Peter's basic nature v Snape basic nature/ Which one is worse? Pure speculat

[festuco]

No: HPFGUIDX 145011

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "dumbledore11214"
<dumbledore11214 at y...> wrote:
 
> Yes, it is easier to commit evil when it is anonymous, I just don't 
> understand how the fact that Snape condemned two anonymous people to 
> death makes him less responsible for their deaths,when they became 
> the people with names. 
> 
Gerry:
That is not what makes him less responsible. The fact that he went to
Dumbledore and confessed makes him less responsible. Because of that,
the Order KNEW the Potters were on LV's death list, and were taking
appropriate actions. Snape certainly was responsible for the fact that
the Potters had to spend the rest of their lives in hiding, which is
not an easy thing. But they were hidden extremely well. The Potters
were under concealment of the Fidelius charm, the charm that makes it
impossible for a person not told by the secret keeper to find them,
even if they were looking through their living room window. The
Potters would have been absolutely safe if they had not been betrayed
by their secret keeper: dear, dear Peter. That makes him far more
responsible than Snape can ever be. 
Snape gave Voldemort the wish, but Peter gave him the opportunity. 

> Peter committed one of the worst sins I know of - betrayal of the 
> closest friends, but I don't see  that the possibility that he was 
> initially  completely broken by Voldemort - torture, threat of 
> torture or threat to his family as completely outlandish. His mother 
> IS mentioned in canon, what if Voldemort threatened to kill her, 
> unless Peter tells him the Potters hiding place

Gerry: 
If this were true, it would have been very unlikely that he would have
run to him after the incident in the Shrieking Shack i.m.h.o. Or even
more despiccable. 

> Alla:
> 
> Yes, of course, and it does not mean that it is true, but we have it 
> as canon, right? 

Gerry: 
Nope, we have Peter implying that as canon. He never says literally
that he was taken. 


> Alla:
> 
> Actually, this is a great point to argue against me, but on the other 
> hand, doesn't Sirius say something about emotional reactions being 
> simpler when they are in animagi form? Maybe Peter was not feeling 
> scared when he was in the rat form?

Gerry:

But why would he not be? And if he were not, if he were free of this
overwhelming fear which made him act so despiccably, why not plot to
make it right? Set Sirius free? Maybe because his dead was not an act
of cowardice, but of calculated opportunism? 

> Oh, but we don't know about what Snape did in his DE days, right? I 
> guess we don't know what Peter did either, but in any event I don't 
> think that count is necessarily complete. IMO of course.

Gerry:

Absolutely true. But Peter went on after LV was defeated. And helped
him get back. Which is so atrocius a crime that it boggles the mind.
And it would certainly be interesting to find a noble motivation for that.

Gerry



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