Hey everyone, welcome to another installment of Harry Potter Theory. Today, we’ll be discussing why threatened George Weasley never noticed Peter Pettigrew, aka Scabbers the Rat, on the magically revealing Marauder’s Map.
Understanding the Marauder’s Map
The Map’s Capabilities
I suppose to start with, we can address the question of, why would they? Well, as we learn near the end of Harry Potter’s third year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, the Marauder’s Map has the capability to reveal each and every person roaming the hallowed halls of the school, regardless of their form.
- It represents witches and wizards with a dot that has a corresponding name, which is always their true identity—again, regardless of any magic that may make them appear differently when confronted in person.
Harry’s Discoveries
And it is through the map that Harry discovers a number of unsettling secrets that have to do with the night his parents were murdered, including the fact that Peter Pettigrew, his father’s mate who supposedly died that same night, is alive.
Discovery of Peter Pettigrew
How does he discover this? He sees him on the Marauder’s Map, but I’m getting ahead of myself. To rewind a bit, throughout Harry’s third year at school, he initially believed Sirius Black, an escaped convict from the wizarding prison of Azkaban, to be his father’s disgraced friend who betrayed Harry’s parents and revealed their secret location to Lord Voldemort, an act which led to both of their deaths.
But, as more and more secrets come to light, Harry learns that it was actually James and Sirius’ other friend, Peter Pettigrew, who betrayed them both, sharing James, Lily, and Harry’s hiding place with Voldemort, and then framing Sirius for both this betrayal and the murders of a dozen innocent people, including himself.
In fact, Peter even cut off his own finger, believing this would be enough to convince the wizarding community that he was dead, which it indeed did, and escaped transformed as his unregistered Animagus form as a rat.
Peter Pettigrew’s Life with the Weasleys
Peter’s Entry into the Weasley Family
From there, Peter fled the scene of the crime, scampering away as his rodent self, and went in search of a wizarding family to take him in. Zerius later accuses Peter of doing so in order to keep his ear to the ground for news of Lord Voldemort’s return, which seems to be exactly what he did.
As we know, the wizarding family that Peter ended up with was none other than the Weasleys. Now, how exactly Peter entered the home of Ron and his family as their pet rat has never been confirmed, but it seems entirely reasonable to think that Peter made his way to the Burrow, the home of the Weasleys, knowing of their reputation as good but rather poor people, who had connections to the Ministry of Magic through Arthur’s job, and the Order of the Phoenix through Molly’s family.
It stands to reason that Peter may have assumed that these compassionate, well-connected people would be willing to adopt a rat, and so he waited out in their garden for one of the family’s many children to find him.
Peter’s Presence in the Weasley Household
Peter’s presence in the Weasley’s yard wouldn’t have been odd at all, considering he was in his rat form. His breed is often described throughout the series as being a common garden rat. So, I imagine that a young Percy Weasley, who would have been around 5 years old at the time, came across Peter and asked his parents if he could keep him.
As the Weasleys didn’t have much in the way of disposable income, they said yes, and told Percy that this rat would be his pet when the time came for him to attend Hogwarts, thereby alleviating the need for them to purchase him an animal familiar later on.
From there, Peter was taken in as a pet of the Weasley family and went on to live with them for more than 10 years as Scabbers the Rat, until he was discovered on the Marauder’s Map in Harry’s third year at school.
Not by Fred and George, I might add, but by Harry and later Remus Lupin. It’s also worth mentioning that Harry only noticed Peter on the map during that school year, since it was then that he acquired the Marauder’s Map, a gift given to him by the Weasley twins, Fred and George.
The Marauder’s Map: Ownership and Use
Origin of the Map
This brings us to the fact that the twins weren’t the first owners of the magical Marauder’s Map, which showed a detailed blueprint of Hogwarts Castle and the surrounding grounds. It was originally created by Harry’s own father, James, as well as his three closest mates, Sirius Black, Remus Lupin, and Peter Pettigrew.
Fred and George’s Acquisition
How Fred and George got their hands on the map seems to have been the result of these two setting off a dung bomb in the school, which landed them in caretaker Filch’s office. While being detained, the twins noticed a drawer marked, “confiscated” and “highly dangerous”. They broke into it, of course, found the Marauder’s Map, stole it, and managed to figure out how to operate it.
In terms of how they achieved this last part, there’s been a bit of contentious debate around this topic by fans. However, considering the response J.K. Rowling provided in an interview some years ago, it seems rather likely that the twins achieved access to the map by trying different phrases in an effort to get the map to reveal itself.
Rowling suggested that perhaps the map itself helped them out, flickering to life here and there with phrases that were close to the actual passcode. In any case, Fred and George did manage to get the Marauder’s Map to reveal itself to them.
Why Didn’t the Twins Notice Peter Pettigrew?
Perhaps it could just tell that they wanted to get up to mischief, which of course was what the map had been originally created to do. This means they then would have been able to see everyone listed on the map who was present at Hogwarts, and as we covered earlier, the Marauder’s Map names all people roaming the grounds of the school by their true identities.
So, how is it that Fred and George never noticed Peter Pettigrew on the map? He would have been there right from the time they learned how to work the map, as he was originally Percy’s pet and Percy was a couple of years ahead of the twins.
And as we’ve discussed, the map couldn’t be fooled by Animagi, Polyjuice potions, or even invisibility cloaks. So, Peter’s real name, not Scabbers, would have shown up every year that he was brought to Hogwarts.
Wouldn’t they have thought it strange for this Peter person to always be essentially on top of Percy, then Ron? Sleeping in their beds and attending all the exact same classes as their two brothers, how is it possible that the twins never noticed him?
Possible Explanations
Well, despite this appearing to be a glaring plot hole, I think that’s actually a rather reasonable explanation. For starters, Peter Pettigrew’s name wouldn’t have meant much to Fred and George because, well, why would it?
Relative to the Weasley family, Peter would have just been a wizard who perished at the hands of Voldemort and his Death Eaters. And think about it— even if Molly and Arthur had known exactly what supposedly had taken place between Sirius and Peter that fateful night in which the Potters were killed, why would they share that horrific tale with their children?
And so, again, the name Peter Pettigrew wouldn’t have meant anything to any of the Weasley children, including Fred and George. And even if it had, there very well could have been some random student at Hogwarts with the same name as a wizard who had supposedly died more than a decade ago. No need for the twins to question its presence on the map, or even think twice about it.
Proximity and Focus
In terms of Peter’s constant proximity to Percy and then Ron, there are two possible explanations for this, in my opinion:
- People Displayed as Moving Dots: People were displayed as little moving dots on the Marauder’s Map. In the Gryffindor dorms and common room, there would have been so many dots clustered together representing all of the students who room there that it would have been quite difficult to discern exactly how close Percy, Ron, and Peter were.
- Map Usage: Fred and George said that they primarily used the map when they first uncovered it, but by the time they handed it over to Harry in his and Ron’s third year, they had it so memorized they barely looked at it anymore. This would account for why they wouldn’t have noticed that Peter Pettigrew was initially always with Percy before Peter was handed down to Ron, only to then always be with Ron once he started at school.
It’s also incredibly reasonable to assume that the twins weren’t overly focused on the areas of the castle that Peter would have been residing in, that is, Gryffindor Tower and the classrooms that Percy and Ron attended with school.
Conclusion
Scabbers in tow. It seems altogether more likely that they would have been much more focused on seeking out the hidden tunnels and passageways, as well as keeping a lookout for Filch and professors as they snuck around getting up to mischief around the school.
And with that, we’ve come to the end of another theory! What did you think? Why do you think Fred and George never noticed Peter Pettigrew on the Marauder’s Map? Please share your thoughts in the comments below.
