Spies, Lies and Self fullfilling prophecies

[pippin_999]

No: HPFGUIDX 146309

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "kchuplis" <kchuplis at a...> wrote:
>
> I've tried searching but I just cannot find it. A while back, pippin 
was talking about  ESE!Lupin and I got the impression that some 
people believe there was another spy  besides Wormtail. What I've 
never been able to figure out from posts is where does 
that idea come from? I apologize if it has been discussed but 
I just couldn't find it.

Pippin:

 The plot to frame Sirius was underway before
Godric's Hollow, from what Fudge and McGonagall say, so it's
almost certain that Voldemort, not Peter, was behind it. 

Yet if Godric's Hollow had gone as Voldemort had planned,  framing
Sirius would  have been pointless from the point of view 
of protecting his spy --if the spy was really Pettigrew.  LV couldn't 
count on Sirius not getting a chance to tell his side of things, or  
Dumbledore being distracted by the need to protect baby Harry! 

Pettigrew could hardly have continued to spy on the Order after being
outed as the Secret Keeper, or faking his own death, so why frame 
Sirius at all? But if the true spy was a third party,
then everything makes sense.

Voldemort has a long history of framing people for his crimes, and
the crimes of his supporters. A double bluff would certainly not be
beyond his cunning.

Both Snape and Sirius thought that Lupin was aiding the Death Eaters. 
We never learn how this suspicion came about, but I don't think it's 
safe to  dismiss it, especially since JKR has gone about showing us 
how unlikely the implied reasons really are. 


Would Sirius have suspected his old friend Lupin of being a spy only 
because he was a werewolf? Hagrid is half-giant, goes off on a 
mission to his relatives and comes back behaving very strangely, 
yet it never crosses any of the Trio's minds to think he might be 
plotting against Dumbledore.

Snape hates all the Marauders, but why suspect Lupin and 
not Pettigrew and even James? After all, others have betrayed 
their families for Voldie.


Then there's Wormtail himself. He's secretive, and clever enough,
and he was close to Lily and James, but that could be said of all the
people in Moody's photograph. Beyond that there are troubling
discrepancies between the Pettigrew we observe and what 
we are told or can deduce about Wormtail the Spy.

McGonagall says Peter was hopeless at duelling. Sirius calls him a
weak wizard. He was unable to heal his bleeding  arm and needed
Voldemort to provide him with a magical prosthetic. Yes, he learned 
the animagus spell, but apparently that doesn't take a lot of  
magical power. Sirius could do it even while a prisoner in Azkaban 
at the mercy of the dementors. What discourages people from 
becoming Animagi, JKR says, is that it takes years and years of 
study, with no guarantee that the animal you'll  become is a 
useful one. Apparently it's a matter of mental ability more 
than power, much like occlumency. 
 

Wormtail the Spy, OTOH,  is supposed to have killed twelve people with a 
single spell. This contradicts not only much that we're told about
Peter but much else we know about magic. Eye contact is
supposed to be important, all the spells we've seen are directional,
yet Wormtail is supposed to have cast, with a wand held behind
his back, a spell that killed everyone within twenty feet of himself
yet left him unharmed. ::raises eyebrows::

Murder tears the soul, even Voldemort can't remain untouched by it,
yet after supposedly killing twelve people, Pettigrew lives twelve years
in peace and certainly doesn't lose any sleep over his supposed
crime. The one time he sounds sincere in the Shrieking Shack is when
he claims credit for having put Sirius Black in Azkaban. If Pettigrew
was innocent of being the spy, he would naturally think that Sirius
had made him Secret Keeper to set him up.

Anyone spying on Dumbledore would need to be good at occlumency,
yet there's no hint that Peter has any such ability. His emotions always
seem very close to the surface. Both Voldemort and Harry can read
him like a book. 

Peter's health collapsed at the mere thought that Sirius might be 
after him, yet Wormtail the Spy was able to carry on  in the
highly stressful job of double agent, knowing the hunt was up,
for an entire year without drawing any suspicion onto Peter.

Wormtail the Spy was supposedly a fanatical follower of Lord Voldemort, 
expecting to become second in command once Voldemort was in
power, but Peter is shown cooperating only reluctantly. 

Wormtail the Spy supposedly captured Bertha Jorkins and brought
her straight to Voldemort, but how could Petttigrew have done that?
He was still searching for Voldemort when he arrived at the inn 
where he found Bertha, wasn't he? How did he know where to take her?


In HBP, we see Wormtail  shunning any dangerous work, though he's
supposed to have taken such tremendous risks in the past. For such
a clever spy, it's strange that he's scarcely able to eavesdrop without 
getting caught. 

Furthermore, Snape refers to him as 'vermin' and treats him
very shabbily, evidently with Voldemort's permission. It's strange
that a fanatically ambitious Death Eater would put up with that,
even stranger that he would be content to live twelve years as a rat,
when he could have been scheming to bring his master back to power.

It sounds like Peter and Wormtail the Spy are two different people, 
doesn't it?

Pippin