Wormtail/Life Debts/Justice

[cmf_usc]

No: HPFGUIDX 37001

Dave Hardenbrook wrote:
> Interesting idea.  I must say that I really, *really* cannot see
> how JKR is going to make Harry grateful that he saved Wormtail's
> life.  Say even if W rescues Harry, or Ron, or someone else from
> V -- But V would never have come back and put whoever in the 
position
> of needing to be saved in the first place if it hadn't been for W.
> So I really can't see Harry feeling grateful for it under any
> circumstances.  Can any of you think of any?
> 
> -- 
> Dave

Only thing I can think is that Wormtail will do something important 
to Voldemort's downfall.  I agree that saving someone's life from V 
won't be enough to make Harry feel better; I think Harry is going to 
have a huge guilt/ responsibility complex about everything Voldemort 
does.

You know, a lot has been made of the `gleam' and Voldemort's blood 
tie to Harry.  There are many and various theories, like Harry being 
able to kill Voldemort by killing himself...  Maybe
 what's *really* 
(or at least equally) important is Voldemort's  "flesh of the 
servant" tie to Wormtail.  If Harry isn't able to undo the spell by 
himself, maybe the blood and the flesh together will have a chance
 
And if one of them has to die in the process, hopefully it'll be 
Wormtail.
____________________________________________________________________

Wizarding justice

Dicentra wrote:
>So if Harry doesn't step in and they kill Peter, what happens to 
them?
>Are they arrested and sent to Azkaban (with or without a trial)? or
>does the "warrior ethic" of the WW call their actions just?  Was 
Harry
>protecting them from some terrible consequences or did he just not
>like the thought that they would have blood on their hands?

See, I've been wondering about that too.  How much "warrior ethic" is 
left in the ministry, with Fudge in charge? 12 years previous, I 
think that it would have been considered just.  I mean, you've got 
Aurors using Cruciatus (for torture of suspects, most likely), and 
those trial-things did seem a bit
bloodthirsty.

I think Fudge would have sent them off to Azkaban, ASAP. He seems to 
stand apart from many other characters as an appeaser rather than a 
warrior.  (Unless, of course, you subscribe to F.I.E., which I don't; 
I like my Fudge gray and Chamberlain-esque.)  And I think this 
tendency is going to cause a lot of problems, soon
  I imagine OOTP 
starting off in a period of quiet, with Voldemort lying low and 
plotting, and the ministry doing nothing at all


You're right about Remus, though.  He does seem rational and vengeful 
all at the same time. He already sort of lives of the outskirts of 
society as a werewolf, though.  IMHO, he weighed the options and 
decided the risk of Azkaban was worth it, that he would probably end 
up living on the run with Sirius, and that that wouldn't be *so* 
bad... 

Caroline
(writing from a South Carolina, a US state where the unknown-murderer-
in-the-yard would most likely be a goner; here you can't be charged 
for killing anyone invading your property)