how did they know?

[sorcerer83]

snape or vold or whoever got to wormtail and found out the nameof james and lily's hiding place - how did they know it was worm was secret keeper? only one who knew about it seemed to be sirious - even lupin thought at the end of poa that sirious was the secret keeper
and sirious seems to me the kind of - ill die before i tell you who the secret keeper is - or better yet - im the secret keeper and ill die before saying the name.
and if he did tell them im sure he would tell harry about it and how sorry he is, also in the event they found it out from him through leglimancy...

incidently can someone explain thoroughly the whole consept of secret keeping im a bit confused on how it works

[Chimera]

Wormtail was a double-agent, he was working for Voldemort before he sold out the Potters.

[sorcerer83]

oh i somehow got the impression he only sold them out - out of fear that otherwise vold will kill him - he says so in poa when theyre about to kill him - and i remember sirious answers him - you shouldve known well kill you anyways - or soming likte that...
but neverminds then - why then did he sell out he dosent strike me as the kind that will even take intiative in crossing over - hed even have to be forced to do that... so who forced him and why?

[Chimera]

Sirius (or possibly Lupin) says something to Molly in book 5 after she faces the boggart which might have something to do with it. It was along the lines of: "last time we were outnumbered twenty to one and they were just picking us off". I'd imagine that would be pretty scary for Wormtail.

[sorcerer83]

and do we know which happened first - him crossing sides or james and lily deciding hed be the secret keeper?

[Chimera]

He'd been working for Voldemort before that.

[sorcerer83]

and what about the whole secret keeping thing - how does it work exactly - until that person tells u - u cant what? see the place or come into it? i mean its not like theres some force shild there is it

[Chimera]

I think it'd work something like Grimmauld Place.

[sorcerer83]

yeah i probably should read that again i dont remember exactly how it goes there...

[Chimera]

You can only ever find the house if the secret-keeper has told you the true nature of the house.

[Snow_Crystal]

I don't know about the true nature of the house bit but I thought that you'd only find the secret if the secret keeper told you what it was.

I'm thinking that it doesn't necessarily have to be a house that's a secret... does that make sense??

[Chimera]

I dunno, I'm inclined to think that the secret keeper needs to give more than just the location. For example: "12 Grimmauld Place" wouldn't be enough but "The headquarters of the Order of the Phoenix is at 12 Grimmauld Place" would be. I dunno why, I just reckon that's what it is.

[Snow_Crystal]

Yeah I think you might be right, surely you'd have to know the purpose of a place as well as it's location if indeed it was a secret base that was the secret to be kept.

In which case, Wormtail would have kept the secret "Lily and James Potter are hiding at..**address**...at Godrics Hollow"

What do you think about this secret not having to be a location? Do you think there will be any more?