Peter's talents (was Pettigrew as Auror?)

[Devika S. Lal]

No: HPFGUIDX 30498

Cindy wrote:
<<<But maybe there is more to Peter than meets the eye.>>>

Absolutely.  Sirius sees him as a talentless coward, but he's certainly not
talentless.  He may not be the most powerful wizard there is, but he has
skills nonetheless.  As for being a coward, I think that his actions are
motivated by cowardice, but the actions themselves take some courage.  After
all, he was a spy for Voldemort.  Many people talk about how brave Snape
must have been to be a spy for Dumbledore.  Peter must have had some courage
to be Voldemort's spy.  Peter also amputated first his finger, then later
his whole right hand.  I doubt that a coward would be able to do that.
However, I think that Peter joined Voldemort out of fear.  And then when the
time came for him to face the consequences of his betrayal, he wasn't brave
enough to handle it.  I realize that he was facing death, but I can't see
someone like Harry or Sirius or Lupin pleading for his life in a situation
like that.
Overall, I think Peter is a coward, not because the things he does are
cowardly, but because his actions are motivated by nothing more than fear.
If he had betrayed the Potters or even joined Voldemort to fulfill his own
agenda (like I suspect Lucius Malfoy did), then I would consider him to be a
terrible person still, but not a coward.  Instead, however, Peter seems to
have joined Voldemort simply because he was afraid to stand up to him.  His
fear was stronger than his loyalty to his friends, whose loyalty to him was
so strong that they would have died for him.  That makes him a coward.
So Sirius was right on one count, anyway.  Talentless, no.  Coward, yes.

<<<As for Sirius, I adore him, but he certainly is an arrogant thing, isn't
he?  Lupin confirms this when he tells of MWPP's adventures, in which he
says they were carried away with their own cleverness.  Sirius decides that
changing the secret-keeper is a good plan, and doesn't feel the need to
clear it with Dumbledore or even tell Dumbledore after the fact.  Sirius was
probably overconfident that he could defeat Pettigrew in a duel.  So when
Sirius says Peter was "talentless," (and says it in the middle of a towering
rage in the Shrieking Shack), maybe I have to discount it a bit.>>>

Perhaps Sirius was a bit arrogant.  He had been used to feeling superior to
Peter in school, and that probably continued after they had left Hogwarts.
He was used to underestimating Peter's powers because they weren't as great
as his own had been in school.  Also, I believe that Sirius sorely
underestimated the power of a desperate man.  At the time of their "duel,"
Peter had absolutely nothing to lose.  His betrayal was revealed, his master
was gone, and the remaining DEs thought he had betrayed them as well.
Sirius was in such a state of shock (he had just seen the dead bodies of two
of his closest friends) that he wasn't thinking clearly and wasn't exactly
on top of his game.  I doubt that Sirius went looking for Peter thinking
that he would be fighting a duel with him.  He couldn't have been prepared
for what was going to happen.  Sirius probably thought (if he thought about
it at all, which is unlikely) that he would find Peter, confront him, and
curse (kill?) him for what he had done.  End of story.  Sirius
underestimated Peter's desperation.  He probably never suspected that Peter
would kill a street full of innocent Muggles and frame him for it.  No
wonder Sirius was laughing hysterically when the MOM wizards found him.  How
utterly absurd the situation must have been for him.
About the duel, though.  Was it actually a duel?  I mean, Peter's curse
wasn't directed at Sirius--it must have been directed close to *himself*.
Peter had to make it look like Sirius had blown him up along with the street
and the bystanders.  Sure, it *looked* like a duel (McGonagall thought so),
but to me it just seems like a single curse.  (Did that make any sense?)  I
guess I'm just trying to defend Sirius (of course,<g>) by saying that under
normal circumstances, Peter wouldn't have had any chance against him.


<<<To Peter's credit, we know he can perform Avada Kedavra, can brew a
potion to restore Voldemort, can outsmart Sirius when it counts, is tough
enough to amputate his own hand, and managed to guilt Harry into sparing his
life.>>>

I see Peter as possessing rather average skills.  With a little training
from Voldemort, he would have been able to perform some advanced magic.  As
for Harry saving his life, I don't think that had much to do with Peter's
pleading.  I think Harry just was thinking more rationally than either
Sirius or Remus, and he realized that Peter was not worth turning the two of
them into murderers.

<<<Not bad for a talentless, hopeless case.>>>

You're right, it's not bad at all.  Peter certainly exceeded people's
expectations of him, ironic and tragic as that may be.

<<<Cindy (who can't understand how she got backed into Peter's corner)>>>

Acknowledging Peter's abilities doesn't make him a better person.  If
anything, IMO, it makes his actions all the more reprehensible.  He had the
abilities to choose what was right, but he didn't do it.


Devika