Where Percy got Scabbers

[Jennifer]

No: HPFGUIDX 83771

In Percy's defense, I do not think until OoP did Percy have any 
trechery in his personality.  I've said it before in a previous post, 
that I believe that Percy is under the imperius curse so I feel that 
his actions are not his own.  Fudge maybe...  But I do not think that 
him getting Scabbers as a child was the root of his evil and with the 
DE.  Where Scabbers came from is a great question, and I have 
pondered it in the past.  All of your explainations have been very 
good, but still I feel has not filled the void in my mind.  If 
Scabbers was found on the Weasley farm, how did he get there in the 
first place?  The Weasley farm is in a remote part of England, not 
too easy for a rat with one missing finger to get to, to have the 
chance of moving in with a wizarding family.  The Weasley's do a have 
a great wizarding past, but in the lull of the years as Percy grew 
up, I feel that nothing was going on of importance for Scabbers to 
get information about.  Arthur works for the Muggle Artifact 
department, not rich with the intelligence that Wormtail would want 
to know.
If Scabbers wanted to get important MoM information, why wouldn't he 
just hide out in the MoM, surely as a rat he would go undetected in 
such a large place and be able to eavesdrop wherever he wanted.  But 
I understand that he needed food and shelter.  Shelter he would get 
at the MoM and food would be plentiful to find in the streets of 
London outside the MoM.  But this does not solve the problem of how 
the Weasley's did wind up with Scabbers.  I think Scabbers wound up 
with the Weasleys the same way as Hedwig with Harry and Crookshanks 
with Hermione.  They bought him.  If he was living on the streets of 
WW London, perchance he was caught and brought to the Magical 
Menagerie for sale.  He's not an animal in the best condition so I'm 
sure he was a reasonable price, good enough for the Weasleys on a 
tight budget.  I just think it was fate or a stroke of "bad" luck 
that he wound up with the Weasleys and makes an interesting twist 
down the line in WW history.  

--I dunno just a thought...Jen