[HPforGrownups] Re: RAB case is broken - all Aurors please read!

[elfundeb]

No: HPFGUIDX 153331

Memorandum
To:  Auror Tonks, Alternative Theories Department
From:  Speculator Debbie
Re:  R.A.B. (Regulus [A] Black)

For your consideration upon your return from holiday.  (Note:  some of this
was written a week ago and not posted, and is responsive to another R.A.B.
thread.)

Najwa wrote:
I think perhaps if we
make a list of anyone who could have the initials RAB, or at least 2
out of three initials, and maybe we can include titles as well, such
as Reverend or whatever, we could take a look at who RAB might be.

Debbie:
I have to say I can't muster much enthusiasm to scout for R.A.B.
candidates.  With all the loose threads hanging about after six books and
only one book remaining tie them up (or not) it just doesn't seem likely to
me that JKR will introduce a new character for this purpose when she has in
Regulus Black a perfectly good one with a ready-made tie-in to Sirius,
another character whose story arc seems incomplete even though he's dead.
In addition, no other R.A.B. candidate has any connection to 12 Grimmauld
Place, where we saw a good candidate for the real locket *and* have been
provided with leads regarding its current whereabouts.  I just wouldn't bet
on those things all being red herrings.

Ceridwen:
If Regulus is dead (evidence: Grimmauld Place passing to Harry
uncontested magically) then what did he do with the locket?  Is it
the locket at GP?  Did he leave some sort of message for DD/Followers
of the Light in any event?

Debbie:
In a book about finding and recognizing clues, I would be astonished if the
real locket is not the one we saw at 12GP -- it's a big clue tying R.A.B. to
Regulus.  As for the second question, read on a bit.

WG asks:
Hermione, at the end of HBP, said she'd been looking for R.A.B.
How could she possibly miss Regulus (supposedly A.) Black, if it was
him?

Debbie:
This is a good question, but I think there are plausible answers.
Maybe Regulus was just known as Regulus [no middle name] Black at school, so
Hermione missed him.  Also, she seems to have been looking for "reasonably
well-known wizards" and I doubt Regulus would qualify there.  Perhaps she
thought only a great person -- or an Order member -- could defy Voldemort
like that.

In any event, assuming R.A.B. is Regulus, JKR certainly isn't going to have
Hermione spill the beans after she's been planting clues like the locket,
and offering tidbits about Regulus in HBP to keep him from fading out of our
memories completely.

And these tidbits also serve the purpose of corroborating or clarifying
information that comes from a very biased, and therefore
unreliable, witness.  Sirius, our primary informant, had just finished
telling Harry about how he left home to go live with James' family and what
he says about Regulus is part of his justification for leaving, i.e., he
hated the lot of them (OOP ch. 6).  Sirius has every incentive to paint
Regulus as a fool.  So I'm going to test each of Sirius' assertions --

Assertion #1: "[M]y idiot brother, soft enough to believe [his parents'
pureblood views]. . . . He was younger than me . . . and a much better son,
as I was constantly reminded."

As Sirius was by nature a rebel, and it as I have observed with my own
children a tendency for one child to adopt a Good Child stance whenever the
other is in Difficult Child mode, I find this comment unremarkable.  Sirius
"hated the whole lot of them" and I do not doubt that he made sure his
family knew it.  If Sirius' attitude added to the unpleasantness at 12
Grimmauld Place (Mrs. Black made it unpleasant enough without any assistance
from anyone, I'm sure), Regulus may have conformed simply to avoid
trouble.

Assertion #2:  "Stupid idiot . . . he joined the Death Eaters."

That he joined the DEs, and that it was not a smart thing to do,
is uncontroverted fact.  But we can't just leap to the conclusion that
Regulus was stupid.  We need to ask why he joined.

Did Regulus believe in his mother's pureblood mania?  Maybe.  Sirius says
quite a few people thought Voldemort had the right idea before he showed his
true colours, and that "I bet my parents thought Regulus was a right little
hero for joining up at first."   But Regulus is even younger than Sirius,
who cannot have been more than 20 when Voldemort lost his powers.  Didn't
Voldemort start showing his true colours long before that?  I think Regulus
knew what the organization was all about when he joined.  This just doesn't
add up, to me, anyway, as an explanation.

Did he join because his friends did?  Maybe.  Regulus was a Slytherin (we
know Slughorn wanted to collect the set).  If Regulus indeed "panicked about
what he was being asked to do" perhaps he did not join as an idealogue but
because it was fashionable.  Maybe he hung with Snape's gang of Slytherins
who virtually all joined up, and just didn't want to be left out.

Did Regulus join as a spy for the Order?  Maybe.  This has been discussed
before.  Dumbledore had a number of spies, according to Fudge.  However, if
R.A.B. was a spy he would certainly have brought that information -- and the
locket -- to Dumbledore.  As Dumbledore has been working on a *theory* only,
and considered the Diary the first piece of evidence to support that theory,
this doesn't seem to have happened.

Assertion #3: "[H]e was murdered by Voldemort.  Or on Voldemort's orders,
more likely; I doubt Regulus was ever important enough to be killed by
Voldemort in person."

As I said earlier, I think there was a body.   And Mad-Eye Moody, in showing
Harry the old Order picture, suggests that only very important people were
killed by Voldemort himself ("Dorcas Meadowes, Voldemort killed her
personally"); so does Fudge in HBP ch. 1 ("Amelia Bones . . . We think He
Who Must Not Be Named may have murdered her in person").  So, aside from
the implication that Voldemort saves himself for all the gifted women in the
Order (because JKR doesn't have anything interesting for them to do), and
Regulus was not a gifted woman, the question is whether Regulus was
"important."

I think the answer to that, from Voldemort's view, is *no* unless (i)
Regulus is R.A.B. (I'm assuming he is for this discussion) and (ii)
Voldemort was aware that Regulus had discovered his Horcrux secret.

Now let's take a look at R.A.B.'s own words (the only ones we have):
"To the Dark Lord
I know I will be dead long before you read this but I want you to know that
it was I who discovered your secret.  I have stolen the real Horcrux and
intend to destroy it as soon as I can.  I face death in the hope that when
you meet your match, you will be mortal once more."

Ok, R.A.B. expected to be dead before Voldemort discovered the fake
locket.  This must mean that he expected to be killed for reasons other than
discovering the Horcrux secret. And the locket, with message, was still in
the cave 15 years later.  Doesn't seem likely that Voldemort discovered the
secret.  Which means that Regulus was not "important" enough to be killed by
Voldemort.

 We also have a little snippet of information from Lupin, who is amazed that
Karkaroff lasted an entire year after failing to respond to Voldemort's call
in the graveyard.  His recollection was that "Regulus only managed a few
days" after deserting the DEs (HBP ch. 6).

This confirms that Regulus *chose* to leave the DEs.  But where did he go?
Who did he tell?  It's not like Regulus was a runaway who came home after
the going got rough.  Did he go to the Order?  No, I don't think so, or else
Dumbledore would have known for certain that Voldemort had been creating
horcruxes.  Did he try to hide out somewhere?  Inquiring minds must know,
but we may have to wait for Book 7.

But we're doing pretty well thus far testing the accuracy of Sirius'
information.

Assertion #4:  "From what I found out after he died, he got in so far, then
panicked about what he was being asked to do and tried to back out.  Well,
you don't just hand in your resignation to Voldemort.  It's a lifetime of
service or death."

First question:  Where did Sirius get this information?  Did he go ask his
Death Eater friends?  What Death Eater friends?  Or, did Spy!Snape tell this
to Dumbledore?  I want to know how reliable his sources were.  And whether
those were the words his sources used, or whether it's Sirius who
decided that Regulus backed out because he "panicked about what he was being
asked to do."  Because there's a big difference between *panicking* at
carrying out an evil task and refusing to do it because it is evil.  And
someone with the wherewithal to steal a horcrux doesn't sound like a
panicker to me.

 Ceridwen asks:
What can Harry learn from Regulus's
story? - he has to learn something or it wouldn't have been
introduced in a book about finding and recognizing clues.

Debbie:
Another symbol of courage.  In particular, a symbol of what someone facing
certain death can do.  Harry thinks the odds are similarly against him.
Also, a reminder that his mentors, valuable as they were, did not have all
the answers.  Harry will need to rely on himself.  Harry knows that by now,
but he may be reluctant to trust in himself.  R.A.B. will help him do that.

And turning to more speculation, Najwa asked:
> With all the Hub bub about RAB, I am beginning to wonder what do we
> know about Regalus's death, other than what Sirius said? Does
anyone
> recall anything definite about his death or was he M.I.A. and
> considered dead?

Debbie:
Sirius refers to him as having been *killed* which strongly suggests that a
body was found.  In contrast, three chapters later, Mad-Eye Moody uses
"killed" to describe each Order member's demise, except for Caradoc
Dearborn, who "vanished six months after this, we never found his body."

Although I've heard speculation that Regulus' body is swimming with the
Inferi at the cave, that would be mere coincidence since the fact that the
fake locket was still in the cave for Harry and Dumbledore to find suggests
that Voldemort still doesn't know about the switch.

Of course, as there is much more room for speculation if there is no body,
I'm not going to reach a definitive conclusion on that one.

Ceridwen:
I think that R.A.B. is Regulus, but what's happened to him?  Sirius
said he was killed shortly after he tried to leave the DEs, supported
by Lupin's announcement at Harry's b-day party in HBP (Regulus
managed to evade being killed for just a few days).  But Dumbledore's
talk with Draco on the Tower has led many to believe that perhaps
Regulus is still alive and disguised as
Filch
Aberforth
Another character we might have seen

Debbie:
Like Stubby Boardman?  I know the Quibbler claims ol' Stubby is Sirius, not
Regulus.  But if they looked alike . . . .  Those gossip rags don't always
make up all their stories out of thin air.  If someone claimed to the
Quibbler that Stubby is really Sirius, there's probably a resemblence.  And
while Sirius could not have been dining with Mrs Purkiss while he was
hunting down Pettigrew, why couldn't Regulus have done so?  Yup, maybe he
just "vanished, we never found his body" because he isn't dead.

Kayla raises a possible objection:
> If Regulus was alive, wouldn't that mean Kreacher would have
> automatically gone to him as being a Black, instead of Harry?
> I seem to recall Kreacher was bound, although unwillingly, to
> Harry and not another Black. Just my two bits worth.

 Debbie:
Not a problem.  Harry inherited 12 Grimmauld Place and Kreacher because
Sirius left them to him (i.e., he had a will), bucking the Black family
tradition (HBP ch. 3), not because all the Blacks are dead.  Dumbledore was
concerned that the Blacks had created an enchantment preventing Sirius' will
from being carried out.  Harry's ability to summon Kreacher lays this
concern to rest.  Thus, whether or not Regulus is alive, Sirius had the
power to bequeath it to Harry instead.

So why would Regulus reinvent himself as Stubby Boardman?  For one thing,
R.A.B. expected to be dead before Voldemort discovered the fake locket.  He
must have known that the DEs were after him.  Escape is always better than
death, so why not try?

Which leads to a new question.  R.A.B. stated his intention to destroy the
Horcrux before he died.  Therefore, if he is really Stubby, either the
locket at 12GP is a red herring, or else it has been reduced to an inert
object.

There's one other possibility.  Maybe Regulus *did* destroy the Horcrux.
Dumbledore needed help to survive the destruction of the ring Horcrux.  So
maybe the effort killed Regulus, and it was written off as a DE attack.
Sirius had information about *why* Regulus supposedly was killed, but we
don't know *how* or *by whom.*  Isn't that a bit odd?

Still, I like the Stubby Boardman answer better.   See, maybe Snape was
assigned to kill him, but DDM!Snape wouldn't want to do any such thing and
engineered his escape and disguise.  And the real Stubby?  Oh, he's probably
locked in a trunk somewhere. . . .

I'd better start looking for him.

Debbie
wondering if Boss!Ceridwen has more days off to hand out


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]