Narrative technique and the SK switch (Was: Dumbledore's letters to Petunia )

[Zara]

No: HPFGUIDX 170026

> Carol responds:
> But what I don't understand is why they thought that the SK would be
> in danger at all. The Fidelius Charm wasn't common knowledge, AFAWK,
> until Sirius Black's name as the supposed SK appeared in the Daily
> Prophet after his arrest. 

zgirnius:
I disagree here. I think one of the points of casting the Fidelius 
Charm is to make it possible for people to know where the Potters are 
without endangering the people or the Potters. The problem the 
Potters had was that Voldemort had a spy close to them, who was 
reporting on their movements. Without the Fidelius, this meant they 
could tell noone where they were, except for an extremely limited 
cricle of people (like Sirius) whom they trusted completely not to be 
the traitor, and not to pass on the information tro someone who might 
be.

With the charm, it would again be possible to tell friends where they 
were hiding. Because, even though one of those friends was a spy, he 
or she would be unable to tell Voldemort (ro anyone else) the secret. 
But if this was the idea of using the charm, then the spy *would* be 
able to tell Voldemort that the charm was in use, which would put 
anyone suspected of being the SK in danger (not necessarily of death, 
for the reasons discussed in this thread) but certainly of capture 
and interrogation. Sirius considered himself a likely suspect, quite 
reasonably, in light of his close relationship with James. I think 
the idea was that if Sirius vanished, the spy would conclude that 
Sirius was the SK.