What Pettigrew did at Godric's Hollow - new info from JKR chat

[carolynwhite2]

No: HPFGUIDX 111434

Did anyone else pick up on these two supplementary questions that a 
fan asked at the Edinburgh festival, which got answered by JKR 
(reported on TLC)?

Q1: 'I asked JK Rowling would Professor Lockhart get out of St 
Mungos, get his memory back and be in any of the next books?, she 
said no to all of these questions.'

So, she got some vindictive pleasure about finishing off that 
character then, whoever he is supposed to be based on!

Much more interesting was the answer to this one:

Q2:'I also asked when Harries parents were killed by Voldermort, 
Wormtail turned into a rat and pretended to be dead. How then did he 
give Voldermort his wand and robe back once he found him and helped 
give him back his body ?, she told me (after tapping her nose!) 'he 
hid them'.

So this confirms that Pettigrew definitely entered the house at 
Godric's Hollow either with Voldemort, or at some point after the AK 
backfired. Presumably the wand and robes would have been just lying 
on the ground, with nobody in them any more.

Why would Pettigrew want to take the robes as well as the wand? Why 
did he try to preserve either - wasn't it dangerous evidence to risk 
being caught with? Did he just think they might come in handy for 
something later? [The classic image of the servant trying on his 
master's things and staring at himself in the mirror comes to mind; 
perhaps he thought he would become great too, if he had all the 
trappings].

This scenario also suggests that the AK backfiring on Voldie did 
*not* destroy the house - as many of us have pointed out in the past, 
AK's don't generally do this kind of damage [Voldie/DD scene at the 
MoM rather a special case]. Or at least the house was not so badly 
damaged that Pettigrew could not enter it. Could he have then blown 
up the house using Voldie's powerful wand, trying to destroy the 
evidence of his treachery? 

Perhaps he somehow thought it would get rid of James & Lily's bodies, 
which must have given him a queasy moment or two to look at? And 
don't forget Teflon!Harry, grinning up at him from the cot - perhaps 
it was an instinctive move of Pettigrew's to try and finish the job?

So, where did Pettigrew hide the robes and wand, and did he do it 
before he blew up the muggle street the next day, or was he still 
clutching them as he turned into a rat and scarpered down the sewer? 
Can you transform, cluttered up with all that gear? If he took it 
with him, did he subsequently hide the stuff at the Weasleys all 
those years? 

Could anyone else, who may have been keeping watch on the house on 
DD's behalf, see Pettigrew do any of this? So, has DD known all along 
what really happened?

Carolyn