Where Percy got Scabbers

[smaragdina5]

No: HPFGUIDX 83774

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "nineve_laguna" 
<nineve_laguna at h...> wrote:
> Does any one knows where Percy got Scabbers? If he was his pet 
before,
> he must have got Scabbers somehow, didn't he know, the humungous 
> bighead, that it was "a common garden mouse", or was he in 
allegiance
> with the Dark Side all along, the traitorous wizard.
> Pets don't just appear out of nowhere, except cats, that is. But 
> there is a mouse in my bed, I just keep it there? I don't think so. 
> So, how did Scabbers become a pet, from a filthy pest?

I'd like to find out the story of how Wormtail came to live with the 
Weasleys, and maybe we will.  But your last line makes me see what 
makes it seem odd to you that Percy got Scabbers.  Wild rats and mice 
are just that, wild, but there is a domestic kind that has been bred 
since the 1800s to be clean, docile, tame, and come in multiple fancy 
colors and fur types.  We also have albino and hooded lab rat types.  
So, many people do keep these domestic rats and mice.  Remember the 
magical rats for sale who stared at Scabbers at the Diagon Alley 
store where Crookshanks launched himself at the counter while the 
trio were there.  (Some think that he was choosing Hermione on 
purpose... perhaps Wormtail might have placed himself to be chosen as 
Percy's pet, on that line... Of course, if Crookshanks was just being 
part Kneazle going after the infidel Wormtail on the counter that 
theory is out...)  The Weasley elders or someone else easily might 
have obtained a pet/mascot rat.

-smaragdina5