J.K Rowling Site - discussion

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[EmmasOneandOnly]

I didnt vote for Number 1, sorry Sharon.

I voted from Number 3 which happens to be this burning question I've been trying to figure out but its only got 14 percent

[Sharon]

The site has been re-vamped and there is at least one new secret to find.  Needless to say I can't solve it at the moment but I will keep trying 

[Sharon]

I have just re-read the lastest FAQ answer.  The question was:

What happens to a secret when the secret keeper dies.

Part of the answer explains what we already knew - once the spell is cast the only person that can divulge the secret is the secret keeper.  Even if they tell someone else that person cannot pass this information to a third party ie you must hear the secret from the secret keepers own lips.

Now here is my problem - Pettigrew was the secret keeper for the Potters.  He told Voldemort the secret and, well, the rest is history.  But how did Hagrid or Dumbledore find out the Potters were dead or even find out where they were?  How did Sirius find the house for that matter?  The Potters death was tragic and would have been reported in the Muggle news but only after quite a few hours.  I certainly got the impression that Hagrid and Sirius were there within the hour.  Any thoughts??

[Morningangel-Iola]

Maybe pettigrew told so many people it soon got about.

[emmafan]

Well....and correct me if I'm mistaken here (I'm at work so I have no chance of verifying any of this).....didn't Sirius briefly talk to Harry about this?  Near the end of PoA he explained why he had been at the house that night.  Something about how he decided at the last moment that he didn't trust Pettigrew, or was worried about the Potters - So he showed up to check on them, but it was too late.  If anyone has a copy of the books (do I really need to ask this? ) on hand, could they look this up quickly?

  Sirius knew that Pettigrew was the secret keeper, so he obviously knew the location of the house.  I don't know how Hagrid or Dumbledore would have known so quickly.  Perhaps the Order has some sort of means of long distance communication (not owls, but lack walkie talkies of sorts), and Sirius let DD know as soon as he found the Potters to be dead. 

  Then we know he loans his bike to Hagrid, saying that he won't need it anymore.  Now here is the only part that bugs me -  In the movie, Mcgonagall tells DD that she had been watching the Dursleys all day long.  Just then Hagrid shows up on Sirius's bike.  Did it really take Hagrid THAT long to get to Privet Drive, that Mcgonagall was able to get their first and then sit around for hours? 

   

[kbmum]

JK wrote:

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.

Just in case you have forgotten exactly how the Fidelius Charm works, it is "an immensely complex spell involving the magical concealment of a secret inside a single, living soul. The information is hidden inside the chosen person, or Secret-Keeper, and is henceforth impossible to find -- unless, of course, the Secret-Keeper chooses to divulge it" (Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban).

In other words, a secret (eg, the location of a family in hiding, like the Potters) is enchanted so that it is protected by a single Keeper (in our example, Peter Pettigrew, a.k.a. Wormtail). Thenceforth nobody else – not even the subjects of the secret themselves – can divulge the secret. Even if one of the Potters had been captured, force fed Veritaserum or placed under the Imperius Curse, they would not have been able to give away the whereabouts of the other two. The only people who ever knew their precise location were those whom Wormtail had told directly, but none of them would have been able to pass on the information.


In order for Sirius and Hagrid to find the Potters, Peter had to divulge the secret to them.  Sirius already knew Peter was the secret keeper, because it was his idea to switch that responsibility from himself to Peter.  But, if Peter revealed the secret to Hagrid, then Hagrid would have known Peter was the secret keeper -- that was something Dumbledore didn't know until the end of POA, when Sirius was being held at Hogwarts awaiting the arrival of ministry officials and the Dementors.

Peter must have found a way to pass the info to Hagrid without making Hagrid suspicious.  There was never any time that Sirius could have given the info to Dumbledore or Hagrid, not even after James and Lily died, because he wasn't the secret keeper.  Also, if Hagrid or Dumbledore knew that Peter was the secret keeper, they would have known it was Peter, not Sirius, who betrayed the Potters.

Lastly, I can't recall anything in the books that indicated Dumbledore knew where the Potters were hiding.  I don't think Peter would have taken the chance to reveal the secret to Dumbledore, considering Dumbledore is a Legilimens.  But, this brings me to something that has bothered me for years.  Since Dumbledore is a Legilimens, how did Peter hide the fact that he was a spy?  Dumbledore should have been able to look into Peter's eyes at least once during the year preceding the Potters' deaths and known that something was up with Peter.

There has been a lot of discussion about the missing 24 hours from the time that Hagrid took Harry away on Sirius' bike to the time they arrived at the Dursleys'.  Some people think JK made a mistake with the timeline, but most think that there is a whole lot more to the story.  I think that's a given.  I vaguely remember reading an interview with JK where she said that there was more to this part of the story (and more to the Shrieking Shack incident with Snape and the Marauders) that would be revealed by the end of the series.

[Morningangel-Iola]

Maybe the one thing Peter is good at is Oclydodar

[kbmum]

Do you mean Occlumency?

[emmafan]

But it shouldn't matter whether or not Peter is talented at Occlumency.  He would still have to tell the secret to someone directly (or similar to the manner in which Harry received the secret from DD in OoTP).  And as we know, the Potters hadn't lived in Godric Hollow very long because only Peter and Sirius knew the secret.  Well you can include Voldemort.  But theoretically if anyone else knew the exact location of the Potters they would have been able to finger Pettigrew as the betrayor. 

[kbmum]

But theoretically if anyone else knew the exact location of the Potters they would have been able to finger Pettigrew as the betrayor. 

Even if people knew exactly where the Potters were located, once the Fidelius Charm had been performed, those people would not have been able to find them unless Peter divulged the secret to them.  Flitwick made a comment in POA that unless you had been told the secret by the keeper, you could look right into the Potters' sitting room and not be able to see them.

[ferdinand_the_yak]

Back to the secret... has anyone worked out what to do with the red and green potion vials in the locked door room?

[kbmum]

Here you go (straight from the Leaky Cauldron):

Click on the hairbrush on the main page to get to the “Extra Stuff” section. Turn on the radio. Wait a few seconds until you get an announcement that tells you to use 6 drops of red potion followed by three drops of green potion to revive a particular type of plant. Go back to the main page and click on the eraser, which will take you to the mysterious door page, where the plant in question is located. Use the potion bottles next to the plant to revive it as the radio instruction had told you to do.

[ferdinand_the_yak]

Thanks Cindy

I admit that I sneaked a peek at Mugglenet's hints section for the answer

[Nienna]

Cool! Thanks for the info Cindy - I haven't checked her site for a few weeks so I've missed all the changes/upgrades that have been done to it in that time.

[Morningangel-Iola]

Any one know what to do with the words at the bottom of the rubbish bin bit? they say; ring tap times five and within in you Iam no get here

[blackcat20]

you can shuffle the words around but i havent worked out what they are meant to say yet. though the capital letters give a hint, and i think some have punctuation attached if i can remember right (i looked at them a few weeks ago)

[EmmasOneandOnly]

If you rearrange the letter they spell out how to open something in the links section

[Morningangel-Iola]

But how Mike!

[Sharon]

PM on the way 

[EmmasOneandOnly]

The sign on the Room of Requirements door is gone