If you're casting the Fidelius can't the person who lived innthe house with the Fidelius charm be the secret keeper? So couldn't James or lily have been secret keepers and nothing would have happened? Maybe I overlooked something? Help please.

 

Bill was the Secret Keeper of the Shell Cottage, but this is not necessarily a plot hole. Could be that the Charm was improved since 1981 or Bill wasn't the owner of Shell Cottage and as such could become the Secret Keeper even if he lived there afterwards.

Or it could just be JKR making a mistake. Either way, apparently neither James nor Lily could have been the Secret Keeper.

 

Canon doesn't really say anything about this matter, so it's up to your interpretation. What the Canon does tell us in two occasions (Bill and Arthur) is that the secret keeper can be an owner or a person who lives in the protected place. Thus, we can know that Lily or James could have been the secret keeper, unless, as ScottPress said, the Fidelius Charm was modified sometime between 1981 and 1997.

So, why didn't Lily and James do that instead? Again, up to your interpretation. Sesc's post above explains it brilliantly. Something I would like to add is that James is a prankster at heart, and it seems to be in-character that he would have pulled a trick like this to confuse/fool Voldemort. Probably gave him a few chuckles too, before finding Voldemort at his door post.

Anyways, seeing your other thread about the Felix Felicis, I would advice you to use this thread to ask questions that don't require much discussion. If you have a canon question that would probably have a one or two line answer, use it instead of creating a new thread.

 

My particular interpretation is that the secret has to pass ownership from the original owners of the secret to the secret-keeper. Flitwick specifically says in PoA you have to hide the secret in "another person's soul". The use of "another person" implies an original person, i.e. that the secret has to move out of the soul(s) that constitute its natural home.

James and Lily jointly owned the secret that they lived at Godric's Hollow, so neither could be the secret keeper for a secret that they already held (i.e. neither could count as "another person", because both of them held the secret in their souls already), so they passed it to Peter Pettigrew. Sirius owned the secret of Grimmauld Place's location and he passed it to Dumbledore. Aunt Muriel owned the secret of Shell Cottage's location and passed it to Bill. Aunt Muriel owned the secret of her own home's location and passed it to Arthur.

The person who casts the spell is just a catalyst for the passing of the secret. What really matters is who originally owned the secret and who is the secret keeper, and that they can't be the same person.

This explanation also reveals why you can't just go around putting anything and everything under the Fidelius: you can only pass a secret to a secret keeper if the secret is yours in the first place.

Of course, all this leads to the question "When does a secret count as yours?" The specifics of that (and the mechanics of hiding information in souls) are why I imagine Flitwick calls the charm extremely complex.

 

Wait, where did you get this information? As far as I know, it's not indicated in the canon that Aunt Muriel owned either the Shell Cottage or the Burrow.

OP: An Essay About the Fidelius Charm from HP Lexicon. Doesn't really answer your question, but it might help you understand the concept of the Fidelius Charm more comprehensively.

 

Who owns Shell Cottage is never said in canon. Muriel is said to own it in the movies. The movies aren't canon, but I generally take them as suggestive (since JKR was involved in their creation), especially on matters where canon is silent, where there is no contradiction with canon, and where the movies' suggestion would help resolve something that is not clear in canon.

The Burrow was never placed under the Fidelius. The Weasleys fled to Muriel's home which was placed under Fidelius.

 

I could have sworn I read that Bill had the secret to Muriel's home where the Weasley Family were and that someone in the Weasley family had the secret to Bill's place.

---------- Post automerged at 09:44 ---------- Previous post was at 09:43 ----------

Nope, looking it up it seems I'm wrong

---------- Post automerged at 09:46 ---------- Previous post was at 09:44 ----------

I always imagined that it's simply just a bad idea for a person to be the secret keeper of a place they frequent regularly because you going in and out of the place or if you have a tracking charm on you counts as giving the secret away.

 

What Taure said flows with my knee jerk understanding of it, but the thing I never quite understood was why the switch to Pettigrew was necessary in the first place. Surely if Sirius had been made the secret keeper of Godric's Hollow, it'd have been a great deal safer for him to have simply resided with James and Lily in something of a closed circle and as such been isolated from the threat of Voldemort entirely.

I can't quite recall whether it's ever hinted towards in canon, but did the Potters continue their active service as members of the Order after going into hiding? If not, was it simply unfeasible for Sirius to take himself out of the fight alongside them in order to make their refuge a sure thing? The switch makes more sense to me if Sirius at least was to continue in the fight against Voldemort, as then his being something of an obvious choice after Dumbledore would justify the decision to make Pettigrew the Secret Keeper. That said, why wouldn't they then have planned for Pettigrew to sequester himself away under the Fidelius alongside them while Sirius gallivanted about the countryside? They'd have been fucked anyway but it'd seem like a sound idea.

 

If you aren't the Secret Keeper I'd imagine they couldn't read it. Just like Harry couldn't see Grimmauld Place until he read the note Dumbledore (IIRC?) had written.

 

You should give the secret to someone else. So he could tell others of your existence. I have no idea what will happen if the secret keeper dies and no one knows the secret

 

While this is all very convincing, what is your take on the fact that Ron was capable of revealing Shell Cottage to others?

 

The house wasn't under the Fidelius then. The Weasleys had no reason to go into hiding until Ron was exposed. It was put up later, presumably while Harry buried Dobby.

 

Certainly it isn't exactly ideal for them to remain shacked up indefinitely, but I'd have assumed that if things looked sufficiently bleak, there would have been something of an exodus to some other country or locale, or some manner of extraction plan that would kick in somewhat sooner than the fifty year mark. The point about it being quite in character for Sirius is a notable one, as I'd imagine he'd not be one to remain in hiding indefinitely while the country fell to shit around him. Much the same as remaining in Grimmauld Place in canon sent him a little wild with inaction.

With regard to the function of the Secret Keeper though, I guess I'd always just assumed that the entire point of the switch was underpinned by the notion that, should such a person have fallen into the hands of Voldemort, there was the potential for it to fall to shit somehow. My understanding is that the secret has to be divulged voluntarily, but would the means of coercion and interrogation that someone like Voldemort would've had at his disposal present the potential for even the most stalwart of friends to break and give it up? If so, the switch makes sense, but then so would having the Secret Keeper reside under the Fidelius. If not, then there's no net gain behind making the switch in the first place, Sirius would have been pursued and gone loyally to his grave either way.

I guess it's all rather irrelevant, Sirius doesn't seem the type to remain in doors indefinitely and Peter would have betrayed them anyway. I apologise if I'm talking much and saying little, it's just always been an aspect of canon that I've had a decidedly muddled understanding of.

By the way, if the Secret Keeper kicks the bucket. You're pretty much in the clear no? The inclusion list would presumably remain inconveniently static, but unless someone already in the know did you in, you'd pretty much be covered no?

 

Caleb: IIRC that last paragraph is the plot to some fanfic. Three can keep a secret if two are dead, Harry makes an old Dolohov (I think) Keeper of some huge secret and then kills him.

 

I think JKR said in an interview that if the secret keeper dies, then those who know the secret become secret keepers themselves.

 

There's another, simpler explanation.

In order for a Secret Keeper to be the same person who owns whatever the secret is, that person has to be highly advanced in certain types of magic, say, Curse-Breaking/Protection Charm setting (Since the first is deconstructing the second in a magical way).

Thus, the only two characters who set their Fidelius with them as Secret Keepers would be Dumbledore (who may have set the Fidelius Charm over Sirius's home), the Merlin of the book series, and Bill, the professional Curse-Breaker.