Fidelius Confundus

[Lee Kaiwen]

No: HPFGUIDX 183442

kennyg1864:
IIRC the prevailing guesswork is that DD knew of the breaking of the
Fidelius Charm as soon as LV broke it (thanks to Wormtail's betrayal),
since he had cast the Charm.

Ceridwen:
DD couldn't have cast the charm or he would have known that Peter was
the SK.

CJ:
Good point about DD.

However, based on what, other than LV's own use of the word in DH (which 
I take to be typical self-aggrandizement), do we assume LV "broke" the 
Charm? Surely Pettigrew's revelation to LV was entirely consistent with 
the normal duties and perogatives of a SK, and could not have broken it 
as such. Conversely, had LV the ability to break the Charm, he would not 
have needed Pettigrew to reveal the Secret.

bboyminn:
you are rationalizing; meaning creating a path of logic that fits the 
facts as you see them.

CJ:
Well, I am *attempting* to rationalize the facts as I see them. But you 
make that sound like a bad thing :-)

CJ (before):
.... But at this point the descriptions we're given of the
Fidelius Charm become very confusing.

"As long as the Secret-Keeper refused to speak, You-Know-Who
could search the village ... " (PoA chap. 10)

bboyminn:
This is not the absolute all-inclusive definitions of the Fidelius Charm.

CJ (now):
'Course not. If I thought it were, I wouldn't have bothered including 
other descriptions.

bboyminn:
Right, but how do you define 'directly'. Remember Dumbledore
conveyed the secret of Grimmauld Place to Harry via a NOTE.

CJ:
Well, in conjunction with the "refused to speak" bit in the PoA passage, 
I make -- for testing purposes only -- an assumption that at minimum a 
willful decision by the SK was required.

bboyminn:
You are assuming that all Fidelius Charms are constructed
the same...

CJ:
I am not, but thanks for your concern :-)

bboyminn:
In the case of the Potters, was the secret 'The Potters' or was the 
secret the location of the House in Godrics Hollow?

CJ:
A question I myself asked in my previous post, and a question to which, 
it appears to me, canon itself provides no clear answer. Flitwick's 
description suggests that at minimum, should LV choose to search GH, the 
Potters' sitting room window would be visible to him, though not the 
Potters inside. Conversely, LV takes the fact that he can see the house 
on that fateful night as evidence the Charm has been broken. But is that 
true, or simply a mistaken assumption?

JKR makes statements indicating that it was the Potters, not the house, 
whose location was Charmed. From her website 
(http://www.jkrowling.com/textonly/en/faq_poll.cfm):

"Even if one of the Potters had been captured ... they would not have 
been able to give away the whereabouts of the other two. The only people 
who ever knew their precise location..."

Her words here clearly indication it is the location of the Potters, not 
the house, which is Charmed. But perhaps we can just chalk that up to 
imprecision.

bboyminn:
However, you are right about one point, it would be possible for 
individuals in their own minds to realize that the house at Grimmauld 
Place belonged to Sirius Black's family and now belonged to Sirius 
Black. But while they could resolve this in their own minds, the 
Fidelius Charm would prevent them from saying it out loud, or by other 
means, to anyone else.

CJ (now):
Hmm, I deny I'm right about that point :-) because I don't think I was 
making the point so much as asking the question.

But as to the *question*: what if I one day decide to FC information 
which had hitherto been common knowledge -- say, the location of 
Buckingham Palace? Would every tourist who ever passed through the gates 
suddenly forget where it is? Would it suddenly disappear from every map 
of London ever produced? Would the Queen suddenly forget where she lives?

Alternatively, perhaps we get thousands of puzzled people meandering 
around central London trying to figure out where Buck's House had got 
to. In that case, two possibilities -- either they're still free to 
mention things like Buckingham Palace Road, or they're reduced to 
incomprehensible mumbles every time they trying to explain to the 
nearest bobby what they're looking for.

Since the Potters were holed up in their own home, were all the old 
friends who used to visit still free to drop by, or were they suddenly, 
inexplicably unable to remember where their friends live?

CJ (now):
(or wait! is she? according to Mr. Weasley in DH, after
the death of the SK, everyone to whom he revealed the Secret
became a SK in turn; but that differs from what JKR herself
had said)

bboyminn:
you are assuming that JKR made absolute complete all-inclusive 
statements. She is personally honor bound to tell the truth, but she is 
not bound to tell the WHOLE truth.

CJ:
No, I'm not. JKR's statement is not just incomplete, it's contradictory. 
 From her website again:

"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."

This clearly implies that the people in whom the (now-defunct) SK 
confided remain unable to confide their knowledge to others. I.e., they 
do not become SKs in turn. If they did, the Secret neither would have 
died with the original SK, nor would the status of the Secret remain as 
it was at the time of the original SK's demise, as the new SKs would be 
able to pass it on.

Yet that contradicts canonical statements such as the PoA description 
or Moody's statement that all who knew the location of Grimauld Place 
became SKs in turn when DD died.

bboyminn:
Bill goes to warn the others... It is while he is gone that the Fidelius 
spells are cast.

CJ:
Since Bill was SK for Shell Cottage, the Charm could not have been cast 
while he was away.

bboyminn:
Well, you first flaw is in assuming the Fidelius was still in
place even in the face of evidence that it was not. Wormtail
revealing the secret is very very different that Wormtail
BETRAYING the secret.... It was the Betrayal of Fidelity that broke the 
Fidelius Charm.


CJ:
Now who's making uncanonical assumptions? :-) Chapter and verse please. 
 From everything I've been told of the Fidelius Charm, there is nothing 
to indicate either that a SK is not free to reveal the Secret to 
whomever he chooses or that a betrayal breaks the Charm.




But I've another question. Is there anything in canon or interview that 
specifically says the object of a Fidelius Charm can't be his or her own 
Secret Keeper? I mean, what better way to prevent access to someplace 
than to lock the key inside? Why not simply make James and Lily their 
own (or mutual) SKs? It would become impossible for LV to discover their 
location because the SKs were protected by the very Charm for which they 
were the Keepers of the Secret.

CJ