Godric's Hollow - How did Dumbledore know of Lilly's sacrifice?

[mariejgrangerpotter]

No: HPFGUIDX 163895

>> Allen:
>> It is even possible that Lilly sent a report of James' death. It is
>> not however possible for either Lilly or James to have reported  
>> that Harry had survived.

>> This raises the issue of how then did Dumbledore know enough to 
>> order Hagrid to retrieve Harry from the ruins of his parent's house
>> and then place him with the Dursleys?
 
> Jeremiah:
> Well, I love what JKR did with Patronus (Patroni?) but I would think
> that Dumbledore went to Godric's Hollow afterwards to find out.
> The other idea is since Harry's feelings are so strong about that  
> night, if DD took a chance and was able to read Harry's thoughts  
> then DD may have figured it out through occlumency. Not only that, 
> DD has all those nifty little spindly gadgets in his office...

Marie:
I would be more likely to believe in the spindly gadgets or possibly
occlumency (although I'm not sure Dumbledore could have performed it
on Harry from so far away) for Dumbledore's knowledge of the attack. 
It's certainly also possible that James and/or Lily sent a Patronus
message that they were being attacked.  Dumbledore can't have been at
Godric's Hollow, at least not until after Hagrid left there with
Harry.  (If he had been, why wouldn't he have taken Harry himself?) 
Of course, there are many questions about what went on in the roughly
24 hours between Voldemort's attack on the Potters and Hagrid's
arrival at the Dursleys'.  

>I'm sure DD had a ton of safety-valves put in place for the
> Potters and the Longbottoms during this time. Also, he may have    
> suspected LV to have chosen the Potters and sent Fawkes to be there
> and monitor the situation. Fawkes would have sent his magically-   
> apparating tailfeather... and DD would have known someting was going
> down at the Potters.

Fawkes is a possibility, but we saw in OotP that he can actually
become involved in a fight.  Whether he'd do that for anyone other
than Dumbledore isn't clear.  
  
> Maybe, if DD was in on the secret of the Potter's location, he was 
> going to pop in for a morning cup of tea and found the nasty  
> destruction himself. 

He wasn't.  Even if he knew where the Potters lived before the
Fidelius Charm was cast, he didn't know about it afterward.  After
all, he gave testimony that Sirius was the secret keeper, which we now
know was not the case.  

> All of this is unknown. However, from McGonagall's Q&A with DD in 
> the very first chapter of the very first book I would think that DD
> had been by the house at some point during the day... he seems so 
> definite in his non-verbal answer... it just seems like he'd seen it
> for himself.

Maybe he did, but not until after Hagrid and Harry were long gone.  

> Also, was Sirius there before Hagrid? (please correct me if I'm 
> wrong) That leads me to believe that Sirius may have been the one to
> sound the alarm to the rest of the Order... and wouldn't that look 
> slightly suspicious? If Sirius was thought to have been the Secret 
> Keeper and was the first to sound the alarm...

Yes, Sirius was there before Hagrid.  He'd gone to check on Peter, and
when Peter wasn't where he was supposed to be, he went to check on
Lily and James.  (This indicates to me that Sirius *was* in on the
secret.)  I agree that it would seem suspicious to the rest of the
Order, but it doesn't sound like he sounded the alarm.