12GP & Secret-Keeper Snape (was Questions for JKR)

[elync64]

No: HPFGUIDX 173387

Like many others here and elsewhere, I'm also wondering about the 
whole issue of the "safety" of 12GP in book 7.

It seems clear that the entire Order believes Snape is now ESE. It 
also seems clear that, based on their understanding of the Fidelius 
Charm placed on the house, once DD died, everyone he'd let in on that 
particular secret also became a Secret Keeper. That meant Snape could 
(if he'd actually been ESE) revealed its location to LV and the DEs.

What strikes me is odd is that the protections put in place to 
protect Snape from doing so, only seem designed to work if and when 
Snape actually enters the house. IIRC, the tongue-tying curse only 
takes effect when someone enters the front hall, then the image of 
Dead!Dumbledore appears and some code phrase along the lines 
of "I did not kill you" deactivates all of that.

But, based on book 5, all that's needed to "reveal" 12GP to anybody 
is for a/the Secret Keeper to tell them it's there and is OotP HQ. He 
doesn't need to physically take them there, he doesn't need to get 
them on the doorstep or in the door. When DD was the only Secret 
Keeper, all he did was write it down on a piece of paper and somebody 
else gave it to Harry to read and suddenly the place revealed itself 
for Harry to see and enter. He didn't have to take Harry to GP and 
tell him #12 existed and was the OotP headquarters, he didn't have to 
speak its location to Harry, he didn't even have to be physically 
present.

So I don't see how a tongue-tying curse could have kept Snape from 
writing down the same thing Dumbledore did on a piece of paper and 
handing it around to anybody he pleased, even if it somehow worked on 
him no matter where he was and not just if he walked in the front 
door again. And some of the Order had to know this, because they were 
*there* when the same thing via DD worked to reveal the place to 
Harry when they first took him there.

Now, maybe Snape could have done that, if he'd really been ESE, and 
the other protections inside the house could've taken care of anyone 
who came into the house afterwards and didn't know how to counter 
them. But I don't see how the Order could've believed that the 
protections we see working in DH could've prevented Snape from 
communicating the location and therefore revealing the house to LV 
and the DEs. I guess they have to assume he didn't/couldn't do this, 
because it seems like even though the DEs know where it should be, 
because they're staking it out while HRH are there, they still can't 
see it or gain access to it until one of them is accidently Apparated 
with the trio right onto the doorstep. So were there other 
protections in place, that would keep Snape from revealing the place 
even by writing it down like DD did? It seems like the Order must 
have thought so, and assumed those protections were working.

Another thing - if Yaxley's Apparating onto the doorstep with the 
trio counts as revealing the secret, this means that just accidently 
being taken to a place reveals it, even if the the Secret Keeper who 
takes someone there doesn't actively communicate that information, 
which seems to be how such secrets had to be revealed before this 
point. Which seems to indicate that, say, if Peter Pettigrew 
(supposing he'd not been a, well, rat) had just paid a visit to the 
Potters in Godric Hollow, and they'd opened the door and he'd 
said, "Why, hello there, James and Lily Potter," upon seeing them, 
anyone who'd followed him there without his knowledge and saw and 
overheard this would now know exactly where the Potters were. Which 
raises some doubt in my mind as to the effectiveness of the Fidelius 
Charm, if a Secret Keeper can reveal the secret involved without 
intending to or even knowing he's done it. But maybe what happened 
with Yaxley didn't really reveal anything, and Hermione only assumed 
it did. Even if it did, presumably only Yaxley would then be able to 
see and enter 12GP, because even if the Trio had accidentally 
revealed it to him, that still didn't make *him* a Secret Keeper for 
12GP and he couldn't reveal it to anyone else, or else what's the 
point of the charm and having a Secret Keeper in the first place? 
Just being told the secret doesn't make one a Secret Keeper, able to 
reveal it to others in turn.

The other thing all this makes me wonder about, is whether or not Mad-
Eye - who supposedly put all the protections on 12GP once DD was dead 
and Snape was presumed ESE - actually knew better, if DD had told him 
more about the overall plan and Snape's part in it than he told 
anyone else. We don't see his reaction to Snape's apparent murder of 
Dumbledore and flight from Hogwarts afterward, because he's not 
there. He attends DD's funeral, but there's nothing said about that 
except that Harry sees him there. The next time we hear from him, 
he's at Privet Drive in DH, in charge of the process of getting Harry 
out of there and to a safe location. Later, it's Mr. Weasley who 
tells Harry that Mad-Eye put protections on 12GP; Mad-Eye never says 
a word about it "onscreen" or, as far as I can tell, says anything 
about Snape and his supposed betrayal of DD and the Order.

I don't know, it's a big stretch, but it just seems like the 
protections we actually see are so inadequate, and we know Snape 
*does* in fact get in and back out, although whether or not this was 
before any protections were in place is a good question. But the 
protections we see are not adequate to keep Snape from revealing the 
location of 12GP to somebody else, so it seems like there must be 
more protections they know about (or at least think exist) or else 
they'd be wondering why DEs weren't beating down the door trying to 
get to HRH instead of just standing across the street hoping they'll 
catch a break and catch them on the outside.

I'm also wondering if LV and the DEs had any real understanding of 
how the Fidelius Charm works, or if Snape perhaps made a show of 
trying to give them the information and pretended he was unable to 
because of some hex that really wasn't there (if the protections we 
saw were the only ones involved) and got away with it the way he got 
away with everything else, his superb Occlumency skills.

My guess is, he told them that he'd managed to get into 12GP one last 
time, but that he couldn't find anything of use to them since the 
Order had already vacated... or else he brought back something 
insignificant (or even misleading) and told them that was all he 
found. And used Occlumency to put that over on LV, and then either 
pretended he still couldn't reveal it to them, or actually couldn't 
because of some protective spell we were never told about.

Just some random thoughts...

Lyn