Peter Pettigrew - Questions and Commentary

[Catlady (Rita Prince Winston)]

No: HPFGUIDX 101150

StrawberryJAMM (nice name!) wrote:

<< if you assume that "School Pets" aren't acquired until age 11. >>

I don't see any reason to assume that. Sure, Harry didn't get a pet
until age 11, but he was living with *Dursleys*, not nice parents.

<< How did "Scabbers" end up in the hands of the Weasley family? >>

People figure he knew the Weasleys, a large, poor, kindhearted family,
would take in a stray pet, so he went there and made nice to a child,
probably young Percy, who couldn't afford to buy a pet. When the
parents found out, they let him keep it, out of some mixture of
softheartedness and figuring that rats aren't expensive to feed and
don't require a lot of upkeep. 

<< That is, if the sorting hat saw a larger share of courage and
resolve than sly cunning in Peter's soul, what blocked his courage,
keeping it from coming to the fore? What made self-preservation and
betrayal the more attractive route?

And it's not like he only betrayed Lily and James after suffering
through extreme torture. No, he made a conscious decision to run to
V. with the information that would betray two of the people he'd
been friends with throughout school, and *then* he actually went out
of his way to frame a third. >>

We don't actually know he wasn't tortured. We have Sirius's word that
he left his hiding place with no sign of a struggle, but he could have
been lured out by trickery ... I like to imagine that he got into the
coils of a Evil Seductress, who handed him over to LV while he was on
a date with her. The Evil Seductress might have been sicc'ed on him
because he was known to be a friend of James and Lily, and he might
have bragged to her of being chosen as Secret Keeper -- Hagrid is an
example that Gryffindor courage doesn't prevent blabbing things one
shouldn't. I can't really make an excuse for why he framed Sirius.