Questions brought up re-reading PS

[kaciagemini]

How do so many people seem to know about Voldemort's attack on Godric's Hollow so soon after it occured? (Minerva has heard rumors even though she's been sitting in front of 4 Privet Drive since approximately 8 hours after the attack. Dumbledore sends Hagrid to fetch Harry before the muggles begin to gather. Seems a house collapsing/being blown

Comments

[masterofmystery]

Sirius went straight there after he realised that Peter had betrayed the Potters, says so in PoA, so that explains why he got there that night. Dumbledore knew, I'm pretty sure, and I'm sure he had some sort of like spells and stuff because Voldemort was looking for them specifically so they were probably put under higher security and such. I think word just got around, between what happened with Sirius that next day with Peter (where he faked his death), a lot of people heard it then, and this was the same day Harry got to the Dursleys, so word got around fast as a result. I'm pretty sure Dumbledore informed the Order of it, and that the Death Eaters found out about it as well soon after.

Well, that's more of a question of how does the whole Secret-Keeper business work and what happens when the secret gets well, destroyed, like it did here? Dunno about that.

[kaciagemini]

I suppose Dumbldore having some sort of spell watching the place makes the most sense, but I still find it curious that JKR hasn't managed to ever actually *tell* us so; I guess that would take away too much of Dumbledore's mystery...

With any luck, perhaps HBP will give us more hints about how exactly the secret keeper thing works, though OotP was somewhat enlightening.

...are we ever specifically told that the magic protecting the location of 12 Grimmuald Place is the same as what protected Godric's Hollow? I skimmed Ch. 4 of Ootp, but I didn't see anything that said so explicitly.

[thepastperfect]

You could argue that once a Secret-Keeper breaks his word (as Peter did), it stops being secret-kept and protected. No canon basis for that, though.

And I assume that DD communicated with some people about the attack on the Potters' house in the way that's "more reliable than Umbridge's fireplace."

[kaciagemini]

I think I had sort of just assumed that the spell was broken upon the Potters' death, but come to think of it, that doesn't really make much sense, does it? Wasn't the spell on the *place* not on the people?
Your theory makes more sense, though canon is certainly short on clear explanations.

[thepastperfect]

I actually had never made the distinction between the house and the Potters, so here's what it says in PoA (chapter 10

[jenocclumency]

Also, why does everyone seem to know exactly where the house is when it was supposed to be known only to the secret keeper?

As we find in OotP, LOTS of people can know the location, but they can only *learn* the location from the secret keeper.
Dumbledore is the secret keeper for 12 Grimmauld Place, but the house's location is still known by absolutely everyone in the Order, because Dumbledore has told them all the address. If Molly Weasley wanted to tell someone the address, she'd be unable -- even though she knows the address and has been there.

So, I'd think that it was the same back in James/Lily's time. Peter was secret keeper, but he wrote the address on slips of paper, and must've told tons of people in the Order before he told Voldemort.

Who knows, maybe James and Lily's home was the Order Headquarters back in their time, just like 12 Grimmauld Place is the Order Headquarters in OotP. If that were the case, there would be constant visitors.

[kaciagemini]

That is a good point that I wasn't really thinking about when I was reading the first book.
I wonder if people previously told (while Sirius was secret keeper) retained this information when the secret keeper position changed hands or had to be re-told?
*ponders*

[sixth_light]

Was Sirius ever the Secret-Keeper? I got the impression that he persuaded them to change their decision, before the spell was cast, not change the actual Keeper after the spell.