The eavesdropper: round up the usual suspects ...and one unusual

[dorapye]

No: HPFGUIDX 87933

> --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "jotwo2003" 
<jsummerill at s...> 
> wrote:
> > Although I bet we won't find out until book 7, I thought it might be 
> > useful to list all the characters who may be the eavesdropper who 
> > overheard the prophecy, and why.
> > 
> [snip]
> > Any other suspects people want to add?
> > 
> > JoTwo
> 
> In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "clio44a" <clio44a at y...> wrote:
> 
> So my most likely suspects are: Some unnamed house-elf and Regulus 
> Black. Ddore would have an excellent reason not to name any of them 
> to Harry. Harry already hates Kreacher, and the mention of a Black 
> would probabely send Harry into hysterics after Sirius has just died. 
> I am farily sure Ddore knows who was the eavesdropper, either from 
> whoever threw him out that night, or from his DE intelligence source.
> 
> 
Now dorapye:
Hmmm..Regulus Black...and at the beginning of OotP, when Harry and 
Sirius are examining the tapestry family tree at Grimmauld Place, 
there is next to Regulus's name a 'date of death (some fifteen years 
previously)' and Harry, of course, is just fifteen so...


If Regulus *was* the eavesdropper, he informed Voldemort, but then, 
some months later, probably just after (or just before?) Harry's and 
Neville's births, when it became obvious that the small part of the 
prophecy he had heard referred to his big bro's best friends, 
perhaps Regulus panicked as he realised the information he had 
given 'his master' was most likely putting his brother in Voldy's 
firing line..

...course, he wouldn't have known that Sirius was in the Order of 
the Phoenix as Sirius would have left school and home some years 
previously, so this might have been the first point that he realised 
his brother (a pureblood, after all) was in danger from LV, when he 
heard LV declare the Potters as a target.....though of course LV 
doesn't actually go after the Potters till Harry is 15 months 
old...Hmmm....

....thinking 'aloud' somewhat....but suppose Regulus did, whilst 
working as a DE, learn that LV had identified the Potter baby and 
the Longbottom baby as possible contenders for the role of 'The 
One', Regulus would immediately recognise that Sirius, long time 
best mate of James Potter, would be in danger (not least 'cos he's 
wild and reckless and would risk anything for James); Regulus might 
try to 'back out', to warn his brother, or Dumbledore, and this may 
be why he was executed by LV...not long after Harry's birth, or 
possibly just before it, it would seem..

But if he did try to warn Sirius, clearly he never got to him, as 
Sirius has nothing but contempt for his DE little brother.

Clio:
> After rereading my post I must say my prime suspect is Regulus Black. 
> It just all fits. He probably was still in school at the time of the 
> prophecy and therefore not allowed in Hogsmeade at nights. He was a 
> follower of the Dark Lord and would have passed the information to  him.
> This also would assign a function to a yet not used character. And we 
> know people mentioned in passing can become important.
> 
dorapye:
Yes, it would give an interesting dimension to this, as yet, 
insignificant character; it would also lend the Potter/Black 
relationship another arc of tragedy.

The more I think on it, the more I like it...the tragedy of the 
unwitting filial betrayer, who realises to late that his actions 
have sealed the tragic fate of his brother...but he never gets the 
chance to make reparations, and his brother never knows the goodness 
in him...sigh! What d'you think?

dorapye