[HPforGrownups] Locket swapped, Regulus dead (Was Re: The Locket Horcrux - When Was It Swapped?)

[elfundeb]

No: HPFGUIDX 165738

Pippin:
This makes it even clearer to me that RAB didn't steal the locket from the
basin at all. He stole it beforehand. That eliminates a whole raft of
problems. <snip>

Mike:
Yay, Pippin <Mike applauds> I've been of a like mind as you on this
for a long time.

Debbie:
Me, too.  There can't be enough time in DH to reveal all that backstory
about dragging Kreacher to the cave.

Pippin:
Of
course we do have to account for the locket being disenchanted by the
time Harry found it. But the spell may have worn off over the years,
or perhaps Dumbledore disenchanted it.

Debbie:
We have plenty of examples of spells wearing off (the twins' anti-Umbridge
sayings spring to mind), but I think R.A.B. may have done it intentionally.
If he didn't put the locket in the cave himself, he would have needed to
protect it from Bella (or whoever placed it in the cave) from opening it.
But did it need to be sealed after that?

Now I'm wondering who R.A.B. intended to read the note.  It was addressed to
the Dark Lord, but he can't have expected Voldemort himself to come by and
check up on his Horcrux (as, in fact, he did not).   It seems that the
note was put there half-expecting that someone would attempt to find and
destroy the Horcruxes.

Goddlefrood:
The other small matter that reinforced me in the view that Reggie is
deceased is the sequence of events in HBP (Wills and Won'ts – p. 54):

"…'Black family tradition decreed that the house was handed down the
direct line, to the next male with the name Black. Sirius was the
very last of the line as his younger brother, Regulus, predeceased
him and both were childless'…"

Shortly after this Kreacher obeys Harry so proving (not entirely
conclusively, but pretty well) that there are no other direct
descendents surviving.

Debbie:
I see this argument frequently, and I can't see how it's supported by
canon.  Dumbledore does not summon Kreacher to prove that Sirius has no
direct descendants.  Kreacher was summoned and tested to determine whether
there was a spell or enchantment on 12 Grimmauld Place that would preclude
Harry from inheriting it ( e.g., precluding ownership by anyone except a
pureblood).  It was only *tradition* that decreed that the house pass down
the direct line.  Sirius was free to disregard that tradition regardless of
whether Regulus was alive (and perhaps especially if Regulus was alive,
considering what Sirius thought of him).

Mike:
But what I like better is that the Metamorphmagus gene runs in the
Black family. And Tonks isn't the only one. We've all been wondering
why JKR introduced us to the concept without taking it somewhere.
Maybe Reggie is where. Maybe Reggie is out there right now, disguised
as someone else, and doing Dumbledore's bidding. If Reggie has taken
up the Horcrux hunt from a long time ago, maybe Harry doesn't have
that many to find and destroy after all.

Debbie:
I'd like to believe that Regulus is still alive (that's why I was so fond of
all those Stubby Boardman theories).  I like the Metamorphmagus argument
very much.  And it seems reasonable that he'd be out there looking for more
Horcruxes.  However, he doesn't seem to have been very successful, if the
ring was just lying about Little Hangleton waiting to be found by
Dumbledore.  Moreover, I doubt Dumbledore would be aware of another Horcrux
hunt, because the premise he sets out in PS/SS is that he's not going to lie
directly to Harry (withhold information, yes; lie, no).

 So, on balance, unless Regulus is lying low, I have to give this theory
fairly low odds.

Debbie
who wants Regulus to be alive but believes the characters always refer to
him as *dead* and not as having to have disappeared, and not sure how he
could have faked a body without Polyjuicing and killing someone, which would
undo his goodness


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