Pity for Wormtail (was Re: Snape again)

[Emily]

No: HPFGUIDX 146946

(message contains LOTR spoilers)
<justcarol67 at y...> wrote:
snip
He later
> finds out that Peter Pettigrew is the "murderin' traitor," and he
> regards PP with revulsion, but the violent hatred and the desire to
> kill the traitor who betrayed his friends is gone. Even after 
Wormtail
> murders Cedric on LV's orders, Harry hardly gives Wormtail a 
thought.
> As far as he's concerned, Voldemort murdered Cedric. The fact that
> Wormtail cast the Unforgiveable Curse that killed an innocent boy
> never quite seems to sink into Harry's brain. Harry has no personal
> vendetta against him, even though it was Wormtail who tied him to 
the
> gravestone, Wormtail who cut Harry's arm with a dagger to get his
> blood for the potion, Wormtail who resurrected Voldemort. And yet
> Wormtail, like Black, was his father's trusted friend.
snip
 Is Wormtail just
> "vermin," unworthy of hatred, even though his crime is more 
directly
> linked to the Potters' deaths than Snape's is, whether or not 
Snape's
> remorse is genuine? Why don't his crimes, which are legion, affect
> Harry in the way that Snape's transgressions, some of them as 
small as
> taunting Sirius Black in OoP, do? 

Snip
> 
> Carol, who really needs to resist the compulsion to include every
> detail and just get to the meat of the matter

Emily,

I'm reminded forcefully of Frodo's reaction to Gollum in LOTR when 
he does finally see him:  "I do pity him."

I think, even though PP did all these terrible things, Harry pities 
him for the control LV has over his life.  He is repulsed by him, 
sure, but he recognizes that Peter lacks any strength of character 
at all, and I think (not at all canon here) he subconsciously counts 
Peter as another Voldemort casualty.  However, I don't think he 
cares for Peter (in the way Frodo sort of cared for Gollum), b/c he 
doesn't feel badly about giving him over to the dementors.

Also, I think Harry knows Peter is a puppet for LV, but Snape is 
different.  Harry knows Snape has strength to choose.  This is what 
makes Snape so powerful, and so dangerous.  He does not seem to fear 
Voldemort, even less so than, say, Lucius, and he does not seem to 
worship him a la Bellatrix.  He only seems to have loyalty to 
himself and his own aims, whether those be to torment Harry or to 
follow Voldie.  This is, IMO, why *we* have so much trouble figuring 
Snape out:  whomever he is serving, be it LV, DD, or himself, it 
seems definite he is doing it consciously and for his own purposes.

Emily