When I find out there's a former soccer player named Peter Crouch and see his photoâhe could easily be the son of Peter Pettigrew and Barty Crouch. (I've already got a fancastđ¤â¤ď¸âđĽ .)
The sad thing about thinking that if Peter died a virgin is that it means no one had the privilege of sucking his tits, biting his meaty thighs, and burying themselves between those big buttocks.
Barty and Peter, two people who, if you speak of the crimes they committed, make people respond: "What? Impossible. I can't believe he could have committed something so vile."
Am I the only one who wouldâve swapped The Princeâs Tale for Wormtailâs Tale in a heartbeat? Like yo I donât care about your crap motivations for being a bitter asshole we couldâve thrown that in with the Kingâs Cross scene what I really want to know is how the man who was best friends with James and Lily, whose friends wouldâve died for him, goes from being the passive, not-as-brilliant-as-his-mates Marauder fighting for the Order to Voldemortâs hidden servant hiding his true nature from even Dumbledore without anyone noticing
It's obvious from a mile away who's a true fan of a character and who's just using them to shower their real favorites (James, Sirius, Remus) with praise while badmouthing the one they don't like (Severus Snape).It also helps to identify those who can't write anything, not even to save their own lives, because they have no idea that not everyone can be a main character, and therefore we're not going to know everyone's entire life story or their every thought.
Thank goodness almost no one talks about Peter anymore, and they replace him with Lily or Regulus, because if he's just going to be used to suck up to James ("oh, how nice of James to be Peter's friend"), I'd rather they just forget about him.
I'm a Peter Pettigrew fan, so I feel like I might favor him a lot. My question is, would you consider him an intelligent and capable character? Or just a plot device? Perhaps a combination of both?
I genuinely think you have to be pretty damn smart and have some serious guts to betray your closest friends and everyone around you while working as a double agent. He wasnât an idiot, and he wasnât a coward either, no matter how much some people would like to believe otherwise.
The Ginny and Peter parallel though?? How have I never thought about that?? Itâs so horrifying and insanely compelling to me at the same time. I would love to hear (read?) you elaborate on that.
"Sirius, Sirius, what could I have done? The Dark Lord⌠you have no idea⌠he has weapons you can't imagineâŚ. I was scared, Sirius, I was never brave like you and Remus and James. I never meant it to happenâŚ. He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named forced me - "
"Harry â oh, Harry â I tried to tell you at b-breakfast, but I c-couldnât say it in front of Percy. It was me, Harry â but I â I s-swear I d-didnât mean to - R-Riddle made me, he took me over..."
thank you so much for this question anon. i have been thinking about this for a long time - about how ginny weasley might have made a really, really good traitor - and would love to talk more about my thinking behind it. a little meta on traitor talk - who flips, and why, and why ginny weasley might be the peter pettigrew to the trio's marauders after all - can be found below the cut (with spoilers for beasts chapter 14).Â
hp, as a series, puts great moral emphasis on the concept of choice. after all, itâs about a world at war, where the question of whose side you're on is often a matter of life or death. double agents, deception, treachery, people serving the interests of others (either consensually or under duress): these are recurrent tropes, on both sides of the wizarding war. the plot begins the ultimate act of betrayal - that of lily and james potter by peter pettigrew - and the series concludes with the revelation of another (snape). throughout the books, there are all sorts of characters who spy, or flip, for all sorts of reasons. you have those who knowingly pretend to be serving the interests of one side when actually serving another, for principled reasons, either ideological motivation or out of selfless loyalty to another person: snape, peter, likely rookwood, quirrell, fake moody/barty crouch jr, both sirius and regulus black, kreacher, and narcissa in the forest. and then you have the group who betray either out of fear, or who are manipulated into acts of betrayal and deceit, sometimes through possession but otherwise through blackmail and intimidation, to varying degrees: xenophilius lovegood, mundungus fletcher, pius thicknesse, marietta edgecombe, bertha jorkins, bathilda bagshot, those types. (in a sign of jkrâs consistently dicked-up biases re gender in the series, women are never allowed to be interesting enough to actively betray anyone unless theyâre doing it out of maternal love eg. narcissa - they can only ever actively be led astray or hoodwinked, whereas male characters can have a vast array of complex motivations and all sorts of shades of moral grey. we'll come back to that in a minute).
in chapter 14 of my postwar fic beasts, during the course of the hogwarts inquiry, augustus rookwood takes the stand and testifies of an attempt by him and his fellow death eaters to find someone who could play double agent to pass secrets about the resistance, the order and harry to the other side during the second wizarding war. rookwood - himself a former double agent - talks about how to make a traitor. he discusses the different motivations of traitors, how to find a target and how to exploit their existing vulnerabilities and weak-points to get them to come around to your side. he also reveals that, during the death eater seizure of the ministry and hogwarts school, he and his peers identified a would-be target in ginny weasley. in the fic, i have him describe the process of traitor-identification as âthe pettigrew playbookâ: finding someone who is connected, who knows the orderâs secrets, who has the information you want, and who will flip less out of an ardent ideological commitment, but more because they are weak and scared but also disrespected and resentful and more inclined to save their own neck than act out of loyalty
iâve always been very struck by peter pettigrewâs attempts to justify his betrayal of lily and james in PoA (see above). peter pettigrew is always a slippery and elusive character, rendered mostly through other peopleâs memories or descriptions of him. this is one of the very few times he explains something of his own worldview - though, as we know he is a liar, and in this instance errrr trying to save his own life as sirius threatens to kill him (slay), we have to take even these lines with a pinch of salt. we know pettigrew is a character that acts, at all times, out of a desire for self-preservation, trying to secure his own survival. he was tolerated but never respected by his schoolfriends, made the pottersâ secret keeper as a âperfect bluffâ because he was a âweak, talentless thingâ voldemort would never bother going after, a trait which ultimately made him the perfect and most vulnerable target. when outed as the real spy by sirius and remus here, he acknowledges he is aware of his deficiencies and weaknesses, and talks about his fear for his own life, his sense of how he did not live up to the principled bravery of his friends, and claims that voldemort âforced himâ to surrender lily and james - presumably through the threat of terrible violence, suffering and death.Â
pettigrewâs remarks are particularly interesting when put alongside the justifications and excuses of another character who has betrayed harry to voldemort, albeit under very different circumstances. like peter, ginnyâs confession is given through floods of tears as a desperate plea to be believed and excused. in it, ginny begs harry to understand her own lack of culpability. just as wormtail does, she insists to harry she was forced by riddle to cause harm to others and to hand information about harry over to riddle, and to play an integral role in returning lord voldemort to life. of course, the series always frames ginnyâs actions in CoS as the behaviour of an entirely innocent person. but even these lines show a streak of self-preservation and a certain amount of weakness and cowardice that runs throughout ginnyâs encounter with the diary. âI couldnât say it in front of Percyâ, she says, suggesting she feared getting in deep trouble with no proof of riddleâs hand in her actions. in fact throughout the diary episode, ginny shows real moments of acting to save herself rather than do the right thing and come forward with the truth. she tries to dispose of the diary, but doesnât go to a teacher about what it has been making her do. she stole the diary back not to protect harry but to protect her own secrets and prevent him from discovering her complicity (at least by TMRâs telling). she even watches hagrid get falsely accused and sent to azkaban, and stays silent in the process, a distinctly pettigrew echo if ever i heard one.Â
of course, we know ginny and peter pettigrewâs relationships with voldemort are not alike in dignity. itâs clear that, in so many ways, ginnyâs encounter with the diary is much more clearly an experience of victimhood than of malicious intent. we know that ginny was possessed; we know she is not a character who would commit murder without that level of involuntary mental surrender. but there are more uncomfortable echoes of pettigrew in her experiences in CoS. we see them in the decisions of a character acting of fear and a desire to save their own skin in ginnyâs experience of the diary than we might like to think. ginny ofc was targeted by lucius malfoy because of who her family was, as stalwarts of the anti-voldemort pro-muggle resistance during the first wizarding war, with powerful enemies determined to discredit and undermine them at every turn. but, as TMR makes clear, what makes ginny such a good target in the end, so vulnerable and so useful, was that she was weak. she was insecure, and lonely, teased and misunderstood and feeling inadequate. in all of that, there was a very rich opening for TMR to access her innermost fears and secrets and to use them to manipulate, pressure and threaten her into compliance, in addition to the active possession of her body to conduct deliberate acts of attempted murder. itâs not a perfect pettigrew parallel by any means. but thereâs more than a little bit of pettigrew in that, too.Â
maybe more parallels with ginny and peter pettigrew than meets the eye - particularly in ginnyâs relationship to the trio. there are a few posts that periodically do the rounds on tumblr and reddit that talk about nevilleâs relationship to the trio as the parallel to peter pettigrewâs with the marauders - as this post compellingly puts it, âall who peter could have beenâ. neville, these posts usually point out, was a character who was weak and much less talented than his friends, an outsider who needed the protection and patience of cooler classmates, who was always on the outside looking in on a friend group that largely excluded him. what distinguished neville from peter was his approach to his own weakness, and how that approach drove him to heroism rather than betrayal and villainy. itâs an interesting idea, and thereâs something to it. but the more i thought about it, the more i thought - is neville + the trio the only parallel with peter + the marauders? what about ginny?Â
itâs remarkably under-appreciated in fandom that ginny is remarkably poorly treated by the trio for much of the series. âgo away, ginnyâ - thatâs how ron banishes his sister at the start of PoA, because harry mutters to his two mates that he wants to talk to them in private and to ditch ginny. neither harry nor hermione object to it - hermione, though kind to ginny when the dementors arrive, makes no defence of her right to stay. ginny duly leaves, hurt, to go sit by herself on the train back to school, returning to hogwarts for the first time after her deeply traumatic experience in the chamber, dismissed and dispatched. not meaning to drag ron here - this is, ofc, how big brothers have behaved for time immemorial, as is their wont. but itâs kind of the statement for how the trio treat ginny for much of her school career really until HBP, harry and hermione included. ofc there are many textual/plot reasons ginny needs to be held at arms length from the trio. but it is striking that the effect of this plot habit for the reader is a usually unkind and sometimes even callous exclusion of ginny by the trio throughout many of the books.
in CoS itself, ginny is never invited to join the trio or spend any time with them: when she isnât, you know, trying her hand at possessed attempted murder, sheâs doing a light bit of potter hero worship that does recall a certain lakeside snitch-catching display of yore. itâs ginny whoâs left feeling left out when the trio are swapping suspicious eyes and sirius secrets in GoF, ginny who is hermioneâs back-up friend when the ron and harry showdown kicks off over the triwizard tournament, ginny who shoulders the role as harryâs consolation prize friend when ron and hermione go off to the prefects on the train in ootp (and takes him to neville and luna), ginny who goes defenceless when the trio are demanding to be included in order secrets and is physically removed from the room with no protest from the others, ginny who has to fight her case to be taken seriously and included in the department of mysteries plot to rescue a man she too is friends with (âI care about Sirius as much as you do!â), being patronised by three friends who pick her up and put her down when they feel like it (always enjoy hermione being like âwe need three thestrals!â and ginny being like ffs we need four why wonât you show me an ounce of respect). in fact, when ginny is revealed to be becoming popular in a different social circle throughout ootp and hbp, it is something of a shock to harry and ron, who have spent a good six years making no effort to include her and now are finding she has built a much more successful social life beyond them (you reap what you sow, lads). i donât say this to overstate the trioâs malice nor to overstate the pettigrew comparisons (ginny is clearly both conventionally attractive and much more socially adept).. but i do think itâs striking that if there is a character with pettigrew echoes in the trioâs surround, always orbiting the trio, trying to feel included (and hero worshipping the potter at the heart of it), itâs more often young ginny than it is neville. so many of the things that made ginny vulnerable to TMR - her loneliness, her isolation, her insecurities and sense of inadequacy - are not helped by the trio in the years afterwards, and in some cases, actively reinforced.
(to briefly say something on gender - sometimes wonder if ginny were a male character if people would have made more of this. percy stans, for instance, go to great lengths to point out all the ways percy was bullied or teased by his family as an excuse for his errrrr war crimes. would people care more about many ginny's exclusions if she were a maligned misunderstood young man? probably? it's noticeable too that all traitors in hp are men lol, a classic example of jkrâs weird and fucked feminism striking again. women are led astray or hoodwinked - men get the complex motivations and agency arcs. but i digress).
why does any of this matter? we know ginny doesn't take the path of pettigrew, however much she might have good reason to. harry's endearingly naive line in DH ('I trust all of you, I donât think anyone in this room would ever sell me to Voldemortâ) ends up being borne out: there are no betrayals during the second wizarding war, and certainly not by ginny (though the sword heist almost ended up doing it on accident). but i found myself thinking a lot about this as i was sketching out the plotline for beasts and thinking about ginnyâs war, and what is asked of ginny in it. i was particularly thinking about it relation to how the second wizarding war plays out, the unique position of danger ginny would have been in as a hogwarts student in the 1997-1998 academic year, and what a good target she would make for death eaters on the hunt for a spy within the order of the phoenix.
when i was reading DH for the first time, i remember thinking that it is absolutely bonkers that ginny weasley goes back to hogwarts in september â97. by that summer, the weasleys are the order of the phoenix. no longer just the blood traitorsâ blood traitor, theyâre now the face of the wizarding resistance, both parents and (nearly) all sons in active combat, something the ministry certainly knows about even when trying to normalise death eater rule and allowing the facade of arthur et al going to go to work in the ministry/gringotts etc. ginnyâs family home is order hq: she lives there all summer, and trots off to the hogwarts express straight from the kitchen table where order meetings take place. when death eaters descend on the wedding, sheâs there alongside the rest of the rest of dumbledore stans. she is also famously in the DA, and fought death eaters alongside the trio in the department of mysteries, and again in the battle of the astronomy tower. and then thereâs the obvious point that hinny shippers everywhere have pointed out is baffling since the dawn of time, which is that the world and his wife knows that ginny weasley is harry potterâs ex, something that might put a big fat target on her head for a death eater or two to have a pop at trying to get some secrets and intel out of her.Â
of course, thereâs a compelling case for why ginny has to go back. ronâs already used the splattergroit excuse, and arthurâs going to work, and so is bill, and the twins (at least for a bit), and the weasleys are going for normalisation and at least a fig leaf of compliance. so off ginny goes, into the belly of the beast, back to school, despite all the access she has to order secrets and intel, as well as information on harry and the trio. she is in a uniquely dangerous position of risk: itâs a fortress run by death eaters and her card is marked. she finds herself in an unenviable and unrivalled position as a very good person to go after if youâre a death eater fancying some intel about what the guerilla resistance - and harry potter - are up to. we know there are death eaters about who would like to claw themselves back into some level of relevance by working towards the big man and trying to curry favour (yaxley). we know there is a family intimately aware of ginny weasley's weakness and failings who are desperate to get back in voldemort's good books (the malfoys). we also know there are witnesses to ginny's exclusions both from the order and from the trio over the years - in particular, one witness that already sold secrets on the order to death eaters, namely kreacher.
the reason i came back to thinking about parallels between ginny and peter in beasts is because beasts is a story about ginnyâs war, but also in part about morality in the wizarding world, about war and sides and choices. at various points in beasts, iâve tried to play with ginnyâs echoes with characters that waver morally - including regulus - or who find themselves drawn to or in some way embroiled in darkness, and who are at times governed by fear and cowardice and self-preservation in a moral universe that prizes bravery, loyalty, and self-sacrifice. so this plot came from putting all these pieces together - ginny's existing vulnerabilities and insecurities, her position of privilege and access, but also her alienation and mistreatment, and this interest in moral motivations and what experiences or traumas might lead a person, or even justify, a person's treachery, moral inaction, or active moral failing. it was even more interesting for me to play with the idea that other people might have noticed ginny weasley's weird position relative to the trio and the order too, people who want to know what she knows and who would be willing to exploit the cracks in those relationships for strategic wartime gain. and that's for chapters fifteen and sixteen!
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