Professor's Notes--The Fidelius Charm

Fidelius Charm:

The Fidelius charm is an immensely complex charm that involves the hiding of a secret inside of another person's soul. That person is known as a Secret Keeper-rather like in Quidditch, eh, Davies? Eh?

Now, the first part of the charm is the definition of the Secret. This must be very carefully worded, or a loophole may be found and the entire thing will be made worthless. For example, if one is attempting to hide ones height, than to have your Secret be "I am five feet eight inches" would be worthless; they might not be able to know your exact height, but they would know that you are not five feet six inches, or five feet ten inches. No, one must have the Secret be, "My Height, with particular attention to five feet eight inches." That way, some bits of the spell will remain even should your height change, and they would never be sure about your height.

The next part is the locating of the Secret-and this is also very important. You must set to the magic a task, much like one would direct pixies, and that task is to find every place where the secret is. So everyone who was also five feet eight inches and had stood next to you and thought that you were the same height as them would soon have be located by the magic. In addition, you must instruct the magic to cling to the Secret. So not only will the magic know where the people who know the Secret are, the magic will stick to the Secret, like bubble gum.

Now, what you must do next is-oh, do excuse me-thank you, I'm back up now-what you need to do next is call every bit of the Secret.

Now, you should know that there are few people who will know the Secret after this spell, but there will be some. First of all, everyone involved in the Secret. In my example, that would be only the person who was five feet eight inches. However, the most popular uses of this spell recently were when You-Know-Who was around, and he was killing the people who went against him. Several families went into hiding with this spell, sometimes as many as a family of six. There really is no limit on that. Also, the person casting the spell. Although it is possible to cast this spell with your own Secret, it is rather rare that a witch or wizard has that much ability at charms, so there is usually a separate caster as well. However, neither the people in the Secret nor the caster, should that be a separate person, can speak of this. That is why the solidifying is so complex-you must be very careful not to take the Secret from those who are in it or yourself, or you won't be able to cast the spell.

Hmmm? What's the question, Joyce?

Well... I suppose you could handle the Secret by the magic, and remove your knowledge of it too... Yes, I should think that would be possible... I tell you what, Miss Joyce, if you write me an essay explaining how, and work out the new incantation and everything, I will give you five percent extra on your next exam. However, I am warning you, if you make it up and try to bluff, I will take five percent right off, and if you hurt someone trying to find out how to do it, you won't see the end if it!

Thank you again, dear, I'm up now. At any rate, you solidify the Secret by calling all those little bubble-gum bits of magic to you, just at the tip of your wand, like. When all of them are there except the people in the Secret, the Secret Keeper's, and unless your Miss Joyce your own, you bind them all together into one big knot. I've drawn a diagram or two on the board, if you would like.

Then comes the last and most difficult part: you must put the Secret into the Secret Keeper's soul. Actually, that's not that hard-what's hard is to do it safely. If you don't, then you could wind up erasing the memory of the Secret Keeper entirely-and then you're really in for it! That's why this spell is so strictly regulated! At any rate, what you do is, you take this big knot of Secret and you send it to the Secret Keeper's Secret bubble-gum. That's diagram 4-H on the blackboard... but of course you don't physically do that, you should know that by now, all you do is make the magic do that. The Secrets will just follow the sticky magic. My goodness, that would be rather painful if you really made the Secrets do that! Ahem. Anyway, what you do next is bind the Knot Secret to the Secret Keeper's Secret Gum. That way, the Secret will stay there.

Now the last part of the spell is really very simple. It's a simple magnet spell, and all that it does is keep drawing the Secrets to that big Secret Knot and keeping them there. That way, if a five feet eight person walks up to you and notices that you're the same height, he will not be able to keep thinking that thought; the magic will stick to it and drag it away.

Now, since the spell works the way it does, should the Secret Keeper be able to tell the Secret? What do you think? Mr. Havecosa?

Hmmm... Good theory, young man, but I think you missed the first part of my lecture! The definition of the Secret is very important! You must remember what the whole thing is being defined as: a secret. As soon as someone tells, it's not a secret anymore, is it? That means that all the sticky dissolves, because there's nothing to stick to anymore. In this way, as soon as the Secret Keeper tells the Secret, then anyone can know the Secret; even if they haven't been told, they can just figure it out.

Oh, my goodness! We're out of time-I suppose I shouldn't have spent so much time on reviewing at the beginning. Your homework is to look up all the incantations for the Fidelius Charm. Thank you! Oh, and Mr. Davies, good luck against Gryffindor; I heard they had a new Keeper, as well!