Pondering Peter Pettigrew

Introduction

While waiting for HBP to be released, I reread the first five books so they'd be fresh in my mind when I read the sixth book. During that reread I made a connection between the timing of Peter's spying as given by Sirius in PoA and the Prophecy we learned about in OotP - namely that if Sirius was right about when Peter started spying, Peter didn't become a spy until after Voldemort not only knew about the Prophecy, but which children it might apply to and who their parents were. Which implies that Voldemort's primary reason for recruiting Peter was to have an agent close to the Potters.

I intend to make three points with this essay. The first is that Sirius' estimate of when Peter started spying is probably fairly accurate. The second is that Voldemort would be much more likely to want to recruit Peter as a spy after learning of the Prophecy than he was before learning of it. The third is that Peter being recruited after Voldemort learned of the Prophecy makes more sense than Peter being recruited earlier given some of the points JKR is trying to make with and about the choices Voldemort makes in response to the Prophecy.

I. A Question of Timing

"DON'T LIE!" bellowed Black. "YOU'D BEEN PASSING INFORMATION TO HIM FOR A YEAR BEFORE LILY AND JAMES DIED! YOU WERE HIS SPY!"
(PoA US pb, pg. 374)

This passage from PoA is the only place in the books we're given specific information on when Peter started giving information to Lord Voldemort. Many people seem to dismiss this statement, either figuring Sirius was just going by when the Order figured out someone was passing information to Voldemort or thinking that since Sirius hadn't realized that Peter was the spy in the first place until it was too late, he wouldn't be any better at figuring out when Peter started spying. But Sirius spent twelve years in Azkaban with little to do but brood over the mistakes he'd made and what he could have done differently to prevent James and Lily's deaths. As part of that, wouldn't he have gone over past events in light of Peter's betrayal and tried to spot the subtle signs of duplicity on Peter's part he should have noticed but didn't? I think Sirius did, and that's where he got his estimate of when Peter started spying from.

Given Sirius's (understandable) negative bias towards Peter at the time, he'd have been more likely to mistake unusual but innocent actions on Peter's part for evidence of his spying and overestimate how long Peter had been spying than to miss any of the actual evidence that was there. So while I doubt Sirius would be able to pin down the beginning of Peter's spying to a specific date, I think that the estimate of how long Peter had been spying for that Sirius came up with wouldn't be off by more than a few months at most. James and Lily died on Halloween night the year after Harry was born, a year prior to that plus or minus a few months puts Peter's recruitment by Voldemort around the time Harry was born or after, and definitely after Trelawney made her Prophecy.

II. Voldemort's Reasoning

When we consider Voldemort's decision on who to recruit as a spy, we need to keep in mind that all of his information on potential candidates would drawn from what his Death Eaters knew about them, not what we know about the eventual effectiveness of Peter's spying activities. From what we've seen, the general impression people had of Peter was that he was a weak-willed and not particularly competent wizard. And while Peter being weak-willed would make it easier for him to be turned, it also makes it more likely for Peter to fold under the pressure of being a spy. Adding to that the possibility of him being incompetent enough to accidentally give himself away makes him, while not the worst choice for a spy, not a great choice either. It's very unlikely that Peter held a position of significance in the Order that would tip things in his favor, and until after the Prophecy was made Peter's connections to the Potters wouldn't be much of an inducement. Voldemort would be better off subverting someone who appeared to be more likely to be up to the demands of spying, or tricking Dumbledore into taking someone who was actually loyal to Voldemort into his confidence. (We know from HBP that Voldemort did eventually try that second option using Snape.)

But once Voldemort learned of the first part of Trelawney's Prophecy and made his choice between the two boys born at the right time, he had a little bit of a problem. The Potters had already proven themselves adept at not getting killed by Death Eaters, and they would undoubtedly take additional precautions to protect themselves and Harry since Dumbledore knew of the Prophecy. So Voldemort needed an agent close to them, who could tell him where they were and what safety measures they were taking, even possibly sabotage them. It had to be someone already close to them, and if you look at James' three closest friends from Hogwarts, Peter's the obvious weakest link, isn't he? Of course, any information Peter would be able to provide about the Order would be useful, as well as serving as a way to break Peter into his new role slowly. And Peter only needed to last as a spy until Voldemort managed to off the Potters' child. Snape was already making Peter's role as a spy on the Order redundant by the time Voldemort went to Godric's Hollow to meet his fate.

III. The Importance of Choices

In OotP JKR made a point of giving Voldemort a choice between two children who might defeat him and having him chose the half-blood child over the pure-blooded one. But if Peter was already under Voldemort's control when Voldemort made the choice between Harry and Neville, wouldn't having an agent already trusted by one set of parents been a much more influential factor than the children's ancestry? The only way to balance the choice back out would be for Voldemort to have an agent close to the Longbottoms as well, which there is absolutely no evidence for in the books. Having Voldemort recruit Peter after making the choice between the boys keeps that from becoming an issue and lets Voldemort's choice have the meaning JKR wants it to without making us readers jump through any speculative hoops to justify it.

Also, in HBP JKR makes it clear that Trelawney's Prophecy was not an inevitable decree of fate, but only came about because of what Voldemort chose to do in response to it. For Voldemort to have the good fortune to already have a spy positioned so close to one of the potential prophecy children before he even knew of Trelawney's Prophecy runs a bit counter to that, at least to me. He would have made what would turn out to be the best choice for a spy he possibly could have before he could know that the choice would be a good one. While having Peter's recruitment be a deliberate choice of Voldemort's after learning of Trelawney's Prophecy and who it would apply to neatly ties Peter's betrayal, which is so crucial to how events played out, to Voldemort's reaction to Trelawney's Prophecy, thus further supporting the point JKR is making.

Conclusion

Peter being recruited after Voldemort made his decision that Harry Potter was the child Trelawney's prophecy spoke of fits the timeline given by the characters themselves for when Peter started spying. It makes more sense for Voldemort to have chosen Peter after Peter's connection to the Potters became important, not before. And finally, having Voldemort recruit Peter at that time supports point JKR is clearly trying to make instead of undercutting them the way an earlier recruitment date for Peter would.