Easier / Insecure!Ron + Hermione / The sword in the pond

[Carol]

No: HPFGUIDX 186433

Carol earlier:
> How many people, even in RL, would find  betrayal and murder "easier" than taking responsibility for a previous crime and going to prison? 
> 
Pippin responded:
> It's not clear that Peter intended to commit murder. If there was a curse that killed twelve people at once, Voldemort would surely have discovered and used it. It sounds as if the Ministry's cover story was partially correct and Peter exploded a gas main unintentionally when he used diffindo or reducto to blow a hole in the street. Peter may have become a killer more out of fear than out of hatred or indifference.
><snip>

Carol again:
That's an interpretation I haven't encountered before. Surely, if there was any doubt that Peter intended to kill those Muggles, it would have come up in canon. There would have been no need for him to hide from the Aurors, much less blow off his own finger. He couldn't just Stun Black and tell the Aurors that he'd captured Sirius Black, the betrayer of the Potters. Veritaserum and Legilimency could easily show that he was lying. He had to, or thought he had to, frame Black for murder to make it look as if he was unquestionably guilty of betraying the Potters. I don't see how blowing up the street could have served any other purpose. I also think he would have defended himself to Lupin and Black by saying that he didn't mean to kill all those people if it were an accident, but he never says anything about it.

I don't see any canon evidence here, just speculation on your part.
>  
Carol earlier:
>  Surely, living in the sewers would be easier--and less dangerous.
> 
> Pippin:
> Peter knows that once the Ministry knows he is still alive, the DE's still at large will find out too. He will have no protector, and Peter can't face life without a protector, even one that he loathes as much as Voldemort.

Carol responds:
Yes, I'm sure that's Peter's reasoning. But how anyone, DE or former Order member, can find him in the sewers, I don't know. (Of course, he might have to deal with bigger, stronger rats and filth and disease, but no Wizard can find him there. And if he can travel as a rat to Albania (and even show himself briefly in human form there), he could stow away on a ship and end up in Australia, where no one would ever find him. He doesn't need a protector. He only thinks he does.

Carol earlier: 
> > Even cutting off his arm is not a choice between right vs. easy. The easy choice would be,as Harry thinks, to "let it drown"--or, at least, to leave the helpless but unquestionably evil creature to die.
> 
> Pippin:
> Um, aren't you forgetting that Voldemort can't die? If the creature drowns, LV  will only return to the bodiless state in which Peter found him -- a state in which Voldie can still possess Nagini, if not Peter himself.  Peter's rat form won't help him to escape a snake. And Voldemort doesn't need Peter so much now that he has Barty. No, Peter does not have a lot of options here.

Carol:
I'm not forgetting that Voldemort can't die. I'm just not sure that Peter knows it. He knows that Voldie survived the AK, but Voldie was in human form then. Now he's just a helpless, babylike creature. Peter doesn't know about the Horcruxes, so why should he think that Voldie would survive being left alone and unable to fend for himself, or even that he'd turn back into vapor and somehow still be able to harm Wormtail? Harry thinks Voldie can drown; wouldn't Wormtail think the same thing? It just seems odd to me to be so terrified of something so helpless, however revolting. 

And, surely, Peter could escape both the circling Nagini and Baby!mort by Apparating (unless he never learned how to do it, for which we have no evidence). And if Voldie became Vapor!mort again, which probably wouldn't happen for a while because of the Horcrux's protection, there's no guarantee that he could find Wormtail in that state, especially if he was "ripped from his body" and "less than spirit" as he was when he was struck by the rebounding AK. 

All in all, I'm not so sure that Wormtail doesn't have options. He just doesn't seem to be aware of them. He must really be afraid of life on his own (as opposed to Voldemort's retribution)  if he chooses to cut off his hand and serve Voldemort instead. And that choice can't qualify as "easy," as far as I can see.

Pippin: 
> The point is not that Peter's choices aren't wrong. Of course they are. But he's not choosing them because he's decided that being evil will make him happier than being good.  He's choosing them because it's easier than being good. 

Carol:
I understand your argument. I'm just not convinced that it works for Wormtail, whose choices seem to me to fit some other pattern than the "right vs. easy" choices that the good characters are supposed to make. I think in Wormtail's case, it's which will give him the greatest advantage or hurt him least. And choosing to cut off his own hand rather than escape (assuming that he can Apparate) is the hardest of all to fathom.

Carol, who thinks that Wormtail has a surprising amount of talent but apparently not much ability to reason