fall in love (again and again)

what we know

We know Jily were attacked in their home the night of October 31. But it's not until the following night, the night of November 1 into the morning of November 2, that Harry is left at the Dursleys. The whole day of November 1, the day we follow Vernon to work and go about his boring day in the life, the wizarding world is celebrating. They already know the Potters are dead. They already know Harry survived. Minerva hadn't wanted to believe it until she heard from Dumbledore himself, but since she (as a cat) was reading a map outside the Dursleys' house when Vernon was leaving for work in the morning of Nov. 1, we can gather that the news had broke through the wizarding world first thing that day, likely with the morning paper.

When Hagrid appears on Privet Drive (in the pre-dawn hours of November 2), we get the following:

"Hagrid," said Dumbledore, sounding relieved. "At last. And where did you get that motorcycle?" "Borrowed it, Professor Dumbledore, sir," said the giant, climbing carefully off the motorcycle as he spoke. "Young Sirius Black lent it to me. I've got him, sir." "No problems, were there?" "No, sir — house was almost destroyed, but I got him out all right before the Muggles started swarmin' around. He fell asleep as we was flyin' over Bristol."

There's three key things this exchange raises:

Direction: If Hagrid had flown over Bristol going to Surrey, then he would have to be coming from a place west/northwest of Bristol. This doesn't line up neatly with Godric's Hollow being a West Country village, but other explanations could be that Harry was taken to a safe house location first or (what I think is more likely) that Hagrid flew in the "wrong" direction first in case anyone was tailing him, then righted himself back around towards the Dursleys.

Timing: Bristol to Surrey is roughly a 2-hour drive. Assuming a flying motorbike is moving at roughly the speed of a car on the highway (probably not as fast as a broomstick?), we can more or less assume that leg of the journey was 1-2 hrs. Hagrid also makes it sound like he JUST got Harry out of the house and immediately hit the road sky before arriving at Privet Drive.

Sirius: Sirius was there. He not only loaned Hagrid the bike, but he would have had to magically enlarge it for Hagrid, since Sirius wouldn't have been riding a flying motorbike the size of a small plane.

So putting this all together: The Potters' house was found in the middle of the night of October 31 into November 1, so that the wizarding world knew Voldemort had been defeated at the Potters' by the morning of November 1. But Hagrid was not removing Harry from the Potters' house to go to Privet Drive until the night of November 1.

So what was going on that day? Who was minding Harry from the time the scene was discovered (likely the early early hours of Nov. 1) until Hagrid flew him to Privet Drive (likely the early early hours of Nov. 2)?

When Hagrid says "before the Muggles started swarmin' around," I take that to mean primarily the police — which begs the question of how much damage was visible to Muggles, when did the damage become visible to them, and how long it would take them to notice and arrive to investigate. It would make sense that with James and Lily's death, the Fidelius Charm was broken and their protective enchantments of the house would lift, causing the house (or rather, its ruins) to be visible again. Relatedly, we know from DH that the home was preserved in its ruined state as a monument to the Potters, and was invisible to Muggles. This, combined with the statue in the town square, suggests a significant Ministry operation would have been needed to contain the home, enchant it, and also obliviate any/all Muggles who had been connected to the scene.

There is also the issue of Sirius. From the HP Lexicon:

If Hagrid is saying "young Sirius Black" so casually, and had presumably just left Sirius's presence mere hours before on the night of November 1 / early hours of November 2, then the confrontation with Peter couldn't have happened until later on November 2.

conclusions

The most likely explanation is writer error. Much of the sequence (Hagrid's dialogue, the Sirius/Peter confrontation) is written as if Hagrid had literally just dashed off the scene, i.e., the scene was discovered, likely by Sirius, there was chaos, Sirius gave Hagrid the motorbike to whisk Harry off to safety, Sirius immediately went off in pursuit of Peter, and then Hagrid converges with McGonagall and Dumbledore to leave Harry at the Dursleys before the new day dawns. This was the impression I had carried from having so much separation from the text. And this seems like the impression the text wanted to create, despite the fact that there's a whole added day in there.

And digesting that there was a full day in the mix changes a lot! That is a LOT of time for various people to be on the scene. Surely Dumbledore was on the scene, because he would only be assured of James and Lily's death (and Voldemort's disappearance) by seeing them himself, and he was also a key decision-maker in dealing with the placement of Harry. There were likely Ministry officials on the scene, doing magical containment. Both Dumbledore and Ministry officials (probably the Minister herself) were also probably doing some sort of magical inspection/investigation due to Voldemort's disappearance and Harry's scar, and the fact that this was completely unprecedented. Dumbledore and Sirius couldn't have crossed paths, because Dumbledore at that point would have thought that Sirius had been Secret Keeper (and thus the one who betrayed James and Lily) — which raises the possibility that Sirius was actually late to the scene instead of early, likely hearing about James and Lily being killed along with everyone else, having to stealthily approach the house, perhaps waiting until later in the evening when people had clocked off to celebrate...and he would have arrived there on his motorbike (perhaps arriving the Muggle way to stay covert?), crossed paths with Hagrid, learned of Dumbledore's plan for Harry, and given Hagrid the motorbike before Apparating away to pursue Peter (resulting in that confrontation happening on Nov. 2).

At first blush it didn't make sense to leave Harry in a half-destroyed house for a whole day, but thinking about the scene from more of a modern true crime perspective, the fact that Harry was discovered alive with a bizarre scar in a destroyed house with his parents dead would have been incredibly chilling. Also, it's important to note that Peter Pettigrew had retrieved Voldemort's wand from the scene before anyone else arrived, because he hid it and subsequently gave it back to Voldemort in GoF. In addition to putting yet another person on the scene, this is significant because it means that there was no wand at the scene to examine to determine what magic had been used. Dumbledore/whoever would have had to assume that Voldemort tried to kill Harry based on (i) James and Lily being dead, and (ii) Harry's scar — which is a logical assumption, but without Voldemort's body or wand, it also makes sense that it would have prompted them to approach Harry with caution and try to determine whether Harry was safe to be removed from the house.