[HPforGrownups] "Weak" Pettigrew (Re: What Pettigrew did at Godric's Hollow)

[Magda Grantwich]

No: HPFGUIDX 111923


--- mhbobbin <mhbobbin at yahoo.com> wrote:
> It's hard 
> to reconcile poor weak Peter Pettigrew with a wizard who was a 
> traitor to one his best friends for about a year--clever enough
> that 
> DD, James, Sirius and Lupin never suspected him; finally delivered 
> the Potters to LV; was able to transform into an animal; blew up a 
> street in a duel with a more powerful opponent; and eventually
> finds 
> his way to a distant place and locates LV, bringing him back to 
> power.  Was Peter just faking it all through school, or did he 
> become more clever and powerful after school without his friends 
> realizing it. Were they so dismissive of him, so sure of the niche 
> they placed him in they didn't realize he was gaining on them?


I think that last question comes close to the real answer.  Sirius
and James thought they knew Pettigrew, well enough to know how he'd
respond to any circumstance.  They didn't make him SK because they
thought he was super brave or resourceful: Sirius was nasty about it
in the Shrieking Shack in POA but they probably did think that "No
one would EVER suspect old Peter as the SK!  It's a perfect plan!" 
Needless to say, old Peter might have felt a bit...nettled...at being
dismissed so casually.

We got a good look at how they regarded him in the pensieve scene in
OOTP: affectionate contempt and certainly no probing beneath the
surface.

I don't think we know enough yet about Pettigrew to judge where his
strengths as a wizard lay.  Lupin says he needed all the help James
and Sirius could give him to become an animagus and the image of
weak!Peter is reinforced, but I think that what probably happened is
that Pettigrew said "Oh, guys, I'm too dumb to go to the library with
you and research animagus spells.  I'll stand guard by the door while
you go in under the invisibility cloak."  Nor do I buy his "I'm too
dumb to know what a werewolf looks like" line in OOTP either. 
Pettigrew was very adept at getting other people to help him with his
work and didn't mind giving up his personal dignity as long as he
didn't have to exert himself.

It's clear that Sirius cannot understand Pettigrew either as the teen
he thought he knew or the man/rat he confronts in POA.  And Pettigrew
knows it and played on it for all it was worth.  His values were not
Sirius' or James' - and they never realized it.  They wanted to be
the best and the coolest - he simply wanted to laze through life
without exerting himself.  He likes to be the Big Guy's
right-hand-man and with Voldemort he's closer than he's ever been to
that role.  

The Marauders thought they knew him but didn't because Pettigrew was
a good actor.  He did it to James and Sirius, and I suspect he did it
to the Trio in POA, and I'll bet he's doing it to Voldemort too.

Magda


		
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