Slughorn and the Ring

OK -- I have, as I said, been listening to book 6 repeatedly while driving (only on about # 3 right now - I only do it when driving the 1.5 hrs between where I am staying while I work on this project during the weeks and my place in Weirton on the weekends). From these repeated listenings I'm trying to pick up things and think about them. On this present listening I am thinking that there is more to Horace Slughorn than meets our eyes in the book and that he is more involved than we think (could he even be RAB? who knows ... although if he is he certainly did not fulfill his own prediction of dying soon, or maybe he wasn't saying he expected to be dead forthrightly, simply that he was of such an age he did not expect to live to the point in time where somebody else figured out the riddle and undid the rest of the horcruxes ... all he was prepared to do was lend a helping hand with this one that had a potion protection ... if he said he thought he would be dead by the time Voldy found that this one had been swapped he obviously did not expect Voldy to kill him for doing the switching ... or maybe he just thought it would obviously kill him to undo the horcrux, as undoing the ring almost, or maybe did eventually, on the stoppered death theory, killed Dumbledore, and maybe he found a way to undo it without dying ... who knows). When Harry first meets Slughorn, Dumbledore asks Sluggo how he has been and Sluggo replies about old age and then uses it as an opportunity to make a comment that maybe, contra the claim he knows going to make (although he lets Harry do the talking), he isn't any safer with Dumbledore than elsewhere because the injured hand shows Dumbledore to be "losing his grip." And then you have Dumbledore say "but on the other hand," displaying both hands and Harry notices the ring, after thinking the hand spreading is saying that age has its compensation ... and the immediate ruse is the connection the reader is supposed to make that the ring is a compensation in the sense of being able to have such things as gold rings. I don't think you're meant to actually buy that ruse, I think it's just meant to distract you so that in giving you a clue Rowling also makes it easier to miss the clue. You have to be paying attention and not be skipping over the finer details to get to "the juicy part of the plot" (as I have done with this section up till this listening). Then "Slughorn's eyes lingered for a moment on the ring too, and Harry saw a tiny frown momentarily crease his wide forehead" (HBP 68). I think you're immediate "glossing over" reaction is supposed to be " Well, Slughorn doesn't want to be convinced to join Dumbledore, but DD is showing him something that does appeal to him, some fancy jewelry that appeals to his vanity as a sign of importance and influence etc and so that was sort of a point in DD's favor so you get a mild momentary negative reaction ... ok, get on with more juicy revelations." But I think something else is going on - I think he recognizes the ring. I think he knows more than just that Tom Riddle asked him about Horcruxes and so can surmise that the adult Voldemort was probably trying to make horcruxes. I think he has some more intimate knowledge that Voldy did make horcruxes and what some of them were ... at least that the ring was a very special thing to Riddle and therefore a foremost candidate for becoming a horcrux, as he knew Tom was interested in making them, and if Dumbledore has that ring, especially with the stone cracked, it must mean that it had been made into a horcrux and Dumbledore has undone it. In other words, when Dumbledore says "on the other hand" and displays the ring, he is making a statement that Slughorn reads loud and clear and that Dumbledore knows he reads loud and clear: "I am making progress, Horace, I have found one of them and destroyed it and am still here to tell about it ... it is possible to make actual progress against Voldemort, instead of just avoid him like you have been doing" ... and this makes Slughorn frown, because he would rather satisfy himself with the more comfortable (or at least less uncomfortable) notion that you really can't make progress against Voldemort, you can just stay neutral and out of his way. One of the key questions is: can you imagine the conversation between the two men in which Dumbledore asked Slughorn to give him the memory? How did he know the memory existed? With the way Slughorn altered the memory it seems unlikely that he would have gone up to Dumbledore and said, "Um, Tom Riddle asked me about horcruxes ... of course I told him absolutely nothing, because I know it's a banned subject." And if Dumbledore asked him if Riddle ever asked him about horcruxes, with what he says about Horace being able to resist occlumency and crafty enough to think ahead about veritaserum, it seems a wonder that Sluggo didn't just say "nope, never asked me ..." and that being the last DD was able to get from him (rather than a botched memory) ... unless there had been other developments and incidences that involved both of them talking about the matters, maybe with others. Dumbledore said the diary had been confirmation ... which would mean he had been thinking that already. So where did he get the idea? Voldemort had to have gotten the spell somewhere to actual do the horcrux ... was there a suspicious incedent involving him being partially discovered with whatever source he gained it from, etc.? And was there a pursuant conversation between Sluggo and DD in which DD got at least some hint, way back then (remember Voldy made the diary HC within the same year he first asked Sluggo about them), that Riddle had been after HC info? I think Slughorn is not trying to hide that he gave Tom Riddle material information about Horcruxes ... he did not, after all, give him the spell etc (although he did tell him it required murder, so I guess that is a material provision of information). I think the main thing he wanted to hide was his nonchalant way of speaking about it with Tom, as a matter of curiosity and study that "we more mature wizards" can talk about academically without risking any temptations, regardless of whether or not it is a subject banned by the headmaster (ok, I just looked at the scene and I do have to give Sluggo some credit, he was bothered bit by the end - "do I look like I've tried it? do I look like a killer?" - but it also looks like he was maybe a little cavalier going in and then realized he was in over his head.) I think that he had provided riddle with the info of horcruxing involving murder was already established between DD and him and DD wanted the memory for the finer details that Sluggo is either not sharp enough to catch the significance of or won't tell (Sluggo has probably been telling himself for years that, yes Voldy probably did make a horcrux, but not even he would make more than 1 so I really don't need to ... even though subconsciously he knows better.) Anyway, I think that at least what actually happened in the conversation when Dumbledore got the botched memory from Sluggo will be one of the revelations in book 7 and that there will probably be antecedent material revealed, maybe even some material involvement in the Horcrux drama by Slughorn ... and I definitely think we'll see him in person again in a crucial scene or two.