Peter B. Goyle (formerly Banks), (born 29 December, 1980), was raised in Birmingham in the East Midlands. A childhood friend of Molly Roper’s, he grew up in Selly Oak, a shabby suburb in the city. In the summer of 1992, at the age of eleven, Peter, at that time possessing the surname of his mother, Banks, discovered that he was a wizard, and that his friend Molly was a witch.
He was found to be an illegitimate son of Gregory Goyle Sr., a Death Eater, which was how he got his magic, that same summer, and that Goyle had decided to take him in as his own son. He had an older half-brother, Gregory Jr., whom he got on with begrudgingly at first. As he learned more about the magical world, he soon discovered that he was a member of a highly-important family.
Peter Goyle became an enemy of Aquila Black and Ginny Weasley during his first year of school, and encountered many classmates, particularly those in Slytherin, who bullied him because he was illegitimate and a half-blood wizard. As a result, he lashed out at Aquila and Ginny, of whom he also had a bad first encounter, and it only got worse from there.
During the Second Wizarding War, Peter and his half-brother, Gregory Goyle, were encouraged to support the Dark Lord by their shared father, and they did so: in the 1997-1998 school year, they also became among the favoured students of the new Death Eater professors Alecto and Amycus Carrow. However, when it came time for the Battle of Hogwarts, Peter gladly fled the school with the other Slytherins.
Biography
Early life (1980-1992)
Peter was born to a teenage muggle mother in the city of Birmingham. They lived in poverty for a great deal of his childhood with his maternal grandparents, and their home was a ten minute walk from Molly Roper's. Peter and Molly grew up in Selly Oak, a shabby suburb of West Birmingham. This area of town was near a dirty river and full of dilapidated houses, disused factories and broken down street lamps. Peter befriended Molly when they were eight years old at their local primary school, after Molly's previous friends left her crying in the schoolyard. He'd noticed her strange abilities and told her that he could do it too.
Peter was raised in a highly toxic and abusive atmosphere, with his grandfather scolding him for showing emotion. His grandfather was often cruel and unloving towards him, and his mother busy with her new husband, who was also cruel. His muggle step-father, Neal, even once made degrading insults about needing to buy Peter brains for his birthday.
Peter: "What did you find in my brain?"
Molly: "I saw your parents treating you horribly..."
Peter: "Yeah. I try to shove all of that far away..."
-Molly practicing Legilimency on Peter
Though Peter never returned there after Gregory Goyle Sr. decided to take him in, when he was ten he was depicted as being unwashed and wearing ill-fitting clothes "that were so mismatched that it looked deliberate". As a child, Peter was very obviously neglected and his step-father and mother often fought with one another in public, but no one ever helped him. When he found out that there was a magic school and that he had a place there, he could not wait to leave for Hogwarts at the end of the summer.
Hogwarts years (1992-1999)
Peter was visited by Albus Dumbledore, Headmaster of Hogwarts, on 21 July, 1992, at his home in Selly Oak, located at 28 Bootham Crescent. The Headmaster delivered Peter's letter personally, and was accompanied by a large man unfamiliar to Peter. The man was Gregory Goyle Sr., who admitted to being his father and was interested in taking Peter to come live with him in Wiltshire. At first, Peter was incredibly apprehensive. He was eager to learn magic and leave Birmingham for good, however, and made up his mind at Diagon Alley, after Goyle offered to buy all of his school things, including a wand that was twelve inches long, made of elm and dragon heartstring. He left the old duplex on Selly Oak and met his half brother, Gregory Jr., and his father's wife, who did not like him much.
On the way to Hogwarts for his first year, Peter sat with Molly Roper on the train, after his half-brother pushed him out of his compartment shared with Draco Malfoy and Vincent Crabbe, though it was on Malfoy's orders. While on the train they met Aquila Black and Ginny Weasley. This hostile first encounter would set the tone for the antagonism between the three of them for the rest of his life.
Aquila Black and her group of friends, were constantly at war with Peter throughout their school years. Immediately upon meeting him, Aquila disliked Peter for no other reason than he had defended her cousin Draco Malfoy, pulling his wand out when Aquila tried to hex the other. The conflict ended with Ginny Weasley and Aquila icing the entire corridor, leaving Peter covered in boils, Gregory Goyle in a body-bind, Vincent Crabbe glued to the floor, and an innocent Julius Alesci trapped behind a wall of ice. Matilda Corner had joined in when she'd been hexed with a Leg-Locker. They were all found by Marcus Flint, who performed the countercurses necessary and later reported the whole incident to Professor Snape, who gave Ginny and Matilda detention. Peter further disliked that Aquila had gotten away scot-free because she was the member of an Ancient and Noble House, and Aquila further disliked Peter because he tattled. Aquila later served the detentions with Ginny and Matilda.
Marcus Flint was a prefect during Peter's first year and greeted him kindly when he was Sorted into the Slytherin House later. Aquila Black, Ginny Weasley, and Matilda Corner were sorted into Gryffindor and it got worse from there.
At the age of eleven, and after a summer with his biological father who was previously a Death Eater, who had no qualms about teaching him dark magic, Peter knew more curses and hexes than most of the fifth year students. However, he was bullied by his dorm-mates and those in the year above him for being illegitimate and a half-blood. Gregory Goyle Sr. had given Peter his name, and he went by the name Peter Goyle at Hogwarts, despite being previously known as Peter Banks for his whole life. Some of the other Slytherins thought him unworthy to carry the name of a Sacred and Noble House. Peter was bullied by Edward Harper, Vince Fairburn, and Craig Caulfield because of this and because he continued to hang out with Molly Roper, despite the fact that she was a Gryffindor and a muggle-born. He was mildly acquainted with Julius Alesci, although this boy kept a wide berth for fear of being bullied himself.
Meanwhile, Peter took out his anger by taunting and hexing Aquila and Ginny, but they gave him little to no reaction until he started attacking their more fragile friend, Maisie Cattermole, who was often seen in the hospital wing with strange bandages on her arms and various other injuries. One incident involved Peter taunting Maisie, who was not there, in Potions, to which point Aquila retaliated by pushing every button that hurt- Peter completely lost his temper and socked her in the cheek.
Peter noticed that Maisie Cattermole kept disappearing during the full moon and once followed her past the Whomping Willow to confirm his suspicions. When he found out what Maisie was, in the week before Hallowe'en, 1992, he told Marcus Flint, and they then both confronted and attacked her. Aquila and Molly Roper were coming back from the library when Aquila realised what was going on, and lost it. Molly tried to stop Aquila, but Aquila cursed Flint and sent Peter flying, knocking him out. Peter spent several days in the hospital wing from the concussion. Marcus Flint then physically attacked Aquila, and she fought back and both received a month's detention for the scuffle.
Another incident involved complete and total humiliation brought forth by Black and Weasley: Molly Roper came to Peter's defence, but this only made things worse: in a subsequent lashing out in his fourth year, in an attempt to recover his lost dignity, Peter inadvertently called Molly a Mudblood.
Personality and Traits
A complicated, withdrawn person, Peter Goyle's life was overwhelmed with many complex emotions that he never fully disclosed. At times, Peter could appear cold, cynical, malicious, bitter, and sarcastic. He tended to hold grudges and was extremely spiteful toward those whom he disliked. In particular, he despised Aquila Black, both for who she was and because her friends, Ginny Weasley and Matilda Corner accidentally hexed him on the train to Hogwarts, and kept hexing him after that.
In his early life, he was insecure, vulnerable, and yearned to be part of something better. As a child, the bleak normality of working-class suburbia compounded with his neglectful Muggle family inspired in him a contempt for ordinariness. Peter's bitterness and resentment towards the world was exacerbated even more by the relentless bullying he endured in school, causing him to shut himself in even more. Peter was not a prejudiced individual, despite his biological father's Death Eater beliefs of pure-blood superiority, whom he had only come to live with after his eleventh birthday, but was rather against Muggles, presumably because of his sour experience with both his grandparents, mother, and step-father, but originally held no ill-will towards Muggle-borns like Molly.
As he continued to grow up, he was continuously bullied by his Slytherin dorm-mates and further ridiculed by his biological Death Eater father. With a need to both vent his immense stress and let out his intense anger at the unfairness of it all, Goyle unleashed a terrifying mix of both his emotions and magic, taking great pleasure in torturing and punishing half-breeds, such as Maisie Cattermole, blood-traitors, such as Aquila Black and Ginny Weasley, and muggle-borns, like his former best friend Molly Roper.
Magical Abilities and Skills
Peter Goyle was an powerful and skilled wizard, showing proficient talent and great knowledge in many different areas of magic. He had an encyclopaedic knowledge and proficiency in curses, was incredibly talented in Legilimency and Occlumency, and excelled at the Dark Arts.
- Dark Arts: Peter became passionate about the Dark Arts from a young age, encouraged by older Slytherins who took him under their wing. He was especially talented with curses, or so some believed. He performed dark curses on Aquila Black now and again when both of them would antagonize each other to the point of a duel. He was also able to perform the Cruciatus Curse in his sixth-year under the instruction of the Professors Carrow, which was something that many students refused, or simply did not have the stomach, to do.
- Occlumency and Legilimency: Peter became able to conceal his thoughts and feelings from external penetration, and this proved to be crucial for him. He first got the idea to learn from Marcus Flint, and he studied with Molly Roper for a period to develop the skills necessary in Occlumency to stand up to Flint's legilimency. However, in their fourth year, they had a falling out and Peter had to learn on his own.
- Charms: Peter was highly talented in Charms, as he not only could use basic to advanced charms without fail, such as levitation, disarming, shielding, but he was even able to cast the incredibly difficult Patronus Charm, conjuring a corporeal salamander Patronus, in his fourth year with help from Molly Roper, who had learned from Harry Potter. Molly technically betrayed Dumbledore's Army to do so and teach him, but she never actually told him where she learned it.
Relationships
The Banks
Peter never regarded the place where he grew up as a home. Then again, neither was the ancestral home of the Goyles: he felt that only Hogwarts was his real home. He suffered neglect and emotional abuse as a child. His mother had been a teenager when he was born and it appears that the circumstances of his conception was not consensual, due to the fact that his mother was a young muggle and his father was an adult wizard. His mother despised him, perhaps because of the trauma of the night he was conceived. He was mostly raised by his grandparents, who were also poor, and lived in the same house. His mother also later married a man called Neal, and they seem to have had a dysfunctional, even abusive relationship. Neal was Peter's only father figure for a long while, and this troubled, lonely childhood is strongly suggested to have accounted for Peter's severe depression, sadness, bitterness, and bouts of rage, as seen later in his life.
Gregory Goyle Sr.
It does seem that he had a slightly better relationship with his biological father, Gregory Goyle Sr., who entered his life late, but even he belittled him. He also instructed Peter in the Dark Arts, and very quickly tried to convert him to a pure-blood purist, but when that did not happen as quickly as he had hoped, he tore Peter down for it in other ways, like claiming he did not know why he decided to take him in, and perhaps he should return him to Selly Oak. He constantly called Peter useless although he accomplished much in his time over the summers he spent there.
Unnamed Step-Mother
Gregory Goyle Sr. married a pureblood witch that became the mother of Gregory Goyle Jr., but she took an immediate dislike to Peter, judging him for his torn up clothes, his dirty appearance, and bad manners. Still, begrudgingly she taught him proper hygiene practices and how to clean himself up a bit, so the relationship was not so bad as it was awkward. This witch had also been very young when she married Goyle Sr., and under his orders was forced to accept Peter into her household.
Gregory Goyle Jr.
Gregory Goyle Jr. is Peter's paternal half-brother. He grew up knowing that his father, Goyle Sr., was a Death Eater during the First Wizarding War, and that Goyle Sr., along with several other Death Eaters, avoided imprisonment in Azkaban by claiming that the Dark Lord had controlled them with the Imperius Curse. However, at the age of twelve, when he met his brother Peter, he was not necessarily the brightest. Goyle seemed to lack intelligence, magical talent, and independent thought, thus used only his size and strength to bully other students or scare off anyone who threatened Draco Malfoy. Gregory and Peter's relationship was small at the time and so they, too, begrudgingly got along. However, he was clueless to the way that Peter's dorm-mates were treating him, and did not stand up for his brother when Malfoy and Crabbe started in on the fun, too, signifying that he didn't care one way or the other. Goyle was also very sadistic and had no qualms about using the Cruciatus Curse to torture fellow students in later years, much like Peter himself.
Molly Roper
Peter's friendship with Molly Roper was probably the only thing that truly brought joy to his life. He first met Molly at a very young age, recognising her as a witch one day as she played in the park near his house. Longing to escape his humiliating home life, Peter immediately sought to make her his friend. And later, when he went to live with his father's pure-blood family, he still never truly saw Molly as being muggle-born because he was so smitten with her.
They spent time talking about magic and the wizarding world. In 1992, the two of them were accepted into Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry and continued a close friendship up until around their fourth year, despite being Sorted into different houses. Peter was very disappointed that they were not in the same house and forlorn because of it.
During this time, Peter began hanging out with older students who embraced Dark Magic and pure-blood supremacy, which put a huge strain on their friendship. Molly was offended by many of the views that Peter was beginning to adopt and disliked the qualities that his new classmates were bringing out in him. Given time over again, Peter would never have done many of the things he did, but at the time he did not truly understand her aversion. He was so insecure and blinded by his attraction to the Dark side that he imagined she would find it impressive if he became a real Death Eater. When Peter called Molly a "Mudblood" in a moment of humiliation, it was the last straw for Molly. When she later asked him in their fifth year if he still intended to become a Death Eater and he did not deny it, she severed all ties with him, despite Peter's profuse apologies.
Etymology
In the Bible, Peter is the name of one of Christ's apostles who, on the morning of the crucifixion, denied Christ, although he later repented. Also, his last name is probably from "gargoyle," small monsters used to decorate buildings, which Aquila and Ginny later used to refer to him as a joking manner.
The Gargouille also was a legendary water monster living in the River Seine in Paris, France. Gargoyles served as gutters/downspouts on gothic buildings. The word Gargoyle is derived from the French gargouille and the Latin gargula which translate to throat in contemporary English. Related words include gargle and gurgle.
The surname which he shed upon entering the magical world, Banks, derived from the Northern Middle English "bank(e)", itself coming from the Old Danish "banke" meaning a ridge or hillside, and was originally given as a topographical name to someone who lived on the slope of a hillside or by a riverbank. The Banks family lived at the end of a long street which gutted out into a polluted river.