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

[chantaldormand]

I like your take on panicked Peter's thinking, but IMHO outside of Jo needing him in right place at right time it makes no sense for Peter to be in 93' in UK.

Hitch ride on a ship as rat to any other country and Peter would be free to live under an assumed name without any problems. In fact, if I was Jo's editor I would try to convince her to introduce Peter in POA as a new character- a muggleborn's pet perhaps?- who did want to get up close and personal with Harry for one or other reason.

Why Albus didn't send Sirius after Peter is pretty easy to answer- because he believed in prophecy and needed someone to put Tom together. Why Sirius didn't go after Peter anyway is slightly harder to answer- I suspect it's guilt. Sirius spent over a decade fermenting in guilt over his actions that lead to his imprisonment. So I suspect that after his interactions with Harry in PoA he remembered he is supposed to be a responsible adult in that relationship who swore to protect Harry. And what with Harry helping him escape I suspect he tried to make a lot of false positive reports- and thus exotic birds which could very well be bewitched birds from private collection.

[sunnyskywalker]

Now I'm having fun imagining Padfoot trotting into the hypothetical Malfoy aviary to "borrow" a tropical bird to send a letter. Probably too much risk even for him. But their estate is in Wiltshire, and the real Longleat in Wiltshire really does have white peacocks (or at least did a few decades ago), and they have a safari park, so it seems like a good place to find all sorts of animals not native to England...

It's really too bad we don't have more characterization for Peter. Like, maybe he could have felt so tremendously guilt about selling out the Potters that he wanted to stick around and protect Harry. And then was just really bad at it. He couldn't figure out how to track down the Muggle Dursleys, so he settled in with a Ministry family who might hear rumors about the kid's whereabouts and had lots of kids of their own so worst case he could end up at Hogwarts when Harry eventually got there. Then his courage utterly failed him when it came to things like going down the trap door (maybe he figured out Quirrell's secret before anyone else?) and the basilisk adventure. But he bit Goyle that one time! Then he got revealed, realized how inadequate he was, and fled back to the Dark Side in shame and despair (but still couldn't bring himself to hurt any of the kids directly on the way out, and felt really bad about poking Harry's arm in the graveyard).

Unfortunately we have no evidence whatsoever of this and it's still pretty thin.

Gah. Why couldn't Arthur's one subordinate have been Rookwood's cousin or something so we might wonder whether Peter was spending those years looking for an opportunity to break in and rifle through the files to see whether Rookwood sold him out, and destroy the files if so? And had just failed and got too depressed to make much effort even to leave eventually, because what's the point, and anyway he hasn't been caught, and he probably deserves life as a rat for being so pathetic... I suppose Perkins could be Rookwood's cousin and no one ever mentioned it, but it's all very unsatisfying.

Hey. "Perkins" means something like "son of little Peter" ("Perkin" is an old diminutive of Peter). Maybe...no, I don't know.

[chantaldormand]

I never managed to finish Lightning on the Wave's Sacrifice Arc series, but from what I recall they made an interesting twist on Peter's involvement with Voldemort. If I remember correctly Peter was original Dumbledore's spy among DEs before Severus switched sides and he betrayed Potters on Albus' orders. I think that later in the series Harry learns Peter felt really guilty over the whole affair but couldn't go against his orders due to binding magic placed on him...? Hmmm something like that.

Anyway I can dig Peter staying by Harry's side and subtly trying to nudge the trio to either other activities ("the boy is way too much like Sirius and James... And who the hell places powerful artefacts in a school full of teenagers??") or alternatively helping them find answers to mysteries so they won't go stumbling into Forbbiden Forrest to chat with giant spiders.

What always gets me is Peter returning to Voldemort. If Voldemort was already assembled and recalling DEs then yeah, a coward would run to him. But with Peter being officially dead and not a very useful follower, I don't think Tom would go looking for him if Peter hid in let's say New Zealand.

So maybe Peter went to Voldemort in hopes to gain some kind of information to buy back his freedom via spying for Dumbledore? And wouldn't it be so much in Albus' style to keep Sirius GP12 bound, and have ANOTHER spy about whom nobody knew who just happens to be the only person whom Sirius would murder on sight? Hmmm 🤔

[sunnyskywalker]

Ooh, now Peter as a reluctant spy for Dumbledore has dramatic potential. Or even an attempted one? Like, he's at least partly figured out about Severus by now. It doesn't really matter what he thinks about Severus's true, deep-down loyalties; he knows that Dumbledore will apparently accept a penitent Death Eater into the fold, if his information seems good. So after he flees thanks to the distraction of Remus transforming, he decides that it's too risky to go to Dumbledore yet, because he doesn't have any information that Severus hasn't already given him. If he's useless, Dumbledore will probably happily throw him to the dementors to exonerate Sirius and prove to the Ministry that he's right and all that. But suppose he tracked downed the weakened Voldemort, pretended to help him out a bit, and then ran back to Dumbledore with loads of useful information? Yeah, then he'd get real protection!

Unfortunately, Bertha was a much more useful captive than he'd anticipated, and Voldemort not quite as helpless as Peter had hoped, and he now had to worry about Barty Junior too, and things got so far out of hand that he actually resurrected the Dark Lord. Oops. Probably too late to turn at that point...

[arjanenl]

Thinking about it, even for J.K. Rowling’s rationale for having Peter around, having him at the Weasleys might well be the worst choice: having him at the Patils — safely in another country until it’s time acting re. Potter — or at a Muggleborn’s — as far as Pettigrew is concerned, Muggles aren’t going to uncover him — could be easily enough understandable. Staying in British wizarding society, for all that British wizards don’t seem to socialise, seems real risky, above all at associates of the one person alive able to recognise his Animagus form.

[chantaldormand]

Honestly, pretending to be a pet in wizarding family is very risky, no matter if Peter stayed in UK or not. First, in wizarding homes, you can cast spells so even if nobody suspects their pet to be an adult man in disguise accidents happen. Maybe startled child performs accidental magic on Peter and their concerned guardians perform some kind of diagnostic spell to make sure kid's pet is ok. Or maybe Hogwarts-aged child tests out some harmless spells on their pet... Possibilities are infinite.

Second, for all lack of common sense wizards tends to know the differences between magical and mundane animals and objects. Magical rats live slightly longer than normal rats, half-kneazles are smarter than normal cats, etc. The only reason Peter wasn't busted by Molly and Artur is sheer dumb luck and both of them being too busy to take a closer look at what their kids are up to.

What I think would be an interesting scenario is Harry accidentally adopting rat!Peter* after the first year (so it wouldn't be obvious to the reader) and then discovering in PoA that his pet rat was the man who for one reason or another betrayed his parents. It gives slightly more omph to emotional impact and considering how selectively perceptive Harry is, it is very plausible.

*obviously in this scenario Peter was never Weasley's pet rat.

[sunnyskywalker]

That would be a good reason to pick the Weasleys over other families, that the house is too chaotic and everyone too busy to notice minor weird things. On the other hand, Fred and George might try to use him as a test subject. I sure wouldn't want to be a pet in that house.

Harry adopting a "found" Scabbers might have been really interesting. It would fit with a Peter who kind of wants to keep an eye on Harry and help him because he feels guilty, but fails catastrophically because of cowardice at critical moments. And it would give Harry a more meaningful pet than Hedwig, whose functions could have been almost entirely replaced by a series of communal school owls Harry borrows whenever he needs one. (I think it was Dan Hemmens who summarized the Battle of the Seven Potters as "Harry's mail client goes down." Harsh, but true.) But then Harry would have had to care about an apparently weak and helpless pet he actually had to take care of every day, which might have been good for him but apparently wouldn't teach Harry anything Rowling wanted him to learn.

[sunnyskywalker]

I don't think the Patils live abroad? The family just immigrated recently enough to still be giving their kids Indian names and wearing traditional clothing for special occasions. But they might visit grandparents in India during summers, which would give Peter an easy travel option if he wanted.

Probably the safest would be living with a Muggle family, or a series of Muggle families, who live next door to wizards. That way he could listen for or rifle through newspapers and files for information when necessary, but his hosts would have no way of detecting him.

Or he could live as a Pizza Rat and occasionally revert to human form to Imperius Ministry employees into telling him the news (like whether he's suddenly on any "if you see this wizard" lists). That probably wouldn't be any more dangerous than living with Fred and George.