i think it is likely Regulus wil be the The mysterious R.A.B this is because it is Adressed to the Dark Lord and says they will be dead so appearantly they had a reason for thinking people were after him Ex: regulus for leaving the DE's but 1 question Was Regulus a strong enough wizard to get through all the traps Riddle set up?

Regulus Black was indeed my first though and thinking more about it makes even more sense. Harry is going to need alot of help in finding the rest of the Horcruxes. Harry is still inept in is powers and will need alot of details on how to get past the magic protecting them and finding them. Harry does now own the Black home and it is very possible he may find the information hidden there otherwise I havent a clue on how he will be able to track down the rest of them espessially if it took DD as long as it had to find the few he found.

My very first thought was Regulus Black before he died.

But Sirius gave the impression that Regulus wasn't really a great wizard and he wasn't such a backstabber, he was just scared after he found out the lengths Voldemort would go to. From what Sirius said, Regulus wouldn't have ventured into that cave and gotten that locket. He was scared of dying by being a part of the Death Eaters. So I don't think it was him. I just don't.

Besides, how would he know? Sirius said he got in so far and panicked. Then he said he wasn't 'important enough to have been killed by Voldemort himself'. Voldemort wouldn't have told ANYONE about the horcruxes, incase someone tried to destroy them (in an attempt to overthrow him perhaps), especially someone as unimportant as Regulus was, supposedly.

My guess is that maybe it's not a person at all. Maybe it's like OotP, a group, and by 'died', meaning they've disbanded a long time ago. Maybe it's an ex-DE's. DEs-turned-anti-Voldemort group. Wild guess, I know....

Ooohh, someone mentioned the mirror that Sirius gave Harry. I thought we were going to see it in HBP, but apparently not... maybe that's a Horcrux too??

I was wondering what he deal with the fake necklace is. It isnt salazar slytherins, so where did it come from. Whoever took the real horcrux apparently wanted to leave a parting shot at voldmort with it. I think it is regulus black (or was). He makes sense, but i dont hink voldemort knows he did it. It will be interesting when harry confronts voldemort once he has destroyed all of the horcruxes (i am guessing on this one, but it seems like the only way the next book can end) and vode recognizes the necklace as belonging to someone he knew.

Regulus! cuz he was a Death Eater, so he was - uh - 'close' to ickle Voldykins. and he's dead right now. and all the Death Eaters call Voldykins the Dark Lord. HEE HEE! maybe ickle Reggykins knew he was gonna get killed, and hated Voldie, so decided to steal the Horcrux! or something... hee hee.

I have a very good feeling that it will be just like with the Half-Blood Prince, it will be somone no one expected, but somone everyone knew :/

I think it's Regulus Black. Hermione said something like "by the sounds of the letter, this person knew voldemort" (or something like that - don't have the book with me -sorry!!)
It's well known that R. Black was a death eater, so maybe he did a Vader and turned good in the end.
Anyway - the locket. If Regulus hadn't managed to destroy it, it means it belongs to Harry. The question is -where is it? It could be in Grimmauld Place, and it also could have been sold by Dung Fletcher, which could prove an interesting storyline in Harry trying to track it down...

I think it is regulus. He has an uncle Alford (I think that's right) which can account for the A. Also, he died 15 years before OOTP, which makes it pretty much around the time the prophecy was made and the potters killed. So what if Regulus knew that the potters were the target which would also endanger Sirius, his brother? I know they probably weren't particularly close, but it's still a motive at least.

Also, sirius only says that regulus probably wasn't important enough to be killed by voldemort, we don't know that for a fact. And finally, I'm pretty sure that regulus is dead, because of the way they talk about other dead people in the books. Some people are talked about as being dead, and some people
are talked about as being presumed dead. So if they are talked about as being dead, I would guess they have found a body.

Well, if it was, then there's no point in hoping Black's left part of his soul b/c Harry broke it... altho, I don't remember him killing anyone ((did he???)), anyway, so it couldn't have been made into a horcrux...

Completely wild thought here-- what if it isn't Regulus? What if there's some long- lost relative or some random wizard/ witch? It's possible...

I dunno... Regulus does make sense but I think that it is a Death Eater whom we don't know...

There is something I've read in this thread quite a few times now... that Regulus Black as 'close' to Voldemort and that he was in Voldemort's inner circle... Where do yuo get this info???? From what we are told Regulus was not important enough to be killed by Voldemort!

Regulus was not important! (to Voldemort)


But he still is the best guess I have so far... unless Amelia Bones had some sort of title that begins with an R....

That was only a guess by Sirius, along the lines of "Regulus was killed by voldemort, or more likely on voldemorts orders, I doubt he was important to be killed by voldemort himself" (I don't have the book at hand for the exact quote). So he could have been very important, but no one outside of the death eaters would have known.

The exact qoute from OOTP about Rugulus is:

'Oh, no,' said Sirius 'he was murdered by Voldemort. Or on Voldemort's orderes more likeli; I doubt Reguglus 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.'

So even if he was important how would he have time to steal the Horcrux? I doubt that the Death Eaters would give him time to flee!

Assuming the writer of this note isn't lying... then the writer is dead, has stolen and probably destroyed the Horcrux and has descovered a secret!

And I believe that the writer was once a Death Eater or at last rooting for Voldemort as the only ones we know to call Voldemort for 'The Dark Lord' has been Death Eaters.

you know i think Regulus Black is a very good guess
but for all we know it could be someone else
i to believe it is a death eater.

Regulus Black is also one of my guesses but... I find him very unlikely to play this part base on the information we have about him... we do not even know if he had a middle name so it's pure speculations...
My other guess is Amelia Bones (look above to get my entire point)

There are a lot of options here and we need to consider them all...

I doubt very much it would be amelia bones becuase I very much doubt she was ever a death eater, also mugglenet lists her name as Amelia Susan Bones (unless I'm reading it wrong?). I don't think it was Binns (do we even know how long ago he died? I would have thought he was probably a ghost at the time when the locket was taken). That leaves Borgin and Burke, at least one of which we can discount because their first name is caractus, and the other I find unlikely, athough I can't come up with a concrete reason yet.

So if all these can be discounted, we are left with a choice of Regulus, an as yet unknown character or the fact that RAB are not a single persons initials (they could be e.g. Rookwood And Burke, or another society/order etc).

I would be extremely disappointed if it is a completely new character as this is obviously something that is meant to keep people guessing and it would annoy a lot of people if it was something they couldn't have guessed. If it is not a single person, than there are far too many possibilities to even consider. So that only leaves us with Regulus.

We have to consider everything... there could be other characters in the books who could if this... and again... we have (as far as I can tell) assumed that the writer of the note was telling the truth... but what if it wasn't entirely true? The note begins with To the Darl Lord that could be a trick... to make Voldemort believe that someone from his side has turned against him. The write obviously thought at the note would be read by Voldemort so it's possible that the writer was lying in order to help Voldemorts opponents.

If we assume that the author of the note is lying (or pretending to be someone else), then we have to assume that the initials are wrong as well, so any speculation becomes pointless as it could be any one of hundreds of characters. I think we have to assume for now that the note is real (i.e. it is from a death eater (or more than one) to voldemort and that that person(s) has the initials RAB).

There are people in the books that we only know by titles (such as the bloody baron) so we don't actually know what their real names are. But again, I would find this extremely disappointing if it was one of them.

Who is RAB? I never really thought of it, 2bhon. I'd probably have to say, one of the members of the Black family but I'm not positive.

I just though of something... just because the note says to the Dark Lord it doen't mean that the writer is a Death Eater just that the writer supports Voldemort. (As it's only his supporters who call him the Dark Lord)

If the writer of the note is truhtful then we know that it is only one person who stole the Horcrux (and wrote the note)as the note says I not we...

Good point.

Re your post above, I don't think there are many characters (if any) that are outright supporters wthout being deatheaters, so I don't see that it helps much.

However, it could be that RAB is someone's maiden name, not their married name. 15 years (at least) is plenty of time to get married. So it could be another member of the black family?