A member of the Bones family is also a possibility. If someone can post what the word for bones is in Finnish, I would appreciate it! If that word also begins with an "m" then we are back where we started, since there is an outside chance that one of the Bones family could be the elusive RAB. If not, I stick with Regulus.

If Regulus was RAB, how on earth did he manage what virtually killed Albus Dumbledore - to retrieve the Locket? My theory isn't very original - so many of you have suggested it that I can't possibly credit everyone. SE readers Daniel and Tatiana were the most recent ones to share some of these ideas. I believe Regulus had Kreacher as an accomplice. Let's work through how that might have transpired.

Bellatrix says in HBP (in the chapter from whence this column takes its name, "Spinner's End") that the Dark Lord trusted her "with his most precious..." Dumbledore tells Harry that Voldemort convinces all of his followers that they are special by pretending to give them more knowledge and trust than their fellow Death Eaters.

Even Dumbledore had to do a great deal of deduction to realize that Voldemort had put together several Horcruxes. It is a fair assumption that your average Death Eater would not think of it. However, if certain Death Eaters were each told that there was one Horcrux, and that they were the special follower that was chosen to keep that secret, Voldemort buys himself several useful things. Voldemort still has unknown Horcruxes, so his soul is safe. Telling different DE's about some of the Horcruxes binds the chosen Death Eater closer to the Dark Lord, each one believing he or she is the only one with certain information. Say Lucius and Bellatrix got together and betrayed Voldemort by telling each other about the Horcruxes. Voldemort would still have had other Horcruxes, and he would have found an effective way to test loyalty and/or trap the disloyal among his followers. So I do think it's possible that some of the Horcruxes were known to some DE's. I just believe that each DE would have been told that their Horcrux was the only Horcrux. Or, they may have been given false or partial information, as was Lucius.

We know that Voldemort entrusted at least one Horcrux to a Death Eater: Lucius Malfoy had the Diary. He did not know it was a Horcrux, but he had it. So, whether or not Bellatrix knew exactly what she was hiding, I believe that she somehow was used to help secure the hiding place and protections for the Horcrux.

Regulus may have helped her, spied on her or followed her and found out something about what she was up to. I also thought of another possibility, based on two passing moments - one from OotP and one from HBP.

1. In OotP during Harry's Occlumency lessons with Snape, when he begins to fight back, he is momentarily drawn into Snape's thoughts and memories - he sees them clearly, if fleetingly.

2. In HBP, when Snape tries to perform Legilimency on Draco and cannot, he suggests that "Aunt Bella" has been teaching Draco Occlumency.

Perhaps Bella also taught Regulus, and perhaps, during his lessons, Regulus also broke into his cousin's memories and saw an exchange between her and the Dark Lord, with a Locket and the cave?

Once Regulus knew what he needed to go after, it is hard to imagine how he managed to find his way through the cave, get to the island, get through the potion, replace the Locket and the potion and get out alive. Perhaps there was some way that he made the exchange before the Locket was hidden in the cave, but not necessarily.

I subscribe to the belief that Regulus had an accomplice and agree with those who believe that accomplice to be Kreacher. As Dumbledore says, one alone could not do it. Whether Kreacher still trusted and admired Regulus as a Black, whether he knew what Regulus was doing, or whether he was simply not able to refuse a Black family member, I don't know. Kreacher is small and would fit into the boat with Regulus. He would not register as a fully qualified wizard, since he is not a wizard at all. And best of all, since the powers of House Elves are so mysterious, we don't know what he might have been able to do to help Regulus find his way through the obstacles. House Elves can Apparate around Hogwarts (or something that looks a lot like Apparation, at least.) And, as Hermione is fond of reminding us, you can't apparate in or out of Hogwarts. Is it not possible, then, that Kreacher could have found the way in, got past the blood offering, found the boat and either drunk the potion or even retrieved the Locket and substituted the fake without drinking the potion? The brilliant thing about this, if this is what JKR has done, is that she hasn't really mislead or misinformed us, and she wouldn't be springing a cheap, "Well, you didn't tell us that!" kind of ending on us. She has told us often, in many ways, that House Elves have their own magic. And she told us that two full-grown wizards couldn't have gotten into that boat. Additionally, Kreacher is definitely "not right" in the head, as several characters have pointed out. Did he, due to his special Elf magic, survive the trials of the cave, but come away permanently damaged from the experience?

If this is the scenario, one principal question remains: when, how and why did Regulus die? If Kreacher took the "hit" of the curses in the cave, then that didn't kill Regulus. If Voldemort didn't find out he stole the Horcrux, then he didn't have Regulus killed for that reason (and Voldemort seems to believe that the Horcrux is still safe). Did Regulus steal the Locket and then publicly make known he wanted to leave the Dark Lord's service? Was he killed for his desertion and not by cave curses? Or, did Regulus learn that he had been targeted for death and only then make use of the information he had learned from Bellatrix? We can only guess.

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