Why did Voldemort force Peter to move in with Snape?
Long ago, I said my next piece would be about why Peter went back to Voldemort. HOWEVER there has been some recent interest from readers regarding the subject of Snape and Peter living together, and I’m grateful for the encouragement and for the reminder! It’s been a while since I’ve added a new essay to the bunch, and I admit that this is one of the periods of Peter’s life (not to mention a plot of Voldemort’s) that I find especially fascinating.
Voldemort’s decision to place Peter at Spinner’s End likely happened immediately after the events at the Little Hangleton graveyard in Goblet of Fire:
Voldemort has a body now. He no longer requires full-time care, nor would he want to remind his followers that he ever needed it—it wouldn’t do to have Peter remain by his side. Plus, all this one-on-one time and physical/magical reliance has given Peter an unusual amount of knowledge about Voldemort, and perhaps the knowledge has made Peter…overly familiar. So, Voldemort removes Peter to Spinner’s End, and likely moves back into the Riddle House in Little Hangleton by himself.*
*Between the World Cup and Triwizard Tournament, Voldemort and Peter were living at Barty Crouch Sr’s home, which has now been compromised due to Barty Jr’s arrest. Voldemort doesn’t move into Malfoy Manor until right before Deathly Hallows begins.
Therefore, Peter is out of a job. I expect that Peter—with his fancy silver hand and Voldemort’s apparent gratitude—thought that he would now take his place at the Adult Table with the rest of the still-loyal first-tier Death Eaters that showed up at Little Hangleton when Voldemort called them. But…no.
Instead, Voldemort removes Peter from the Inner Circle, where all the action is happening and the plans are being made, and places him not only in Snape’s company, but in Snape’s own house, and therefore—it could be argued—under Snape’s authority.
Snape is, admittedly, not in the most secure position among the Death Eaters and Voldemort. He’s only just reemerged after living in essentially Dumbledore’s lap for the last 15 years. But he has over a decade of information that is valuable to Voldemort, and Voldemort isn’t foolish enough to disregard that, even if he doesn’t fully trust Snape (yet).
I suspect Voldemort placed Snape and Peter together for a couple reasons:
1. to have them spy on each other;
2. to get Peter out of his hair (or lack thereof), but not out of his orbit;
Voldemort doesn’t fully trust Snape yet—he needs to hear some of that alleged Dumbledore/Order information first—and he’s never seen Peter operating as a full-time Death Eater**; there’s plenty of reason to believe that Peter might try to make a run for it.
**Unlike some, I don’t believe Peter was a fully Marked Death Eater until after Voldemort regained a body. I don’t think he was involved with/loyal to Voldemort at all during the First War—he spilled the beans to save his own life, not out of loyalty to or love of evil.
It kills two birds with one stone to give these men the task of checking up on each other—it fosters competition, and it doesn’t require any extra manpower. Each takes care of the other.
There’s a sort of apocryphal legend about Pharoahs and their tombs. I’m not sure how true it is, but it illustrates my next point well. When a Pharoah—along with an architect—designed and built his tomb, he wanted to ensure that his was the largest, grandest, and most spectacular tomb that had ever come before or after. So, when the Pharoah died, the architect might be killed and placed in the tomb with the Pharoah. This way, the royal architect would never be able to improve upon that which he had made, and never share the secrets of the Pharoah’s tomb with anyone else.
This is the principle upon which Voldemort is working with regards to removing Peter from his side and his confidence. Peter, frankly, knows too much. He was Voldemort’s sole confident for nearly a year.
It is EXTREMELY likely that Peter is the only Death Eater who is clearly aware that Voldemort has not only one Horcrux, but several.^ Peter likely knows how Horcruxes are made and was almost certainly there when Nagini was made into one. He has seen Voldemort at his most vulnerable as well as at his most evil. Peter has proven himself not only a competent wizard, but an extraordinary one. Not to mention a dogged survivor!
^Snape doesn’t become aware of this until Dumbledore shows up with a rotting hand and the Peverell ring between OotP and HBP.
Peter’s not worth killing, either. A man who is willing to do anything to live is a valuable tool for someone like Lord Voldemort. Peter has proven that he’s willing to do the dirty work. (Bertha Jorkins, for example.)^^
^^In this way, Peter:Voldemort::Snape:Dumbledore. It’s a delicious and compelling parallel that lends itself beautifully to this circumstance.
Besides, Voldemort created his own insurance in the form of the silver hand, which seems to be programmed to kill Peter should he show an inclination to disobey Voldemort. Regarding the circumstances of Peter’s death as a consequence of sparing Harry’s life, there’s some confusion regarding the Life Debt business, but both the text and Pottermore heavily imply (or claim outright) that Peter did indeed show Harry a moment of mercy†, and the hand turned on him and strangled him to death as punishment for that mercy.
†The canon text grants this only grudgingly—Peter himself seems surprised to have done it, which muddies the waters a bit re: the hand and its motives/purpose.
Almost nobody would argue with the idea that Voldemort is a raging drama queen. So when I say Voldemort was absolutely stirring shit by putting Snape and Peter under the same roof, you shouldn’t find it at all surprising.
It’s not just the fact that Peter ran with the two boys that made Snape’s life a living hell for almost a decade (and contributed to that hell, I’m sure, in his own right), not to mention with the werewolf who nearly—through no fault of Remus’s own—killed Snape. By the time Goblet of Fire ends, Snape is well aware that for all of his other awful and infuriating personality traits, Sirius is indeed innocent of betraying the Potters. Which can mean only one thing:
Snape knows that Peter Pettigrew is the one responsible for Lily’s death.
Snape’s feelings for and relationship to Lily were not a secret, especially to Voldemort (since Snape asked him to spare Lily’s life) and to the people Snape went to school with—especially James, who was fixated on and jealous of Snape and Lily’s friendship. Peter would, of course, be aware. I have no doubt that Peter immediately realized the position he was being put in when Voldemort ordered him to live with Snape in Spinner’s End, and I’m sure he was quite rightly nervous.
Isn’t that a delightful little mindfuck move on Voldemort’s part? Putting Snape and Peter together in time-out is a very practical punishment. He puts Snape with his childhood tormentor and the one who got the woman he loved killed, as punishment for perceived abandonment. And naturally Voldemort would be aware that Snape would hate and resent Peter because of their shared childhood and because of Lily; so what a fitting punishment for Peter, who is a man terrified that his past will catch up to him. All because he dared to witness Voldemort at his weakest. (Voldemort is SO petty, you guys.) And it dovetails so nicely with the primary reasons for placing them together: both Snape and Peter will be on edge, each desperate to prove his own loyalties as well as extra sensitive to any flaw in his roommate’s.
But Snape can’t let on that Lily’s death bothers him, nor murder Peter and risk outing himself as disloyal to Voldemort and the Death Eaters. What Snape can do, however, is make Peter’s time in Spinner’s End unpleasant and irritating. And the chapter Spinner’s End establishes exactly that: Snape treats Peter like a servant, and—as he does to Bellatrix—likely lords his own usefulness to Voldemort (and therefore, his arguably larger worth to him) over Peter’s head in the process.
And Peter can’t fight back. He’s not an idiot—he’s the kind of guy who knows when he knows too much. As to why he puts up with Snape treating him like shit, on one hand, I’m sure Peter is aware he deserves it (and besides, it’s only a couple months until Hogwarts is back in session). On the other, it’s not going to help him one whit to go complaining to Voldemort. As Peter’s been excused from the field of duty (and would frankly be too conspicuous‡), he can’t do anything to earn a reward, and unless he has rock-hard evidence that Snape is a traitor to Voldemort, Peter knows he’s stuck where he is. Which is exactly why he puts so much effort into spying on Snape in the hopes of catching him out and taking the opportunity to restore himself in Voldemort’s good graces. (Frankly, I wouldn’t be surprised if Voldemort suggested that was a Very Important Job and the only way for Peter to make his way back to the Adult Table.)
Unfortunately, we only get a tiny glimpse into the life that Snape and Peter had made! There’s a massive well of tantalizing possibilities here regarding their interactions in Spinner’s End—how do you think it went? (I have a pet theory that they ended up tolerating each other quite well—they’re both DEEPLY lonely men with a great deal of shared history and references. I think there’s a lot about each other that they understand, which can, of course, be repulsive in this instance, but when it comes to a roommate, sometimes you also have to get on with it and cook a shared dinner and chat about the day’s events.)
I always love hearing your reactions, questions, and observations on these essays—please do keep them coming!
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