InvCloak /Veritaserum /Much Macbeth/ Fidelius/ Nagini/ PeterPeterSecretKeeper

[Catlady (Rita Prince Winston)]

No: HPFGUIDX 158683

Tonks_op wrote in
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/158397>:

<< We do not know how and when James got the cloak.  >>

<http://www.quick-quote-quill.org/articles/2000/1000-aol-chat.htm> says:

<<Q: Where did James get his Invisibility Cloak?
JKR: That was inherited from his own father -- a family heirloom! >>

Orna wrote in
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/158400>:

<< perhaps in WW they just use Verisatrum - but I'm not sure...). >>

<http://www.jkrowling.com/textonly/en/faq_view.cfm?id=105> says:

<< Q: Veritaserum plays a big part in finding out the truth from
Mad-Eye Moody in book four. Why then is it not used for example in the
trials mentioned in the same book? It would be much easier in solving
problems like whether Sirius Black was guilty or not?

JKR: Veritaserum works best upon the unsuspecting, the vulnerable and
those insufficiently skilled (in one way or another) to protect
themselves against it. Barty Crouch had been attacked before the
potion was given to him and was still very groggy, otherwise he could
have employed a range of measures against the Potion - he might have
sealed his own throat and faked a declaration of innocence,
transformed the Potion into something else before it touched his lips,
or employed Occlumency against its effects. In other words, just like
every other kind of magic within the books, Veritaserum is not
infallible. As some wizards can prevent themselves being affected, and
others cannot, it is an unfair and unreliable tool to use at a trial.

Sirius might have volunteered to take the potion had he been given the
chance, but he was never offered it. Mr. Crouch senior, power mad and
increasingly unjust in the way he was treating suspects, threw him
into Azkaban on the (admittedly rather convincing) testimony of many
eyewitnesses. The sad fact is that even if Sirius had told the truth
under the influence of the Potion, Mr. Crouch could still have
insisted that he was using trickery to render himself immune to it. >>

Zanooda wrote in
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/158410>:

<< If we are talking about Shakespeare, there was no such spell in
"Macbeth", and Birnam wood moved to Dunsinane without any witchcraft
invoved. English soldiers were holding tree branches for camouflage
while advancing to Dunsinane, that's all (please correct me if I'm
wrong). Maybe "mobiliarbus" is from some other shakespearean play?
Could someone explain? >>

I don't think the phrase 'Mobiliarbus' appears in any Shakespeare
play. I do think the play 'Macbeth' was based on a history book which
included the prophecies about not being killed by any man of woman
born and ruling until Birnam Wood came to Dunsinane, and Malcolm's
gimmicks about being born by Caesarian section and camouflaging his
soldiers with branches from Birnam Wood. 

However, that was a Muggle history book. The magical history books
would explain that Birnam Wood really did move, picking up its roots
from the earth and flying to the new location, because of a magic
spell, because of a wizard who was on Malcolm's side. Maybe in the
wizarding world he was the son of a Veela not of a woman.

Tonks_op wrote in
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/158421>:

<< Oh, my... what does this ["'Malkin' also meant a slatternly or
ill-kempt woman.)"] mean for Madam Malkin?? Does this mean that she is
not the *in* place to get your robes? >>

She was the 'in' place to get your robes, or the Malfoys wouldn't have
shopped there. So all it means is that the wizarding folk pay no
attention to the (somewhat ironic) meaning of her name relating to her
business. I suppose that habit is how they could miss knowing that
'Remus Lupin' was a werewolf.

Geoff wrote in
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/158422>:

<< Just to be pedantic (as ever!), according to my notes, in the
collected Folio edition of 1623, the witches were variously referred
to as "wayward" or "weyard". >>

Fascinating, considering that 'wayward' means 'misbehaving'. I assume
that Shakespeare believed that Witches were people who had decided to
serve the Devil, which by Christian ideas is definitely misbehavior! I
must check the etymologies...

<http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=wayward> says: << c.1380
aphetic shortening of aweiward "turned away," from away + -ward. >>

<http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=weird> says: << O.E. wyrd
"fate, destiny" (n.), lit. "that which comes," from P.Gmc. *wurthis
(cf. O.S. wurd, O.H.G. wurt "fate," O.N. urðr "fate, one of the three
Norns"), from PIE *wert- "to turn, wind," (cf. Ger. werden, O.E.
weorðan "to become"), from base *wer- "to turn, bend" (see versus).
For sense development from "turning" to "becoming," cf. phrase turn
into "become." The modern sense of weird developed from M.E. use of
weird sisters for the three fates or Norns (in Gmc. mythology), the
goddesses who controlled human destiny. They were usually portrayed as
odd or frightening in appearance, as in "Macbeth," which led to the
adj. meaning "odd-looking, uncanny," first recorded 1815. >>

So, these are two different words that came together, but they both
started out with '*wert' meaning 'turn'.

Nate wrote in
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/158463>:

<< The Fidelius charm works on the building, not on the individual. >>

I don't remember any canon for that; please remind me.
<http://www.jkrowling.com/textonly/en/faq_poll.cfm> gives some
information about Fidelius:

<<Q: What happens to a secret when the Secret-Keeper dies?

JKR: I was surprised that this question won, because it is not the one
that I'd have voted for
 but hey, if this is what you want to know,
this is what you want to know!

When a Secret-Keeper dies, their secret dies with them, or, to put it
another way, the status of their secret will remain as it was at the
moment of their death. Everybody in whom they confided will continue
to know the hidden information, but nobody else.

Just in case you have forgotten exactly how the Fidelius Charm works,
it is "an immensely complex spell involving the magical concealment of
a secret inside a single, living soul. The information is hidden
inside the chosen person, or Secret-Keeper, and is henceforth
impossible to find -- unless, of course, the Secret-Keeper chooses to
divulge it" (Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban)

In other words, a secret (eg, the location of a family in hiding, like
the Potters) is enchanted so that it is protected by a single Keeper
(in our example, Peter Pettigrew, a.k.a. Wormtail). Thenceforth nobody
else – not even the subjects of the secret themselves – can divulge
the secret. Even if one of the Potters had been captured, force fed
Veritaserum or placed under the Imperius Curse, they would not have
been able to give away the whereabouts of the other two. The only
people who ever knew their precise location were those whom Wormtail
had told directly, but none of them would have been able to pass on
the information.>>

But this information doesn't say whether it only works on a building.
(And it doesn't say what happens if the *caster* dies.) 

And it isn't very clear about the Secret Keeper telling the Secret via
a written note. We *SAW* DD tell Harry the 12 Grimmauld Place Secret
via a written note, so it *MUST* be possible. So what about her
phrase, above, 'those whom Wormtail had told directly'? Does
'directly' include via a written note? (Which I am sure is how DD and
Hagrid and perhaps others knew about Godric's Hollow without knowing
that Peter was the Secret Keeper.)

And does "When a Secret-Keeper dies, (snip) the status of their secret
will remain as it was at the moment of their death. Everybody in whom
they confided will continue to know the hidden information, but nobody
else" mean that a 12 Grimmauld Place note written by DD lost its power
to give information at the moment that DD died?

Carol wrote in
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/158586>:

<< Dumbledore accounts for the affinity between Nagini and Voldemort
by her being a Horcrux, but his suggestion that LV used Frank Bryce's
death to make that Horcrux is problematic for a number of reasons
discussed in earlier posts and does not account for the affinity
between them when LV is possessing her in OoP, which occurs before
Frank Bryce's murder. >>

No, Frank Bryce's murder occured at the very beginning of GoF, which
happened before anything in OoP.

<< I've suggested (with a resounding silence in response) that she may
be his familiar (in the sense of an evil spirit in animal form, cf.
Grimalkin and Paddock in the "Macbeth" scene, not in the sense of a
pet like Trevor the toad). >>

I'm not sure that there are 'evil spirits', let alone evil spirits in
animal form, in the Potterverse. Someone once suggested that Nagini is
an Animagus, a witch who was as fanatically loyal to LV as Bellatrix,
who became stuck in animal form. If so, I expect a jealous Bella had
something to do with her getting stuck.

Pippin wrote in
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/158662>:

<< a_svirn: << Who else? If there was a spy at GH he would certainly
refrain to advertise the fact. >>
Pippin:
Even to other DE's, who might be rather anxious, not to say insistent,
to know what had happened to their master? You think Hagrid has the
only loose lips in the WW? >> >>

I think that the other DEs didn't know that Peter was 'on their side',
didn't know that Peter was the traitor who revealed the Potters, and
therefore didn't ask him what had happened. If Karkaroff had known
about Peter, he would have tried to testify against Peter when he was
begging for mercy. If Snape had known about Peter -- I can't *stand*
to think of Snape being so eager to turn his hated enemy over to
'justice' in the form of the Dementor's Kiss if he knew that his hated
enemy actually didn't do it. If some of the other DEs knew and
gossiped about it, along with gossiping about their master's
disappearance, some word of Peter should have leaked to the good guys.

Sirius did say that Peter had remained in rat-hiding all those years
for fear of his fellow DEs, assuming that he had deliberately lead LV
into an ambush, taking revenge on him. I didn't see how that could be
if the other DEs didn't know about Peter, but someone suggested that
it was only Bellatrix and her little clique who knew, and only they
whom Sirius heard shouting againt Peter in their nightmares. So it
could have been Bellatrix who demanded Peter tell her what happened,
but I don't see Bella as a gossip.

Amber Sunnylove Queen of Serpents wrote in
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/158681>:

<< Pettigrew is certainly weak enough to break under torture almost
immediately. >>

I'm sure that Sirius planned to keep Peter well enough hidden, and
never suspected to be the Secret Keeper, so that Peter would never be
captured and never be tortured.