H is for Horcruxes

[hermoine]

So I felt this is one topic we should discuss more in detail because I'm sure we'll be hearing more of these in HP7.

Now we know that a horcrux is "formed" when one splits his soul into two parts. From these quotes:

“I mean, for instance, isn't seven the most powerfully magical number,
wouldn't seven ?'

'Merlin's beard, Tom!' yelped Slughorn. 'Seven! Isn't it bad enough to think of killing one person? And in any case ...bad enough to divide the soul ... but to rip it into seven pieces ...'

"Wouldn't it be better, make you stronger, to have your soul in more pieces ...
isn't seven the most powerfully magical number ..." Isn't seven the most powerfully magical number. Yes, I think the idea of a seven-part soul would greatly appeal to Lord Voldemort.'

'He made seven Horcruxes?' said Harry, horror-struck, while several of the portraits on the walls made similar noises of shock and outrage. 'But they could be anywhere in the world -hidden -buried or invisible '

'I am glad to see you appreciate the magnitude of the problem,' said Dumbledore calmly. 'But firstly, no, Harry, not seven Horcruxes: six. The seventh part of his soul, however maimed, resides inside his regenerated body. That was the part of him that lived a spectral existence for so many years during his exile; without that, he has no self at all. That seventh piece of soul will be the last that anybody wishing to
kill Voldemort must attack -the piece that lives in his body.'

We know that Voldemort probably split his soul into 6 other pieces, leaving the 7th part inside of him.

This leaves us to wonder, where are these 6 other parts of his soul. We have already learnt that one was Riddle's leather bound Diary and the other was Salazar Slytherin's gold ring. So we have 2 down leaving 4 left.

These could include

• Helga's cup
  
• Slytherin's locket(which could possibly be in Grimmauld place unless it has been moved; if so how did it get there? Regulus perhaps?)
  
• Nagini(although I think Dumbledore had said at the end that he thought it wouldn't be her after all; I need to reread that part)
  
• A relic of Rowena's(her wand perhaps?) or of Gryffindor's(which maybe unlikely since the sword resides at Hogwarts.

Could there be other possibilities? For example the Sorting Hat?

And also, is it possible for a horcrux to be a human being? And if so could perhaps somebody like Snape be one?

[KoNeko]

Could Harry be the Horcrux? I know we had this discussion in the other topic, but yeah...

Also, I still wonder whether you could piece together a soul that had been split into pieces. I mean, wouldn't you want to put it back together at some point or something? I'm sure there is some power or something that you can get from a whole soul that you can't get from bits of soul. If this is the case, then maybe that's why they are so scary and dangerous. *shrugs*

[Natz]

Remember what Dumbledore said that is was not advisable to put a Horcrux in a live object as it is able to think for itself.

You don't think one of the Horcrux's is in Harry's wand do you?

[Isbister15]

^ I thought that might be a possibility. I posted it in another thread but I can't remember which one. Since they made a big deal about Harry's wand being the brother wand of Voldie's, since the wand chooses the wizard, and since the Dark Side might be holding Ollivander captive now, I figured Harry's wand might be a key. (I don't really think that Ollivander plays into this part, but I just had to put that in there. )

[superstitious13]

Here are some of my thoughts while re reading HBP. Pardon me if i repeat some of waht has already been said.

Voldemort has seven horcruxes right? Hufflepuff's cup. Slytherin's locket. Gaunt's ring. Riddle's diary. Possibly the snake, Nagini. Now he needs two more. Possibly somethig of ravenclaw or gryffindor. Dumbledore says on pg. 506 "Voldermort was still at least one horcrux short of his goal of 6 when he entered you parents house with the intention of killing you" Perhaps he did make a horcrux the night harry's parents were killed.

He goes on to talk about nagini and how "he seems to have an unusual amount of control over her even for a parselmouth" If harry was a horcrux then wouldn't that explain why he can sometimes tap into voldermorts thoughts and actions. see what he's doing or has done and all that. if you impolanted your soul into a\nother human being, would you be connected to them in an uncanny way? does any of that make sense?

Perhaps when the killing curse was performed it transferred part of voldermort into harry. explaining why harry didnt die. and giving harry a scar. By accident or purposefully he transferred part of his soul. This is a bit of a sketchy point. Slughorn says that one must kill to rip the soul into pieces and therefore make a horcrux possiblew. this would explain the transference of characteristics such as parselmouth. the same wand and powerfulo magical abilities for harry's age. This also makes the prophecy heard in the ministry make a bit of sense. "NEITHER CAN LIVE WHILE THE OTHER SURVIVES." I know this doesnt match the prophecy obviously and i may be stretching this thin...but maybe. One page 509 harry goes on to say "the propehcy says the i'll have 'power the dark lord knows not'..." and then on page 510 dumbledore states that "voldemort created his own worst enemy..." Am i reading too much into this?

here is where i begin to poke holes in my own theory. This isnt possible is it because if harry was a horcrux and harry killed voldemort (therfore 'surviving') voldemort would technically still be alive right? But what if it's a metaphorical "live" and "survive"? Harry cannot "live" while he has a part of voldemort's soul inside of him. Nad as long as harry has a part of voldemort's soul, voldemort "survives" but what if when harry kills voldemort it rips the part that is in harry (killing rips the soul right? and in some way voldemorts soul has melded with harry's) Harry could then transcribe that piece to an object and destroys it. would that work? Does that even make any sense? to me this makes a little bit of sense. It also xplains why voldemort hasnt been able to kill harry in my opinion.

The part about the prophecy was before i went back and checked the wording of the prophecy. I thought i had remembered it saying that when one dies the other cannot survive or live or something like that. Meaning that when harry died voldemort would die too...which doesnt really fit now that i think about it because voldemort himself is a horcrux (in a way) BUt killing harry would make him mortal and then someone else could finish him off. But then i went back and checked the exact wording. I started to throw this away as nonsense but i thought i would bounce these ideas off you all and see what you thought.

[Fluffy]

Not too far from our theory here, Jaedan, with one twist.

What if Harry wasn't the child described in the prophecy?

[KoNeko]

I think the Neville twist is interesting, but I'd really hate to have to read HP7 and find out that Harry wasn't the Boy who Lived and all that. It'd be so... disappointing in a way after everything that's happened.

That said, I am not saying that it is implausible, but still. Maybe Harry IS the horcrux, and Neville is the BwL. I mean, you could run a theory that Voldie didn't intend to do the killing spell on Harry, but instead was doing some sort of soul-transfer-spell thingy in his mind (as expounded on in HBP where the spell caster has to mean the spell they are casting, or at higher levels don't need to vocalize it at all).

[superstitious13]

ok. Yeah that would be disappointing to find out that neville is the kid in the prophecy. hmm...odd...

[Fluffy]

What's odd?

It would be weird if Neville were the kid in the prophecy, but I don't think it would be inconsistent with the point Rowling's been trying to make. She's always on about how it's our choices and not the position we were born to that really tell who we are, right? In fact, Dumbledore said something very much like that at the end of CoS. So wouldn't it just prove her point if Neville were born to be the child in the prophecy, but Voldemort's and Harry's choices were what made them who they are (ie, the Dark Lord and the Boy Who Lived)?

[superstitious13]

sorry. didnt mean to offend. Its just that the books are called Harry Potter. To me it would be odd for her to shift all the focus to someone else, when it is his story. That's just how i see it. But i'm not a writer. so...yeah...

[Fluffy]

Oh No offence taken at all, Jaedan. Please don't be offended by my tone - everyone here will tell you that I occasionally go all devil's-advocatey.

I agree that it would be silly to shift the focus, I'm just saying that given J. K.'s earlier statements in other books about how it's our choices that make us who we are, I wouldn't put it past her to have Neville be the kid in the prophecy, but to have Harry be the one who ultimately had to fight Voldemort anyway, because of the choices that both Voldemort and Harry have made. It would still be Harry's story, just with a twist that it was the choices that made his story happen as it did, and not the prophecy exactly.

[superstitious13]

i see. well that wouldnt be quite so abnormal. because until the fifth and sixth book was anything mentioned about the prophecy?

[KoNeko]

Wouldn't that mean that Harry's focus would be on both fighting Voldie AND also somehow having to protect the child in the prophecy? I mean, we've seen Harry stand up and defend Neville several times before, against Malfoy, Crabbe and Goyle and so on. Does this mean that now he has to stand up and defend him from Voldie?

[Fluffy]

I don't think there was anything before book 5 about the prophecy. Hmm. There was a mention, right away in the first book, that the wizarding world knew Harry was going to be a wizard even before his parents' death, and someone at my shop recently pointed this out - did Neville appear to be a squib, and is that why Voldemort chose Harry, because he assumed Neville would never amount to anything? Oh, and I do think there was something in book 3 or 4 about how Trelawney made one prophecy before, but I don't think we had a clue what it was until book 5... am I remembering this correctly?

Ko, I think it's possible that we'll go merrily along through book 7, watching Harry find and destroy three more Horcruxes (the locket, Hufflepuff's cup, (something that might be Ravenclaw's wand?)), and that he'll then go after Horcrux #6, Nagini - and someone, probably Pettigrew, will try to stop him and will tell him, by way of trying to defeat him psychologically, that he is the seventh horcrux. Then he'll freak out, going into massive denial and yet fearing it's true and that he's got a fraction of Voldie lurking under the surface, and he'll probably consider suicide, and Ron, Hermione, Ginny, etc. will have to stop Harry from destroying himself... and in the skeffuffle, Neville and Voldemort will have a showdown, during which I think Neville and Voldemort will end up going through the Veil together. Harry will be devastated, swearing that he has to follow them to remove the last bit of Voldemort from the world, saying it is necessary to avenge Neville's death, etc., but then someone wise - Lupin probably, or Lupin and Ginny, both of whom know what it is like to feel possessed by some dark nature, will convince Harry that it would be better and nobler to live, to master the Voldemort within himself and go on to accomplish whatever he can.

So Voldemort will 'win' in a sense - a part of his soul will survive in Harry - and Neville, as the child in the prophecy, will die, and thus the prophecy will be fulfilled. But Harry will continue to be an example to young people: he'll show us how it's possible to go on living, making the best choices we can, despite the darker parts of our selves.

Just a theory though

[AlderadDangarian]

Not trying to start up trouble, but I think I may have found Helga's cup. Does anyone remeber when Ron was throwing up slugs in Chamber of Secrets. Has there ever been a description of the Quiddich cup?? Could that have been replaced with Helga's cup? Any thoughts?