[HPforGrownups] Digest Number 5362

[drliss at comcast.net]

No: HPFGUIDX 115943

Carolyn:

I think you are skating over Peter a bit, in your keeness to 
exonerate Lupin. Betrayal is not nice, but it doesn't come out of 
thin air. You have made considerable effort to emphasise how close 
the four of them were, so why did Peter do it then? Not only trusted 
by the rest of the marauders, but by Dumbledore and the Order...so 
what went wrong?

Maybe it wasn't all quite so cosy as you imagine. I didn't see Lupin 
making any effort to control Peter's over-sycophantic admiration of 
James, any more than he tried to control James and Sirius attacking 
Snape. There was a pecking order in the MWPP, and Peter was at the 
bottom of it. Lupin didn't care about that, or have any left over 
sympathy for another weak and marginalised individual, despite the 
efforts that Peter had made to be liked. Not very nice.

Lissa:

Actually, I don't think I am skating over Peter.  Not at that point in time.  

No one suspected Peter of a betrayal.  Now, I'm not going to say they shouldn't have, or they didn't underestimate him, or that the boys didn't treat Peter as they should, but at the time I think they saw Peter as totally loyal to them.  Maybe they were projecting their own feelings onto Peter, maybe not- it's hard to say right now.  But it was a shock.  Sirius never even thought of it.  Remus didn't think of it.  James didn't think of it.  There was something there.

When the boys opted to become Animagi, they were 12 when they started, 15 when they finished.  Peter didn't betray the Potters until he was in his 20s.  It's very, very, very possible that something happened in between the time when he was hanging out with them at school and the time when he was working for Voldemort to change him enough that he'd work for Voldemort.  There's a lot of time in between there.  Heck, maybe part of it WAS his frustration that he was willing to do this great feat- at even greater risk than Sirius and James because it was harder for him- and no one really acknowledged that.   

One of the big questions we don't know is why Peter was willing to betray his friends.  I've always had the impression he didn't just wake up one day and say, "hmmm.  I'm kind of evil, I'll go work for Voldemort."  Something big- bigger than what James, Sirius, and Remus could offer him- had to have been dangled over him.  Now, I know I've been reading WAY too much fanfiction, but my personal favorite theory was it was his family.  Help us, we leave your family alone.  Don't help us, your family gets it.  That might be ascribing too much nobility to Peter, but maybe not, if he just accepted that at face value and didn't try to think of a way around it.  Of course, it could always be what Sirius says- that Peter wants power and hangs around with the biggest bullies on the playground as well, but there ARE alternate explanations.

One of my frustrations with the Pensieve scene is that it's changed so many people's opinions from "the boys were great" to "the boys were pretty awful."  I truly believe the truth is somewhere in between.  We are seeing the boys for five to ten minutes, right after they a.) finished a difficult exam and b.) shortly after they have accomplished a MAJOR magical feat, from the mind of their worst enemy, when they are fifteen.  There ARE some power/relationship issues, but I think at the root of it the four of them were still very close, very tight friends that would die for each other, and maybe only Peter will ever get the chance.  (Everyone else seems to be in line for dying for Harry, and odds are good Peter will do that as well, but hey.)  But anyway, I remember 15 and I remember being a jerk myself- more Lupin style, but I had friends that were more like Sirius and James and they're still wonderful people, especially today at 30.  
 
So, I don't think Peter's friendship was false back in the heydey.  I don't think that the boys got what they deserved from him, although I think they did help it along a bit.  I don't think Lupin was unnecessarily cruel to him.  Maybe he didn't make a move to control anything, but maybe he did.  Sirius says Remus DID make them feel guilty sometimes.  He just didn't in that one instance that we saw.  Bad move on Remus's part, but it takes people- all of them- time to become what they are today, and many lessons are learned through mistakes.  Remus certainly seems to have sympathy for the underdog in the present day- look how he treats Neville.

Besides, the main thrust of my argument is still the Dumbledore-Remus relationship, and that's the one that really pokes holes in the ESE!Lupin argument.  


Carolyn:

Oh, and since it's apparently all about Harry, and not the adult 
characters' stories, there wouldn't be a parallel showing anywhere 
with the Creevey brothers, would there?

Lissa:

Not sure what you mean here.  Please clarify?

Liss

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