whinlatter

[whinlatter]

Thoughts on Ron and Krum?

You know, Krum is the only guy Ron was kinda gushing over. I know he's meant to resemble how ardent football fanboys can be over footballers

This is one Ron gay ship I can like ... see potential.

"Yeah, that's right, smarm up to him, Malfoy," said Ron scathingly. "I bet Krum can see right through him, though… bet he gets people fawning over him all the time… Where d'you reckon they're going to sleep? We could offer him a space in our dormitory, Harry… I wouldn't mind giving him my bed." [GoF 16]

presented without comment.

[whinlatter]

Snape’s plaque in the Hogwarts Memorial Garden be like

[whinlatter]

this is ??? absolutely unbelievable ????

thank you SO so so much for building this exquisite playlist and BEAUTIFUL reflection on my fic good god. i am blown away by the thought and consideration and time spent responding to the work and pulling out these scenes and finding wonderful musical pairings for them. did i just trip over racing to the kitchen to get my airpods out and sit with this playlist for a few hours? yes! you bet your ass i did! and i already know it was worth it! i can’t believe someone took the time to do this! you’re a marvel!

I loved the fanfic Beasts by whinlatter so much, I made an 8-tracks style playlist about it.

What makes it an 8-tracks style playlist?  Because it has 16 songs – 8 tracks for Side A and 8 tracks for Side B.  No more.  No less.

There were two songs that initially inspired this playlist, and it would have been easy to make a 5 or 6 song long playlist.  Or I could have every song that had a lyric that fit, and would have made a 20-30 song playlist.  But 16 songs exactly?  That was the challenge… and the fun. I wanted to make sure every song fit lyrically with the story and musically with each other.  Sometimes I chose covers rather than the original artist, not because I liked the song better, but because it fit with the other music. It got me to dig through old songs I half remembered and discover new artists I'd never heard before.

But I’m talking too much.  See below for each song and why I thought it fit.  Whinlatter has done beautiful work writing a story that is melancholy and hopeful, dark and funny, about characters that are broken and hurting each other and loving and strong all at the same time. I looked for songs that carried the same spirit.

“Side A” is Ginny trying, and somewhat idealizing her relationship with Harry, and everything up to New Years and their fight.  “Side B” is the fight and fear and hurting and growing and trying.

(The quotes don’t always line up in that order because sometimes characters have beautifully concise thoughts in later chapters about their earlier actions.)

Side A

i, Carrion (Icarian) // Hozier

Notes: This is one of the two songs that made me want to make a playlist.  When I first heard this song, I took all the references to flying and falling very literally and thought of Ginny struggling with Quidditch after the war.  However, after many re-listens and reading the lyrics more closely, I see this song as Harry’s and his unconscious dependence on Ginny being “light” for him, and so we start the playlist with his POV because we enter fanfics in general from the POV of the source material.

Lyric: Once I had wondered what was holdin' up the ground / But I can see that all along, love, it was you all the way down

and

 Lyric: If I should fall on that day / I only pray / don’t fall away from me

2. Dead Girl Walking // Jensen McRae

Quote: ‘And your name?’

She hesitates, a fraction too long to lie. ‘Ginny,’ she says stiffly. ‘Ginny Weasley.’

[…]

‘But [..] she – she died, didn’t she?’ he asks anxiously, turning to Tuft for clarification. ‘In the Chamber of Secrets debacle? In 1993?’

-Beasts, Chapter 12: scarecrow by whinlatter

and

Sometimes I worry all I have to show for seven years of school are a lot of nightmares and bad memories. I don’t want to feel like that. I think I keep coming back because I think I can make it different, this time. 

            -Beasts, Chapter 12: scarecrow by whinlatter

Lyric:  Aches in my body like I stayed up boxing / I’m a dead girl walking / but I’ve walked this far.

Notes: Jensen McRae is a really amazing up-and-coming singer.  I love this song in particular but there are many others you should check out and enjoy!

3. Landslide // Dagny

Lyric: Oh, mirror in the sky, what is love? / Can the child within my heart rise above? / Can I sail through the changin' ocean tides? / Can I handle the seasons of my life?

Notes: A classic song about the struggles of growing up and life not being what you planned.  I knew I wanted this song on the playlist for a while and honestly the hardest part was figuring out if I wanted the original or a cover, and if so, which cover!  Ultimately, I went with Dagny because I thought her sound best fit with the rest of the playlist. 

4. Brooklyn // Emily James

Quote:  ‘Yeah. Sometimes. I mean – I know we joke in letters, and stuff. But it’s just – if I’m having a bad day, or it’s all a bit – much.’ His face twitches slightly. ‘I sometimes just go to a shop and buy something. That we could have in our house one day. I don’t know. It’s just nice. To buy us some egg-cups, or whatever.’

Beasts, Chapter 11: hatched by whinlatter

Lyric:  When I'm alone, I hold you like a locket / Next to my heart where you'll never get lost as / We run through moments we don't know yet

and

Quote:  It’s stupid how happy it makes her, seeing him all cocky, flirting with her in the old kitchen, letting him snog her up against the rough stone walls and hoist her up on the counter top.

Beasts, Chapter 9: wintering by whinlatter

Lyric:  I wanna wake up in my sheets and your T-shirt

Notes: Just pretend the singer is daydreaming about meeting up with her boyfriend in London instead of in Brooklyn.

5. Hope – Acoustic // Tom Rosenthal, Lizzy McAlpine

Lyric:  Can you hold me from afar? / Pretend that you are closer / Keep all our memories in the jar / And place it right beside you

and

Lyric:  You are in my heart when it has hope

6. Let Light Be Light // Lizzy McAlpine

Notes: Lizzy McAlpine might win the award for the most songs that are almost perfect for this playlist, but then had one or two lines that really changed the tone.  I switched many of her songs in and out but ultimately picked “Let Light Be Light” in honor of how hard Ginny was trying to be light over Christmas.

Quote:  ‘We’ve been writing a lot. Every day, pretty much. I’ve never – with anyone – I dunno. It meant a lot to me, hearing from you. But it’s weird to think you didn’t write down anything that was actually happening to you. That you were leaving stuff out, I mean. You must have been scared. But you never said.’

She looks past him, to the crack in the door to Regulus’ room, to floorboards covered in ink. Imagines childish handwritten words on a page, the rattle of the Boggart cupboard. To the Dark Lord. Dear Tom.

‘I just find it hard,’ she says, finally. ‘To say this stuff. To write it down. How I’m feeling, what I’m scared about. Especially to someone else. It’s been a long time since I’ve done that. It went so wrong, before.’

Beasts, Chapter 11: hatched by whinlatter

Lyric:   I don't like getting attached / It makes me feel like I've done something bad / 'Cause I'm not dependent and I know that / So why am I scared I'm reliving / That part of my past?

7. Speak // Ben Abraham

Notes: Another song for Harry – I think this song is a great fit for the room at the top of the house by whinlatter, which serves as a little “missing moment” from Beasts.

Quote: he loves her letters. no-one’s written to him since 1996, not since sirius. and now the funniest loveliest most magical girl in the world writes him five times a week. they sail through his window, like little guiding balls of light from forever ago, pure illumination. they're the best bits of his week, her letters, paper proof of her love.

she's lying to him, though. she keeps saying she's fine. he knows that's not true.

the room at the top of the house by whinlatter

Lyric:  You're hiding like a memory / Teasing like a girl I used to know

and

Quote:  all he wants to say is: gin, stop laughing a sec. stop lying. he wants to take the box of photos off her and put it on the side and hold her hands and say come on, stop this, tell me. he imagines crouching before her, asking: what's going on? what's up with you? and what did you mean, when you said it’d be ok, if i left and did christmas without you? did you think that’s what i want? paranoid thoughts: are you trying to hurt me? why would you not tell me the truth?

the room at the top of the house by whinlatter

Lyric: I panic as you try to disappear / I reach out with my fingers / And try to pull the letters back in line / But your words spin out of order / And the pounding in my chest is out of time / And I just want to speak

8. The Archer – Live from Paris // Taylor Swift

Notes: Forgive me, I still remember listening to Taylor Swifts first album in middle school and must include her in almost all my playlists.  I think this song fits ridiculously well, though.  Look at all the parallels!

Quote: You ask Ginny Weasley if she thought of herself as a child and see what she says. By her own description, she was a combatant. She was a soldier. She had her own war to fight. 

Beasts, Chapter 14: the vulture by whinlatter

Lyric:  I’m ready for Combat // I say I don’t want this, but what if I do?

and

Quote: …she can’t bring herself to pick up the quill and tell him. It’s so lonely up here. I’m so scared about this inquiry. I’m so scared I’ll let everyone down. I’m so scared you’re going to change your mind.

Beasts, Chapter 12: scarecrow by whinlatter

Lyric:  I've got a hundred thrown-out speeches I almost said to you

and

Quote:  She’s sat up in her bunk, cross-legged in her old Quidditch jumper, eyes scratching from lack of sleep. Under her bare legs, the sheets are still slick from the sweat she woke up in, retching and shuddering, kicking furiously against the bedclothes. Sleep: always the first thing to go, the first comfort to leave her when storms are brewing.

Beasts, Chapter 3: nocturnal by whinlatter

Lyric:  I wake in the night, I pace like a ghost / The room is on fire, invisible smoke

and

Quote: ‘You think they tortured you so badly you think they might have broken something in your brain. ’

‘That makes it sound loads worse than it is. I don’t think that is what it is – ’

‘Like Neville’s parents.’ 

Beasts, Chapter 11: reared by whinlatter

Lyric:  All the king's horses, all the king's men / Couldn't put me together again

Side B

9. Sick of Losing Soulmates // Dodie

Quote:  ‘I wasn’t lying. It wasn’t like that, it’s not like I was trying to lie to you, to get some kick out of it – ’ 

‘No. You just didn’t tell me anything at all. Loads better.’ 

Beasts, Chapter 11: hatched by whinlatter

Lyric:  Brave face, talk so lightly, hide the truth

and

Quote:  ‘All those endless letters to you, how were you ever going to feel like you could be honest with him? Having all that to deal with.’ Hermione looks exasperated. Crookshanks flexes his claws, as if to back her up. ‘You know, sometimes I think he forgets it’s not your job to drop everything and look after him.’

Beasts, Chapter 12: scarecrow by whinlatter

Lyric:  Watch how a cold broken teen will desperately lean / On a superglued human of proof

Basically, Harry and Ginny are both - Lyric:  I can finally see / you’re as fucked up as me / so how do we win?

10. Talking to Myself // Gatlin

Quote: […]there’s no letter. She’s not heard from him in ten days.

Beasts, Chapter 12: scarecrow by whinlatter

Lyric:  I got used to your voice / Like it was my own / Now there's kind of a void / I'm totally fine though

11. Fear of Water // Noah Kahan

Quote: She sits down on the bed, the weight of it all hitting her all at once. Puts her head in her hands, starts to cry.

[…]

‘The inquiry. The stupid inquiry. They’re going to do it in March. It’s - it's not a big deal, I don’t know why it’s all made me feel like this – sorry, I need to get some tissues – ’

Beasts, Chapter 12: scarecrow by whinlatter

Lyric:  These tears aren't some sweet response to tragedy / Today I can't say why they fall / Honey, it's all chemical

12. Summer’s End – Spotify Singles // Phoebe Bridgers, Maria Taylor

Quote: ‘How was your Christmas, Ginny?’

Her head’s pounding. Her ankles keep buckling in these stupid boots. ‘It was shit,’ she shouts back, over the the thudding of the music, the laughter and shouting, far-off smashing of glass. ‘How was yours?’

Beasts, Chapter 9: wintering by whinlatter

Lyric:  Well I can see that you can't win for trying / And New Year's Eve is bound to leave you crying

and

Quote: There’s [a photograph] of her, one she hasn’t seen before – […] Strange, to see her own eyes soften, the scowl fall away, as she looks at the boy behind the camera, watching a feeling she has only ever felt and never seen.

Beasts, Chapter 8: bones by whinlatter

Lyric: The moon and stars hang out in bars just talking / I still love that picture of us walking

Note: The voicemail in the beginning is like a little bonus for Ginny’s forgotten birthday in Chapter 10.

Additionally, I think the resounding chorus of "come on home" can be read in multiple ways, Harry wanting Ginny to live with him, Ginny wanting her mother to pull through grief, and even Ginny talking to herself, to "come home" to her own body, which is why it's on Side B, not Side A.

13. Shine – Acoustic Version // Anna Nalick

Quote: Ginny –The inquiry is DEFINITELY happening. […] You’ll be offered anonymity for any testimony you give because you were underage. Don’t take it. The others won’t testify publicly if you don’t, you’re the one who can tell them what really happened and to properly make them fucking listen. The time for sitting on the fence is over. I want us to tell the world exactly what happened, I want to bring them down, I want them to pay for what they’ve done to us. So can you start replying to our letters please??? – Michael

Beasts, Chapter 12: scarecrow by whinlatter

Lyric:  Isn’t it time you got over how fragile you are?

Note: Anna Nalick’s song is much more supportively encouraging than Michael Corner’s letter, but, alas, Ginny does not get perfect mentors, just friends and allies trying to muddle through as best they can.

14. Better Days // Menna

Lyric:  When I break in the same place /And I′ve made the same mistakes / Wonder if I'll ever change / Or my heart′s just meant to ache

and

Lyric: I know there'll be better days / Even when I don't know how

Notes: I really wanted an anthem that wasn’t a love song on this playlist, because while her romance with Harry is important in Beasts (because, after all, romance is important in real life) it’s not the whole plot.  Ginny gets to be a full person with dynamic friendships and allies and goals, and she ultimately decides to keep trying for the future in every sense – trying with school, trying with quidditch, trying with Harry, and trying with the inquiry – even when she’s not sure how any of it will turn out okay in the end.

Also, Menna is a fantastic artist!  She’s got a number of really great songs – I especially recommend Sex in Public, Dynamite, and Didn’t Peak in High School.

15. I’m A Man // Nathan Evans, Foy Vance

Notes: This was the first song that made me want to make a Beasts playlist.  In a reversal from “i, carrion”, I originally thought of this as a Harry song, but ultimately realized that it’s Ginny all the way.  Yes, the lyrics are extremely male-gendered.  But it’s Ginny’s song.

Quotes: The entire letter Ginny sends to Harry in Chapter 12 [feels too long to quote]

and

She reads through both copies of her statement again - one for the court, one for Harry.

Beasts, Chapter 14: the vulture by whinlatter

Lyrics:  I'm a man, therefore I'm proud / And I hide away all my fears and doubts / And I hope that you'll never find me out

and

I've been struggling, I've been hurt / Guess that's what I thought I deserved / I got drunk to try and pretend I didn't care / And now I'm calling you for a truce / Finally ready to tell the truth / I can face it as long as I am here with you

16. Orpheus // Sara Bareilles

Quote: [….] ‘Is all that true?’

She swallows, mouth like sandpaper, finds she can’t speak.

‘Ginny, I’m serious, what was he talking about?’

[…]

She looks over at Harry. His head is in his hands.

Beasts, Chapter 14: the vulture by whinlatter

Lyric:  You miss the world / The one you knew / The one where everything made sense / Because you didn't know the truth

and

Don't stop / Trying to find me here amidst the chaos / Though I know it's blinding / There's a way out / Say out loud / We will not give up on love now

Notes: Whinlatter’s story is still ongoing, so this last song is where I think the story is heading.  I wanted to end on a song of hard-won hope, of not everything being okay but knowing you’re going to work towards it. 

~*~

Lastly, I just want to say that reading Whinlatter’s work has been an absolutely delight, and I’ve had so much fun putting together this playlist. I hope you get some enjoyment out of it, too.

[whinlatter]

i guess the full eulogy for dumbledore was not relevant to harry’s story

[whinlatter]

which hp book is your favorite?

goblet of fire - it feels the most northern irish in terms of worldbuilding [which i mean as both a compliment and an insult], harry and ron's bi panic is exquisite, snape is suffering from workplace discrimination and i and dumbledore both find it funny, and it's voldemort's cuntiest book by quite some distance...

[whinlatter]

More from my old hard-drive. I'm trying to be a more organised person digitally and that means I'm going on a deep dive into ancient files. Always very weird to be confronted with old work. Some of it I hate because is so bad, and some of it I hate because it's good and I don't think I can ever do it again.

This one is not that good but it's not that bad.

Here's Aberforth Dumbledore working on new ways to bring the crowd in.

[whinlatter]

gryffindor class of ‘98!

[whinlatter]

Ginny went to visit the shrieking shack with Luna. And Luna started telling a strange story about the screams not being from ghosts but from a boy who was a werewolf and who lived a long time ago in the neighborhood and his best friends were a rat, a dog and a deer.

Photo taken by Luna.

[whinlatter]

For the unhinged and deranged ships,

Harry/Michael Corner. The Venn diagram of their canonical exes is a circle

Michael Corner/Tom Riddle

thank you very much for the ask, anon!

michael corner/harry potter

we have to say flopping, i fear!

it initially looks like it would work, since harry clearly enjoys being gassed up by michael and michael enjoys telling him how fantastic he is:

"Look," he said and everyone fell silent at once, "I... I don't want to sound like I'm trying to be modest or anything, but... I had a lot of help with all that stuff..." "Not with the dragon, you didn't,” said Michael Corner at once. "That was a seriously cool bit of flying..."  "Yeah, well - " said Harry, feeling it would be churlish to disagree.

but we know that this initial spark would sour pretty quickly, since michael is famously a sore loser. he's not going to put up with harry constantly being an absolute legend for long.

[by which i mean everyone loves to focus on capslock harry in order of the phoenix, to the detriment of "yes, i am an icon" harry, but it's his best book too!]

michael corner/tom riddle

sure, why not. the opportunity to swap stories about michael's sexual performance would help tom and ginny achieve their destinies as bffs who spend their days yapping over a pinot grigot.

[this also works, as anyone with taste knows, as a tomarry premise.]

[whinlatter]

Antonin/Salazar Slytherin. I’m just mindlessly throwing darts atp

no, you're correctly identifying a hot ship, anon.

my favourite incidental character detail in the books is that dolohov is clearly a great pal.

he travels all the way to hogsmeade to wish voldemort luck for his interview and buy him a drink after:

"Then if I were to go to the Hog's Head tonight, I would not find a group of them - Nott, Rosier, Mulciber, Dolohov - awaiting your return? Devoted friends indeed, to travel this far with you on a snowy night, merely to wish you luck as you attempted to secure a teaching post."

[dumbledore's just being a bitch here because he's so gutted he doesn't have a group of lads ready to assemble for pints at any opportunity...]

dolohov is also is gassed for yaxley when he achieves his greatest professional triumph:

"My Lord, I have good news on that score. I have - with difficulty, and after great effort - suceeded in placing an Imperius Curse upon Pius Thicknesse." Many of those sitting around Yaxley looked impressed; his neighbour, Dolohov, a man with a long, twisted face, clapped him on the back.

[voldemort - in contrast - couldn't give less of a fuck because he's too busy flirting with snape.]

and what do we know about slytherin? also stupendously devoted to dealing craic with the lads:

For were there such friends anywhere As Slytherin and Gryffndor? Unless it was the second pair Of Huffepuff and Ravenclaw?

these two are a pair of true #lovers, and i think we can all agree that mashing their capacity for deep and abiding commitment together can only end well.

[whinlatter]

PT 1: LILY IN HER OWN WORDS🪷

*despite being at the center of the narrative- the mother who saves harry with the “power of love,” we know very little about lily evans. many characters tell harry what his parents are like- brave, or kind, or good at potions- but harry, and the reader by extension, rarely gets to see for himself. finally, in the later books, we get some flashbacks which show what lily was really like without the halo of death. her voice, her words, her tone all serve her characterization (if you’re interested in pulling from the book, and it’s okay if you’re not.) in this part i’ve gathered almost every instance where lily speaks herself from childhood up to october 31st. most are from snape’s pov, one from voldemort’s, and the letter stands by itself. the next part will be every instance of speech post-death. just a little something of interest for the lily evans enjoyers (◡‿◡✿)

[whinlatter]

What do you think of Ginny’s “I knew you wouldn’t be happy if you weren’t hunting Voldemort” line in HBP? Do you feel like she’s mischaracterizing Harry or do you think there’s some truth to it? Or do you think the line meant something else entirely and people are just taking it at face value?

great question, anon! i think there’s a lot of truth in that line, even though i don’t think ginny realises quite how much at the time.

i think it’s important to remember how much ginny doesn’t know at the point she says these words. we know she doesn’t believe in or know anything about the prophecy (‘All this Chosen One rubbish is just the Prophet making things up as usual’). we know she knows nothing about horcruxes, and while she knows harry has had private lessons with dumbledore and that he was with dumbledore the night he died, that’s really the extent of her knowledge of it all. it’s why harry letting slip he’s going to go bump off voldemort in DH is such a shock to her: harry talks candidly to ginny as he would to ron or hermione, who are both in the picture, and gets a stark reminder of how little ginny knows when she responds with shock (‘So it’s true? That’s what you’re trying to do?’)

important, too, that ginny says these lines at the funeral of someone harry loved and cared for. harry - a person who already has enough reasons to seek revenge on voldemort - has just had one more reason laid at his door why voldemort needs to be brought down and paid to pay.

this is what ginny means when she says harry would not be happy if he wasn’t hunting voldemort. were harry to leave the task of hunting voldemort to others, he would not be content: he would be restless and angry and would find it unbearable (à la sirius in ootp). ginny would not ask it of him - in fact, she relates to it (‘Maybe that’s why I like you so much.’) she knows their relationship would not be tenable under those circumstances, either. she knows he would choose the cause over her, and she accepts and respects it (‘There some things worth dying for’ - i’ve talked about it elsewhere, but ginny believes in self-sacrifice, as all of harry’s loved ones tend to do).

i think people who bristle at this line (often doing bad-faith readings of the books to support different ship agendas, once again a reminder that you can make the case for other ships without wilfully misreading the text) don’t like the implication that harry fighting voldemort is about him making himself happy. their argument is that this responsibility was put on harry by others: that harry is only ever a victim, that it’s not about his happiness but about an externally-imposed duty, that he did not choose this path.

but while the text is clear that harry is a victim in many ways, it is also absolutely clear that harry chooses to be the chosen one. he chooses to make the prophecy true: he chooses his own path, as dumbledore knew he would, and he does decide that it is the only course of action he can live with. it’s happiness in the sense of ultimate purpose and a satisfaction in the service of a worthy goal, one no-one else could succeed in. it’s hermione who puts it most bluntly back in ootp (‘Do you like having this connection to You Know Who?’) harry bristles at this at the time, but the truth is he does get some sense of drive and purpose from his connection with voldemort and the fusing of their fates, in ways he increasingly (though silently) comes to accept as the series goes on.

so the reason the words are more true than ginny could ever know at this point is the narrative is the fact (as i say, often overlooked in analyses of harry’s trauma but vital to his character) that harry does derive something like happiness from taking on voldemort alone. ginny doesn’t know about harry’s choice to be the chosen one: she just knows him, and she ends up making a shrewd and correct assessment of him even without some very important information about harry’s road ahead.

(last thing - it’s worth clocking how harry reacts to this line. he can’t bear to hear her say these things (not because they are false; because they are true!) and he leaves because he’s worried he will buckle and change his mind if he keeps sitting with ginny, because she brings him happiness too — a different kind of happiness, one he has decided he is not entitled to because of the fate he has accepted for himself. to harry at least, it’s a scene spent with - by his own narrative admission - someone who understands him perfectly. worth not leaving that part out of the analysis, i find…)

[whinlatter]

i'm afraid i've only found more peter-ginny parallels since!

for starters, there's all the listening at doors...

'Snape held up a hand to stop [Narcissa], then pointed his wand again at the concealed staircase door. There was a loud bang and a squeal, followed by the sound of Wormtail scurrying back up the stairs. "My apologies,' said Snape. 'He has lately taken to listening at doors, I don’t know what he means by it. You were saying, Narcissa?"'

'Turning to Fred and George [Ginny] said, “It’s no go with the Extendable Ears, she’s gone and put an Imperturbable Charm on the kitchen door.” “How d’you know?” said George, looking crestfallen. “Tonks told me how to find out,” said Ginny. “You just chuck stuff at the door and if it can’t make contact the door’s been Imperturbed. I’ve been flicking Dungbombs at it from the top of the stairs and they just soar away from it, so there’s no way the Extendable Ears will be able to get under the gap...'

...then there's the performance of domestic labour, the implication of humiliating confinement within the home...

“Wormtail will get us drinks, if you’d like them,” said Snape. “And then he will return to his bedroom.” Wormtail winced as though Snape had thrown something at him. “I am not your servant!” he squeaked, avoiding Snape’s eye. “Really? I was under the impression that the Dark Lord placed you here to assist me.” “To assist, yes — but not to make you drinks and — and clean your house!”

The door opened again and Mrs. Weasley popped her head in. “Ginny,” she whispered, “come downstairs and help me with the lunch." “I’m talking to this lot!” said Ginny, outraged. “Now!” said Mrs. Weasley, and withdrew.'

...then there's the service to voldemort: the pathetic figure, held in contempt, that nonetheless allows voldemort to return to a corporeal form...

'"You returned to me, not out of loyalty, but out of fear of your old friends. You deserve this pain, Wormtail. You know that, don’t you?... Yet you helped return me to my body,” said Voldemort coolly, watching Wormtail sob on the ground. “Worthless and traitorous as you are, you helped me . . . and Lord Voldemort rewards his helpers. . . .”

"So Ginny poured out her soul to me, and her soul happened to be exactly what I wanted. I grew stronger and stronger on a diet of her deepest fears, her darkest secrets... So I made Ginny write her own farewell on the wall and come down here to wait. She struggled and cried and became very boring. But there isn’t much life left in her: she put too much into the diary, into me. Enough to let me leave its pages at last."

The Ginny and Peter parallel though?? How have I never thought about that?? It‘s so horrifying and insanely compelling to me at the same time. I would love to hear (read?) you elaborate on that.

"Sirius, Sirius, what could I have done? The Dark Lord… you have no idea… he has weapons you can't imagine…. I was scared, Sirius, I was never brave like you and Remus and James. I never meant it to happen…. He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named forced me - " "Harry – oh, Harry – I tried to tell you at b-breakfast, but I c-couldn’t say it in front of Percy. It was me, Harry – but I – I s-swear I d-didn’t mean to  - R-Riddle made me, he took me over..."

thank you so much for this question anon.  i have been thinking about this for a long time - about how ginny weasley might have made a really, really good traitor - and would love to talk more about my thinking behind it. a little meta on traitor talk - who flips, and why, and why ginny weasley might be the peter pettigrew to the trio's marauders after all - can be found below the cut (with spoilers for beasts chapter 14). 

hp, as a series, puts great moral emphasis on the concept of choice. after all, it’s about a world at war, where the question of whose side you're on is often a matter of life or death. double agents, deception, treachery, people serving the interests of others (either consensually or under duress): these are recurrent tropes, on both sides of the wizarding war. the plot begins the ultimate act of betrayal - that of lily and james potter by peter pettigrew - and the series concludes with the revelation of another (snape). throughout the books, there are all sorts of characters who spy, or flip, for all sorts of reasons. you have those who knowingly pretend to be serving the interests of one side when actually serving another, for principled reasons, either ideological motivation or out of selfless loyalty to another person: snape, peter, likely rookwood, quirrell, fake moody/barty crouch jr, both sirius and regulus black, kreacher, and narcissa in the forest. and then you have the group who betray either out of fear, or who are manipulated into acts of betrayal and deceit, sometimes through possession but otherwise through blackmail and intimidation, to varying degrees: xenophilius lovegood, mundungus fletcher, pius thicknesse, marietta edgecombe, bertha jorkins, bathilda bagshot, those types. (in a sign of jkr’s consistently dicked-up biases re gender in the series, women are never allowed to be interesting enough to actively betray anyone unless they’re doing it out of maternal love eg. narcissa - they can only ever actively be led astray or hoodwinked, whereas male characters can have a vast array of complex motivations and all sorts of shades of moral grey. we'll come back to that in a minute).

in chapter 14 of my postwar fic beasts, during the course of the hogwarts inquiry, augustus rookwood takes the stand and testifies of an attempt by him and his fellow death eaters to find someone who could play double agent to pass secrets about the resistance, the order and harry to the other side during the second wizarding war. rookwood - himself a former double agent - talks about how to make a traitor. he discusses the different motivations of traitors, how to find a target and how to exploit their existing vulnerabilities and weak-points to get them to come around to your side. he also reveals that, during the death eater seizure of the ministry and hogwarts school, he and his peers identified a would-be target in ginny weasley. in the fic, i have him describe the process of traitor-identification as ‘the pettigrew playbook’: finding someone who is connected, who knows the order’s secrets, who has the information you want, and who will flip less out of an ardent ideological commitment, but more because they are weak and scared but also disrespected and resentful and more inclined to save their own neck than act out of loyalty

i’ve always been very struck by peter pettigrew’s attempts to justify his betrayal of lily and james in PoA (see above). peter pettigrew is always a slippery and elusive character, rendered mostly through other people’s memories or descriptions of him. this is one of the very few times he explains something of his own worldview - though, as we know he is a liar, and in this instance errrr trying to save his own life as sirius threatens to kill him (slay), we have to take even these lines with a pinch of salt. we know pettigrew is a character that acts, at all times, out of a desire for self-preservation, trying to secure his own survival. he was tolerated but never respected by his schoolfriends, made the potters’ secret keeper as a ‘perfect bluff’ because he was a  ‘weak, talentless thing’ voldemort would never bother going after, a trait which ultimately made him the perfect and most vulnerable target. when outed as the real spy by sirius and remus here, he acknowledges he is aware of his deficiencies and weaknesses, and talks about his fear for his own life, his sense of how he did not live up to the principled bravery of his friends, and claims  that voldemort ‘forced him’ to surrender lily and james - presumably through the threat of terrible violence, suffering and death. 

pettigrew’s remarks are particularly interesting when put alongside the justifications and excuses of another character who has betrayed harry to voldemort, albeit under very different circumstances. like peter, ginny’s confession is given through floods of tears as a desperate plea to be believed and excused. in it, ginny begs harry to understand her own lack of culpability. just as wormtail does, she insists to harry she was forced by riddle to cause harm to others and to hand information about harry over to riddle, and to play an integral role in returning lord voldemort to life.  of course, the series always frames ginny’s actions in CoS as the behaviour of an entirely innocent person. but even these lines show a streak of self-preservation and a certain amount of weakness and cowardice that runs throughout ginny’s encounter with the diary. ‘I couldn’t say it in front of Percy’, she says, suggesting she feared getting in deep trouble with no proof of riddle’s hand in her actions. in fact throughout the diary episode, ginny shows real moments of acting to save herself rather than do the right thing and come forward with the truth. she tries to dispose of the diary, but doesn’t go to a teacher about what it has been making her do. she stole the diary back not to protect harry but to protect her own secrets and prevent him from discovering her complicity (at least by TMR’s telling). she even watches hagrid get falsely accused and sent to azkaban, and stays silent in the process, a distinctly pettigrew echo if ever i heard one. 

of course, we know ginny and peter pettigrew’s relationships with voldemort are not alike in dignity. it’s clear that, in so many ways, ginny’s encounter with the diary is much more clearly an experience of victimhood than of malicious intent. we know that ginny was possessed; we know she is not a character who would commit murder without that level of involuntary mental surrender. but there are more uncomfortable echoes of pettigrew in her experiences in CoS. we see them in the decisions of a character acting of fear and a desire to save their own skin in ginny’s experience of the diary than we might like to think. ginny ofc was targeted by lucius malfoy because of who her family was, as stalwarts of the anti-voldemort pro-muggle resistance during the first wizarding war, with powerful enemies determined to discredit and undermine them at every turn. but, as TMR makes clear, what makes ginny such a good target in the end, so vulnerable and so useful, was that she was weak. she was insecure, and lonely, teased and misunderstood and feeling inadequate. in all of that, there was a very rich opening for TMR to access her innermost fears and secrets and to use them to manipulate, pressure and threaten her into compliance, in addition to the active possession of her body to conduct deliberate acts of attempted murder. it’s not a perfect pettigrew parallel by any means. but there’s more than a little bit of pettigrew in that, too. 

maybe more parallels with ginny and peter pettigrew than meets the eye - particularly in ginny’s relationship to the trio. there are a few posts that periodically do the rounds on tumblr and reddit that talk about neville’s relationship to the trio as the parallel to peter pettigrew’s with the marauders - as this post compellingly puts it, ‘all who peter could have been’. neville, these posts usually point out, was a character who was weak and much less talented than his friends, an outsider who needed the protection and patience of cooler classmates, who was always on the outside looking in on a friend group that largely excluded him. what distinguished neville from peter was his approach to his own weakness, and how that approach drove him to heroism rather than betrayal and villainy. it’s an interesting idea, and there’s something to it. but the more i thought about it, the more i thought - is neville + the trio the only parallel with peter + the marauders? what about ginny? 

it’s remarkably under-appreciated in fandom that ginny is remarkably poorly treated by the trio for much of the series. ‘go away, ginny’ - that’s how ron banishes his sister at the start of PoA, because harry mutters to his two mates that he wants to talk to them in private and to ditch ginny. neither harry nor hermione object to it - hermione, though kind to ginny when the dementors arrive, makes no defence of her right to stay. ginny duly leaves, hurt, to go sit by herself on the train back to school, returning to hogwarts for the first time after her deeply traumatic experience in the chamber, dismissed and dispatched. not meaning to drag ron here - this is, ofc, how big brothers have behaved for time immemorial, as is their wont. but it’s kind of the statement for how the trio treat ginny for much of her school career really until HBP, harry and hermione included. ofc there are many textual/plot reasons ginny needs to be held at arms length from the trio. but it is striking that the effect of this plot habit for the reader is a usually unkind and sometimes even callous exclusion of ginny by the trio throughout many of the books.

in CoS itself, ginny is never invited to join the trio or spend any time with them: when she isn’t, you know, trying her hand at possessed attempted murder, she’s doing a light bit of potter hero worship that does recall a certain lakeside snitch-catching display of yore. it’s ginny who’s left feeling left out when the trio are swapping suspicious eyes and sirius secrets in GoF, ginny who is hermione’s back-up friend when the ron and harry showdown kicks off over the triwizard tournament, ginny who shoulders the role as harry’s consolation prize friend when ron and hermione go off to the prefects on the train in ootp (and takes him to neville and luna), ginny who goes defenceless when the trio are demanding to be included in order secrets and is physically removed from the room with no protest from the others, ginny who has to fight her case to be taken seriously and included in the department of mysteries plot to rescue a man she too is friends with (‘I care about Sirius as much as you do!’), being patronised by three friends who pick her up and put her down when they feel like it (always enjoy hermione being like ‘we need three thestrals!’ and ginny being like ffs we need four why won’t you show me an ounce of respect). in fact, when ginny is revealed to be becoming popular in a different social circle throughout ootp and hbp, it is something of a shock to harry and ron, who have spent a good six years making no effort to include her and now are finding she has built a much more successful social life beyond them (you reap what you sow, lads). i don’t say this to overstate the trio’s malice nor to overstate the pettigrew comparisons (ginny is clearly both conventionally attractive and much more socially adept).. but i do think it’s striking that  if there is a character with pettigrew echoes in the trio’s surround, always orbiting the trio, trying to feel included (and hero worshipping the potter at the heart of it), it’s more often young ginny than it is neville. so many of the things that made ginny vulnerable to TMR - her loneliness, her isolation, her insecurities and sense of inadequacy - are not helped by the trio in the years afterwards, and in some cases, actively reinforced.

(to briefly say something on gender - sometimes wonder if ginny were a male character if people would have made more of this. percy stans, for instance, go to great lengths to point out all the ways percy was bullied or teased by his family as an excuse for his errrrr war crimes. would people care more about many ginny's exclusions if she were a maligned misunderstood young man? probably? it's noticeable too that all traitors in hp are men lol, a classic example of jkr’s weird and fucked feminism striking again. women are led astray or hoodwinked - men get the complex motivations and agency arcs. but i digress).

why does any of this matter? we know ginny doesn't take the path of pettigrew, however much she might have good reason to. harry's endearingly naive line in DH ('I trust all of you, I don’t think anyone in this room would ever sell me to Voldemort’) ends up being borne out: there are no betrayals during the second wizarding war, and certainly not by ginny (though the sword heist almost ended up doing it on accident). but i found myself thinking a lot about this as i was sketching out the plotline for beasts and thinking about ginny’s war, and what is asked of ginny in it. i was particularly thinking about it relation to how the second wizarding war plays out, the unique position of danger ginny would have been in as a hogwarts student in the 1997-1998 academic year, and what a good target she would make for death eaters on the hunt for a spy within the order of the phoenix.

when i was reading DH for the first time, i remember thinking that it is absolutely bonkers that ginny weasley goes back to hogwarts in september ’97. by that summer, the weasleys are the order of the phoenix. no longer just the blood traitors’ blood traitor, they’re now the face of the wizarding resistance, both parents and (nearly) all sons in active combat, something the ministry certainly knows about even when trying to normalise death eater rule and allowing the facade of arthur et al going to go to work in the ministry/gringotts etc. ginny’s family home is order hq: she lives there all summer, and trots off to the hogwarts express straight from the kitchen table where order meetings take place. when death eaters descend on the wedding, she’s there alongside the rest of the rest of dumbledore stans. she is also famously in the DA, and fought death eaters alongside the trio in the department of mysteries, and again in the battle of the astronomy tower. and then there’s the obvious point that hinny shippers everywhere have pointed out is baffling since the dawn of time, which is that the world and his wife knows that ginny weasley is harry potter’s ex, something that might put a big fat target on her head for a death eater or two to have a pop at trying to get some secrets and intel out of her. 

of course, there’s a compelling case for why ginny has to go back. ron’s already used the splattergroit excuse, and arthur’s going to work, and so is bill, and the twins (at least for a bit), and the weasleys are going for normalisation and at least a fig leaf of compliance. so off ginny goes, into the belly of the beast, back to school, despite all the access she has to order secrets and intel, as well as information on harry and the trio. she is in a uniquely dangerous position of risk: it’s a fortress run by death eaters and her card is marked. she finds herself in an unenviable and unrivalled position as a very good person to go after if you’re a death eater fancying some intel about what the guerilla resistance - and harry potter - are up to. we know there are death eaters about who would like to claw themselves back into some level of relevance by working towards the big man and trying to curry favour (yaxley). we know there is a family intimately aware of ginny weasley's weakness and failings who are desperate to get back in voldemort's good books (the malfoys). we also know there are witnesses to ginny's exclusions both from the order and from the trio over the years - in particular, one witness that already sold secrets on the order to death eaters, namely kreacher.

the reason i came back to thinking about parallels between ginny and peter in beasts is because beasts is a story about ginny’s war, but also in part about morality in the wizarding world, about war and sides and choices. at various points in beasts, i’ve tried to play with ginny’s echoes with characters that waver morally - including regulus - or who find themselves drawn to or in some way embroiled in darkness, and who are at times governed by fear and cowardice and self-preservation in a moral universe that prizes bravery, loyalty, and self-sacrifice. so this plot came from putting all these pieces together - ginny's existing vulnerabilities and insecurities, her position of privilege and access, but also her alienation and mistreatment, and this interest in moral motivations and what experiences or traumas might lead a person, or even justify, a person's treachery, moral inaction, or active moral failing. it was even more interesting for me to play with the idea that other people might have noticed ginny weasley's weird position relative to the trio and the order too, people who want to know what she knows and who would be willing to exploit the cracks in those relationships for strategic wartime gain. and that's for chapters fifteen and sixteen!

[whinlatter]

Thoughts on Peter Pettigrew? And if you ship him with anyone, who?

thank you very much for the ask, pal! peter is a fascinating character and i always enjoy properly thinking about him.

because - let's be honest - he really goes under the radar, in both canon and fanon. he's extraordinarily cunning, ruthless, powerful, adaptable, emotionally literate, intelligent…

and yet you wouldn't get that impression if you take harry's narrative at face value. even after peter escapes at the end of prisoner of azkaban/cuts his own hand off in goblet of fire.

[which is one of harry's most interesting character traits - his tendency to split the world into black-and-white "good people" and "bad people" is something we talk about a lot, but he also has a tendency to split the world into "special people, who have agency" and "unspecial people, who don't"... hence his attitude to characters such as stan shunpike.]

but the main thing i find fascinating about peter isn't actually the way his talents are overlooked by the text. it's the way he embodies one of the series' central messages: that "it does not do to dwell on dreams and forget to live" [PS 12].

when dumbledore says this to harry, it's as advice on how to deal productively with grief. and obviously that's a good and healthy message to receive - especially for the children who are philosopher's stone's intended audience.

but the statement has another application, which ties to another one of the series' themes: that all that glitters is not gold.

so much of the overarching seven-book narrative is about jealousy and longing - harry's longing for a family, ron's jealousy of harry's fame, petunia's longing for magic and jealousy of lily, snape's longing for lily and jealousy of james, etc.

and it's also about how this jealousy and longing leads us to see what we want to see - ron becoming convinced that harry's feelings for hermione are romantic, lupin's inability to criticise james leading to his rage when harry's appalled at him walking out on tonks, the death eaters being convinced that voldemort is a champion of pureblood oligarchy, fudge refusing to believe that voldemort has returned etc.

as both ron and harry learn after ron stabs the locket-horcrux, you have to live the life you actually have and you have to know the people you know as they actually are. you can't imagine them into something they're not, become sad and/or angry when they fail to meet expectations it was always impossible for them to fulfil, and then let that sadness and anger fester until the poison within you can no longer be contained...

which is the peter pettigrew special, really...

sirius' assessment of peter in prisoner of azkaban comes in clutch for us on this point:

"Because you never did anything for anyone unless you could see what was in it for you. Voldemort's been in hiding for fifteen years, they say he's half dead. You weren't about to commit murder right under Albus Dumbledore's nose, for a wreck of a wizard who'd lost all of his power, were you? You'd want to be quite sure he was the biggest bully in the playground before you went back to him, wouldn't you?" [PoA 19]

i love this line for a lot of reasons - especially sirius' tacit admission that he and james once met that criteria of "biggest bully in the playground" - but i particularly like the way it aligns peter with [dumbledore's assessment of] voldemort's school friends:

"As he moved up the school, he gathered about him a group of dedicated friends; I call them that, for want of a better term, although as I have already indicated, Riddle undoubtedly felt no affection for any of them. This group had a kind of dark glamour within the castle. They were a motley collection; a mixture of the weak seeking protection, the ambitious seeking some shared glory, and the thuggish gravitating toward a leader who could show them more refined forms of cruelty. In other words, they were the forerunners of the Death Eaters, and indeed some of them became the first Death Eaters after leaving Hogwarts." [HBP 17]

peter is fundamentally someone ambitious seeking shared glory. and he does this - like, it's implied, quite a lot of death eaters - by putting on his rose-tinted glasses and deluding himself into believing that the person he expects to share that glory with him actually will share it... until everything comes crashing down and he's forced to see that they actually think of him as unworthy of sharing anything with. and his fury becomes toxic.

because peter is someone who inherently views himself as a follower.

lord voldemort would never - to borrow sirius' phrase - do something for someone else unless he could see what was in it for him. but voldemort's selfishness is because he sees himself as the unparalleled superior of everyone he meets - there's no need to help those under you if they're the only people who benefit!

peter's selfishness is slightly different - everything he does is in pursuit of vicarious glory. he wants to be praised and rewarded by a leader he's made more powerful. he doesn't want to be that leader himself.

peter the marauder

indeed, canon emphasises that this is what attracted him to james and sirius:

To Sirius' right stood Pettigrew, more than a head shorter, plump and watery-eyed, flushed with pleasure at his inclusion in this coolest of gangs, with the much-admired rebels that James and Sirius had been. [DH 10]

obviously this is harry's subjective view ["much-admired rebels" is a bit of a stretch, let's be real…], which the text does acknowledge ["or was it simply because harry knew how it had been, that he saw these things in the picture?"].

but harry's assessment of the teenage peter here matches the one we're given across the series:

"Pettigrew... that fat little boy who was always tagging around after them at Hogwarts?" said Madam Rosmerta. "Hero-worshipped Black and Potter," said Professor McGonagall. "Never quite in their league, talent-wise." [PoA 10]

James was still playing with the Snitch, letting it zoom farther and farther away, almost escaping but always grabbed at the last second. Wormtail was watching him with his mouth open. Every time James made a particularly difficult catch, Wormtail gasped and applauded. After five minutes of this, Harry wondered why James didn't tell Wormtail to get a grip on himself, but James seemed to be enjoying the attention. [OotP 28]

peter is set up as someone who's understood by everyone not to occupy the same role in society [both "society" as in the social ecosystem of hogwarts, and as in wizarding society more generally] as james and sirius.

this is almost certainly for class and blood-status related reasons - and hello to another anon on this point:

the fact that the only parent mentioned in the text is his mother strongly suggests that he's a half-blood with a muggle or muggleborn father [which his narrative parallels with snape, his narrative relationship with voldemort, and his narrative contrast with barty crouch jr. also support].

the way his mother is spoken about by other characters in prisoner of azkaban - especially fudge: "black was taken away by twenty members of the magical law enforcement squad and pettigrew received the order of merlin, first class, which i think was some comfort to his poor mother" [PoA 10] - sets her up as the passive figure in her relationship to the state [the ministry deigns to provide her with comfort], thus implying that she was ordinary, middle-class, and respectable, but lacked the class-based social power to occupy a more active role in the relationship.

[contrast her, for example, with someone like augusta longbottom, who is a much more active figure narratively.]

but she also can't come from a working-class background, because otherwise voldemort wouldn't seek to humiliate peter by making him live in snape's slum house as his servant.

but peter is also set up as someone who - while he accepts that james and sirius are his superiors and doesn't want to usurp their positions - nonetheless thinks that the two of them will do all they can to increase his chances of helping them accrue more glory, thus allowing the glory he shares in to be all the greater.

and why not? after all, he has plenty of evidence that they'd be capable of doing this, given the lengths they go to for remus…

i think he can be very easily understood as somebody who thinks that - once the three of them have nailed the animagus transformation and achieved their goal of supporting remus during the full moon - then the next thing on james and sirius' list of priorities is putting in a similar level of effort on his behalf.

indeed, the text does imply this - in snape's worst memory, peter goes from being positioned with remus as james and sirius' inferior:

Snape was on his feet again, and was stowing the O.W.L. paper in his bag. As he emerged from the shadows of the bushes and set off across the grass, Sirius and James stood up. Lupin and Wormtail remained sitting.

to being physically positioned with remus but clearly wanting to be an active member of james and sirius' shenanigans:

Lupin was still staring down at his book, though his eyes were not moving and a faint frown line had appeared between his eyebrows. Wormtail was looking from Sirius and James to Snape with a look of avid anticipation on his face. [...] Wormtail was on his feet now, watching hungrily, edging around Lupin to get a clearer view.

to physically joining - but still being excluded from equality of power with - james and sirius:

"How'd the exam go, Snivelly?" said James. "I was watching him, his nose was touching the parchment," said Sirius viciously. "There'll be great grease marks all over it, they won’t be able to read a word."   Several people watching laughed; Snape was clearly unpopular. Wormtail sniggered shrilly. 

to being positioned as sirius' equal under james' leadership:

"Well," said James, appearing to deliberate the point, "it's more the fact that he exists, if you know what I mean..." Many of the surrounding watchers laughed, Sirius and Wormtail included.

to being included as both james and sirius' equal:

But too late; Snape had directed his wand straight at James; there was a flash of light and a gash appeared on the side of James' face, spattering his robes with blood. James whirled about; a second flash of light later, Snape was hanging upside down in the air, his robes falling over his head to reveal skinny, pallid legs and a pair of greying underpants. Many people in the small crowd watching cheered. Sirius, James, and Wormtail roared with laughter. [OotP 28]

but this symbolic ascent towards james and sirius recognising and including him isn't what actually comes to pass, is it?

[and as a little shipping-related aside... this is an immaculate wormbucks or padtail premise.]

clearly, peter's experience from the beginning of his sixth year onwards [so from the autumn of 1976] is one in which his hero-worship of james and sirius [and it is just james and sirius - if he felt aggrieved enough by remus that he wanted to implicate him in the potters' deaths he absolutely could have done so] begins to crumble...

and then to fester...

until he's reached a point where the following isn't something he believes is actually true:

"THEN YOU SHOULD HAVE DIED!" roared Black. "DIED RATHER THAN BETRAY YOUR FRIENDS, AS WE WOULD HAVE DONE FOR YOU!" [PoA 19]

[this - as an aside - is one of the major differences between harry and james/sirius. harry's understanding of loyalty and sacrifice is much less transactional: "dumbledore knew, as voldemort knew, that harry would not let anyone else die for him now that he had discovered it was in his power to stop it" [DH 34].]

and decides that he should probably transfer his loyalties to the much bigger bully who's just arrived on the scene.

enter lord voldemort.

peter the death eater

while there are some key differences [peter is the one who has to approach voldemort, rather than the other way round, and - as i've said here - i think voldemort withholds the dark mark from him to keep him striving], peter's recruitment by the death eaters has a huge amount in common with draco malfoy's.

[more on which... here.]

voldemort must win him over by validating his belief that james and sirius [and also dumbledore/the order] don't take him and his talents seriously, that they need to be punished for this, and that when peter has humiliated them, he will have the time of his life basking in the glow of the victorious voldemort, who will also reward him spectacularly.

this is what voldemort does with quite a few of his minions - including regulus [another fantastic ship for peter], barty crouch jr. [likewise], and, of course, snape [which flops], all of whom have that corrosive perception of themselves as always being overlooked.

in the first war, then, voldemort must be pretty nice to him.

[or as nice as voldemort ever gets...]

the threats and the punishment come later.

[as another aside, the implication of canon is that voldemort's use of violence against his minions is relatively infrequent - and only used in specific circumstances - in the first war. the egregious torture he subjects them to in the second - and the fact that he does this publicly - shocks, terrifies, and humiliates even the most ardent first war loyalists. i think we can assume, then, that peter returned to voldemort expecting to find him in the same "you catch more flies with honey" mode as in the first war. he was mistaken.]

the contempt 90s!voldemort holds peter in is iconic - so many of his best lines are times he's mocking him!

but something which always stands out to me is that voldemort's contempt for peter is inextricably linked to his previous position as one of the four marauders.

[indeed, i find it fascinating that voldemort says that peter "faked his own death to escape justice" [DH 33], because the only thing he can mean by "justice" in this context is that peter should have let sirius murder him...]

and the most explicit demonstration of this is the fact that he always calls him wormtail.

this is a fascinating twist on the way voldemort plays with the language of intimacy with his death eaters. his favourites get referred to by their given names, while the rest are referred to more formally, using their surnames:

"Severus, here," said Voldemort, indicating the seat on his immediate right. "Yaxley - beside Dolohov." [DH 1]

and, of course, his ultimate favourite gets referred to by her nickname.

but peter isn't being called wormtail by the dark lord as a show of affection... it's an expression of disregard.

it's clear that the voldemort of the second war deeply understands that peter's life between the potters' deaths and his unmasking at the end of prisoner of azkaban [that is, the period when he didn't get the glory he wanted, he just got a dead james, two friends who want to murder him, and a master who hates him] made him start to regret his resentment of james and sirius for not living up to the versions of themselves he'd invented in his head - especially following sirius' death, when he receives a second demonstration of voldemort's contempt for him, since the moment sirius is out of the picture, the dark lord declares him surplus to requirements and dumps him on snape.

voldemort also knows that peter can only suppress these regrets and pretend they don't exist for so long...

and so everything about their second war relationship is voldemort pre-empting a betrayal he knows will come, when peter's long-buried grief for his friends comes roaring back. hence him setting up peter's silver hand to kill him when his loyalty wavers.

or, more succinctly:

"You returned to me, not out of loyalty, but out of fear of your old friends. You deserve this pain, Wormtail. You know that, don't you?" [DH 33]

peter the [un]man

there's one final thing which i think is really interesting about peter's portrayal in the text, and that's his relationship with gender.

he's someone whose presentation as unmasculine is consistent across his appearances - and is consistently intended to be belittling. but he's also someone whose lack of masculinity is used both to underscore his villainy [and to emphasise that it's the worst type of villainy - to quote jkr, "i loathe a traitor"; peter is the most reprehensible villain in the doylist text's eyes] and to misdirect the reader away from it.

before he's unmasked at the end of prisoner of azkaban, peter is associated narratively with neville:

A hatred such as he had never known before was coursing through Harry like poison. He could see Black laughing at him through the darkness, as though somebody had pasted the picture from the album over his eyes. He watched, as though somebody was playing him a piece of film, Sirius Black blasting Peter Pettigrew (who resembled Neville Longbottom) into a thousand pieces. [PoA 11]

and - therefore - is associated with a lack of masculinity in a fond way. neville is a character the reader is supposed to like, but not a character the reader is supposed to aspire to be like.

the text uses both peter and neville's appearance - especially the fact that both of them are noted to be fat [neville gets described as "plump", which is understood as slightly more polite, but the meaning is the same...] - to emphasise this. they're soft and shy and unsporty. they're passive, in contrast to harry [and james'] masculine vigour. they're both followers, but in a good way.

or, they both occupy the role female characters tend to: conduits for the male characters' deeds and desires, but lacking the agency to have deeds and desires of their own.

[hence why i am extremely compelled by @whinlatter's theory that the best lightning-gen parallel for peter is ginny...]

this is the tone of the secret keeper swap. peter is chosen by james and sirius precisely because they understand him as a vessel. he can contain and surround and envelope the potters and keep them safe that way, while sirius - who embodies the active qualities of a masculine protector - protects them by fighting and running and being hunted.

but - of course - peter doesn't perform this feminine protector role. he corrupts it. and this another way the text underscores that he's its worst villain... he bastardises a role typically associated with motherhood.

he and sirius are set up narratively as the parallel to james and lily: sirius is the masculine figure, the father, the "take harry and run"; peter is the feminine, the mother, the "refuses to stand aside".

once peter is unmasked at the end of prisoner of azkaban and his corruption of his maternal role is revealed, the text's presentation of his unmanliness then becomes something used to emphasise how vile and creepy the reader is supposed to find him.

it does this while maintaining the corrupted motherhood metaphor - hence him having to nurse voldemort's pseudo-infant form in goblet of fire, and hence him being positioned as inferior to barty crouch jr., who joins voldemort and peter, his "wife", to take the narrative role of voldemort's son and heir.

this is extremely interesting, since the text typically uses a lack of maternal or pseudo-maternal experience to indicate that its female villains [especially bellatrix and umbridge] are to be understood as villains by the reader. the exceptions, petunia dursley and walburga black, are fascinating parallels for peter, given the way that they also embody the corrosiveness of resentment and the impact it has on truly being able to grieve.

but peter also becomes a second, specific form of unman once he's unmasked...

the eunuch.

it's really striking that - from the latter chapters of prisoner of azkaban onwards - peter is frequently associated with the theme of voyeurism:

But Ron was staring at Pettigrew with the utmost revulsion. "I let you sleep in my bed," he said. [PoA 19]

Snape held up a hand to stop her, then pointed his wand again at the concealed staircase door. There was a loud bang and a squeal, followed by the sound of Wormtail scurrying back up the stairs. "My apologies," said Snape. "He has lately taken to listening at doors, I don't know what he means by it." [HBP 2]

the sexual undertone to these associations is really significant, because - when combined with the presentation of peter as a follower/an outsider looking in and with the presentation of him as lacking in virility - it renders him sexless, but in a specifically jealous way. he's not voldemort, whose canon presentation as aromantic is used to underscore his villainy by implying there's something "wrong" with him... he's someone who should have been able to access the "normal" structures of love and family, but who has self-castrated himself from this "normality" due to his corruption arc, and who is forced to watch from the sidelines coveting what others have and regretting his decisions and loathing himself.

[hence my absolute conviction that the reason he's not at home on halloween 1981, when sirius goes to check on him and finds his safe-house empty, is because he's snuck into the potters' house in rat form to watch james and lily be murdered...]

and this idea of peter as somebody unsexed or castrated is really interesting as a lens to examine one of his most sinister moments - his role in the torture and murder of bertha jorkins.

nb: there is a discussion of rape in what follows.

i liked this post by @pangaeaseas - and the discussion in the notes -about voldemort's treatment of peter surrounding his capture of bertha jorkins. but i thought it was interesting how a lot of this discussion focused on the ways voldemort is insulting peter's intellect in this context... and not the ways he's attacking his sexual prowess.

the text is pretty clear - not least in the enormous victim-blaming undertone to the way many characters [especially male ones] talk about bertha's disappearance - that peter brought bertha to voldemort after convincing her that he wanted to engage in some form of consensual sexual encounter [described by voldemort, in pg-13 terms, as a "nighttime stroll"]. voldemort's astonishment at peter managing to accomplish this isn't so much him being shocked that he had the way with words/quick thinking abilities to talk bertha into going with him, it's him being shocked that someone he considers to be so unmanly as to be impotent managed to pull.

and then - it is heavily implied, both in the text itself and in jkr's statements since publication that her editor looked like she wanted to be sick when she described how voldemort was restored to a rudimentary body - to rape:

"He was the penis able-bodied servant I needed, and, eunuch poor wizard though he is, Wormtail was able to violate a woman follow the instructions I gave him, which would return me to a rudimentary, weak body of my own, a body I would be able to inhabit while awaiting the essential ingredients for true rebirth." [GoF 33]

[whinlatter]

Madam Malkin’s drew as a celebration for successfully becoming Bachelor of Fine Arts :) commissions/store/buy me a coffee

[whinlatter]

quirrell introducing harry to the concept of “nuance” EXTREMELY rapidly here

[whinlatter]

he’s an unreliable narrator TO YOU. i believe him