What possessed Peter to restore Voldemort? (Was: Trusting Snape)

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 149376

PJ wrote:
<snip> 
> You think Peter came up with that potion to return Voldy to his
body?  He didn't seem all that thrilled to give up his hand to me so I
really think if he'd seen that line in the potions book he'd have
looked around for something a bit less painful to try first.  Peter's
not all that brave. <snip>

Carol responds:
We may not agree about Snape, but apparently we agree about Peter, who
has to be the most cowardly Gryffindor of all time. I don't think that
the potion was in a book (unless it was a very ancient one, and we
know how Voldemort feels about ancient magic); I think he invented it
and gave Peter the directions (as Vapor!mort certainly did when he
gave Peter directions to create a rudimentary body using unicorn blood
and Nagini's venom--*that* couldn't have been in any potions book).
Note also that Voldemort says, in an evil double entendre, "I have an
assignment you'll give your right hand for" (GoF chap. 1, quoted from
memory).

Why Peter actually went through with the assignment--kidnapping and
injuring Harry, murdering Cedric (not part of the original deal, but
promptly performed), violating a grave, and above all mutilating
himself, all to restore Voldemort and make him stronger, is unclear to
me. Did he really think he had no alternative and that he'd be better
off with a stronger Voldemort? Couldn't he have left him stewing in
the cauldron without adding the ingredients (bone, blood, and his own
flesh) and at the same time released Harry, fulfilling his life debt?
Did he think that the revaporized Voldemort would haunt him and kill
him if he disobeyed the order? Or did he hope to be "honored above all
others" despite Voldemort's known indifference to his followers'
happiness and well-being? (At least he knew that LV wouldn't possess
him because he was believed to be dead and his body was useless for
the purpose--roughly paraphrased from GoF chap. 1).

What possessed Wormtail (pun intended) to make him restore his feared
and hated master to his body? Is he insane? Or is he, in his weak way,
actually loyal to LV? Has he fallen so deeply into evil, having
committed some thirteen murders as well as betraying or framing his
friends, that he sees no way out? Would Azkaban be worse than serving
Voldemort? He's a rat Animagus, after all, and could easily escape.

Carol, wondering why Harry thinks that Voldemort (one "r") murdered
Cedric when it was Wormtail who killed him