Unfortunate!Peter

[Barry Arrowsmith]

No: HPFGUIDX 118249

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Sharon" <azriona at j...> wrote:
 >
I haven't posted before, so forgive any typographical errors I might 
make.  I have been reading up on recent posts, however, with much  
interest, and look forward to some good Peter discussion, which I  
haven't had in some time.
 >

Kneasy:
Welcome - and particularly  so since you've obviously been thinking 
about Peter much more critically and for much longer than I  have. I 
only wrote the damn post as a sort of intellectual exercise to see if 
it was possible to concoct some sort of rationale or defence of Peter.
That said, it seems there are fans out there that don't feel entirely 
content with the picture of Peter that we've seen up to now, mostly 
because they feel that it's incomplete. And that, as we all appreciate, 
is likely to cause an itch in the "what if" gland resulting in towering 
edifices of speculation based on minute snippets of canon.
Lovely!

I've taken the liberty of using this post to comment on points raised 
in your other post of yesterday.
Lotsa snips.

 > Azriona:
Kneasy, I have not always believed that Peter was a spy for
Dumbledore, but over the last year I have come to believe it.  I
  cannot believe that DD, knowing the odds and knowing his resources,  
would have not had more than one spy in place.  And I cannot believe  
that a man who would willingly place an 11-, 12- and 13- year old boy  
in mortal danger would think that the odds of having a single spy would 
be enough upon which to wage a war.
 >

Kneasy:
I agree. DD as war leader cannot be limited to the hands-off, gentle 
old duffer emoting all over his study at the end of OoP. Many posters 
have posited (myself included) Puppetmaster!DD, the pragmatic and if 
necessary cold strategist willing to do what is necessary to win. Who 
is more important in the defeat of Voldy? Harry or James and Lily? As 
in chess (clue in PS/SS?) sacrifices may be unavoidable.

If he's any good he'll cover as many options as possible - including 
the possibility  that one of his own spies is blown or turned - Snape 
giving evidence at the DE trials is an example. He'll want somebody 
else in there. And unconsidered, ineffectual Peter would attract less 
suspicion than most.

 > Azriona:
I can't trust that Pensieve.  We forget that we are seeing Peter
  through *Snape's* eyes, and I think most would agree that as far as  
the Marauders are concerned, Snape is hardly an impartial judge.  We 
see James and Co. not as the boys they were, but as the boys they were 
*to Snape*.
  >

Kneasy:
I'm not so sure about that. Both of the Pensieve scenes we've viewed so 
far present the action as it would be seen by a disinterested observer 
able (unlike Snape) to monitor conversations he could not possibly hear 
in reality. Is it the objective truth or is it an extrapolation based 
on how Snape feels or what he knows about the Marauders?

Now what is interesting is that there appear to be two Pensieve modes. 
One when Harry immerses himself and sees the scene in it's entirety (or 
so we think) and the restricted mode when DD tickles the surface with 
his wand and only the individual he's interested in (Sybill for 
example) appears. Very  convenient, for DD and JKR both. Because it 
occurs to me that if we could dive in we'd find out who the 
eavesdropper was.


 > Azriona:
I would argue that Peter *was* essential.  (If for no other reason
than as JKR's plot device.)  What Peter provided the rest of the boys 
changes depending on who you're talking to - but Peter seems to have 
provided the encouragement James and Sirius needed in order to go ahead 
with their plans - whether those plans involved Snivellus' underwear or 
going to the kitchens to steal food.

Or, as you also claim, to run to DD to tell him about The Prank.  No, 
we don't know Peter's role in the Prank.   We don't know a whole lot 
about the Prank - and the biggest clue that we don't know a lot is that 
JKR herself has said we're going to learn about it.  Now, I don't know 
about you, but before she said that I thought the whole Prank issue was 
pretty much covered, way back in PoA.  And now there's apparently 
*more* to know?

Why do I have the feeling that the more to know deals with Peter's role 
in the entire sordid affair?
 >

Kneasy:
Another role for Peter? Agent provocateur? The possibility  depends on 
how far back DD's plans were laid, whether he knew or foresaw events 
(another Prophecy or two perhaps?) that would culminate in Harry vs. 
Voldy. The possibility that  pieces were moved around the board that 
far back would require a seriously paranoid mind. I like it. I'll put 
it on my list. Plus it's congruent with the proposition that the Voldy 
wars I & II  are just the latest episodes in a much longer struggle.

But by far the most asked question about the 'Prank' doesn't involve 
Peter; it's why the hell would Snape ask Sirius what was going on with 
Lupin and believe the answer? Unless this was the  first clash between 
Snape and the Marauders it doesn't make sense. And somehow I  don't 
think it was the first clash.

The apparent absence of Peter is unexpected if the Marauders were as 
tight as we believe. Full moon has arrived, Lupin has loped off to the 
Shack, just wait for things to quieten down and the Marauders will be 
romping round the countryside. Yet there seems to be a gap in the 
ranks. Where's Peter? Good question - unless it happened in the 
interregnum between James and Sirius mastering the Animagus spell and 
Peter catching up with them - or indeed in the early years before any 
of them became animagi. Oh, for a solid time-frame!


 > Azriona:
Ugh.  I think it's more interesting that Moody, when presenting the 
photograph to Harry, doesn't actually mention Peter's name.  Here he 
is, pointing out all these people in the photo who Harry's never heard 
of, much less *met*, and then we run into Peter Pettigrew, who of 
course Moody will know that Harry knows fairly well.  I mean, we don't 
even get a "Oh, and there's that really awful Peter Pettigrew, I should 
just scratch his darn-ed face from the photo."

Something there, I tells you.
 >

Kneasy:
Good point.
Moody, battered old Auror, been there, done that, got the wooden leg, 
outspoken, inflexible in his views, reminiscing for once, and not a 
single word about Peter. Very odd. I suspect that on occasion JKR uses 
Moody as a pointer for the reader - his "there's something funny about 
the Potter kid.." being an obvious example. But in this instance it's 
his silence that's deafening.

A suspicious mind might wonder why Moody showed Harry the photograph in 
the first place. Is Moody dropping hints to Harry, or is JKR dropping 
hints to us? Just why is Peter sitting between James and Lily? Why is 
Sirius on the other side of the group? Is Peter closer to them than 
Sirius socially as well as positionally?
All it needs now is for Pettigrews middle name to  be Harry and we've 
got a right box of birds on our hands.


 > Azriona:
I don't think you're wrong.  And in fact, I think you're more right
than you might know.  Dumbledore never once questions the story about 
Peter being SK - he never once degrades Peter in front of Harry - and 
he never once calls him "Wormtail."  DD gives Peter every inch of 
respect there is to give, and even has some interest in his whereabouts 
- going as far as to interupt Harry in GoF about what Peter was doing 
during the cemetary scene.  Why?  Why does DD show such interest in 
Peter?
 >

Kneasy:
Could be significant, though to  be fair he never seems to rubbish 
anyone, not Peter, not Tom, not Voldy. But asking specifically after 
the actions/reactions of  Peter rather than say, Malfoy, does add extra 
piquancy.

Though I've got an interest in what he's up to myself. I voted on JKR's 
site for an answer to where Peter had been during OoP.
I still wonder.


 > Azriona:
Well...I don't know that Peter is paying penance.  What does he have to 
pay penance for, exactly?  (Okay, death of James & Lily, blah blah 
blah.)  I should think that the general hatred of the world and his 
best friends would take care of that.  I rather think that Peter has 
been living for the previous 12 years as a rat and continues to work 
with Voldie because he is A GOOD SPY.  He's still under cover.
 >

Kneasy:
I  admit that penance was a stab in the dark - I have this thing about 
motivations and Peter as presented does not seem the type to volunteer 
for hazardous duty. He'd need a strong reason, one were the alternative 
was worse. It's possible that what  we'll get is not what we see now, 
but for the moment I prefer to think  that he was shoved rather than he 
jumped. More BANG. And it would need one hell  of a motivation for him 
to keep on going now that  things are getting really nasty.

 > Azriona:
Maybe.  When the Marauders are split up between the Houses, Peter (with 
very few exceptions) goes to Hufflepuff - it's certainly the house 
other than Gryffindor that seems to fit him best.  But for all that, 
there was a *reason* that the Hat put him in Gryffindor with Remus and 
Sirius (because James had not been sorted by the time Peter took the 
stool).  Maybe because his loyalty to those two boys could not be 
questioned, or because his bravery was largely dependant upon them?
 >

Kneasy:
There are those of us who suspect that the Hat was fixed, or broke it's 
own programming, not just once but twice producing a generational 
parallel between the Marauders and the Trio plus Neville. During times 
of crises (according to Nearly Headless Nick) it makes appeals for a 
joining of the Houses. What better times than Voldy I & II? Though 
exactly what it hopes to achieve by shuffling students around is a bit 
more problematical to  figure out.
Yes, loyalty is a supposed attribute of Huffs; but loyalty to whom? 
Would Peter focus on loyalty to James, to the Marauders as a group, to 
DD, to the 'good' side, or what? It'd help if we had some Pettigrew 
background - pureblood? family victims of Voldy? It's that lack of 
credible motivation again.


 > > Juli:
 > > Then WHY would DD want LV to return?

 > Azriona:
Because if DD waits for Harry to grow up and become a man, the series 
will be longer than 7 books and JKR will go the way of Robert Jordan's 
Wheel of Time series, and no one really wants that.
 >

Kneasy:
The Prophecy - or more likely Prophecies, I'd think.
They may  be self-fulfilling but DD needs some sort of guide to help 
him through the maze of possible actions and outcomes. If Seers turn up 
and offer a possible route map he'd jump at it.
I  know I would.