If Pettigrew cast an explosion spell from behind his back, how did the eye-witnesses see him reaching for his wand?

Question

Fudge's account of these events in chapter 10 of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban is quite clear (emphasis mine)

“Pettigrew died a hero’s death. Eyewitnesses — Muggles, of course, we wiped their memories later — told us how Pettigrew cornered Black. They say he was sobbing, ‘Lily and James, Sirius! How could you?’ And then he went for his wand. Well, of course, Black was quicker. Blew Pettigrew to smithereens. ...”

But later on, in chapter 19 Black claims:

“When I cornered him, he yelled for the whole street to hear that I’d betrayed Lily and James. Then, before I could curse him, he blew apart the street with the wand behind his back, killed everyone within twenty feet of himself — and sped down into the sewer with the other rats. ...”

Isn't this a contradiction? As far as I can tell, with his wand behind his back, he's managed to make an explosion, cut a finger off, and transform in to a rat. That's already impressive, but he's also managed to do this with the (admittedly muggle) eye-witnesses thinking not only that nothing strange has been done by Pettigrew, but that he was reaching for his wand. How did Pettigrew pull this off?

Answer 1

Something similar is seen in crimes and traumatic events fairly commonly without any magic being involved. Memory is 'malleable' - people can form genuinely held memories that are not objectively true. This can be prompted by others - one confident witness can influence others recollections, or poorly trained questioning can do it. It can also be self-generated. It's how different witnesses to the same event can give different but honest accounts.

Once anyone has suggested that Pettigrew was reaching for a wand, it is entirely plausible that other witnesses would 'remember' this event, even if objectively they did not see it happen.

https://www.psychologicalscience.org/teaching/myth-eyewitness-testimony-is-the-best-kind-of-evidence.html

Answer 2

Here's a likely explanation.

Pettigrew has two hands. One hand is holding his wand behind his back, another is in his front ; so he puts his non-wand hand behind his back and cuts off a finger - pulls off an explosion - and escapes.

Now, moving his non wand hand behind his back may have looked like he was reaching for his wand ( jean pocket ? ) .

So the eye witnesses reported what they saw. They specifically did not say that he was reaching for the wand , but rather seemingly reached for something with his hand - The Wizards would have interpreted this as he was reaching for his wand. ( when in truth he cut off his finger )

Answer 3

To start with, the Ministry never bothered to properly do investigations, and we've seen that in multiple instances in the books. Sirius, the Gaunts, the Riddles, Frank Bryce...

The supposed eyewitnesses obviously were tricked (maybe confounded?) at some point by Pettigrew, and the Ministry never bothered to clarify the facts. They arrived, did some questions, and quickly jumped at the conclusion that Sirius was a traitor, because Dumbledore thought he was the Secret Keeper and the Ministry granted that information to be true.

The eyewitnesses said that Sirius was the one who blew up the street, and killed everyone, but... You know, they were Muggles. They don't exactly know how magic works. If the Ministry just bothered to pick up Sirius's wand and perform a Prior Incanto spell, they would've known that Sirius never did that, and the entire story was a fake.

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Continuing with the Muggle eyewitnesses report, they might have been confounded or tricked by Pettigrew, or they might just have reported what they thought to have seen. Pettigrew at some point had to reach for his hand to cut off his finger, and the Ministry would've sloppily interpreted that as "he was reaching for his wand" because no one else saw he was holding his wand in his back.