The intended murder of Pettigrew and moral corruption (Was; Vengeance on Sna

[pippin_999]

No: HPFGUIDX 116310


--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "eggplant9998" 
<eggplant9998 at y...> wrote:

> In retrospect it's clear to me that both Lupin and Sirius were 
 thinking far more clearly than Harry was. Yes, Dumbledore said 
the  day may come when he was very glad he saved Peter's life, 
but Book 5  has shown us that Dumbledore can be wrong, 
disastrously wrong. And  even if Peter does aid Harry in the final 
battle with the Dark Lord,  if he had just let them kill Peter in
book 
3 there would be no need  for a final battle at all and Cedric and 
Sirius and no doubt many  more would not be dead.<

Pippin:

Aren't you putting an awful lot of faith in Peter's confession, 
considering it was extracted from him at wandpoint by two 
people who were suspects themselves? 

There were three crimes: the espionage which revealed the 
identity of the Secret-Keeper, the betrayal of the Potters by the 
Secret-Keeper, and the murder of the twelve Muggles. Sirius has 
evidence linking Peter to only one of them. 

It is self-evident that only the  real Secret-Keeper could have 
betrayed the secret -- that incontrovertible fact kept even  
Dumbledore believing in Sirius's guilt for twelve years. But it is  
not self-evident that only the Secret-Keeper could have been the 
spy, or that only the Secret-Keeper could have killed the Muggles.  
Peter was on the scene, looked and acted guilty -- he's definitely 
a likely suspect. But that  is not proof of anything, especially in 
the Potterverse. There is no more evidence that Peter was the 
spy or the Muggle-murderer than that Draco Malfoy was the Heir 
of Slytherin.

Besides suspecting Lupin of being the spy at one point, Sirius 
also  suspected the wrong person in GoF--he thought Karkaroff 
had put Harry's name in the goblet.

 If Sirius was wrong, and someone else was the spy, then Peter 
probably knows who it is -- and killing him would prevent Peter 
from ever telling what he knows, leaving the spy free to betray the 
Order a second time.

Pippin