Pettigrew Pondering

[setzer at barnwellsc.com]

No: HPFGUIDX 21925

Greetings folks.  As you can already imagine, I'm new here.  Probably won't
post much, I'm of the dreaded lurker variety more often than not, however, I
did want to introduce myself and add my thoughts on the infamous Mr.
Pettigrew.  For the record, I'm a 24 year old grad student in History.

If this has been discussed before, please forgive me...I ran a search on a
few phrases in the website archives, and didn't come up with anything but
here goes:

I'm wondering if perhaps Peter was in love (or thought he was in love) with
Lily Potter.  Unrequited love has long been a staple for the most bitter of
betrayals.  Naturally, there is no direct evidence within the text to make
this assertion, but certain givens looked at from a more skewed perspective
can lead to this interesting conclusion:

1.  Peter was a tagalong behind James, Sirius, and Remus:  Perhaps Wormtail
was not at all truly interested in the other three.  There's no indication
as to just how long James and Lily were an item (that I'm aware of), but
perhaps Peter, feeling inadequate and insecure next to a "big shot"
Quidditch player saw sticking around Lily's boyfriend as an opportunity to
be close to her.

2.  His animagus status made him the ultimate voyeur:  Even more to the dark
side of things, being a rat made Peter capable of getting to places he'd
never have access to as a human inside Hogwarts (as long as he avoided the
owlery anyways).  Given that James and Lily are generally portrayed as being
a happy, loving couple, watching Lily every night, content in her
relationship with James, would have only strengthened Peter's growing rage
and jealousy.

3.  Voldemort's intent to not kill Lily: What could motivate Voldemort not
to kill Lily?  At the very least her death would have created fear and chaos
within the wizarding community, which Voldemort could have used to his
advantage.  Perhaps this is what motivated Peter to betray the Potter's to
Voldemort.  "I'll give you James Potter, and Harry in exchange for Lily."

4.  Voldemort's contempt of Peter:  Lots of reasons for this, but I would
think that Voldemort would be utterly contemptuous of the concept of "love".
As Hagrid says, there wasn't enough left in Voldemort to be human so such a
base emotion would sicken him.  The fact that Peter would come grovelling
back to him would only add to this disgust.

Of course, all of this is tremendously circumstantial, but it has been
gnawing at me all day for some strange reason, so I thought I'd mention it
here.

--
Jim Ray