False Identity!RAB & Amy Benson (Suspect List for RAB)

[Jen Reese]

Carolyn:
> Great minds etc! I just drew up the very same list and was going 
to 
> post it. The other person I found was one of the children that Tom 
> took to that cave, Amy Benson. It's cheating as she would have to 
> have another first name, and recovered from her experiences, and 
turn 
> out to be a powerful witch... 
> All fairly unlikely, but she was on the spot, in the library with
> the candlestick as it were [do you have Cluedo in the US??]. 

Jen: The more I think about it, the more R. Amy Benson seems like a 
possibility.

For one thing, we have this from the interview:

JKR: Today, just today, July the 16th, I was really hoping someone 
would ask me about R.A.B., and you did it. Just today, because I 
think that is — well, I hoped that people would.

MA: Is there more we should ask about him?

JKR: There are things you will deduce on further readings, I think — 
well you two definitely will, for sure — that, yeah, I was really 
hoping that R.A.B. would come out. 

Jen again: I'm thinking she means a re-read of HBP and not the whole 
series, so that probably narrows it down to people in this book--
Borgin, Regulus, and Carolyn's guess, Amy Benson. (And whoever else 
we find on future re-reads--someone related to Marcus Belby 
perhaps?). And she cleverly neither confirms nor denies the gender 
of RAB.

But back to Amy. So you have this person who was actually in that 
very cave. And after the cave incident, she and Dennis Bishop 'were 
never quite right afterwards.' So you presume they are simply 
traumatized Muggles.

But say instead, you have one traumatized Muggle and one witch who 
doesn't show any particular power yet, someone a bit like Neville. 
Then she's terrorized by Tom Riddle in the cave. The stress of the 
incident, like Neville being thrown out the window, activates her 
magical abilities.

Now a couple of things could happen from there. 

1) False Identity Theory: Amy was adopted and her name was changed. 
Meaning one of the characters we may already know and love had a 
different name as a child. But she never forgave or forgot Tom 
Riddle and his cruelty, and made it her mission in life to seek 
revenge. I like this one b/c we already have a successful false 
identity in canon. Also, she would be several years younger than TR, 
and not someone he recognized at Hogawarts, or she attended a 
different wizarding school.

**McGonagall would be my first choice here, except she didn't tell 
Dumbledore her identity or that she had already destroyed the 
locket. And she's not dead (technically RAB doesn't have to be dead 
even if he/she expected to be, either by the posion in the cave or 
other means). But McGonagall would be the right age.**

2) We've met Amy, but don't know it yet. She's dead, but we've seen 
her in the form of a ghost, portrait, or Pensieve memory

3)Amy attented another wizarding school (or even Hogwarts) but we 
haven't actually met her yet. Or we have, but don't know her name 
yet.

Any other thoughts on this?

MissMarple!Jen, hoping for another false-identity story.