[HPforGrownups] Two Wormtails was Re: Plot in OotP (wand confusion)

[Lynx412 at AOL.com]

No: HPFGUIDX 118463

In a message dated 11/23/2004 5:33:12 AM Eastern Standard Time, 
R.Vink2 at chello.nl writes:

> Renee:
> ?? I don't see what harm it could do to tell James the spy went 
> under the name Wormtail. So he would have told Sirius. What did DD 
> think Sirius could do with this information? And if DD suspected 
> Sirius *before* Halloween 1981 (is this canon?) he was criminally 
> irresponsible anyway, to allow him to be the Secret Keeper. 
> And are you saying James &Sirius wouldn't have suspected Peter if 
> they'd been confronted with the name Wormtail? 

       Ah, but there's the rub. Just who *did* know the spy went under the 
name of Wormtail? I don't recall any canon that states that anyone did. There is 
canon that the DEs hid their identities, even from each other. All that was 
known at the time was that the informant was 'someone close to the Potters'. 
Dumbledore suspected one of their coterie, but had no idea who. If he had a 
name, even a nickname, he'd have found out. The man's a Legillimens, people. All 
he'd have had to do was mention the name and wait for the answer in their 
minds.

       What we do have is Sirius' statement that the DEs in Askaban cursed 
the spy's name and would have killed the 'double-crosser' if they could have 
found him. So, just who did know who the spy was? I suspect the Pensive Four. the 
ones who were making an active search for their master...and his betrayer, 
perhaps. I had a thought on that. We've debated many times as to why the Four 
went after the Longbottoms. Obviously they believed the Longbottoms knew 
something, but why?  I suspect that they knew or had found out who the spy had been. 
If any one of the DEs could have tracked the name, assuming that ESE!Lupin is 
untrue, it would have been Bellatrix, who would have had access to her 
cousin's old stuff. So, they find out that Wormtail = Peter Pettigrew, and they go 
looking for clues as to what happened to their master by tracking him. so, how 
does this lead to the Longbottoms? Well, we've never, to my knowledge, learned 
Alice's maiden name. What if it was Pettigrew? What if Peter was her brother, 
and the Four went to the Longbottoms to find anything that Peter might have 
sent to or left with his sister?

       This explains the DEs in Askaban knowing who Wormtail was without 
requiring complex theories as to why DD didn't mention the name to the Potters. HE 
never heard it. His spy [Snape, perhaps] never mentioned the name to him. In 
fact, that makes it more likely that Snape was the one who leaked the fact 
that LV was after the Potters. Snape may well have known that Bella was a DE, and 
probably knew about Regulus. Given the relationship between Snape and Sirius, 
and the possibility that Snape knew the team's nicknames, though perhaps not 
knowing who was who, he accepted as a given that Sirius was a DE.

       Theory needs some work, of course, but I think it's a possibility.

       The Other Cheryl


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