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

[arjanenl]

Even then, I don’t think he could know Dumbledore would chose that time to switch from covering Sirius to throwing him under the bus: after all, a trial with the attendant Veritaserum would have revealed immediately that Peter was the traitor and not Sirius.

For me the frameup is incomplete because even after it he still acts as if it didn’t happen and he were still on the run: if Peter really thought the frameup was successful, what the hell was he doing as a rat for so many years?

[sunnyskywalker]

Hm, another thought: is there someone who doesn't know that Peter was the Secret-Keeper but does know he was a Death Eater? Rookwood or Karkaroff, for example. Karkaroff doesn't seem to have known many names, but it's possible he sold out someone else before the hearing we saw. Rookwood's arrest seems to have led to others, such as Ludo Bagman's. Peter wouldn't even need to know for sure that they knew his identity, as long as he thought they might have recognized him at some point. If Peter suspected that someone might shop him, he would have a reason to stay dead even after framing Sirius for the Potters' betrayal. If he killed Sirius and cast himself in the role of hero only to be outed as a DE a few days later, people might start asking questions, and the whole exercise would have been wasted. So make sure Sirius doesn't talk and disappear. Either he hoped to catch Sirius in the blast and screwed up (but Sirius being tortured in Azkaban is a perfectly acceptable alternative), or he prefers not to kill people he actually knows (Sirius, Ron, Harry) and so designed a set-up to let other people do the torturing or killing for him.

Which maybe takes care of the "why not take credit for killing Sirius" problem, but not the "why hide as a rat" problem. Doylistically, yeah, Rowling just forgot. But Watsonianly? If he thought Karkaroff or Rookwood might have sold him out but the Ministry was keeping it quiet as long as they thought Peter was dead (and the duel was a case of villains falling out) because "poor hero Peter" makes a better story...could he have wondered whether Dumbledore would know in that case and send Remus after him if he popped up in another country? And stuck around to see whether Arthur, lower-ranking DMLE employee and brother-in-law of Order members, would say something? I'm not sure it works, but it's the best I've got so far.