[HPforGrownups] Regulus' death(was: Snape - a werewolf bigot?? Was: Say it isn't so Lupin!!!

[elfundeb]

No: HPFGUIDX 170181

wynnleaf,
I don't see any indication that Regulus turned away from
Voldemort and went to Sirius. Sirius seems far to vague about it, as
though he doesn't know the details, which he *would* know if Regulus
had come to him.

So how does Lupin know that it was only a few days between Regulus
turning, or Voldemort hearing about it, and Regulus getting killed?

Magpie:
I would take that a step further--Lupin and Sirius could both have heard of
Regulus' death, but how on earth did anyone know that he'd turned? Did he
make a scene in front of LV? They wouldn't have heard this sort of thing
from other DEs.


Debbie:
I think his renunciation must have become public in some way.  Sirius says
that from what he learned later, Regulus backed out after learning what he
was expected to do.  Obviously part of what they were expected to do was to
take out the members of the Order.  As I envision the timeline, Regulus'
mangled and tortured body was found within a day or two of a bloody ambush
of Order members.

And don't discount the possibility that after he turned spy for the Order,
Snape himself filled in a bit of the timeline for Dumbledore.  (If Voldy had
ordered Regulus killed as a turncoat, he must have informed the DEs.)  It
would be reasonable for Dumbledore to pass on the information to Regulus'
brother, if not to Order members in general as insight into the psychology
of their opponents.  In that case, Lupin wouldn't have needed to get his
information from Sirius at all.

Magpie:
I know some people feel like Sirius doesn't care about his brother, but I
could easily believe his calling him an idiot was covering up bitterness
for his sake as well as his own. Regulus was suckered in by his parents'
ideology, and I love the idea that Sirius naturally made Regulus' death
part of that same story. I mean, he must have considered it a good thing
that Regulus *tried* to leave the DEs--that alone showed he'd done
something right.

Debbie:
I think the feeling is mutual.  Based on the facts that:

1.  The task Voldemort assigned to Draco in HBP was to kill his own
headmaster, someone he had an existing relationship with;

2.  Sirius states that lots of pureblood families supported the DEs until
they realized what they were willing to do to achieve power, which suggests
that the killings did not start in earnest until fairly late in the game;

3.  The DEs were decimating the Order (though I wonder if this didn't begin
in earnest until Pettigrew turned traitor, which seems to have happened
about the time of Regulus death);

4.  As you point out, Regulus was misled into joining up by his acceptance
of his parents' pureblood ideology;

I believe that Voldemort assigned Regulus the task of killing his own
brother, and this is what Regulus refused to do.  In other words, the
brotherly feelings were mutual.  However, Sirius doesn't have this
information.  Sirius seems to have filled in the blanks in his facts with
various surmises consistent with his opinion of his family and, perhaps,
information he received indirectly from other family members such as Uncle
Alphard (who was probably in contact with some of the family even if he'd
been blasted off the tapestry).  Thus, the notion that Regulus panicked is
almost certainly an embellishment added to the story by Sirius, who does not
know and will never learn the truth.

Debbie


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