Amy (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
such_heights) wrote2007-08-15 01:29 pm
such_heights) wrote2007-08-15 01:29 pm
Entry tags:
Kreacher's Tale
So, I'm re-reading Deathly Hallows, and just finished Chapter 10 (Kreacher's Tale) and feel the need to think out a few backstory things.
This is quite possibly my favourite chapter aside from The Forest Again, because eeee! Sirius' room! Lily's letter! Regulus omg omg. I'd sort of forgotten this was all in the same place. *flaily hands*
Ahem. Anyway. I wanted to say (slightly) less fangirly things, namely:
- Lily's letter is from the beginning of August, yes? So I thought it was interesting that it sounds like they're already in hiding, when we know that the Fidelius Charm can only have been placed right at the end of October, as it sounds like Peter sold them out almost instantaneously. So what prompted that extra measure? Were Frank and Alice in hiding as well? I wonder. Also, it seems terribly significant Remus is the only one not mentioned in her letter, oh dear. Peter's hanging out at Godric's Hollow planting suspicions, yes/no?
- A minor plotting quibble, how on earth did none of them ever spot Regulus' little sign (which I love madly) before? Hermione at least would surely have noticed that at some point considering they spent so much time clearing through Grimmauld Place. Still, I do love Harry's lightbulb moment when he sees the door, so I'll handwave.
- And now, Regulus. Regulus, with his Quidditch team photo and Slytherin banners and prissy door sign, oh my. ♥ But I was putting together his timeline, and gosh, he really is awfully young when all this is happening.
First off, we know he's got Voldemort press clippings from a few years before he joined up. (And I'd really like to know what the nature of those press clippings is, actually! Was he a semi-legitimate political force at one point?) What a thing to grow up with, really. And then he joins the Death Eaters age 16, so that's sometime during fifth/sixth year. My personal bet is that it's the summer after fifth year, 1977, partly because that parallels nicely with both Sirius and Draco. Then a year after that, Voldemort asks for Kreacher, and not long after that, sometime in 1979 according to the Black Family Tree, everything changes and Regulus steals a Horcrux when he really ought to have been studying for his NEWTs, and may well not have made it to 18, depending on how you work out the timeline.
James and Lily go out in a blaze of glory, but this is just a tragic story tucked away, and I love it for that. A completely unsung hero with only Kreacher to ever know what happened to him. This the kind of thing that makes me love HP so very much, all these little stories.
This is quite possibly my favourite chapter aside from The Forest Again, because eeee! Sirius' room! Lily's letter! Regulus omg omg. I'd sort of forgotten this was all in the same place. *flaily hands*
Ahem. Anyway. I wanted to say (slightly) less fangirly things, namely:
- Lily's letter is from the beginning of August, yes? So I thought it was interesting that it sounds like they're already in hiding, when we know that the Fidelius Charm can only have been placed right at the end of October, as it sounds like Peter sold them out almost instantaneously. So what prompted that extra measure? Were Frank and Alice in hiding as well? I wonder. Also, it seems terribly significant Remus is the only one not mentioned in her letter, oh dear. Peter's hanging out at Godric's Hollow planting suspicions, yes/no?
- A minor plotting quibble, how on earth did none of them ever spot Regulus' little sign (which I love madly) before? Hermione at least would surely have noticed that at some point considering they spent so much time clearing through Grimmauld Place. Still, I do love Harry's lightbulb moment when he sees the door, so I'll handwave.
- And now, Regulus. Regulus, with his Quidditch team photo and Slytherin banners and prissy door sign, oh my. ♥ But I was putting together his timeline, and gosh, he really is awfully young when all this is happening.
First off, we know he's got Voldemort press clippings from a few years before he joined up. (And I'd really like to know what the nature of those press clippings is, actually! Was he a semi-legitimate political force at one point?) What a thing to grow up with, really. And then he joins the Death Eaters age 16, so that's sometime during fifth/sixth year. My personal bet is that it's the summer after fifth year, 1977, partly because that parallels nicely with both Sirius and Draco. Then a year after that, Voldemort asks for Kreacher, and not long after that, sometime in 1979 according to the Black Family Tree, everything changes and Regulus steals a Horcrux when he really ought to have been studying for his NEWTs, and may well not have made it to 18, depending on how you work out the timeline.
James and Lily go out in a blaze of glory, but this is just a tragic story tucked away, and I love it for that. A completely unsung hero with only Kreacher to ever know what happened to him. This the kind of thing that makes me love HP so very much, all these little stories.
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I thought that too. I mean, we even get Bathilda, but no Remus. Kind of odd. Maybe they were already suspecting him of being a spy, even that early on, I dunno.
DH cemented Regulus's position as my favorite HP character. I agree with you, he's got such a tragic story, and...guh, I love him.
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Indeed - and that quote in your icon really is wonderful, too. Regulus, you're the best.
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But okay, say Hermione did see that sign once. It would have been during the summer before fifth year. Just like with the locket - she obviously remembered when they found it, but didn't make the connection - had no reason to - until they were back there and things fell into place.
As for what prompted the extra measure, I would imagine that Voldemort had been trying to get at them for a year - he learned of the prophecy before Harry was born, and he was 1 when Lily wrote that letter. They would have been in hiding as soon as Voldemort made his choice. We don't know exactly when it was that Snape came to Dumbledore in that pensieve memory asking him to protect Lily, but I would imagine it was fairly soon after Harry was born. Lily and James were clever enough to hide for a year or so, but by summer of 1981, it was getting bad enough that James chose to stay close. I would imagine they used spells and protections similar to what was used at the Tonkses and at the Burrow - before Voldemort took over the Ministry. That was when they all needed fidelius charms - like at Bill's house and Muriel's house. And the fidelius worked because the secret keepers didn't betray them. So I would imagine that the Potters went under fidelius when Voldemort gained means or information as to the protection charms they'd been using previously, or it was decided that the risk was too great (there was a spy) and more powerful measures (fidelius) were deemed necessary.
We have to remember that the fidelius would have worked and would have kept them safe for as long as necessary if Peter hadn't betrayed them. So... :)
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Ah yes, ok, I hadn't quite that through all that well, had I? I just sort of had this image of all of them walking past it all the time, but that does seem to have been a remote part of the house, you're right.
Right, yes, the prophecy - so they know Voldemort's chosen them through Snape, but he can only get at them when he's gained enough power. Gotcha!
And indeed, what if they'd never chosen Peter? So many possibilities.
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As for Regulus...well, argh. I love Regulus, and I have ever since we got HBP. I was very happy with him being killed by Voldemort, kthnx. I have many, many qualms with his story, namely:
a) he's a pureblood with the same heritage forced into him as his parents - and even -Sirius- doesn't treat Kreacher as anything but a slave, and he's supposed to be all high and mighty. Why the hell wouldn't he feed Kreacher the potion, put the locket in the fucking pedestal and take the houseelf safely back to Grimmauld Place?
b) and secondly, why the hell didn't he do that? I mean siriusly...drink the potion that he doesn't know if wizards can really drink, and then throw himself into the lake of inferii? He has a -house elf- with -house elf magic-. Even if he insisted on taking the potion himself, he could order Kreacher to take him home, and Kreacher would be forced to do it. And Voldemort would never ever find out. But that's just it, isn't it? If Voldemort had found out, then he wouldn't have needed to go back and check the lake, and he'd have protected his Horcruxes more.
But I hate seeing Regulus represented as a fricken idiot. *sigh* Because he ultimately was.
What gets me the most is that Regulus is Sirius' younger brother, right? Well, I kind of expected a bigger gap between them, but James and Lily (and Sirius and everyone else) were all 20, and Regulus died when he was 17+. So he can't have been more than three years younger than Sirius. Anything from nine months downwards of 20, right? So he'd have been flying against James in Quidditch and stuff. I think that's just awesome. Makes my Snape/Regulus, Sirius/Regulus much more reasonable too.
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I know what you mean, but I suppose that seeing as Regulus knew he was going to die, he didn't see why Kreacher should have to suffer for him, which I thought was rather the point of the way it ended up happening. Telling Kreacher to destroy it was probably just about the best thing he could come up with.
And Regulus is only one year younger, which I like a lot - and yes, makes Quidditch extra fun. :D
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I go back and forth on 1981!Remus in the letter thing. There are so many different ways you could take it: Remus is away on a long-term order mission, reconnaissance or something, and everyone knows (you can spin a nice plot here: Remus comes back from werewolves in late September and visits the Potters in hiding, who are then almost immediately attacked. Cue suspicion and Fidelius); Remus is in the hospital or otherwise incapacitated (full moon?) so the letter is to Sirius alone but the pronoun 'you' may at times be implicitly plural; Remus is already suspected to be the spy (but in this case, why is there not even a tiny little bit of angst?). There's also the disheartening but all too possible explanation that jkr just forgot Remus would be important here. In case you can't tell, I like the first option better than anything else I've managed to come up with so far, but -- it's weird, the whole thing, and I'm not completely happy with anything. There is something strange about the absolute absence of any mention of Remus; Lily isn't one to either repress uncomfortable topics, or avoid mentioning friends, so I don't know.
also, I cannot believe the nickname "Wormy". And you thought Wormtail was bad...
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Ooh, I like those different possibilities! Mmm, plotty goodness - I look forward to seeing some really good First War fics dealing with that sort of thing, actually.
a;ldj I know! Oh, the nicknames in this book were so funny. Sev, Tuney, the works!
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Also, Voldemort, who killed his father and grandparents (and made his first Horcrux?) after his fifth year.
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And I think Lily & James had been in hiding for a while, but I remember something about them changing FROM Sirius TO Peter. So Peter probably DID hand them over rather quickly, but it was a while AFTER they went into hiding that he got that information himself.
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Very true, that would make a lot of sense.