettigrew in tow.  He blows open the door and he and 
James
> duel. Lily runs to another room with Harry, and somehow contacts
> Dumbledore, probably by Patronus messenger, then has her own 
encounter
> with Voldemort and is killed.  Voldemort makes the mistake of trying
> to kill Harry and is ripped from his body.  Peter, his world
> destroyed, grabs Voldemort's wand and flees.


Lolita:

This sounds plausible to me, however, I have a different idea - 
regarding the fact that DD found out what happened in no time (which 
we have a clue to that he did - he sent Hagrid to pick up Harry 
before even the ministry found out). I don't think that Lily 
contacted Dumbledore.

I think that Snape contacted DD the moment his dark mark disappeared, 
he must have figured out that something had happened to LV. DD, who 
knew the Prophecy (and for that matter, if I am correct in my 
assumption that SS, in fact, heard the whole prophecy, and not just 
the beginning of it, SS too knew exactly what must have happened) 
sent Hagrid to pick up Harry. 

(No, Snape did not become DD's spy only after LV's demise - why would 
DD need him then? Also, DD says explicitly, in the trial scene in GoF 
that Snape rejoined - hmm, this *RE*joined is interesting... why not 
simply *joined*? - the side of the Light BEFORE LV fell. I have dealt 
with the exact moment Snape joined hands with DD elsewhere.)


Amiable Dorsai:

  Some time later, Dumbledore recieves the message, and has a
> problem--Voldemort has somehow cracked the Fidelius Charm.  


Lolita:

The problem, as I see it, is not in LV cracking the Fidelius (I'll 
deal with it in a moment). No, the problem is the following:
 
Just how did DUMBLEDORE know where to send Hagrid when the place was 
hidden by Fidelius Charm? Pettigrew outed the Secret to LV, not to 
him.

Well..

We saw two different instances of Fidelius. In OotP, when DD was the 
Secret Keeper (and most probably, also the one who cast the spell, 
unless it needs several persons, like the Unbreakable Vow), Harry 
couldn't find 12 GP, regardless of the fact that he was brought to 
right in front of it - by the people who were in the secret, to boot -
 until he was shown the address in the Secret Keeper's handwriting 
(and the note was probably charmed to somehow channel DD's words or 
sth, and thus worked as if DD himself had *told* Harry the location). 
No one else could find it.*

(*Mind you, this is a whole new can of worms. 12 GP was protected by 
Fidelius. Fair enough. But when Kreacher showed up at Narcissa's 
door, how come that she didn't figure out that the HQ of the Order 
must be at 12 GP? It doesn't matter that the house is unplottable, or 
that it's fidelioused. Narcissa grew up there. She must have known 
where Kreacher had come from. She also must have known that her once-
home passed to Sirius's hands - she knows that he's still alive. She 
could have easily put 2 and 2 together. So what if the DEs couldn't 
see the HQ? They could have planted a wizarding equivalent of a bomb 
to the place they knew the house was, regardless of the fact that 
they weren't able to see it. Unless Narcissa too had lost her 
marbles, like the rest of her family, which doesn't ring quite true, 
seeing how she put the broken mother act and tricked Snape - the 
untrusting soul extraordinaire - into making the Vow.)

This is how the Fidelius charm is supposed to work. Only those that 
the Secret Keeper himself has let in on the secret can find the 
place. NO ONE else. No matter what. We have yet to see what happens 
to 12 GP now that DD is dead.

However, the Fidelius in PoA is different. We hear, from Flitwick - 
who, you will agree, knows his charms - that the Fidelius secret is 
kept within a *living soul*. This would imply that while the Secret 
Keeper is alive, the charm works. This means that NO ONE but LV and 
Pettigrew, including DD, would have been able to find the house in 
Godric's Hollow, for as long as Pettigrew was alive. Even after the 
Potters and LV were dead, i.e, in LV's case, as dead as possible. 
But, as we saw, no one had ANY problems whatsoever in finding the 
place (DD knew where to send Hagrid, Hagrid found the place easily, 
and the same goes for Sirius). Just what are we supposed to swallow 
here? 

Unless the Secret gets outed with the death of the CASTER of the 
Fidelius charm (I would bet on Lily, wasn't her wand supposed to be 
good for Charms?).

And this ties neatly with your suggestion that DD had a hard time 
believing that Sirius betrayed the secret:


Amiable Dorsai:

At this
> point, he probably can't wrap his mind around the idea of Sirius 
Black
> betraying James Potter, so he must conclude that LV has figured out
> another way to bust a Fidelius--that means the Longbottoms are in
> danger.)


Lolita:

Personally, I don't think DD had any problems with believing this. 
For one thing, we heard from Snape that the whole Werewolf episode 
happened because he was *told* - by Sirius - to enter the passage 
under the Whomping Willow. (I admit that I find it next to impossible 
to believe that Snape would have acted upon ANYTHING Sirius told him -
 he is not a trusting man, and you can tell that he was not a 
trusting boy either, especially when Black was concerned - but I've 
read a nice and plausible explanation of it in an essay on RedHen, so 
I won't make an issue of it here. Go and read it if you're 
interested.) Remus's condition was confidential. And Black betrayed 
it - betrayed him - for the sake of a JOKE. What is worse, of all the 
people he could have betrayed this thing to, he betrayed it to Snape, 
who he knew was as mean and spiteful as they go and who would have 
hugged himself if anything bad had happened to any of the Marauders. 

No, don't get me wrong, Sirius was not malevolent. He would have 
never consciously done anything to hurt or endanger his friends. But 
he was impulsive. And if he was rash enough to betray Remus's 
condition - and Remus was also his friend - in an instance of 
adolescent machismo and, I repeat, for the sake of a JOKE - to Snape, 
of all people,* then I see how both DD and Lupin believed that Sirius 
betrayed the Potters. 

(*Snape was known as The Kid With The Curses - the homemade ones we 
saw were probably neither his only ones nor his most dangerous ones - 
and it is quite possible that he would have been able to KILL or at 
least seriously injure Remus. And he would have probably got away 
with it, seeing that he would be defending himself against a werewolf 
in the wolf form. And Sirius didn't think of this when he told Snape 
to enter the passage. And even if he had, he didn't warn Remus at 
all. No wonder that Remus believed him capable of betraying the 
Potters.) 


All this aside, DD knew that LV was a Legilimens - and an extremely 
powerful one, to boot. Sirius (and for that matter, even Pettigrew) 
didn't have to TELL LV the secret at all. Locking eyes with him would 
have been enough. DD KNEW this. And yet, he let the Potters take 
Sirius for their Secret Keeper. He didn't try to dissuade them, by 
telling them that, if LV managed to capture Sirius, and even if 
Sirius flatly refused to tell him the secret, LV would read it with 
ease just by looking Sirius - who is no Occlumens, and who, at this 
time of his life, probably doesn't even know what either Legilemcy or 
Occlumency are - in the eye. Add this to the list of DD's mistakes.

And add the whole sorry episode to the list of Black and Potter's 
instances of sheer stupidity. Has it never occured to either James or 
Lily that the best thing would be for one of them to be the Secret 
Keeper? Why drag either Sirius or Peter into this? In OotP, DD, who 
is the founder and a memebr of the Order is its Secret Keeper. This 
is how it is supposed to be done. In the case of the Potters, the 
best course of action would have been for one of them to be the 
Secret Keeper, and thus to keep both the secret and its keeper where 
LV could not find them. But no. They had to drag a third person into 
this, and botch the whole thing by it. (And they probably botched the 
casting as well. There is no other explanation for everyone being 
able to find the house when the Keeper outed the secret to just one 
person, and was still alive. Or at least, there is no other 
explanation that I can think of.)


Amiable Dorsai: 

>  He dispatches the first member of
> the Order he can find--Hagrid--to Godric's Hollow.


Lolita:

Or not. Maybe he doesn't want the Ministry - or anyone else - to see 
the instances of magic performed there. So, Hagrid would be a natural 
choice, considering that he doesn't need magic to move heavy stones 
around. And even if DD doesn't know that the house is destroyed - and 
I am more inclined to think that he doesn't - Hagrid can protect both 
himself and Harry without magic. I can't think of any other Order 
member capable of doing that.


Amiable Dorsai:
 
>Dumbledore
> checks into things, determines that Harry can be protected by his
> mother's sacrifice (How does he know this?  That's bothered me for a
> while.) 

Lolita:

Well, it's actually quite simple. DD's chocolate frog card says that 
he discovered 12 uses of dragon BLOOD. The famous gleam of triumph in 
GoF is DD's reaction to Harry's news of LV taking his BLOOD. In HBP 
he figures out in no time that LV's secret door in the cave wants a 
sacrifice in BLOOD. So I think it is quite safe to assume that DD is 
a specialist in blood magic. Don't forget that he says that Harry is 
protected for as long as his home is the place where his mother's 
BLOOD dwells. So, he prepares a spell - possibly one of his own - 
which makes use of mother's love - her spilt BLOOD - that saved Harry.


Whoa, a long one :)
Cheers,
Lolita.