One last Pettigrew thought

[Karen]

No: HPFGUIDX 149435

and then I'll shut up for today. Maybe this has been brought up, and if 
so, mea culpa.

It seems Pettigrew's blowing up 13 muggles is attributed to a master 
plan he had or something, but personally, I see it as him being found 
by a grief mad Sirius, on an open street,  and in a panic trying some 
curse or another to get out of it. My guess is, he wasn't aiming for 
such a spectacular escape. It's kind of like the old gunfighter days 
when a shoot out became legend and much more than it really was by dint 
of the sheer scale of damage that ended up happening. He was probably 
just going for blowing up the street for a distraction so that he could 
fake his death. Maybe it  DID hit a gasline (the excuse given by muggle 
police), and purely by accident then blew up people for a block around. 
Who's to know? Stuff like that happens. I really think Peter ended up 
being a first hand murderer by accident. Once that happened, he's never 
had any reason not to kill when ordered, since Peter is all about "what 
will happen to me now".  He doesn't have that bridge to cross ever 
again. By intent or accident, he's a first hand murderer, just as he is 
by his turning over the Potters, but I'm sure to him that was a nice, 
distant thing and he probably thought "Lily and James are good wizards. 
They have a chance" NOt that that is true, but I can sure see Pettigrew 
soothing the one small spot of conscience that he might have somewhere 
in those grey cells.

kchuplis