Who recruited Peter Pettigrew for the Dark Lord?

[mgrantwich]

No: HPFGUIDX 113661

I have been giving some thought to this issue (when I should have 
been working but never mind that...)

I don't think that Pettigrew approached the DE's on his own 
initiative. By nature he's a reactor to things and forces; he doesn't 
make the first move but rather sits back and observes, watching to 
see what response would be best for him to make to maximize the 
benefits to himself. Thus as a teen he took on the role of prime 
cheerleader for the group, even though in his zest he sometimes 
crossed the line into totally obvious sycophancy. I'm sure he was 
aware that some viewed him the same way McGonagall did: as a tag-
along. But at the time it was a price worth paying for getting what 
he wanted - being able to hang with the Marauders, the coolest guys 
in school.

The same sort of personal calculations applied to his initial 
involvement with Voldemort. (I want to be clear here: his second 
involvement - after he was "outed" in the Shrieking Shack and went to 
Albania to find Voldemort - was more a matter of having no choice 
than to be out in the open.) I don't think that anyone threatened 
Pettigrew: he would have responded to that by saying whatever he 
needed to say to get out of the immediate situation and then have 
gone into hiding until the all clear signal blew - probably in 
southern Tasmania. No, I think someone approached Peter and let him 
know the benefits of switching gangs. 

Who did this or how they did it are two things we don't know but 
probably will in the future. We can speculate: 

1. It would have had to be someone that Peter already knew or was 
familiar with because I don't think he would have opened up to a 
stranger: giving away info about himself isn't a Peter trademark;

2. It would have had to be someone that Peter envied for some reason, 
something that made Peter think "I want a piece of that for myself", 
in other words someone who could out-cool the Marauders;

3. It would have had to be someone who represented a completely new 
stage in life; let's face it, by the time they all graduated, the 
Marauders were going onto higher pursuits that running around the 
school grounds at midnight and pranking people. James was getting 
married, Sirius was off doing his rebel-on-a-bike thing, Lupin was 
being Lupin and trying to get a job. What was there for Peter to do, 
when he'd spent his life so far letting the others do all the work 
while he tagged along? So Peter would have looked for someplace where 
he could have found the maximum benefits for the minimum exertion.

My personal choice for the guy who approached Peter the first time: 
Ludo Bagman. International Quidditch star, all-around jock and grown-
up cool dude who knew people in the MoM and could get Peter a job 
with no duties. And someone who Peter probably thought would be a 
snap to manipulate because Bagman has always benefited from being 
considered too dumb to pick his own nose. (Not unlike Peter himself.)

But the conman was conned - Bagman wasn't interested in high school 
gossip, he wanted the real deal, the solid info about the Order. And 
Peter got in deeper and deeper until it really was a matter of facing 
Voldemort and giving up the info the Dark Lord wanted about the 
Potters.

But he didn't give it up because he was afraid - by the time he 
became Secret-Keeper, Peter had travelled a fair way down the road to 
wanting nothing but power, and he could see no place more powerful 
than being the Leader's right-hand (foreshadowing?) man. By the end 
of POA, Peter is a much darker and more ammoral wizard than he was 13 
years ago, when he was already turning into a serious criminal.

People will ask how he could have betrayed James when he idolized 
him. Answer: he didn't idolize James, he worshipped James' image, his 
hipness, his coolness, his persona. He didn't give a toss for James 
the person, like Lupin and Sirius did. So it wasn't a huge deal for 
him to betray James and Lily.

Had he been totally honest in the Shrieking Shack, he would have told 
Harry: "Harry, it was nothing personal." And the really scary thing 
is - he would have meant it sincerely.

Magda