Locket and Umbridge

[Matt]

No: HPFGUIDX 173978

I wrote:
 
> > Early in HBP, if you will recall, when Harry does his 
> > first week of detentions, Umbridge touches Harry's hand 
> > and his scar hurts as if he were close to Voldemort.    
> > 
> > The implication I took, knowing that she ended up with 
> > the locket, was that she might have acquired it early in 
> > book 6, so that by the time of the detention scene it 
> > had begun to possess her

zanooda <zanooda2 at ...> replied:

> Hi, Matt! You are probably right about Umbridge acquiring 
> the locket in book 6, but Harry's detentions with her took 
> place in book 5. She was evil before she got the locket! 
> However, it's possible that the Locket!Horcrux made her even 
> more cruel. I was so pleased JKR finally confirmed today 
> that the evil toad was punished :-).

Sorry, you're right, I had conflated books 5 and 6: The detentions
were in OP, and we do not learn about Mundungus stealing items from 12
Grimmauld Place until HBP.  I did realize this after I posted, but
then I thought, as Christy points out upthread, that the timeline
could still conceivably work for Umbridge to have acquired the locket
in book 5, although this would imply that Mundungus was stealing from
Sirius's house prior to Sirius's death.  

Having thought it through a bit further now, we do know that Sirius
pitched the locket (and Kreacher presumably had saved it from the
rubbish heap) before the kids went back to school.  And we know that
Mundungus was, ah, admiring the valuables in the house at around the
same time:

'This solid silver, mate?' 
'Yes,' said Sirius, surveying it with distaste. 'Finest fifteenth
century goblin-wrought silver, embossed with the Black family crest.' 
'That'd come orf, though,' muttered Mundungus, polishing it with his
cuff. 

(OP chapter 5).  So there is some support for the idea that Mundungus
could have swiped the locket early on, and been caught trying to fence
it before the school year even started.

On the flipside, though, when Kreacher describes the theft in DH, he
makes it sound as though Mundungus stole all of the valuables at once:

"Mundungus Fletcher stole it all; Miss Bella's and Miss Cissy's
pictures, my Mistress's gloves, the Order of Merlin, First Class, the
goblets with the family crest ... and the locket, Master Regulus's
locket."
....
"Kreacher saw him coming out of Kreacher's cupboard with his hands
full of Kreacher's treasures. Kreacher told the sneak thief to stop,
but Mundungus Fletcher laughed and r-ran 
 " 

(DH chapter 10). 

If all of the valuables were taken at once, the theft could not have
taken place before Christmastime in book 5, and it therefore must have
happened long after the September detention.   At Christmastime in OP
we know that Kreacher still has the family photographs in their silver
frames and some other "small objects and coins" saved from the purge
of the house because the trio see those items when they open up
Kreacher's cupboard in order to deliver Hermione's present. 

On reflection, I think it's hard to support my original reading, but I
am a bit disappointed, as I liked the idea of having that loose end
about the detention tied up....

-- Matt