Peter Pettigrew - Questions and Commentary

[Jenni A.M. Merrifield]

No: HPFGUIDX 101296

Jen said: 
> Jen: Hi Jenni! Welcome. 

Now Jenni:
  Thanks for the welcome.  I must admit to being initially 
overwhelmed after signing up for the digest version one evening and 
then finding six or seven digests in my inbox the next evening!  
I've decided to go for "special notices" and have been trying to 
keep up with a few, but not all, of the current threads online.  I 
think I've finally caught up now. :-)

First, Jenni said:
> 1. How did "Scabbers" end up in the hands of the Weasley family?  
> 
>   The books indicate that it belonged to Percy before Ron got it,
> but that doesn't seem to jive with him having been with the family
> for 12 years, if you assume that "School Pets" aren't acquired
> until age 11.  After all, Percy is only, what, four or five years
> older than Ron (I don't have my books handy and I can't remember
> if he was in 5th or 6th year in PS/SS).  

Then in response, Jen said: 
> I've always imagined Peter knew the Weasleys or at least knew OF 
> them, and he specifically chose them for his hiding place. The 
> Weasleys at that time offered a refuge from the War--they lived in 
> the country, were not members of the Order, and Arthur didn't have 
> any real power at the MOM. And, most ironic, this was a Gryffindor 
> family. It also doesn't appear Voldemort was targeting them in any 
> way.
> 
> Also, I'm not sure Sirius was right, that Pettigrew was merely 
> waiting for the right moment to give Harry to LV. I think he was 
> trying to save his own skin! 

Now Jenni replies:

  This seems to be the prevailing opinion - that Peter deliberately 
sought out the Weasley family in order to keep an eye on things in 
the wizarding world while keeping his rat-furred hide safe.

  But, there seems to be very little cannon support for this -  only 
bd-bear has provided some evidence for this from the end of PoA: 

Earlier, sbursztynski wrote in reply to similar comments:
>
> Um ... is this likely? He was living as a child's pet! How much 
> information would he expect to hear from Percy's pocket? And then 
> at Hogwarts? 
<...SNIP...>

And in response, bd-bear wrote:
> Very likely, and directly from canon:
> 
> "Why else did you find a wizard family to take you in? Keeping an
> ear out for news, weren't you Peter? Just in case your old 
> protector regained strength, and it was safe to rejoin him. . ."
> 
> PoA, Page 370

Now Jenni continues:

  Unfortunately, even that canon quote is not much more than a 
supposition on the speaker's (either Sirius' or Lupin's) part.

  Nonetheless, I do agree that hooking up with a wizarding family 
would certainly makes sense from Peter's POV -  whether it was to 
keep on top of things in order to re-join VM or to know when he 
might safely return to the WW (i.e., once VM was truly dead, all his 
supporters and Sirius were eliminated) is mostly irrelevant.
  
  However, how Peter ended up with the Weasley family is still a 
mystery.  At least, I've never seen any explanation for how Scabbers 
become a Weasly household pet.

Also in response, Jen said: 
> Now that we know the Prewitt brothers were probably Molly's 
> brothers, Wormtail's role in all this is even more disturbing. If
> he was passing information to Voldemort for a year prior to the
> deaths of the Potters, did he also betray the Prewitt brothers?

Now Jenni replies:

  We're assuming here, of course, that your belief is accurate -- 
that somehow Petigrew knew either the Prewitts and/or the Weasley's 
well enough that he had the kind of information that could be used 
to betray the brothers to V.

  If your supposition is correct, I agree that Petigrew's role in 
this is definitely a lot more disturbing than it may have seemed at 
first blush (and even that was pretty disturbing).  An unrecognized 
mole or stool-pidgen (someone who regularly gives up useful 
information to the enemy in order to avoid threatened injury or 
other punishment) in your midst is much, much worse than knowing 
that someone is your enemy.  A known enemy can be removed from the 
group and fought against.  An unknown enemy is invisible and might 
even have access to your deepest secrets.

  I wish there was some more canon proof of the extent of Petegrew's 
involvement with V and the DE before Oct 31, 1981, and the extent to 
which he could potentially be responsible for other betrayals.  
Currently, I can't recall any specific canon proof to assume Peter 
Petigrew was personally familiar with the Weasley or Prewitt 
families.  There's no particular proof that he delieberately sought 
the Weasleys out over finding any random wizard family to take him 
in either.

  I'm really hoping we'll get some more details in this area in 
books 6/7. :-D

Earlier, Jenni wrote:
>   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.  He didn't have 
> to frame Sirius -- he could have done the same disappearing trick 
> but made it look like V. had done him in, so people might think he 
> only cracked after being tortured.

In response, Jen wrote:
> Jen: He had to frame Sirius, though, because Sirius was the one 
> person who knew what happened and also knew he was an Animagus. 
> Sirius would vow to find Peter if it was the last thing he did. 
> Peter wouldn't have the same sense of security if he knew Sirius
> was out there, hunting him down as Padfoot.

Now Jeni responds:

  I don't see how Sirius knowing that Peter was an animagus would 
necessarily equate to him not believing that Peter was dead.  After 
all, *Lupin* thought Peter was dead and *he* knew that Peter was an 
Animagus.  Granted, he also thought that it was Sirius who killed 
Peter and Sirius could conceivably have an advantage over V. because 
he already know that Peter was an Animagus, but that seems somewhat 
iffy to me.

  Given all we have heard about V. during the war, it seems to me 
that being able to kill off a git who happened to be an Animagus 
wouldn't be too terribly difficult for him.  Heck, Peter could have 
made it look like he was also killed by V. at the Potter's house, 
leaving only a finger and lots of blood splattered about, and I'm 
not so sure Sirius would necessarily assume that Peter wasn't as 
dead as he appeared.  They might even believe that Peter lost his 
life trying to make up for having allowed V. to get the information 
in the first place.  Only "Vapour-Mort" would know that this wasn't 
true for sure, but, hey, Peter was hiding from him and the DE's 
anyway - they knew Sirius wasn't one of theirs so they knew that 
what Peter did was a frame-up.  

  In the end, it looks like some of the questions I'd love to see 
answered in books 6/7 or by JKR in an interview would be:

* Did Peter know the Weasleys, the Prewitt brothers or any others 
that V or his supporters damaged or destroyed well enough to have 
potentially been responsible for betraying them?

* Did Peter actively participate with the DE or was he nothing more 
than a weak-willed "stool pidgeon" for the Dark Side?

* Did Peter deliberately seek out the Weasleys (whether he had known 
them well or not before) when looking for a wizarding family to take 
him in?

* Whether he sought them out or not, how did Peter end up as a 
Weasley family pet?

* Why did Peter feel the need to frame Sirius instead of V. with his 
untimely death?

Jenni A. M. Merrifield
-=> strawberryJAMM <=-