Why a secret keeper?

[annemehr]

No: HPFGUIDX 189899



--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "WendyH" <wendydhudson at ...> wrote:
>
> Hi -
> 
> I've been reading the posts here for quite a while; although, I never
> participate, I enjoy reading everyone's opinion.
> 
> Forgive me if this has already been discussed.  Ever since I read
> about secret keepers I wondered why have them at all?  Why do you
> have to tell your secret to someone?  Why couldn't Lily and James
> kept the secret to themselves?  It seems safer.  What is it about
> Wizards that requires them to have a secret keeper?
> 
> Wendy
>

The reason is because if a secret is sealed this way, no one else can find it out, and even someone who previously knew the secret would forget it.

So for example when Dumbledore was secret-keeper for the location of the Order's headquarters, then the DEs could not decide to search 12 Grimmauld Place.  Even those DEs who used to know perfectly well where Regulus used to live would no longer be able to find it.

Lily and James hoped to hide their location from the traitor in the Order by sealing that information between themselves and Pettigrew.  And it would have worked if they hadn't chosen the traitor as their Secret-Keeper.

It's really a spell for something that people you wish to *make* a secret, that people might already know or be able to find out.  If there is a secret that only you could know, then yes, you might be better off to just keep it to yourself.

Annemehr