Unravelling Rabastan Lestrange (Was: R.A.B possibility)

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 139225

Brodeur (martyb1130 at a...) wrote:
> I was rereading the OOTP and on page 114 in the American version it
states "Bellatrix and her husband Rodolphus came in with Barty Crouch
Junior," said Sirius <snip> "Rodolphus's brother, Rabastan, was  with 
> them too." Do you possibly think that this Rabastan character is
RAB?  It is possible that this is what Lord Voldy called him, due to
the fact that his  name is rather long... Perhaps the first three
letters do stand for the RAB that was left with the horcrux...

Carol responds:
Considering that Rabastan was one of the four loyal DEs who went after
the Longbottoms and tortured them into insanity in a futile attempt to
find out what happened to their master and afterwards showed up at the
MoM to help retrieve the Prophecy for Voldemort, I don't think he's
R.A.B., who stole Voldemort's Horcrux, intending to destroy it and
make Voldemort mortal (evidently he didn't know there was more than
one) and fully expecting to die. Regulus Black fits the circumstances
better. We know that Regulus wanted out and was killed by DEs--or at
least we think we know that (I'll grant that Sirius didn't witness his
death and is not always a reliable source of information, but I think
he's misjudging his brother rather than getting the fact of his death
wrong). 

We know that Sirius is right about Rabastan being arrested and sent to
Azkaban along with Rodolphus, Bellatrix, and Barty Crouch, Jr.,
because we see him at his sentencing in GoF. Both brothers are
described but we're not told which is which. They seem to be older
than Barty Jr., who is described as a boy of about nineteen while they
are identified as men. (I'm guessing that Rabastan is the thick-set
man who stares blankly at Crouch rather than the thinner,
nervous-looking man whose eyes dart around looking at the crowd, 594,
but of course I can't be sure.) Bellatrix would be about twenty-five
in this scene; the Lestrange brothers would be around her age or a bit
older, though no older than Lucius Malfoy (who would have been about
twenty-eight at the time) based on their membership in the Slytherin
gang that Sirius mentions in OoP. (Odd that the descriptions make them
both seem much older than Barty, Jr.) At any rate, subsequent events,
as well as Bellatrix's words at the sentencing ("We alone were
faithful," etc.), indicate that none of them was innocent of the
charges against them. Rabastan, if he's the thick-set one, seems dully
resigned to his fate, unlike the still-defiant Bellatrix.
 
We also know that Rabastan was one of the DEs who escaped from
Azkaban, joined Lucius Malfoy in attempting to retrieve the Prophecy,
and was arrested with him and sent back to Azkaban, where he's
presumably enjoying better conditions than during his previous
imprisonment. I've always wondered how he and the others managed to
escape death from despair or total insanity from the Dementors
(contrast Barty, Jr., who would have died there if his father hadn't 
yielded to his dying wife's pleas). 

Maybe Rabastan was already insane in the same way Bellatrix is
insane--fanatical loyalty to Voldemort and pleasure in inflicting pain
(necessary to the successful casting of a Crucio, especially a
prolonged Crucio). Even young Barty was already insane in that way, as
we see from subsequent events, but unlike the others, he resisted
being hauled away by the Dementors and was ready prey for them. (How
ironic that he finally meets the fate he dreaded twelve years
later--the DADA curse strikes again.) Or maybe Rabastan was like
Vincent Crabbe and Gregory Goyle, following his brother and
sister-in-law into evil and too weak and stupid to pull himself out
again (as Crabbe and Goyle might have followed Draco if he'd let them
in on his secret). Yet the fact that Rabastan helped perform one of
the most heinous crimes of VW1 suggests that on some level he's
capable of mindless cruelty--maybe not the same delight in inflicting
pain that makes Bellatrix such a Crucio aficionado and expert, but
something beyond the casual cruelty of the DE who Crucio'd Harry in HBP.

At any rate, I've always wondered why Rabastan was brought into the
plot at all. He's guilty, along with his brother, sister-in-law, and
Barty, Jr., of what may be the most horrible crime in the HP
books--torturing the Longbottoms into insanity. Yet Voldemort (in the
graveyard scene) speaks of "the Lestranges," his most loyal followers,
as a married couple, not as a couple and the husband's brother. It's
as if Rabastan is an invisible follower, not so much of Voldemort as
of his (presumably older) brother and his brother's wife.

I had hoped to discover something more in HBP tying Rabastan and
Rodolphus to the contrasting-brothers motif (Albus and Aberforth
Dumbledore, Regulus and Sirius Black, Percy and every other Weasley
boy). But Rabastan Lestrange is likely to remain as peripheral as,
say, Mulciber, who specialized in the Imperius Curse and also survived
thirteen years in Azkaban to fight at the MoM and be sent back again
but about whom we know virtually nothing else.

My (uncanonical) view of Rabastan is that left to himself, he might
have been less cruel than Bellatrix Black Lestrange or Antonin
Dolohov (who seems to me the cruelest Death Eater we've seen so far),
but he seems at a loss to do anything other than attach himself like a
leech to Rodolphus and the once-beautiful Bellatrix and do what they
do. Rabastan must have found within himself the sadistic cruelty, or
at least the cold indifference to human suffering, necessary to cast a
successful and sustained Crucio on the Longbottoms. Maybe that was
the only way he could gain the approval of Rodolphus and Bellatrix
(especially Bellatrix, whom we know to be a psychotic fanatic). 

At the MoM, Rabastan is originally assigned by Malfoy to be Crabbe's
partner OoP 788), but when Crabbe (apparently) gets caught in the Time
Turner, Rabastan (apparently) goes back to following Bellatrix, who
shows up later with two others behind her (796), strongly indicating
to me that Rabastan has again become part of Team Bellatrix. Maybe
he's in love with his brother's wife, but more likely he follows her
with the same blind loyalty she gives to Voldemort.

At any rate, I *definitely* don't think that Rabastan is R.A.B. I do
want to know why he's in the books since his role so far seems utterly
expendable. I keep telling myself that JKR doesn't introduce
characters for no reason. And then I remember Mark Evans. :-(

Carol, under no delusions that Rabastan is a good guy but still
curious about him, if only to understand what motivates the Death
Eaters and to see them as something more than cardboard shadow figures