Some FF: Dumbledore and Scabbers, was Re: Worried about Hermione/others

[heidi]

No: HPFGUIDX 55901


--- Susanne <siskiou at earthlink.net> wrote:

> Maybe he's just really sure Pettigrew didn't ever
> attempt to
> change back to human form during his time at the
> Weasleys or
> at Hogwarts, for some reason?


I can't see how sure of that he can be, given that
there is some canon support for the argument that
Pettigrew not only turned back into a wizard on
occasion, he also spoke (i.e. possibly said spells,
etc). 

That canon support is in PoA, when he's changed back
into a wizard and his voice is not unused-sounding,
but high and squeaky and not particularly unusual in
its speech patterns and pauses, like Harry notes
Sirius' is. 

Further, there is canon evidence that Pettigrew spent
three to four years in the Weasley household before
Percy took him off to school (again, PoA, Ron's speech
in the Shack), and of course, even while Percy was at
school, Peter likely summered at the Weasleys (as we
know from CoS that students do not stay at Hogwarts
for the summer). Thus, Peter spent a considerable
amount of time in a house with access to wands, wands
which nobody would think to conceal from a rat - even
before Percy had one, Molly and Arthur did. 

So it's possible to engage in only a tiny bit of
"connecting the dots" to conclude that Peter was able
to learn a lot about the Weasley family... and more
frightening than that, Peter did have opportunities
aplenty to put spells on members of the family that he
could take advantage of if he needed to do so later. 

Have you ever seen The Manchurian Candidate? Would it
be so farfetched to conclude that Peter did something
similar to Ron or to Percy? 

I once wrote a smidge of fanfic about this
(http://www.livejournal.com/users/heidi8/47382.html),
and am pasting a bit of it here: 


The inquisitor goggled at the words spilling from the
Gryffindor's 
mouth. Harry Potter's best friend, this child was, and
he'd been 
seeking out Death Eaters? And not just to spy on them
either? He 
gulped and tried a new question - one he'd asked many
times at Death 
Eater Induction Ceremonies, but had never before asked
a prisoner.

"So, when did you first realise that you were evil?"

"Well, my brother Percy got this rat when he was about
six years 
old - maybe a little younger. I was almost two then,
so I don't 
really remember, but Percy told me recently that the
Rat, Scabbers, 
used to follow me around all the time. And as long as
I could 
remember, this man would come to me in my dreams - at
least, then, I 
thought I was dreaming - and talk to me about power
and money and 
all the wonderful things I deserved to have. He used a
wand to 
conjure up wonderful images for me - it was only later
that I 
learned that he'd been taking my parents' wands in the
evenings and 
putting them back before they woke." The prisoner's
eyes got a 
little misty at this point, and the Death Eater
himself felt a 
twinge of nostalgia at the boy's story. 

The boy went on, talking about how he'd reaslied after
his third 
year at Hogwarts that the man and the rat were one and
the same, and 
that the things the man had said to him in his dreams
were all 
things the man - Pettigrew, who the Death Eater knew
as the Dark 
Lord's left hand - wanted him to do for his own
reasons. He didn't 
really remember the dreams themselves during his
waking hours, but 
the things the man had said to him stayed with him
constantly.

He didn't see the man while his brother was at school,
although he 
didn't make the connection then, but during the
summers, especially 
the year before he started Hogwarts, Ron had learned
through the 
dreams that he should befriend Harry Potter when he
got to Hogwarts, 
as they would be in the same year - that he should not
fight with 
him, but rather support him in everything, and they'd
be good 
friends. During his first year, the man was at
Hogwarts with him and 
said that it was very important that he help Harry get
to the 
Philosopher's Stone. 

"After I learned that Scabbers was an animagus, I
didn't want to 
remember anything he'd said to me, even though I knew
rationally 
that it made sense - that the Dark Lord was powerful
and would be victorious, things like that. But like I
said, nobody belived me - 
not even Scabbers - I mean Wormtail. I sent him a
letter and he 
owled me back and accused me of being a spy. He never
realised how 
successful his teaching of me was! And it was great -
he was 
absolutely right, too. I want power and success and I
hate being 
poor, and I think you guys are the right people to
help me get it! 
Can you untie me now?"
 

I also want to note that not only am I on record
*here* in HPfGU for my arguments that Pettigrew's
knowledge of the Weasley family and home is a
potential risk/problem for the Good Guys, I'm now on
record in BOOK Magazine's May/June issue (you can see
my quote here:
http://www.livejournal.com/~heidi8/143193.html) as
saying...
<<that Peter Pettigrew's insider knowledge of the
Weasley household--and both Ron and Percy's
personalities--will prove dangerously detrimental to
the Weasleys. >>


=====
heidi tandy

They say its a sign of mental health to hold apparently contradictory ideas in your mind. The world of late has been a particularly exotic stew of horror and beauty. There are killers, there are saints. The trick is to find the right spot on the spectrum between abject despair and total obliviousness. And then carry on...
Joel Achenbach