Why did Sirius trust Pettigrew? WAS: Snape investigating Potters' Betrayal

[Carol]

No: HPFGUIDX 186558

Frank D wrote:
<snip>
> > I'm at a loss to answer this question with any degree of confidence: Why was such "blind" trust in Peter Pettigrew so firm among James/Sirius/Lupin? Especially since Pettigrew eventually proved to be such a weakling and (so obviously) a RAT? It just doesn't seem plausible to me that a person with such character faults could have been trusted so fully by James and Sirius. And shouldn't Lily have had some say in the decisions about who would be their life-protecting Secret Keeper?

Carol responds:
Lupin says in DH, when he thinks there's a new traitor in the Order who's tipped off Voldemort to the time and date that Harry will be leaving, that Harry (who doesn't want to mistrust anyone in the group, even Mundungus) that James would have considered it the epitome of dishonor (or something like that) to distrust his friends. If Lupin is right, that would explain why James never questioned the fawning and seemingly incompetent Wormtail's devotion to him. After all, he and sirius had taught Peter how to become an Animagus, including him in their midnight wanderings with a werewolf. How could he not be grateful?

Sirius, however, seems to have suspected that the traitor was Remus, at least that's what they say in PoA. In contrast to James, who apparently refused to suspect any of them, Lupin and Black suspected each other. (I can find the relevant quotation if you want it.)

As for Lily, she's not mentioned, but I'm sure that she was consulted. After all, she was part of the Secret. I've always suspected that she performed the Fidelius Charm since Dumbledore clearly didn't. Ollivander refers to her first wand as "a nice wand for Charm work" just as James's is specifically suited to Transfiguration, which suggests that she could have performed a complex charm like Fidelius. Anyway, I can't see her standing aside and letting the men make all the decisions. That would be completely out of character.

Shelley:
> I don't think that it ever was a matter that Peter was trusted, and Sirius "wasn't". The switch of Secret Keepers was last minute, and was meant to confuse any enemy who thought they had it figured out. It was meant to be a tactical decision, not one based on "trust" or "lack of trust" of anyone to do the job properly. What everyone didn't realize at the time is that they where handing the key directly to the traitor, not protecting that information from the traitor.

Carol:
Right. But, still, both Sirius, who made the suggestion, and James (and Lily), who accepted it, trusted Wormtail to be faithful to them: "fidelis -e [trusty , steadfast, faithful]; m. as subst., esp. pl., [confidants, faithful friends]. Adv. fideliter, [faithfully; securely, without danger]. fidelitas -atis f. [faithfulness , trust, fidelity]."
 
http://catholic.archives.nd.edu/cgi-bin/lookup.pl?stem=fidel&ending=

The only person who wasn't in on the Secret Keeper change was Lupin, which must mean that he also wasn't in on the Secret itself. So possibly, when he's talking (bitterly and angrily) about James thinking it was dishonorable to distrust his friends, he's not being entirely truthful. Either that or JKR has forgotten that bit in PoA about Lupin being left out of the Secret.

Shelley:
> But I agree, surely Peter would have shown some sort of weaknesses before this point that his friends would have noticed, but maybe they were blind to such faults. They were too busy using Peter, and Peter followed. <snip>

Carol:
I agree. Granted, Sirius found Peter's fawning admiration of James annoying (who wouldn't, except arrogant James?), but it never seems to have occurred to them that Peter might resent being treated as a tagalong who wasn't as brilliant as his friends. (I know that many people disagree with me, but I think that Lupin, who was sometimes excluded from Padfoot and Prongs's escapades along with Wormtail, suffered similar treatment in some respects. After all, *he* had to study for the Transfiguration OWL and Sirius, who must have studied Transfiguration after hours with an entirely different motivation to become an Animagus, disdainfully dismisses his request to test him over it. Lupin is "cool" because he's a werewolf, but his personality is so different from there's that he's not the best buddy of either James or Sirius.) Anyway, Lupin would have been busy wanting to be liked, and James and Sirius would have been busy acting arrogant and superior and getting into trouble, and no one would have noticed that Wormtail had any undesirable traits other than a tendency to drool over James's Quidditch skills or get questions about werewolves wrong on the DADA OWL.

Shelley:
> Maybe the other Marauders didn't think being a rat was a character  issue, but just focused on how handy it would be to have someone who could be small and sneaky as an asset to their trouble-making. These other Marauders weren't saints, either. If Peter never so much as squeaked about their misdeeds, they would think he was being loyal, and never did they suspect that Peter could have kept a secret about meeting Voldemort from them at the same time. <snip>

Carol:
Agreed that he was useful and never ratted on them. Also, of course, they viewed him as incompetent and wholly dependent on them, needing James's protection for his weakness (Sirius's comment about Wormtail being drawn to the biggest bully on the block, or something like that, an interesting reflection on James coming from his best friend!). I don't think it occurred to them for a moment that he'd dare to approach Voldemort or bear any kind of resentment toward James, as he must have done to be willing to betray him. (I don't think it was *just* fear, but, as Frank says, there's a lot we don't know.)

With regard to the rat Animagus form not revealing that Peter was a potential rat of another sort (I like pet rats, BTW, and apologize to any rat lovers for the stereotypes), I think they must have thought that it suited him--small, pointy-nosed, in need of their protection, preferring to hide rather than fight and sleep rather than work. Scabbers, after all, is pretty innocuous most of the time. So I don't think his Animagus form gave them any clues at all as to his real nature.

Shelley:
> I think Peter couldn't have been a Death Eater for very long at all when that incident happened, and he was pleased as punch to be a very valuable service to Voldemort. <snip>

Carol:
I don't know that he was "pleased as punch." The letter in DH seems to indicate that he was uncomfortable choosing between himself and his friends though, of course, the choice was inevitable given who he was. And I'm not sure that he was a Death Eater then. A Dark Mark would have been a bit of a giveaway if Dumbledore decided to examine Order members' arms looking for a traitor. But Sirius says in the Shrieking Shack that Wormtail had been passing information on the Order to Voldemort for nearly a year before the Potters were killed (which makes it odd that he didn't reveal that information before Dumbledore suggested the Fidelius Charm) and Wormtail doesn't deny the charge. At any rate, we first see him as an actual Death Eater in GoF. It's possible that his Dark Mark is still new at that point. (The narrator says that he goes to his place in the circle of DEs after receiving his new hand, but maybe he just takes the nearest empty spot. After all, the scene is from Harry's point of view and he can't possibly know whether Wormtail has attended any previous DE meetings or not.)

Carol, who thinks that JKR hasn't given us all the pieces of the puzzle and that the pieces we do have don't fit together quite as neatly as they should