Why Pettigrew's hand?

[Cindy C.]

No: HPFGUIDX 28733

Susanne wrote:

> 
>  I'm too lazy now to stand up and get the book, but IIRC (and I 
think I do) the formula is "Flesh of the servant, willingly given", 
so it had to be a servant  and Wormtail was the only one present. 


Agreed (also without standing up to fetch my books).  The Flesh of 
the Servant part of the re-birth trifecta always struck me as a bit 
of a raw deal, BTW.  Harry gets to give a few drops of blood.  The 
bone is a swirl of bone of a dead guy.  But Wormtail can't just give 
the tip of his finger, or even a whole finger.  No, it has to be his 
whole hand.  I wonder why so much flesh is required.  It seems a bit 
grabby, no?  <bg>  

Then again, maybe the spell doesn't require a particular minimum 
amount of flesh, but Wormtail chose to donate a significant amount.  
Perhaps this was done on Voldemort's promise that Wormtail would get 
something really great in exchange for his hand.  So I'm idly hoping 
that Wormtail's hand will be a really big deal and very magical in 
later books (but not nearly magical enough to kill Lupin, of 
course).  That would be the least Voldemort could do.

Cindy