Chapter Summary - PoA 10 & 11 - Motorbike discrepancy

[Zarleycat at aol.com]

No: HPFGUIDX 19825

--- In HPforGrownups at y..., catherine at c... wrote:
> --- In HPforGrownups at y..., "Susan Hall" <shall at s...> wrote:
> Over the past year Sirius
> > had believed that Remus had turned traitor (why? lingering anti 
> werewolf
> > feeling even among those who should know better?  Or was Lupin  
> acting as
> > yet another double agent?) and the knowledge of Pettigrew's 
> treachery
> > doesn't immediately exonerate Lupin - either one or both of his 
> friends must
> > be a traitor.  
> 
> I have always had a problem with this.  I think that Sirius must 
have 
> had other grounds for believing the spy to be Lupin.  If James and 
> Sirius thought so much of Lupin that they became animagi to ease 
his 
> transformations - and in doing so showed that they didn't have any 
> prejudices about werewolves - how is it at a later date these 
> prejudices somehow manifested themselves as mistrust over who was 
> spying for Voldemort?  
> 
> My guess is that it was a process of elimination.  They discounted 
> Pettigrew, although why, I can't imagine, and therefore this left 
> only Lupin.  Another idea could be that they suspected that Lupin 
was 
> under the imperious curse.  The only other thing I can think of is 
> that they thought that Voldemort may have some kind of influence 
over 
> werewolves, but in my mind, this doesn't seem very plausible, as 
they 
> would know that Lupin is only affected at certain times of the 
month, 
> and that during the rest of the time, he is as human as everyone 
else.
> 
> Catherine

My feeling on this has always been that everyone had a blind spot as 
far as Pettigrew was concerned.  I think that Sirius went through a 
process of elimination that went "I know James and Lily aren't spies, 
and neither am I, so who else can it be except Remus?"  I believe 
since Peter never seems to be credited with have superior smarts or 
to be considered at all powerful, and that he seems to have been a 
tag-along sort of person, he was ultimately overlooked.  Perhaps this 
was a factor in his turning bad -  no one ever saw his as anything 
other than slow, average Peter, always a step or two behind.  I'm 
sure Peter had feelings of inadequacy and probably always felt 
overshadowed by James etal. and this could have been a weakness the 
Death Eaters preyed upon.

Marianne