OOP Chapter 6-8 post DH look

[Carol]

No: HPFGUIDX 182822

Carol earlier:
> Or young Snape could have told DD about Regulus's change of heart
(assuming that Regulus made it known to anyone, which he may not have
had time or reason to do)) and informed DD of it, indicating that he
disappeared afterward and was presumed dead. DD might have wondered
why Reggie didn't show up for his last year of school. <snip>

Carol again:

I meant, Spy!Snape could have told DD about Reggie's disappearance and
presumed death some months after it happened, after Severus's
conversion to the good side and after DD noted Regulus's nonappearance
at school. He would assume that the two boys, both Slytherins and just
two years apart, had known each other at school.

But how anyone except Regulus's parents, who had access to the
tapestry (Orion died soon afterward and Walburga went mad) and
Kreacher, who knew what happened but couldn't reveal it, knew that
Regulus was actually dead, I don't know. Even LV didn't know it. 

Severus, however, would know approximately when he had disappeared,
and perhaps he and DD arrived at the conclusion that he must have
gotten cold feet. Why else would a gung ho young recruit who had
eagerly offered the family House-Elf for LV's use, have suddenly
disappeared from their ranks? If Aurors had killed him (unlikely given
that he was a schoolboy) it would have been in the Daily Prophet.

I wonder, BTW, whether there was any death notice or indication of his
disappearance in the paper at all. If so, maybe that's where Sirius
and Lupin got their idea that he died only days after quitting LV's
service. (And I do think that it was only days. Once he found out what
a Horcrux was--not how to create one or destroy one, only that it was
a container for part of a Dark wizard/murderer's soul that kept the
Dark wizard from dying--he made up his mind to sacrifice himself and
have Kreacher steal and destroy the Horcrux, substituting the fake one
in which Regulus had placed his note. As for how he found out what a
Horcrux was, I can only assume that LV had used the term "Horcrux" in
Kreacher's hearing and that the definition of the term was somewhere
in the Black family library.)

Carol, imagining all the query slips that she would have attached to
JKR's manuscripts if she'd been the copyeditor