Lupin is Ever So Evil, Part Two--Replies

[pippin_999]

No: HPFGUIDX 130828

 Neri:

Having a "second-in-command" strikes me as extremely out-
of-character for Voldy. Such a title implies that if 
something happens to the first-in-command, the second-in-
command takes his place, an unthinkable idea for Voldy. 
The whole organization exists for him alone. In the 
graveyard scene he stood in the center, all the DEs stood 
around him in a circle, and there wasn't any special room 
reserved for a "second-in-command". The most Voldy would 
allow is someone like Malfoy being the commander of 
specific operations, but Malfoy too stands in the circle 
with all the other DEs. > 

Pippin: > 

Why "just one year"? Sirius was twenty-two when he was   
sent to Azkaban, so Lupin had been out of school four   
or five years already. 

Neri: 

I wrote one year because according to Sirius in the Shack 
Wormtail was spying for one year before GH. And while 
Sirius doesn't say how he came up with this time period, 
it seems likely that he had heard it too from the DEs in 
Azkaban, or he would have been less specific. 


Pippin:

We know that Dumbledore suspected a spy before GH. I 
thought Sirius was dating from the first of the string of 
Order members who got picked off one by one. 

You make a  good point about the second-in-command. Let's 
see, we have an ambitious, dedicated, naive young fellow 
who is rapidly and mysteriously promoted over the heads 
of the obviously more qualifed, by a leader who really 
isn't into sharing power...hmmm, sounds familiar, doesn't 
it? Couldn't be that Voldemort was trying to recruit a 
spy, could it? This is Voldemort we're talking about; you 
know he'd prommise anything to anybody if he thought it 
would help him get the One destined to destroy him. 

Of course Lupin wouldn't know that's why he had been 
recruited any more than Percy did. Nor, depending on what 
Lupin knew about the prophecy,  would he know that 
Voldemort's target was Harry all along. 

Neri: 
Voldy's words to Wormtail in the graveyard also imply 
that Wormtail is a returning member. "You returned to me, 
not out of loyalty, but out of fear of your old friends 
(GoF, Ch. 33, p. 649 US)". Why would Voldy expect any 
loyalty from an enemy who was caught and bullied to give 
information only a week before GH? A page later Voldy 
adds, after issuing Wormtail his new silver hand: "may 
your loyalty never waver again". Then Wormtail "takes his 
place in the circle", a place apparently reserved for him 
by the other DEs. This suggests he was already a DE 
before GH, a rather fast promotion if he did it in a 
single week.  > 

Pippin: > 

A very neat solution is to suppose that Voldemort used   
the codename "Wormtail" for his spy all along, so that  
the DE's never knew that Peter and Lupin were two   
different people. 

Neri: 
This neat solution doesn't fit very well with the 
sequence of events. You suggest Voldemort gave ESE!Lupin 
the codename "Wormtail" long before GH. This was in order 
to confuse the Order, I assume? Then why did Sirius 
suspect Lupin but *not* Wormtail? Then a year or so after 
that the Potters decided to protect themselves with a 
Fidelius, and whom did they choose, very unexpectedly, to 
be their Secret Keeper? Wormtail. Was this an amazing 
coincidence, or is Voldy a seer?

Pippin:

If Dumbledore knows there's a spy in the Order, he's not 
likely to share information like Death Eater codenames 
that can only have come from his spies in the DE's. Sirius 
was likely ignorant of the spy's codename until he went to 
Azkaban. We have to await developments as to when Snape 
and Dumbledore first learned of the Marauder nicknames, 
though. 

I suspect that Lupin/Wormtail started passing info to the 
werewolves  years before he was recruited to the DE's. 
I'm speculating here but a Jonathan Pollard scenario 
seems plausible: the Order was spying on the Ministry, 
and ESE!Lupin saw nothing very wrong with helping the 
werewolves by passing on some third party info to his new 
friends. He could have picked the Wormtail alias as 
casually as Harry decided to be "Neville Longbottom" on 
the Knight Bus. 

If Lupin AKA Wormtail and Peter AKA Wormtail are the same 
person as far as the other DE's are concerned, then Peter 
can neatly step into Lupin's place in the circle, while 
Lupin himself stays discretely hidden, ready to pick off 
poor Peter with a well-placed AK if he shows signs of 
deviating from the script, f'rinstance like drowning LV 
in the cauldron. 

In that case, Sirius's choice of Wormtail to be the real 
secret keeper was a stroke of luck for Lupin, but the 
plot to frame Sirius  would have worked just as well if 
Sirius had remained the Secret-Keeper. Lupin would have 
found some way to obtain the secret, given it to Voldie, 
then made it look like Sirius himself had betrayed the 
Potters. The subterfuge was necessary since if the plot 
to dispose of the Potters had succeeded, there were still 
the Longbottoms to deal with. 

You will see that this scenario gives Lupin a very 
excellent reason to want to keep Harry alive. By now he
must fear that once Harry is dead, his master
will have no further use for him...

Pippin