Ah, BuffyBuff, flattery (even if I do detect a slight note of sarcasm) will get you everywhere and I understand completely that you're just throwing the idea out there - believe me, I don't take all this THAT personally - indeed, I kind of like it, cos you're making me think about it. Even so, still gotta disagree with the Lupin as a Death Eater theory. There's just no evidence. Alright, it's a strong contention that Lupin loved Lily, but it's a heck of a big leap to then say that he went off and joined the Death Eaters as some kind of - what? revenge? It just doesn't fit in with what we know about Lupin so far and JK's pretty good at keeping her characters acting within, erm, character. Look at Sirius, right from the off he was a brash, throw caution to the wind, James Dean type, which is exactly the kind of thing that eventually led to him being killed - just like James Dean in fact. Likewise, Lupin has always been portrayed as the sensible, down to earth, always-acting-for-the-best model student/teacher. I know - none better in fact - that we're all sometimes fools for love, but rushing off to join the Death Eaters just because of a broken heart? Nah, Lupin's more the type of guy who'd grin and bear it, even if his heart strings are being torn up like garden weeds, you know what I mean?

Even so, I agree that it is very suspicious that JK avoided the question about who the missing Death Eater was. I'd never actually read about that until the other day when I read your posting. Still got no ideas why she'd avoid the question, so it MUST have some bearing on the books as a whole (unless, as I said in my last posting, she's just playing mind games and, you know, with JK, you never can quite rule that out (think of your favourite murder, Cedric "Oh! he was a main character to me." Diggory) - heck, she might just have thought, if you're stupid enough not to have figured that out, then I ain't gonna tell you