Why didn't Peter kill Sirius?

[pauraque_bk]

In GoF 32, woman_ironing said:

I wonder what stopped Peter from the making the more efficient move of killing Sirius and surviving as a hero rather than a rat? (Silly me, JKR and the plot of course!)

I started to say that it was possible that he meant to kill Sirius along with the 12 Muggles -- and with good reason, as Sirius knew the truth about his betrayal -- but ran off when he realized Sirius was still alive. I don't know if that really makes sense, though... It always seemed, with the whole cutting-off-the-finger and immediately running away thing, that he fully intended to flee.

If he had killed Sirius, what would have happened? Well, he might have been charged with the reckless homicide (or whatever) of the other 12 people, but since they were Muggles, and Peter is very good at wriggling his way out of things ("Oh, I didn't mean to hurt all those poor creatures, I was just so scared and I did the first thing that popped into my head..."), I dunno if that would have been too serious.

So, he'd be the hero who killed Sirius Black. But keep in mind that at that point, Voldemort was dead already, and Peter very likely knew it. Maybe he was trying to run from the other DEs (who might well blame him for what happened), and didn't trust the Ministry/Order to protect him from them, even if he did eliminate firsthand knowledge of his betrayal by killing Sirius.

What do you guys think?

Comments

[emiweebee.livejournal.com]

It's possible he thought/knew the Ministry would begin a strict interrogation (in America, even self-defense is a hard case to prove), especially with the breach of security, and he wouldn't have been able to keep up the charade.

Also I don't think Peter's much a spotlight sort of person. He's always wriggling out of attention; sure he possibly craved power, but I think he liked the behind the scenes double agent thing. Also, it would have gone down badly when VM did come back and Peter was famous for denying him.