HBO's Harry Potter trailer may not have revealed its Lord Voldemort yet, but it has started teasing another one of its twist villains. Throughout the Harry Potter reboot show, viewers will meet a number foes with different levels of villainy, from the bumbling fraud Gilderoy Lockhart to the dark lord himself, Lord Voldemort, and his loyal followers in Death Eaters like Bellatrix Lestrange and Lucius Malfoy.
The first official trailer for HBO's Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone hid a glimpse at one of the Wizarding World's greatest and most significant Death Eater villains in plain sight. The tease for a twist that won't come until Season 3 and The Prisoner of Azkaban when Dominic McLaughlin's Harry Potter and Alastair Stout's Ron Weasley were bonding during their first meeting on the Hogwarts Express.
On close inspection of Harry and Ron's train compartment aboard the Hogwarts Express, fans can see the Weasley family rat scurrying around, teasing one of the franchise's biggest twists in plain sight.
To those unfamiliar with the Harry Potter saga, Scabbers may seem like just an ordinary rat and the longtime pet of the Weasley family. However, in a twist that won't arrive until Season 3 and HBO's take on Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, Scabbers will be revealed as Peter Pettigrew in disguise.
Pettigrew was a close friend of Harry's father, James Potter, who ultimately betrayed him and his wife, Lily, to Lord Voldemort, leading to their deaths. He would go on to play a major role in the Second Wizarding Role, resurrecting Voldemort, killing Cedric Diggory, and being among the loyalist Death Eaters.
HBO Max offered an even better look at the rebooted Scabbers in the Finding Harry: The Craft Behind the Magic documentary, which also confirmed that Harry Potter will copy a controversial filming strategy from Star Wars.
In the Harry Potter movies, Scabbers was portrayed by over a dozen real rats, with some assistance from a fake, mechanical one. This time around, HBO is utilizing today's advanced technology to portray Scabbers through a lifelike animatronic, which was shown moving in the trailer and looked uncannily real.
The Harry Potter team created a second Scabbers animatronic that looks to attach to an actor's finger to nibble away. This may be used to adapt a hilarious moment from Chapter 6, "The Journey from Platform Nine and Three-Quarters," in which Draco Malfoy and his goons, Crabbe and Goyle, come to Harry and Ron's train compartment to steal sweets, only to be bitten by Scabbers, sending them fleeing.
Obviously, fans shouldn't expect to see Peter Pettigrew in his human form until Season 3, which will adapt The Prisoner of Azkaban and introduce the Marauders' lore. While HBO won't get around to that until at least 2028 (but likely later), Harry Potter will introduce six dark wizards from the get-go in Season 1.
When it comes to casting the rebooted Pettigrew, the original movie actor Timothy Spall won't be easy to replace, given his formidable performance. This time around, HBO is expected to cast all of the Marauders younger, presumably around the same age as 35-year-old Snape actor Paapa Essiedu, as they were in the same year at Hogwarts roughly 13 years before the franchise begins.
Pettigrew is perhaps the toughest to cast of the Marauders, but one popular fan cast has been Will Poulter of Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, We're the Millers, and The Maze Runner fame, who has the look and acting chops to pull it off.
Interestingly, Pettigrew's shock reveal won't be the first villain twist that fans see in HBO's Harry Potter, as the reveal of the Philosopher Stone's (not Sorcerer Stone's) true thief will confirm a key professor's villainous agenda.
Harry Potter's Scabbers Twist & Ending Explained
The story of Peter Pettigrew goes back to James Potter's days at Hogwarts, when he was one of the four Marauders, also with Remus Lupin and Sirius Black. During the First Wizarding War, Pettigrew was a member of the Order of the Phoenix, but the Voldemort-fighting group became aware there was a traitor in their midst.
When Voldemort decided to target the Potters, they went into hiding and chose Pettigrew as their Secret Keeper, the only one who knew their true location. Ultimately, Pettigrew betrayed the Potters, making it clear that he was Voldemort's spy in the Order who switched sides out of cowardice and fear.
Set photos confirmed that HBO's Harry Potter will feature new flashbacks, notably to the night that the Potters were killed, although Pettigrew probably won't appear.
After Voldemort's defeat, Pettigrew went into hiding as a rat with the Weasleys, hoping it would provide him safety from the surviving Death Eaters. To do so, he framed Black for betraying the Potters, massacring Muggles and severing his own finger, leaving everyone believing that Pettigrew died.
He hid with the family in disguise for 12 years, until Black saw a picture of Scabbers and the Weasleys in the Daily Prophet. As such, he escaped Azkaban and traveled to Hogwarts to kill Pettigrew, although he only managed to expose his true identity and allegiance, as Harry talked Black and Lupin out of murder.
One year later, in Book 4, The Goblet of Fire, Harry was lured into a graveyard trap through the Triwizard Tournament. There, carrying the weakened remains of Voldemort, he performed a ritual to resurrect the dark lord, which included offering up his own hand as "the flesh of the servant, willingly given," although it was replaced with a silver hand by the Harry Potter big bad.
Pettigrew wouldn't have another major role until Book 7, The Deathly Hallows, where he was guarding prisoners for the Death Eaters beneath Malfoy Manor, including Harry and Ron. When the heroes executed a prison break, Pettigrew had the opportunity to kill Harry, but spared him as he had once saved his life. That decision marked the end for Pettigrew, as the silver hand he was gifted by Voldemort disliked the decision, and strangled him to death.
