Thoughts on the Fidelius

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 158524

Snow wrote:
> 
> Then whom ever owned the place where the Potters were hidden in 
> Godric's Hollow would have had to give permission for someone to put 
> a Fidelius on it, that much I agree on. However, the owner giving 
> permission or taking permission away or dieing should have little 
> bearing on the Fidelius once it was cast. This is why I don't feel 
> that the residence or address has much to do with the actual Charm

> depending I think on who cast the Charm. 
> 
> The only circumstance that can eliminate the Charm, imo, would be if 
> the caster of the charm dissolved it or moved it (like Dumbledore
did
temporarily). If the secret keeper of the Charm dies, the secret
dies with him. The only reason anyone found Godric's Hollow was
because the Charm was broken. In both circumstances we know of
concerning the Fidelius the secret keeper does not die and yet
Godric's Hollow was breached and Grimmald Place was not, why?
> 
> This is why I tend to think that the secret keeper is not always the 
> caster of the Charm. In the Grimmald Place scene I would expect the 
> caster to be the same as the secret keeper, which was Dumbledore 
> since The Order was the elite group of defenders led by Dumbledore; 
> No one but himself could be entrusted.
> 
> In the Godric's Hollow scene I would lean less towards the secret 
> keeper also being the one who cast the Charm. Peter, no matter how 
> much he has been portrayed as competent (later in life), has no
skill to the degree of performing complex magic such as the Fidelius. 
> Someone else had to have performed the spell. Someone who also kept 
> himself hidden and checked up on the secret keeper, someone who
could lift the Charm or move it if need be. 
> 
> This was a unique situation where the Potters entrusted Sirius to be 
> secret keeper over Dumbledore himself and yet at Sirius request 
> relied on Peter in his stead. What better way to ensure safety than 
> to elect the caster to be different than the secret keeper? 
> 
> The caster of the Charm could reverse it if need be; like if Peter 
> was found not to be were he should have been found with no evidence 
> of struggle. That way someone could find the bodies and any evidence 
> as well as save anyone lucky enough to survive. <snip>
. If Dumbledore owned the house and died then 
> there may be a problem with the Fidelius if his elected processor 
> disputed the Charm but Dumbledore didn't die so who owned the house 
> because the house was revealed? Did it really matter who owned it in 
> this case?
> 
> I know I am doing a very bad job at convincing but I don't think the 
> property has bearing on the Charm to the degree of the occurrence of 
> GH. I just don't see it in this situation. It isn't about the 
> location. <snip>
> 
> I was saying that the secret does not necessarily have to be 
> connected to a building (Flitwick's example was the use of --- but 
> does not have to include ---; it was nothing more than an example). 
> Peter did not die so therefore the secret did not die with him 
 so 
> why was the Charm lifted? A very redundant question I know
<snip>
> We are back to the question that I asked myself in reading this 
> response of whom the caster of the Charm would be. Somehow I just 
> don't see the Potters initiating the Charm. It just doesn't make 
> sense to me and I'm not sure how better to explain it. 

Carol responds:
I'm not quite sure that I understand your argument except that you
think it doesn't matter who owns the property (I agree) and you point
out that the Fidelius charm is broken despite the fact that the SK is
still alive, which suggests that the caster is not the same person as
the SK.

I've never for a moment thought that Peter was the caster of the
spell. We're told in SS/PS that Lily's first wand is "a nice wand for
Charm work," which suggests that she's good at Charms.

Here's what I think happened (and admittedly it's mostly speculative):
 Dumbledore, the Heir of Gryffindor, offers the Potters his cottage in
Godric's Hollow as a hiding place soon after Snape tells him that
Voldemort is targeting the Potters and that someone close to the
Potters is supplying him with information about them. Some time later,
as the danger increases, Dumbledore comes up with the Fidelius Charm
idea and offers himself as Secret Keeper. Lily and James accept the
*idea* of the Fidelius Charm, and James turns over his Invisibility
Cloak and the key to their Gringotts vault to Dumbledore for
safekeeping, but Lily insists that she can cast the charm herself and
James insists that his best friend, Sirius Black, should be Secret
Keeper. He will hear no word against him even though Dumbledore fears
that he may be the spy who's revealing the Potters' secrets to
Voldemort. Dumbledore leaves and the Potters approach Sirius with the
Secret Keeper idea, and he talks them into making Peter Secret Keeper
instead. Lily places the secret, "The Potters are hiding in [address]
Godric's Hollow," inside Peter. Peter, as Secret Keeper, has to tell
the three people present (not counting Baby!Harry) the secret, so the
Potters and Sirius Black know it but no one else does. We know that
Peter didn't tell Remus Lupin. I doubt that he told anyone else except
Voldemort. Even Dumbledore, who I believe lent or gave them the house
to hide in, forgets what he knows (which also explains how Bellatrix
could forget that Kreacher belongs to 12 Grimmauld Place). 

A week later, Peter tells Voldemort where the Potters are hiding. (I
believe that he accompanied Voldemort to the house, since he wasn't
home when Sirius came looking for him, and watched in rat form as the
friends he'd betrayed were killed. Or maybe he didn't see Lily die
since she was apparently upstairs.) The charm is broken either when he
breaks faith (fidelity) by revealing their hiding place to the person
they're hiding from, *or* when the hiding place is destroyed and so
the secret is no longer true, *or* when Lily, IMO the caster of the
charm, is killed. All we know is that the charm *is* broken.
Otherwise, neither the ruined house nor Baby!Harry nor the bodies of
his parents could have been found. (Were "bits" of Voldemort found?
How did anyone besides Dumbledore and Snape (see upthread for my
hypothesis regarding his Dark Mark) know that LV was the one who'd
killed Lily and James but failed to kill Harry?)

Will that work for you? Certainly Dumbledore didn't cast the Fidelius
Charm or he'd know who the SK was, but I see no reason why Lily
couldn't have done it, and I can't think of anyone else who could have
managed it since James and Sirius specialized in Transfiguration, not
Charms. You could be right that the death of the caster voided the
charm, but I think the other possibilities are equally valid.

Carol, agreeing that it's most unlikely that PP cast the Fidelius
Charm but not sure who Snow thinks may have done it