7

Divination Seven: R.A.B.

‘Sirius’s brother Regulus only managed a few days as far as I can remember.’ (HBP6)

Despite the kindness of Lupin and the Weasleys, Petunia and Dudley refuse to settle down to life at Grimmauld Place. During an argument, Dudley grabs Harry’s wand, as a result of which he is badly injured, requiring a long period of hospitalisation in St. Mungo’s, with his mother at his bedside. Harry and Ron leave to take their Apparition tests and both pass with flying colours. Having completed his test, Harry sends a Patronus message and is astonished to see a Gryffindor lion blossoming from his wand to symbolise his coming of age. While the boys are away, Hermione has a look at the Black family tapestry with Tonks. It doesn’t take her long to work out that Sirius’s brother Regulus is likely to be the mysterious R.A.B., prompting Harry to recall the heavy locket, which they found last summer in a drawing-room cabinet at Grimmauld Place. [As Tom points out, the Pensieve showed Hepzibah Smith with a gold locket; there was no mention of the locket at Grimmauld Place being gold - but I'm assuming that it's the same object] Harry is aghast to think that if he’d remembered this sooner then Dumbledore needn’t have died. The true Horcrux has of course disappeared and Harry summons Kreacher to account for its whereabouts. (A House-Elf, of course, is forbidden to lie to his Master when asked a direct question.) It seems that Kreacher had hidden the locket in his den, as instructed by Master Regulus, but it was subsequently stolen and probably sold by Mundungus Fletcher, who is now in Azkaban. The three of them realise, however, that it was Kreacher who accompanied Regulus on his original expedition to the sea cave. When questioned by Harry, Kreacher fingers Snape as the murderer of Regulus Black. That night, miserable and frustrated, Harry looks into the cracked mirror given to him by Sirius, which he hasn’t had the heart to throw away and is astonished to see Dumbledore’s face peering back at him through half-moon spectacles. Dumbledore tells Harry to be at Godric’s Hollow on the day of the Weasley wedding. He is gone before Harry can be sure that he wasn’t dreaming and Harry does not tell Ron or Hermione of the visitation, but he resolves to be there nevertheless.

Omens & Portents: Canonical Clues

1. Concerning Harry’s Patronus…

• JKR goes out of her way to tell us in HBP that a Patronus is not fixed and can change at times of great emotion. ‘Prongs’, appeared when Harry was very vulnerable, desperately seeking parental love and support and needing to find his father within himself. In the subsequent books, he has gained enormously in knowledge and ability, but still lacks the confidence in his identity that will enable him to confront Voldemort as an equal. What better way to symbolise Harry finding himself and coming into his inheritance than the Gryffindor lion blossoming triumphantly from his wand?

2. Concerning Regulus & Snape…

• JKR has described Regulus Black as ‘dead’. She has also said “Magic cannot bring dead people back to life…. Once you’re dead, you’re dead.” [JKR, WBUR interview, 1999] On the other hand, a quotation from the American edition of Book 6 – ‘He cannot kill you if you are already dead’ (HBP27) – implies that the Order of the Phoenix could be hiding someone. For a time, I toyed with the idea that Regulus is not dead and that Snape, unable to go through with the deed, transfigured him into an animal instead, as Moody-Crouch did with ‘Draco Malfoy, the amazing bouncing ferret’ (HBP13). Neville’s toad Trevor with his fondness for escaping might be Regulus, the ‘little king’ or ‘toad prince’. But sadly I think it’s more likely that when Dumbledore says you’re dead, you’re dead. ‘The truth.’ Dumbledore sighed. ‘It is a beautiful and terrible thing, and should therefore be treated with great caution. However, I shall answers your questions unless I have a very good reason not to, in which case I beg you’ll forgive me. I shall not, of course, lie.’ (PS/SS17) Does the same principle apply to pronouncements from JKR: when she tells us, for example, that Regulus is dead ‘so he’s pretty quiet these days’?

• ‘Was he killed by an Auror?’ Harry asked tentatively. ‘Oh no,’ said Sirius. ‘No, he was murdered by Voldemort. Or on Voldemort’s orders, more likely; I doubt Regulus was ever important enough to be killed by Voldemort in person. From what I found out after he died, he got in so far, then panicked about what he was being asked to do and tried to back out. Well, you don’t just hand in your resignation to Voldemort. It’s a lifetime of service or death.’ (OOtP6) Sometime in the year of Harry’s birth – ‘fifteen years’ prior to the summer of OOtP – Sirius’s younger brother, Regulus Black (a Death Eater), attempted to defect and was murdered on Voldemort’s orders. This is one of those loose threads with the potential to unravel more of the story. Obviously, the identity of the murderer – like that of the unnamed spy who tipped off Dumbledore (in POA) and the informant in the Hog’s Head who betrayed Trelawney’s prophecy (in OOtP) and who is dramatically revealed to have been Snape (in HBP) – has been withheld for a purpose. Sirius reinforces the fact that the identity of his brother’s killer remains unknown.

• Otherwise, there isn’t much more that we’ve been told about Regulus. We know that he was the younger, favoured brother of a couple of wizards obsessed with their pure-blood status and that he joined the Death Eaters out of youthful stupidity and weakness of character rather than actual wickedness. ‘He was younger than me,’ said Sirius, ‘and a much better son, as I was constantly reminded.’ (OOtP6) Regulus came from a family in which rebels, like his older brother, were disowned and in which there was tacit support for Voldemort’s ideas: ‘… they got cold feet when they saw what he was prepared to do to get power, though. But I bet my parents thought Regulus was a right little hero for joining up at first.’ (OOtP6) He then ‘panicked’ (according to Sirius) whether out of conscious or cowardice and tried to back out, before being murdered.

• In HBP, there is further confirmation (from Dumbledore to Harry) that Regulus ‘predeceased’ his brother and ‘both were childless’, so enabling the house at Grimmauld Place to pass to Harry. Slughorn casually mentions that Regulus followed his parents and cousins into Slytherin: ‘The whole Black family had been in my house, but Sirius ended up in Gryffindor! Shame – he was a talented boy. I got his brother Regulus when he came along, but I’d have liked the set.’ (HBP4) Then Lupin relates that Regulus did not long survive his defection, (rather poignantly suggesting that the Marauders cared more than was apparent from Sirius’s brusque words): ‘Sirius’s brother Regulus only managed a few days as far as I can remember.’ (HBP6)

• These few facts make it possible to surmise a lot more. Regulus, separated from his defiantly rebellious and contemptuous older brother, would have joined his much older cousins, Bellatrix and Narcissa, in Slytherin and was probably under their sway from his first day at school. Snape too, according to Sirius, was a younger member of the gang dominated by Bellatrix Black and her future husband Rodolphus Lestrange and he was two years older than Regulus. Given the bad blood between Sirius and Snape, one has to wonder how Regulus fitted into that equation. Did Snape set out to take Regulus under his wing, in order to spite his hated enemy, Sirius Black? Might this have been one reason for the life-threatening prank that Sirius pulled on Snape at the end of their fifth year? Was it Snape who recruited Regulus as a Death Eater, as an act of revenge on the Marauders? Interest in Regulus has increased post-HBP due to the near certainty that it was he who stole the locket Horcrux (with Kreacher as an accomplice) and substituted a fake, leaving a note for Voldemort signed R.A.B. The message is written to ‘the Dark Lord’ (a form of address common to Death Eaters), by an author who seemed to have broken with Voldemort and expected to face death, intending to destroy the Horcrux beforehand. (The Horcrux itself is widely believed to be the ‘heavy locket that none of them could open’ (OOtP6) last seen by Harry and the Weasleys in the glass-fronted cabinet at Grimmauld Place.)

• If it was indeed Regulus who visited the cave and stole the Horcrux, then he possessed more wit and courage than his brother was prepared to credit. Most intriguing, however, is his claim to have ‘discovered’ Voldemort’s ‘secret’ when precise knowledge of the Horcruxes seems to have been withheld from the Death Eaters (at least according to Dumbledore). ‘Then you told me … that on the night that Voldemort returned to his body, he made a most illuminating and alarming statement to the Death Eaters. … And I thought I knew what that meant, though the Death Eaters did not.’ (HBP23) Certainty, Voldemort had not told Lucius of the diary’s greatest secret. Yet Lucius was not one of those prepared to brave Azkaban for Voldemort. It is possible that Regulus was appointed to martial the Inferi (as Red Hen suggests) and stumbled on the truth by accident, (he does boast of the discovery as a personal achievement), but I think it likely that cousin Bellatrix was involved somehow. Even allowing for her delusions, Bellatrix has the greatest claim to a position of distinction among Voldemort’s followers, as she frequently boasts. Indeed in HBP2, she let slip a potentially crucial piece of information: ‘He shares everything with me!’ said Bellatrix, firing up at once. ‘He calls me his most loyal, his most faithful –’ ‘Does he?’ said Snape, his voice delicately inflected to suggest his disbelief. ‘Does he still, after the fiasco at the Ministry?’ ‘That was not my fault!’ said Bellatrix, flushing. ‘The Dark Lord has, in the past, entrusted me with his most precious – if Lucius hadn’t –’ (HBP2) ‘His most precious’ – secret? Could it be that Bellatrix knew about the Horcruxes? Or just that Voldemort had made one Horcrux (which Regulus seems to have believed) as perhaps Grindelwald did before him? It seems that Bellatrix (who is not the subtlest of people) might well have boasted of her privileged knowledge in Regulus’s hearing; thus enabling Regulus to identify a Horcrux when he found it. (Whether Bellatrix actually knew of the object’s location remains a moot point; if she did, she is likely to have re-visited the cave after Voldemort’s first defeat, (which she refused to accept), meaning that she found the note although she might not have dared to tell Voldemort.)

• Regulus – appalled by Voldemort’s excesses and ready to leave the Death Eaters – determined to destroy the Horcrux before being killed. (There is a faint suggestion in his taunting note to Voldemort – ‘I face death in the hope that when you meet your match, you will be mortal once more’ (HBP28 ) – that Regulus might also have known of the prophecy, although this is by no means assured.) And who killed him? Why, none other than our man of mysteries, Severus Snape.

• From a literary viewpoint, it would hardly make sense for another, virtually anonymous Death Eater, to have performed the murder. Besides, there are definite advantages to fingering Snape. JKR has hinted that Snape will have seen [edit - thanks Carol!] some terrible things as a follower of Lord Voldemort. It seems quite likely that he was already a murderer by the time he rejoined Dumbledore. And Snape’s twisted guilt about Regulus, combined with faint suspicion on Sirius’s part, would certainly help to account for the continued hostility between them post-POA. More than that, there are a number of outstanding mysteries connecting Snape and Regulus. Why did Voldemort suspect Regulus of trying to defect? Why didn’t Regulus go to his brother with the stolen Horcrux? Is it possible that Regulus was set up to believe Sirius a spy and that Snape was sent after him as a test of Snape’s loyalties? It is possible that Snape, backed into a corner, was ordered to murder Regulus at the very time he was planning to defect himself.

• What I want to know is what happened when Severus caught up with Regulus? Was Regulus weakened, or already dying, having swallowed the potion in the cave? Might Snape, desperate for information to help Lily, have attempted to interrogate him using Legilimency – or worse? Did Snape force Regulus to reveal, for instance, that Voldemort had made a Horcrux, which he (Regulus) had stolen? For Snape, it seems, does know about Horcruxes. (It was he who saved Dumbledore’s life after he sustained an injury from the ring Horcrux and whom Dumbledore asked to see after drinking the potion in the cave.) And though ‘certain proof’ only came from Riddle’s diary, Dumbledore seems to have believed from the very beginning of PS/SS that Voldemort could not be dead. … He also knew, I think, a lot more than Harry suspected about the cave. But more on that later.

Legilimency… what is JKR thinking?

‘Let’s go again … on the count of three … one – two – three – Legilimens!’ (OOtP24)

• In the long term, Harry will get back at Dudley. [JKR, Book Links, 1999 – Madam Scoop’s Index]

• If a Muggle picked up a wand something accidental and possibly quite violent would be likely to occur. The wand is a vessel for what lies inside a person. You need the magical ability to make it work properly. [JKR, RCMH1, 2006 – Madam Scoop’s Index]

• At least one of the remaining Horcruxes is pretty easy to guess at if you are a careful reader. [JKR, Mugglenet/TLC interview, 2005 – Madam Scoop’s Index]

• Who is R.A.B.? Regulus Black is a “fine choice.” [JKR, Mugglenet/TLC interview, 2005 – Madam Scoop’s Index]

• “Regulus got in a little too deep. Like Draco. He was attracted to it, but the reality of what it meant was way too much to handle.” [JKR, Mugglenet/TLC interview, 2005 – Madam Scoop’s Index]

• Will the two way mirror Sirius gave Harry ever show up again? JKR: Ooooo, good question. There’s your answer. [JKR, World Book Day, 2004 – Madam Scoop’s Index]

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