Lockets (Was Re: The magically refilling Pensieve)

[M.Clifford]

No: HPFGUIDX 138082


> catkind: Hi Valky! I like this theory, which I had missed (along 
> with everything else round here - I can't keep up at all at the mo). 
> So perhaps you've answered this already somewhere...
> 
> I'm absolutely with you on RAB=Regulus, we have blatantly been 
> hinted at. 

Valky:
Thanks Catkind, I had better quickly say this before I answer you, I
*did* get a little carried away in my last post, with putting the
motive of vengeance into R.A.B.'s letter. The fact is, the letter
really doesn't give away a revenge motive, so I should bite back a bit
of that now, and admit I ran away with myself somewhat. 
That said, many of the pieces add up to a motive of revenge if we
start with the logical conclusion that the drinking of the potion is
how Voldemort extracts the information from his attacker. You kind of
have to buy that first, and I have given a decent argument for it, I
think. Anyhow, onward with reply to your post catkind.


> catkind:
> So, in Voldemort's ideal situation, someone drinks some of the 
> potion then falls down delirious, dying of thirst, so dives 
> headfirst into the lake and gets eaten by the Inferi, or turned into 
> one.  Meanwhile the remainder of the potion has stored his memories 
> of why he was there, and replenished itself.

Valky:
Yeah that's the gist of it. Based on three things we could call pretty
much fact in canon. 1. LV wants to know who was there and why. 2. The
Potion Drinker will probably die without the water. 3. The potion
Drinker is intended to die even if they get the water. #2 and #3 add
up to whoever drinks the potion *is* meant to die there and then. So
if #1 is true then LV's means of extracting info must have happened
before the drinker dies via the effects of the potion. 

The answer I proposed to this is that the potion and the basin work
together. The potion legilimenses the drinker and the basin stores the
memories. Once it's all over the potion surely replenishes, because LV
would want to keep his locket safe no matter how many tried to destroy
it through the ages. He intends to live forever right? So yeah, I
think it's likely that as long as this object has something to
protect, it will do it's job. This is perhaps why R.A.B. thought
bringing a faux Horcrux along would be worth the effort. I admit I am
giving this character lots of credit, but lets face it, if someone did
this to LV acting virtually (or absolutely) alone they deserve some
credit where it's due. This person did /some/ thinking before they
went into that cave. 



> catkind:
> RAB comes along and due to his inside knowledge is somehow able to 
> survive drinking the potion in one piece(ish), or at least sane 
> enough to switch lockets and fool the basin. This still seems to 
> make RAB rather powerful, doesn't it? If it's just secret knowledge 
> that's necessary to get at the locket, I can hardly imagine even 
> LV's nearest and dearest would be in on the secret. 

Valky:
Yeah I see where you're coming from there. And I have given that some
thought. First, let's see, R.A.B. has to know what Horcruxes are. Its
a banned subject at Hogwarts, so if it's a young/ish/ character. Say,
from Marauders era if we are postulating Reggie, then this person is
either a. Not schooled at Hogwarts, or b. very into Dark arts..
perhaps a friend of Severus Snape.. 

Otherwise, it's someone from an older generation, also very into Dark
Arts. But I am not sure that it has to be good character, since
uncovering Voldies secret was actually made rather easy for the bad
guys.. Let me show you.. 

LV gives Lucius his diary - tells him that he should plant it at
Hogwarts - Lucius is stupid enough *once* to use this powerful object
to further his own ambition... 

Bella is always bragging about her "in"ness with LV - actually anyone
who gets a little tidbit from LV tends to brag a bit don't they, seems
in character for a DE, no?

So heres how I see it, Lucius is doing some bragging, he's the Dark
Lords most favoured servant today because LV has entrusted to him,
this *really* powerful object.. (whiny bragging tones). 

Oh, what is it Lucius? Whats this really important thing that LV gave
you to guard for him?

Uhh I don't know exactly, but it can open the Chamber of Secrets and
command the Monster.

No it can't Lucius you dope, only the Heir of Slytherin can do that..

Two weeks later..

Hey Reggie, says Bella, Did you know our Master is the Heir of
Slytherin.. Pretty cool huh?

Forehead slap three weeks later. OMG that thing is not what I think it
is... is it...?

Rumours are pretty dangerous aren't they? <eg>

So simple its ridiculous, Voldie has *no* idea, ROFL. seeing as it was
*this* easy for the DE's to know what was going on if they could put
two and two together. Clearly not Crabbe and Goyles specialty but the
*smart* DE's alternately... well..

Okay so then Voldies bragging on and on about *how* immortal he is,
"I'm more immortal than Grindelwald was..." he's singing as he skips
through the daisies. And darn it this R.A.B person is onto something
here. Could Voldemort make this any *easier* to know?

The fact is, Voldie was a bit full of himself about it all. I mean he
had seven parts of soul, who on earth was gonna figure that out? The
DE's got a whole lot more out of him than he ever should have been
giving way. But for his determination to have it all, he probably
would have had most of it. Of course, remembering that he did make a
ton of these things, and protected them quite well, it's
understandable that he felt fairly safe bragging. The point is he did
brag, and he did give away plenty to his DE's. One can only assume,
depending largely on his powers of domination and fearmongering to
keep him safe. He tortured these people into submission, and he still
does. Wormtail rescued him from a pitiful oblivion of existence, and
what is his reward? Here Wormtail, lets painfully remove one of your
appendages. So with all that in mind, it's hard to believe that this
Horcrux attacker would ever need to be one of the good guys.

Now that a DE had specific knowledge of the protections, is more
difficult to argue for. However, here's a thing, each wizard has a
style. Having a style generally means that you do a lot of things the
same way usually. What would be largely needed by any attacker, would
be some good powers of observation. So lets say we have a DE, who
thinks Voldie is really something special. Is learning from him, and
loving it mostly. He sees the basics, weaken the enemy, filter the
power of the enemy, remove the power of the enemy, kill the weak
enemy, this kid rememebers the routine after seeing it a thousand
times. Then he starts seeing specifics, legilimensing, poisons that
weaken, torture, vile minions. Voldie does it mostly the same ways.
Possibly, this young protege of Voldemort gets bragged to occasionally
that *this* is my genius handiwork, I am the greatest wizard of all
time and this is why, no wizard could outmatch *this* magic you see me
doing. Basically giving himself away by pointing out how great he is
when he's using his best tactics. Listening to this long enough you'd
know what was going on in the cave somewhat before you got there. 

That's all fair enough, I hear you say, but R.A.B. needs more
specifics than that. Yes it's true, I agree. So the time that this
Horcrux was attacked is crucial knowledge. Voldie isn't sharing his
secrets, this is true, but if R.A.B. has just two more peices of
information, then planning a brilliant attack would become so much
easier. What's needed is for Voldie to be planning on making another
Horcrux. 

We know that when Voldie came back from his decade of solitude he
still needed two items. The Ravenclaw item, and the Gryffindor item.
As long as we are assuming that DD wasn't wide of the mark here, which
he probably wasn't, whoever this person is, they need to be watching
Voldie as he plans one of these Horcruxes. Since LV returned from his
ten year trip around the 60's then I would say that one object was
made back in that era, and the last one was meant to be mde at Godrics
Hollow. Hence we have 2 generations of DE's to pick from here, who
might have noticed Voldie planning Horcrux business and perhaps
glimpsed his plans. Reggie *is* in one of those generations, and if he
accidentally stumbled upon Voldemort planning his Godric's Hollow
Horcrux this could provid him with crucial pieces of information.

The final link in the chain is the cave. Whoever R.A.B. is then they
must know, about Voldemort's secret place. I don't think a DE could
have deduced this the way Dumbledore did. If there was anything Voldie
kept close to his chest more than the rest of things then it was his
history in the Muggle world, more than anything else. This is not the
kind of information that he would have bragged out to his DE's. But
then there's Reggie, who's home is full of Wizarding geneology stuff,
who's mother is obsessed with tracing family lines. How could a boy
like Reggie, who pleased his dear old mum so, not be a little into it
too. He was a hero to his pureblood maniac parents, so then are we to
assume that he knew what he was talking about when it came to "Natures
Nobility" ? <beg> 

Yeah lets go there, back into the Black Mansion. Where the books don't
have Voldies name in them. Where the line of Slytherin ends in some
obscure corner of Hangleton and there is no heir to the line. Now If
Voldemort wanted something known by his DE's, he wanted it *known*
that he was the he was from the purest line of all. But if Natures
Nobility doesn't have a clue who the hell he his, why does he? Its a
small step from there to investigating Voldemorts past. But the cave
is still not revealed to a curious Regulus Black here. If anything,
the ring is what is discovered. Could a curious Reg skip the ring and
go straight to the cave? How?

Well I suppose that if it was Regulus Black who discovered the cave,
then his LV geneaology trail, ended here. He didn't find out anymore
about Voldie this way. The cave was found in some other fashion. And
I'm out of ideas. Just as I was about to make the perfect argument, I
thought, for a DE R.A.B. I'm stumped. How could anyone at all know
about the cave?... Time to hit the books again.. but I might just hit
the pillow first ;D yawn..
One final part to answer.

> catkind:
> But are you saying DD was then seeing the previously stored 
> thoughts?  

Valky:
Yeah, I think so. The whole thing looks to me like, If it *is* a
memory then it has in it: someone backing out of what they are doing,
someone seeing loved ones get punished, someone begging for mercy to
an evil overlord (its all my fault I did wrong I'll never do it again)
and finally someone begging that this person doesn't use unforgivable
curse which I think is Crucio. (No not that, I'll do anything, stop no
more {screams of agony} Kill Me)

It's got Voldie - DE relationship written all over it, I agree with
that. (someone postulated this before I did)

> catkind:
> Shouldn't the potion then be storing *his* reasons for 
> being there? Or is the enchantment muddled up by now?

Okay I have two theories here, which kind of work together. The first
is that DD has figured out what the potion is and has a fair idea what
it does before he drinks it. DD has different motives to R.A.B., I
think, and he doesn't want to leave a trail (R.A.B. did.) so it's
possible that he uses Occlumency against the potion for as long as he
can. The second theory is that the memory stored beforehand, could be
seen by Voldemort, DD ingested it, which caused him to relive it,
while he drank. Voldie probably meant for it to be that way, if I am
at all on the right track, it would make sense that each attack on his
horcrux would be motivated by some form of personal misery in the
attacker visited upon them by Voldie, so letting the next drinker
relive Voldies conquest of the previous drinker has the added benefit
of hurting them even more. 

But then I could be on the wrong track altogether and the potion might
be extracting a painful memory from DD that we get to see him react
to. Personally, it would work, but that would leave us with less clues
to the identity of R.A.B. and a lot of strange stuff about DD. So I
don't know if I want to go that way quite yet this early in the game.
  
Haven't I waffled on enough! Go to bed Valky!

:P