Peter's flight to Albania

[sunnyskywalker]

Why did Peter go to Albania and restore Voldemort to power instead of, you know, running away? Why not find a distant corner of the globe where no one would recognize him and where the long arm of Dumbledore didn’t reach and live in relative peace?

Well. Remember what Remus said while literally rolling up his sleeves to murder Peter?

“You should have realized, Peter […] If Voldemort didn’t kill you, we would.”

What would Peter be thinking once he got far enough away to catch his breath?

“Uh-oh, Dumbledore might actually believe Moony and Padfoot and the kids when they tell him I’m still alive and the real traitor. What if he clears Padfoot’s name, or at least helps him escape? Won’t that leave Padfoot at liberty to hunt me down? And it’s almost the summer holiday—Moony will be able to join the hunt in a couple of weeks. And no one’s taught DADA two years in a row in my lifetime, and where else is he going to get a job now? I’m going to spend the rest of my life looking over my shoulder for those two. If I’m lucky. They might actually find me! What options does that leave me?”

You’d think that working for Voldemort is such a terrible job that living on the run while fearing every shadow is a big black dog doesn’t sound that bad by comparison. There’s no Cruciatus, as long as he doesn’t get caught. On the other hand, Sirius is the guy who tricked a fellow student he didn’t like into entering a tunnel with a werewolf. And none of the Marauders ever actually confirmed that Remus wasn’t a willing participant in that plan. Why was he rolling up his sleeves in the Shrieking Shack if he was only planning a quick, clean death? Maybe Peter sincerely believed that whatever Sirius and Remus would do to him was so terrible, and living in fear of it so unbearable, that Voldemort didn’t automatically look like the worst choice.

And why didn’t Dumbledore send Sirius after Peter? Um. I’m sure we would all like to think that Sirius, unlike Quirrell, would be protected by plot armor if he ended up in Albania and would never return to Britain with a spiffy new turban. Or a motorcycle helmet and a sudden obsession with traffic safety. But…well, would you want a Voldemort with all of Sirius’s cleverness and skill at nasty curses to draw on? Me neither.

How he convinced Sirius not to hunt Peter is another question. Though did Sirius know Voldemort was in Albania? Maybe Dumbledore, ah, neglected to mention that, and Sirius was grimly hunting tropical islands for rats between replying to Harry’s letter and drinking rum.

Comments

[aikaterini]

/Peter, the problem with why didn’t he flee happens waaay before/

Because JKR wanted him to be the traitor and then had no idea what to do with him after he helped resurrect Voldemort. Hence why Peter, the actual traitor, in a series where betrayal is a grave sin ("I loathe a traitor" after all) is treated as an insignificant footnote by everyone. Nobody takes him seriously -- not Voldemort, Snape, Harry, or Remus and Sirius after POA -- because the narrative doesn't. For all of the rage that Harry throws Snape's way, both before and after he finds out that Snape leaked the prophecy to Voldemort, he never shows anywhere near the kind of consuming hatred towards Peter. One would think that Severus Snape was the false friend who betrayed James and Lily to their killer, given the level of loathing that he receives from Harry and Sirius.

And for all that JKR didn't tell us about why Snape joined the Death Eaters, she painted a much more vivid picture of him than she did for Peter. Who is Peter? What does he gain by allying with Voldemort, both before and after Voldemort's fall? What is it about Voldemort that is so compelling that instead of fleeing Britain, Peter chooses to stick around and play the humiliated servant? At least Snape got the headmaster position and a seat at the table in DH. What does Peter get? A silver hand that strangles him in a botched attempt to tie up the 'life debt' thread in DH? Peter is so trivial to everyone else that the actual DH movies forgot about him. He's not in the Malfoy Manor scene, so he doesn't die and it's accidentally implied that he got away at the end.

[oryx_leucoryx]

Given Cosmic!Albus' explanation that Harry was able to return from King's Cross to the land of the living thanks to Voldemort's use of his blood in the making of the new Voldie-body, Peter's life-debt was paid when Harry's blood was taken and added to the cauldron. He could have poofed out of existence there and then, except it would take Harry 3 more years to learn how that worked.

[arjanenl]

I agree that the Doylist reason is that, like with many characters J.K. Rowling considers minor, she forgot him once he was used (see also Sally-Anne Perks for that). I was looking for a Watsonian reason why would he stay in Britain after the first war, let alone in the lead-up to the second though. Granted, I wasn’t looking that hard: I don’t think there’s one beyond authorial sloppiness.

[sunnyskywalker]

Harry isn't a very abstract thinker (partly because of his age, granted), so I can sort of understand him hating the guy he sees every day more than a vague blur "out there" somewhere. He hates Snape more than Voldemort, too, maybe because he only sees Voldemort once a year. But that's because Rowling chose to have Peter hanging out in the background! She could have written him out committing active villainy that Harry was at least partly aware of and given Harry enough motive to at least think about him with a scowl occasionally.

Don't remind the movie people that Movie!Peter probably got away. It might give them ideas.