I believe you are having difficulty because you are thinking of the soul as a piece of paper. When you commit a murder, it rips a bit off the corner. When you create a Horcrux you rip a larger chunk off the paper and put it in a box somewhere where it can't be touched, leaving the rest of the, now diminished souls, to rattle about inside whatever body they happen to reside within, never quite able to fill it up.

I believe we need to think of the soul as a sort of vapor. Indeed, voldemort even describes himself, in GoF, as a "vapor, thinner than mist" or something like that. Leading to the term "Vapormort" (which I may have coined, unless someone came up with it further than a few years ago) describing the state voldemort was in after his body was destroyed and before he possessed another creature.

Now, if we think of the soul as a vapor, it is easier to see the effects of murder upon it. When one commits a murder, it "rips" or "tears" the soul. A bit of the vapor evaporates away, leaving the soul thinner, more diluted, less than whole and not entirely human, but completely filling its vessel. The creation of a Horcrux is a magical act that purposefully tears away a portion of the soul, leaving the remainder even more diluted and less human, and transfers it to an object for safe-keeping.

When Voldemort's body was destroyed he gained the power to possess other living creatures (as he explains in GoF) When he created a new body for himself, not from natural means, but through dark magic, he retained the ability to possess other creatures as he demonstrates with Harry in the Ministry at the end of OotP. The main problem he had with possessing people was not any moral qualm, but simply that their bodies were ill-suited for it. The constant struggle of the body's native soul to take control wore the body out, and they invariably died before their time. The body Voldemort created was ideal in that it had no soul. It never had a soul, and so Voldemort could possess it indefinately. Indeed, he may even be immortal as who knows if that body even ages.

Voldemort is not even truly "alive" as he was not born. He is currently possessing a sort of automoton. When he possesses another body I would even go so far as to say his own "body" falls to an inert state, like a puppet with no hand to control it. Which would explain why he Disapparated before possessing Harry. He may even have returned to his hideout as he has a connection with Harry and is able to make contact with his mind over any distance.

Unfortunately I have to leave, so I cannot go further into whether or not Harry is Horcrux today . . . I will get to that soon however, and edit this post when I get time!

Not to get snippy, but I didn't describe the soul as a piece of paper, nor do would I. That's too simplistic an analogy for how I view the soul. However, the thing is, there are certain ways I view the soul, as well as how I feel that the soul as an object has been presented to us in the series. Much of this comes down to personal opinion, so there is no guarentee that I would be right in describing the soul with any specific properties, but since this really all comes down to guesswork, I think we're allowed a few liberties since we're discussing what could be, rather than what we know to be. But the same is true for your point of view. The way you see the soul, the properties you give it are also assumed. They're not positively confirmed, so while your point of view could be correct, it's unfair to say beyond a shadow of a doubt that that is how it is, and my viewpoints are simply inaccurate.

Furthermore, as has already been discussed, at least in part, in this thread: JKR has already given the soul in her world some physical properties, so it's entirely reasonable for us to work from that general idea. In any case, I'm looking forward to listening to your or any other theories as to how you think it works and how Harry could or couldn't be a Horcrux based on those theories, but I would appreciate it if you didn't so casually dismiss other people's theories in doing so. I have valid reasons for believing that the soul works in the way that I think it works. As I'm sure do you. And I'm all-ears to hear them...

EDIT: A day later, allow me to just add this: I'm sure you didn't mean to be "dismissive" necessarily, just that when you say, "I believe you're having difficulty..." it's as if you're saying that my theories are simply invalid, and that's just not true, for the reasons listed above.

Now, more directly having to do with your point of view: here's one of the initial issues I have with the theory of the soul as strictly a vapor. While I'm sure that some such elements of vapors are at play here, I personally don't feel that that adequately describes the soul either. One problem I have with that is that if the soul is completely just a vapor, then the words "split" or "tear" or "rip apart" just don't fit. Even as a metaphor, I still find them a little too awkward. I'll save my full description of how I would view the soul in terms of vapors or papers or what-not for my next post, after you or someone else has had a chance to respond.

You are correct in that I was not being dismissive. I simply thought you were having difficulty because you vascilitate between various views and were wondering how things might work, but all of the properties you were attributing to the soul made it seem as if you believe it to be a limited entity. The "piece of paper" was simply an analogy, just as the vapor was. As you said, I don't believe the soul is anything as simplistic as a vapor. Not like the steam that rises from a pot of boiling water. I was simply using it as a metaphor to describe the "state" as it were, of a soul.

If vapor is not to your liking then how about a piece of paper? But this paper, whenever you tear a piece off, returns to its original shape, but does not gain any mass. Meaning that it is thinner, and less cohesive than before. If you keep ripping and tearing at it, it becomes thinner and thinner until it is no longer truly paper, though it may look like paper, just as a mass murderer might look human, but they are no longer humane.

Now, I believe you had it right when you said that the creation of a Horcrux involves a spell, then a murder, and I believe it is more than a spell but a sort of ritual that may take many days, like the creation of a complicated potion. You know, first the object must be prepared to accept the bit of soul, then the person must be prepared undergoing rites and rituals or something which would allow their soul to be split.

From what Slughorn said I don't believe that murder actually splits the soul as does the creation of a horcrux. I think it rips it, yes, tears it, wounds it, and leaves it scarred and (in terms of the paper) tattered at the edges. The reason I believe this is simply because, as you said, if bits of the soul were torn off whenever a murder was commited then the people would begin to look less human, and there might be accidental horcruxes just lying about (which would prove that an object must be prepared, or else mass murderers who were executed would not truly die) just as Voldemort began going through changes as he created the Horcruxes. After creating the first Horcrux, the Diary, Riddle's eyes would glow red when he was angered (as they did with Memorymort in CoS). After he had created a few more his eyes were permanently red, and his face had begun to undergo changes, his skin changing color and becoming blotchy and whatnot as we saw in D's memory of V applying for the DADA position.

If any parts of the soul were ripped away by murder, then I believe they would be lost. Without a vessel to contain them, such as a living body, they would be diluted to the point where they lost cohesiveness and became little more than particles that joined the ambient ether of the world, just as the body eventually becomes dust that blows away on the wind.

A ghost, however, is a soul without a vessel. When a person in the HPverse dies they have the option to "move on" or become a ghost. Those who are too fearful of death, or have some purpose yet to fulfill in the material world, do not allow their spirit to leave their possession. Their "will" has held them together, keeping their soul from joining with those who have moved on, leaving them trapped on the material world but unable to effect it.

What do we know of Horcruxes then? We know that they are usually objects, but that they can be living creatures. We also know (or at least Dumbledore suspected which is as good as we the reader knowing) that Voldemort used Nagini, a snake, as one of his Horcruxes. We also know (as Dumbledore suspected it) that Voldemort used only significant murders to create his Horcruxes and that he planned to use Harry to create his seventh and final one.

Harry, however, did not die. Yet, there was a death. Voldemort was killed by his own curse. He then experienced "pain beyond imagining" as if every fiber of his being were being shredded. The protection Harry's mother offered him had been responsible for Voldemort's death. The rest of the house and the surrounding area was destroyed in the blast of voldemort's body being destroyed, which may have destroyed whatever object Voldemort was planning to use to create a horcrux, or else burried it in the rubble.

The question is, could Voldemort's own death count as a "murder" and be used in the creation of a Horcrux?

We know that Voldemort has an unnatural connection with Nagini, and that he may possess her, and see through her eyes, over any distance. We also know that Harry is able to see through Voldemort's eyes over any distance! He was doing so without trying, even against his will, as he slept. He was sharing Voldemort's dreams of the cooridor in the department of Mysteries. He was able to feel Voldemort's emotions.

So we know that some form of unnatural bond exists between Voldemort and Harry, just as it does between Voldemort and Nagini.

If, as I suspect, the Horcrux must be prepared before hand, and the spell is finalized at the time of the murder which creates it, then would not that spell too have rebounded from Harry? What if Voldemort did not use his own death to turn Harry into a Horcrux, but Voldemort's death at Harry's hands turned whatever object Voldemort was planning to use into Harry's Horcrux?

I do not find this scenario likely, however, as that would not explain the transfer of power from Voldemort to Harry, nor would it explain Harry's certain humanity. Harry should also have eyes that turn red when he is angry if he had a Horcrux, as Riddle's did.

Yet, there is no way to explain the transfer of power (i.e. Harry's ability to speak parseltongue) or their empathic bond unless there was some transference of Voldemort's "essence" to Harry. Before HBP we did not know what to call this act. Red Hen theorized about it (and I know you are familiar with her theories) and I actually came to nearly the same conclusion independantly, which can be found in one of the archived Book 6 Theory threads (can't recall which one as it was an off topic post!), but none of us realized it was something Voldemort may have actively been trying to do. We all imagined it was an accident caused by the rebounding curse. Now that we know of Horcruxes, however, it merely gives a name to what we had already theorized.

When I finished reading Book 6 I felt hopeless. I knew then that Harry would have to die in order to destroy Voldemort for good and all, and I had always held out hope that Harry would somehow survive and not have to sacrifice himself, despite all the signs previous that the overlying theme of the series was personal sacrifice. "We all must choose between what is right and what is easy" and whatnot.

I'm still holding out hope, however, that Sirius will come back from his physical jaunt through the realm of death and explain how Harry can sever the link between he and Voldemort without having to take his own life.

I estimate there's about a 0.0000019% chance of that happening!

I guess I can see how you might have thought that, but as it happens, I do actually have one firm preferred theory as to how I think things went down. The reason I try to present many different possibilities is because all I'm trying to do is convince people of the possibility of Harry being a Horcrux. So many people don't believe it's even possible, when really, there's plenty of room for it happening, and it really only comes down to how it could happen, which depends entirely on how exactly things work. Unfortunately, we can only know so much right now about the mechanics of it all, so we have to conisder all possibilities. Furthermore, I feel that the burden of proof (until either JKR says otherwise or the seventh book is published) on the matter lies with those against the theory. Those of us who believe that Harry is a Horcrux only have to throw out believable theories in order to create a "reasonable doubt," whereas those who are against the theory are the ones that have to show why they believe its not possible (or at least why any doubt isn't entirely "reasonable"). So that's why I try to present many different possibilities, rather than just the one that I feel is most likely.



Well, ultimately, there are going to have to be ways in which we limit the soul. Not necessarily because the soul definately works that way, but in order for it to be used in this way, there are going to have to be some natural limits placed upon it, or else Jo will just lose her audience in trying to explain it. I think as far as the book is concerned, the quicker and easier it can be explained that it could and did happen, the better, and if there is no easy way for her to make it clear, then I find it unlikely that it will turn out to be true at all. Does that make sense?

Ultimately, I believe that any sort of description of the soul in the seventh book is going to end up being somewhat metaphorical, and that properties given to it are likely to be physical, more like a solid object than a vapor, even though the soul itself would technically be intangible. For me personally, I prefer the idea of the soul, not so much as a vapor, and not so much as something that returns to form everytime, but as something that can be torn up and beaten up, and actually appear that way as well. I see your point of view, and there are things that I like about it, but I like mine better. It makes a lot of sense to me that the soul would be split by the act of murder, and I feel that the soul would reflect that act. Think of it like an article of clothing, like a shirt. The more you murder and the more it gets ripped, eventually it's not really even a shirt anymore, but just these rags are hanging off you. Worse yet if you strip off pieces of the shirt as you go and stuff them in containers, sooner or later, you don't just have rags hanging off you, but just one rag hanging off you. I like this idea as to how the soul is affected. I think its a very strong metaphor. Furthermore, it also presents an opening for the soul to be mended (perhaps by love), where it is still scarred by its past, but could still find redemption.

This is more or less how I see the soul. Now, the important thing to remember about this (and your view as well) is that neither is confirmed to be the point of view of JKR, nor can we confirm it to be unless we directly asked her and she directly answered. She could have an entirely different view as to how the soul functions and what porperties she attributes to it. So while I may like my theory and you may like yours, for now, they're each as valid as the other, yet neither may necessarily prove to be the way of the world in Harry Potter.



I believe this is a possibility, like all the other possibilities, though unconfirmed. A Horcrux may take preparation beforehand, but we don't know that for sure. For all we know, the only preparation that is needed is for Voldemort to have the intended Horcrux (either with him or close by or perhaps just in his general possession at all; we don't really know), commit the murder, and then say a spell of some sort. (I personally like the idea that he says the spell either simultaneously with AK or directly after - as in the same breath - and immediately begins channeling the separated soul piece into the intended Horcrux even as the actual death is taking place.)



I disagree. Even if Harry is a Horcrux, I think that it still comes out to being a 50/50 chance on whether he lives or dies. It can be swung either way regardless of how things work out, so for anyone and everyone who is not JK Rowling, then for now, the chances of Harry dying are exactly equal to the chances of Harry living. In my opinion, at least...

I guess I just have a hard time envisioning the soul as anything tangible. To me it would be a liquid, flowing thing. I like the vapor analogy because a vapor is not hindered by gravity, like a liquid. If you remove half of a vapor from a container, it still fillst the entire container, but is less dense. Whereas if you remove half a liquid it retains its density and only fills the bottom half of the container.

As for the soul being redeemed, it works with a liquid or vapor analogy as well. The act of love, either giving or recieving, replenishes the soul, filling it up, filling the soul's vessel once more.

One of the ways I've pictured the end of Book 7 has been Harry vanquishing Voldemort physically, destroying the automoton V is possessing, and then Vapormort attempting to take control of Harry's body and literally crush his spirit. Harry, having realized that he is a Horcrux by that point, and realizing that he has a bit of V's soul within him, finds a way to trap Voldemort within him and then simply forgives him. In the moment that Voldemort is about to destroy his soul, his consciousness, Harry says, "I understand. It's allright." And he feels a surge of love for Voldemort, the first time V would have felt that emotion directed at him and it is enough to cause him to finally let go, to fear Death no longer.

But that's just one of the ways I've pictured it. I'm thinking it will be something a bit more exciting than a psychic battle, however.

Man, I hope some people come along who think Harry is not a Horcrux! Do such people actually exist?

Well, how about someone who is not convinced? You'll note I haven't added a view on Harry being a horcrux to my little list at the bottom of my signature. That's because I really don't know on this issue. I can see both sides of it. Ok, here are my problems.

First, we don't really know enough about horcruxes. From the way Slughorn describes it, it sounds as if the horcrux is made after the fact, but then again, he doesn't really say that, and we don't even know if Slughorn even knows how to make a horcrux in the first place. This is a problem, because some harry/horcrux theories (not all) rely on this. I think that a senario where voldemort indicates harry as a potential horcrux beforehand makes more sense than other harry/horcrux theories.

Second, we know that harry and voldemort have a unique link due to harry's scar. But what does that link mean? Harry being a horcrux would explain that link a whole, whole lot. But then why hasn't the horcrux shown himself? Unless the moments where harry wants to kill dumbledore in book 5 weren't actually voldemort linking to harry, but voldemort in harry. I could see that. But then why didn't Dumbledore tell harry this? Wouldn't he know? I guess he could have just been unwilling to tell him, as he waited so long to tell him about the prophesy. Man, that would be cold.

But how could the horcrux exist in Harry when he is so filled with love? Wouldn't this piece of Voldemort rithe in pain by being inside an object of love?

Another question: what about Harry's scar being a horcrux? Is this splitting hairs or a crutial distinction?

-Fish

By the way, there is a thread on the nature of the soul in this forum now. I know that LLWK has commented there, but there have only been a few comments. If you are interested in this subject, you might want to check it out. Some interesting posts there.

Ah yes, a very good point you brought up there, Kyle. This is a recurring question in the "Is Harry A Horcrux" thread located in the Pre-Book Seven Forum. While there is no canon to sway our minds in either direction on this topic, I believe when discussing the nature of a Horcrux we are just going to need to make it up through the use of reason and logic as we progress in our theories.

The question that was posed is a very interesting one. How could a piece of Voldemort's soul reside in Harry's body, which is so full of the one thing Voldemort detests more than anything? There are many answers to this question, and most likely each one will be wrong in the end, but we will theorize nonetheless. The first thing we must remember is that art of Horcrux making is wonderfully complex. The very idea of a Horcrux is so intriuging yet so wrong. Horcruxes are primarily a tool to escape the clutches of Death, but with the gift/curse of Immortality, one becomes a target for those who lack this way of life, especially when you are an evil Dark Lord.

A Horcrux is used as a tool, a weapon even, to give the creator safegaurds against death. These tools are external anchors containing your soul. Even though you went through the horrific act of splitting your soul, you would still have a certain respect for it, and would not want pieces to be lost due to flamboyance of the Horcrux itself. This is where I believe the true usefulness of a Horcrux comes into play. I believe that Horcruxes go into a dormant state allowing them to survive in such an environment as a cup, or a locket, a ring... or a body filled with love.

In our own world we have many organisms that isolate themselves from their environments in order to achieve an ultimate goal of survival. Seeds can lie dormant waiting for water for countless periods of time, some viruses will remain utterly inactive until a host is found, and many creatures merely hide to escape the persecution of the food chain. So why not Horcruxes? I believe the Horcruxes place the soul in a state that leaves them completely sealed off to the outside world so as to escape detection as well as survive some environments. This is why a Horcrux could pass under the nose of Dumbledore and many more of the finer witches and wizards without causing alarm. This is what I believe to be the nature of a horcrux. Now some will counter that the Diary did not such thing, well it seems I answered that in the fruition of "Is Harry a Horcrux: Thread 5"

Here is my post about the Diary, and I also touch upon the defensive nature of the Horcrux:

Ok I realize that the Diary was a threat, because it led you to believe it was good, then it used you... but all of the Horcruxes would not be threats for the nature of a horcrux is to lie dormant.. in a state in which it would not be expected of anything but the outward appearance of the object it is encased in... its main purpose is immortality.. invincibility... it would be pointless for all of the horcruxes to attack those who interact with them for they would reveal their secrets, and Voldemort's key to destruction. Voldemort gave that diary the memory of when he was a schoolboy, and placed a piece of his soul in it... thus giving the soul a mind of sorts to work with so it can interact with those who writes in the diary... perhaps Voldemort underestimated himself at school, and forgot how power hungry he was, and the mind and memory he had was still in its fertile stage of the discovery of his powers and desires.... then he meets Ginny Weasley, who tells him how Harry Potter destroyed his future self as a baby, and the year before he foiled his plans.... young Tom Riddle, 1/7 of his soul from the future, but all of his memories and thoughts as a child.... begins to form a plan... why wait for his future weak self to get foiled once more, he will posess Ginny weasley through the powers of the Diary his future self cast and open the Chamber as was planned, but in opening the chamber, in his triumphant return to the crimes he had to hide from, he would sap the life from Young Ginny Weasley and give life to the 1/7 soul and memories he was made of... a renegade horcrux... most likely he would find his weakened body of his future self, and somehow, through the darkest of the dark arts rejoin his body, with that of the weakened state, becoming one Voldemort, with the youthful vigor of childhood, but with the age and wisdom of the dark magic he so sought out... and Lord Voldemort would have risen 2 years earlier... but thank goodness Harry destroyed the diary, the source of the memories power and life force(1/7soul)... destroying the prospect of a return from LV, as well as unintentionally destroying a horcrux....

I am eagerly awaiting some feedback!

P.S.- I like to use ellipses rather than commas, forgive me!

~Albus

Hmm... Ok. Here's what I think about the diary. I don't think that the diary is indicative of all horcruxes. It had two magical abilities that most horcruxes did not. First, it was able to communicate. I believe that this spell was similar in nature to the spell upon the marauder's map. It held part of the personality of the caster, only in the ability to communicate with others. Also, as part of the spell, it held part of the memory of the person, just as the marauder's map knew who severus snape was, and was able to describe his large nose, etc. Remember what JK Rowling said:

The second thing that the diary had was the memories of Tom Riddle. Somehow, Tom's written memories were turned into, or replaced by, actual memories (like those we see in scenes with the pensive). This is, of course, different than the type of "memory" that is imparted by the other spell. These two spells combined in force, allowing the diary to speak and impart its memories in a way that voldemort would, communicating with voldemort's memories and voldemort's voice. The result is nothing any more harmful than, say, a portrait of Tom Riddle would have been. However, when voldemort added a bit of his soul into the mix, the result was that the diary not only had memory and voice, but also a drive and a conciousness (see the "what is a soul" thread for more thoughts on this point). The diary's drive and desire to replicate is what gave it away as a horcrux.

So, here's the question: would a horcrux, given a vessle able to communicate but lacking voldemort's memories and personality, act like the diary in any way? Would it remain "dormant" as a horcrux in a noncommunicative vessle would? I'm not sure. The only evidence I can think of is the scene with Nagini in book 5. What if voldemort wasn't in possession of the snake, but harry was simply able to link to it because of Voldemort's piece of soul inside her? What if the "possession" was voldemort's piece of soul acting out through the its vessle? (granted, this is possible whether or not Harry is a horcrux)

Kyle

Here I am! What are your other two wishes?

All right, this is another one of those topics I'm jumping into, so if someone has already said something or I misinterpret something, I apologize in advance.

I think it's all how you interpret it. How I see it, Slughorn says horcruxes are made after the kill. (And another thing, JKR wouldn't put this in here if Slughorn was making it up. That seems ridiculous from an author/writing standpoint.) Slughorn says that the person who killed used the tearing to his/her advantage. I assume that means that a kill has to be made before the soul can be ripped and taken out.

For your second point, I do believe that Dumbledore would have told Harry if he was a horcrux or if anything on his body was a horcrux. That puts Harry in real big danger--worse than he already is--because once Voldemort figures it out as well, he's going to be on Harry like white on rice. Voldemort cares about his soul and him staying alive, not whether Harry makes it through.

The soul inside a pure soul also makes it unbelievable for me too. Simply put, I don't believe Voldemort's soul could survive inside Harry.

I believe the diary was a special case. Voldemort bewitched that one a bit differently that his others because I'm pretty sure that ring didn't pop up and start to have a chat with Dumbledore when it was found. Some things just have the ability to communicate, and other objects are not so fortunate. I think the way the diary was done is that that particular horcrux could work on it's own because of the memories that Voldemort left with it. How a ring or a cup would do that...I don't know.

But if there is a horcrux inside of Harry, how is Voldemort to get it out if it were to act like the one in the diary? Once it wakes from it's dormant stages (if that is indeed how it works) it will immediately not be able to handle Harry's body. So however it got in there in the first place, it's really not going to be able to get out if it "wakes up." I suppose that's where Harry's death comes into play.

And I'm not really following that vessel question.

FINALLY! Someone else who sees the diary the same way I do. I was starting to think I was alone in that. We have no firm reason to believe that the special properties of the diary would hold true with other Horcruxes. From what Dumbledore said back in CoS, we can reasonably assume, apart from the whole Horcrux business, that Voldemort imprinted his personality on the diary just as wizards often imprint themselves on paintings or sometimes other objects. It's pure assumption that the behavior of the diary would be included of the characteristics of most Horcruxes. Of course, the other conclusion also assumes many things, but the point is that it's hardly a forgone conclusion that the diary is in any way an example of the characteristics of all Horcruxes.



I believe that it's still possible for Harry to have become a Horcrux whichever way you look at it. Personally, I feel that the general "Act of Evil" statement indicates more that it takes a certain intent and a certain act (even if the act doesn't follow through) to split the soul, but that's just my own opinion. If it, in fact, waits for an actual "kill" to be racked up before the soul can be split (which I find a little silly, but again: that's me), then why couldn't Voldemort's own death have served as the appropriate kill? He did, in fact, kill himself there. He destroyed his body. His body was dead. The fact that his spirit persisted and had other means to survive does not mean that he wasn't "dead." If someone dies for a moment but is then resucitated, they still died for those few moments.

I believe it is safe to assume that the bits of soul within Horcruxes are, indeed, dormant as Albus states. I might even go so far as to say they do not actually contain any of the soul's personality traits, but are merely "life-force" or "soul-energy." I go into further detail on this in the thread "What is a Soul" found in the Library. I'd link it but I'm lazy.

Anyway, the proof that the soul lies dormant when in a Horcrux can be found in PoA, and is rather simple once pointed out.

Papermort did not age.

The diary was 50 years old, yet Papermort did not have 50 years worth of memories. His only memories were the ones which Voldemort had at the age of 16 and of Papermort's interaction with Ginny and Harry once they gained possession of the diary and began to interact with it.

Papermort did not even have memory of the passage of time. Otherwise he no doubt would have been quite insane after spending 50 years trapped in his own head without outside interaction, or stimulus. Rather, he was only as insane as Voldemort himself was at the time of Papermort's creation. Which was rather less insane than Voldemort after he returned from Vapormort status.

Anyway, the soul, as we know, is inherantly "good," or, at the least, "neutral." We know this because extreme acts of evil vis. "murder" cause the soul to tear, as they are unnatural. It is only the personality or characteristic of the soul which are evil. To further my electricity analogy from the thread mentioned above, electricity or "soul-energy" in and of itself is neither "good" nor "evil." Only the uses to which it are put can be good or evil. Heating a house in the winter might be considered a "good" use, while using an electric chair as a means of execution might be viewed as "evil." (Depending on who you ask, though I personally find it an inefficient use of tax payer money as a basin of water could do the same thing and even be reused at the one time cost of a few cents for the actual container, but that is neither here nor there.)

For a "piece of Voldemort to be inside" Harry, is not so inconcievable if we think of this "piece" as merely a bit of energy, rather than a bit of Voldemort's personality. This may also be why Harry seems to have more "energy" than other wizards in that he is the only one we know of through the HP books, who continues to use wandless magic long after he has been trained in the use of a wand. It could be through the extra "energy" he contains through Voldemort's Horcrux, that he is unable to control the magical energy within himself at all times as others who are trained to control their talents do.

It was the Chamber of Secrets, but I know that you know better and I have written it off as a typo.



I have a minor disagreement with one of your statements:



Since we agree that the soul is what makes a person a person... their character, life-force... it is them, then I would have to say that this energy would contain some of the personality traits of Voldemort as well. We see this as a possible explanation for Harry being gifted with the ability to speak and understand Parseltongue, even though Harry is not a descendent of Slytherin. Notice Harry does not inherit the wealth of knowledge Voldemort had maintained, but instead he recieves an ability that is woven into the fabric of Voldemort's being... the Parseltongue ability. This ability would be part of the make-up of the energy of Voldemort's soul, and thus carried over to Harry if he was a horcrux as some us suspect.

With this in mind, I come now to the Sorting Hat. I wonder if the Sorting Hat saw this "energy" of Lord Voldemort within Harry during the Sorting. It wanted to put Harry in Slytherin, but gave him the choice in a sense. What did it see in Harry? One thing that many people is ask is: How will Harry know that he is a Horcrux? If I am right, all he will need to do is "don his thinking cap"...er... I mean put the sorting hat on

It is highly probable that Harry will be filled with doubt and confusion in the seventh book. He is closing in on fulfilling his "destiny".. or if you would rather call it simply a "mission", then do so... either way he will be hardpressed emotionally and has he did in the Chamber of Secrets, he will consult the Sorting Hat one last time. While I am getting further and further away from canon here, I will say that the Sorting Hat may finally reveal to Harry that there is a Horcrux within him.

With that said, we must ask: did Dumbledore know? We would assume, sitting in Dumbledore's Office, that the Sorting Hat would have told him. And if it did, why didnt he tell Harry? Does this have anything to do with the "glimpse of triumph" on Dumbledore's face after Harry's return from the Graveyard?

~Albus

As you say, the "trait" Harry recieves is the Parseltongue ability which, as we know, is genetically passed on which is why V's entire family could speak with snakes. This has nothing to do with personality. If Voldemort had the metamorphmagus ability, I'm guessing Harry would also have it, as that is another magical trait which you are either born with or not.



If you recall the sorting hat ceremony in SS you will see that all of the reasons the sorting hat gives for wanting to put Harry in Slytherin are personality traits which Harry already possesses. The "desire to prove yourself" "drive to succeed" "ambition" "cleverness" etc. Also, Dumbledore himself later says that Harry possesses many qualities Salazar looked for in his students. Resourcefulness, a certain lack of regard for the rules, and so on. Basically, Harry did not need any traits from Voldemort in order for the Sorting Hat to put him in Slytherin. It was only to introduce the whole "it is our choices which make us who we are" idea that JK added this to the story.

I do believe that Harry's ability to speak parseltongue is a direct result of his being a Horcrux, however, so there we agree.

That's simply hilarious. Papermort . Man you sure have some sense of humour. I think I almost split a gut laughing on that one.

Now on to the discussion. There are several arguments for Tom having put a bit of his soul into Harry during that fateful night thereby conferring upon him the abilities such as Parseltongue and the mind connection. What I find strange is the classification of Harry's scar as a curse scar. In the books it's often mentioned that the scar was a result of the killing curse rebounding back to Tom, and else where is states that the killing curse leaves no physical mark (remember Riddles?). If that's the case then what exactly was the curse that caused this scar? Was it a botched spell to create a horcrux?

Remember Dumbledore said that Tom wanted to use Harry's death to create his sixth horcrux (a total of seven). Then it is entirely possible that he had some artifact with him that day to make a horcrux. The creation of horcrux is a two-step process. The soul splits first (by committing murder) and then the fractured piece of soul is bound to an animate or inanimate object using a spell. The question is are the two events simultaneous? I mean does the process of soul splitting and horcrux creation are done at the same time? IN that case after casting the killing curse, Tom's soul was already split and after firing the killing curse on Harry he was have silently uttered the spell to create horcrux. But since the curse rebounded, the spell may or may not have been completed and a part of Tom's soul that was to be bound may have exploded from the impact of the curse, which would have ripped it from the body. Now it is possible that the entire piece of soul entered Harry or much of it exploded with some fragments entering Harry.

Whether Harry can be classified as a true horcrux or not is debatable. Perhaps he is a sort of pseudohorcrux due the the process not being performed accurately

I believe the majority of the work in creating a Horcrux is in preparing the object to recieve the bit of soul. Slughorn said that the act of murder causes the soul to tear. That means that anyone who commits a murder has a torn soul. There is nothing magic about it. The magic involved is in moving that bit of torn soul into some other container to hold it. In the "What is a soul" thread I theorize that certain things, such as living beings, which have souls, are therefore capable of containing soul energy. They would need no preperation to hold a bit of soul, because they can already contain soul energy. They make poor horcruxes, however, because living things die, and dead things decompose.

So some, more permanent, object must be found to hold the bit of soul. But objects do not have souls, and so they must be prepared. Or so I would surmise. After that, it may be no more than a choice at the time of the desired murder, to have that bit of soul split away and become entrapped in the prepared object. If you remember, Dumbledore said, "Voldemort always chooses important murders to create his horcruxes," or some such, when he tells Harry that Voldemort planned on using Harry's death to create his final Horcrux.

Yet, Voldemort killed 2 people prior to attempting to kill Harry. Yet, neither of these murders caused the creation of a Horcrux. So assuming that Voldemort had an object on his person which he desired to be made into his final Horcrux, it is my belief that he had to choose to complete the Horcrux ritual at the time he commits the murder which will create the soul fragment he wishes to use. Whether this is no more than a choice, or a spell he must perform, it stands to reason that he would have made that choice and performed that spell prior to killing Harry. So, when he cast the Avada Kedavra at Harry, it was loaded with the power to create a Horcrux from the murder that was commited.

Yet, Harry was not killed.

Voldemort was killed. A murder was still commited. Voldemort ended his own life before its natural alotment of years. This would fulfill the requirements for horcrux creation, I believe. The bit of soul then travels along the path of the spell, from Voldemort to Harry, as it rebound off Harry, and attaches itself to Harry, as he is the only object now prepared to hold a soul, as Voldemort's body exploded, destroying the entire house, and no doubt the object he had prepared to become a Horcrux.

Excuse me if I'm being a bit thick here, but did you not say

So, you are saying that any living or dead thing for that matter would be a poor vessel to become an horcrux?

Then how can you say that because of the way the AK curse backfired, Harry became the unintended horcrux? Isn't this a bit of a contradiction?

I'm more inclined to believe that since the intended vessel had been prepared to recieve the portion of soul, that it didn't matter to the vessel who was murdered, the vessel and the enchantment to create the horcrux would readily accept LV's soul no matter the victim.

Does that make sense?

Anyway, I don't think that Harry is an Horcrux, I think it is still in Godrics Hollow, buried under a ton of rubble.

Not really a contradiction, but a poor stroke of fate for Lord Voldemort. Yes, a living or dead being would make a poor horcrux, because with the gift of life, also comes the gift/curse of death. This means that when the Horcrux, if it is living, dies, so does the Horcrux. Even if the being dies, and the Horcrux survives in the dead body, the body then over time will decompose. Also, living creatures are wreckless and have minds of their own. There are too many risks being taken when making a living/dead thing a Horcrux, thus the fact that they would make a poor vessel... when done purposefully. The making of a Horcrux in an unintentional manner would not abide by these guidelines for wrong and right in regards to vessels, and thus would allow Harry to be a Horcrux.



While I am wary of a spell that prepares a vessel for the recieving of a soul before the murder, lets assume I support the theory, and go from there. I agree with you Etphonehome in the fact that a prepared vessel would accept the soul upon the death of Voldemort's body, and not go into Harry. I would not doubt that notion for a moment, except we know that a strong link was created between Harry and Voldemort upon the casting of the Avada Kedavra, which most likely would have overrided any other pre-concieved spells for the Horcrux's destination. Since we know for a fact that a link was created that night between the Dark Lord and the boy who lived, then it is not a stretch to say that the soul also traveled to Harry along that link, thus making Harry a Horcrux.

~Albus

To me, it seems highly unlikely that a piece of soul that was torn from committing a murder would just up and enter into the closest object that had been prepared for it. Whether or not the spell to prepare an object to receive a piece of soul took place before or after the murder; that piece of torn soul would still need the proper motivation after it had been split to get from point A to point B. If it didn't need another spell to get from point A to point B, it really wouldn't matter what murders he had committed in what order (as Dumbledore said he chose important murders to create his Horcruxes) because the bits of sould floating around in his body would have just scrambled to get into whatever prepared object was closest.

It's all well and good to hypothesize and such, but we really know very little about the creation of the Horcrux, the timing of creation and such. Sometimes I think it's better to look at things more simplisticly.

I do not believe Harry is a Horcrux because even if an object had been prepared ahead of time to inherit the piece of soul; Voldemort had no time to finish the act and remove that piece of soul from his own body to place it the prepared object. I pretty firmly believe that he was not successful in creating a Horcrux that night at Godric's Hollow.

I did some research, and I found that the making of the Horcrux does not need to be done at the time of the murder. Tom Riddle travels to Little Hangleton to kill his father and grandparents in July of 1943. The following September was the aproximated time for his chat with Slughorn about Horcruxes. At this time, he inquires what a Horcrux is, how one makes one, and how many one can create. He obviously has not created the Horcrux yet, nearly two months after the murders. He then creates the Horcrux shortly after his conversation with Slughorn, and it is the diary.

With this knowledge, and the knowledge that murder tears the soul, and does not split it, we can deduce what may may have happened at Godric's Hollow. A known fact is that Voldemort has killed many times, and that night, he had killed two more times, adding two fresh tears to his soul. He intends on creating a Horcrux from Harry's death and is excited at the prospect of ensuring his immortality with the death of the one who is said to destroy him. A trophy kill indeed.

When he finally commits the act of murder, using the Avada Kedavra, he is thinking only of making this horcrux from this extremely important death. So when his body is destroyed, it creates the explosion that we know happened, and releases a horde of uncontrolled magic, possibly specified to the creating of a Horcrux because that it what was on Lord Voldemort's mind at the time. We know that emotions play a role in magic, and Voldemort certainly desired a Horcrux. Desire is a very strong emotion. Thus the soul is split on one of the tears, and travels into Harry Potter who is linked to Lord Voldemort by the Avada Kedavra he cast. This makes Harry Potter a prime candidate for a Horcrux in my opinion.

~Albus

I don't agree with this. If he is thinking only of making his Horcrux, then it's no wonder his killing curse failed. I think Voldemort's more calculating and precise than that. Also, on the house exploding; we have no evidence that the actual spell caused it, we have no evidence on what part of the spell caused it if it was indeed the spell. I don't believe there is any indication of "a horde of uncontrolled magic" that was released; after all, Voldemort remained, weakened and insignificant and unable, at that time, to do magic; but he remained. And if, as you have said in the past, a complicated spell had to have been cast to prepare the Horcrux, then Harry's body-even while being a soulful vessle of his own - was not prepared and primed to accept any of Voldemort's soul. If the events of that night are solely responsible for Harry being a Horcrux, and all of that magical energy was coarsing around-as you speculate- then I think we also should suspect any of Voldemort's Death Eaters who were at the scene to also have received a part of his soul.

On the "when" of creating a Horcrux. I am completely aware that the timing of the murder in light of the corresponding Horcrux is not significant. Once the soul is torn; it is torn and cannot be whole again. I'm not arguing that at all.

I believe that Harry's connection with Voldemort does not indicate that Harry is a Horcrux.

His killing curse was effective in that it destroyed his own body upon rebounding off the traces of Lily's sacrifice on Harry, so there was no fault there.



Yes, at most times, but yet he overlooked the fact that Lily's dying for Harry would create a charm powerful enough to block the Avada Kedavra. I think Voldemort could have made more than one mistake that night.



What else would have caused the destruction of the house? We know from canon that an Avada Kedavra that misses it target, which is usually living, destroys or greatly damages inanimate objects. So it was either the killing curse magnified enough to destroy Voldemort and nearly destroy the house, or the killing curse merely destroyed Voldemort's body, which caused a massive release of power and magic from his "death".



We know that atleast some magic was released, given that Harry has the ability to speak Parseltongue and has a mental link with Lord Voldemort. Wouldnt a cataclysmic release of power leave you weakened, insignificant, and unable?



I dont remember claiming that, for I personally do not think that a spell is needed to prepare an object. If I did say that, I am sorry but I dont beleive that anymore or it was a mistake.



I dont think that anyone else was there. I am wary of the person under the invisibility cloak theory as well. I think only Harry would recieve the soul because he already had the established link via Avada Kedavra.. which we know happened.


I am glad you joined the discussion again!!

~Albus

We can argue till the cows come home about how it might or might not have happened, and still not get anywhere. There's a plethora of possibilities as to how a piece of Voldemort's soul could have gotten into Harry, ranging from the preposterously simple to the mind-numbingly over-complicated, and everything in between. But we just don't know enough to ever get anywhere with it. There's no convincing anyone one way or another on how it might have happened because it's all just speculation, not enough proof. So what do we actually know?

Without bothering to lay out every detail, we know that Voldemort was probably intending to make a Horcrux with Harry's death. We know that Voldemort's body was killed by the backfiring AK. And we know that one way or another, a major link was bonded between Harry and Voldemort. We also have reason to believe based on JKR's own statements that there's something pretty major about how this connection was established that has yet to be explained.

No, none of this guarentees that the nature of that connection is that Harry is a Horcrux. Of course there aren't guarentees. JKR wouldn't want us to be able to prove without a shadow of a doubt such a major thing before she's ready for it to come out in the final book. But come on? The evidence is there. It's pretty strong. And the biggest reason not to believe it? Because people don't want it to be so! Because people are afraid of what it might mean for Harry's fate if he is!... But put that fact aside. I've been going on about this one simple aspect for how long now, and still nobody has been able to offer a satisfactory explanation for why the connection between them exists if it's NOT tha Harry's a Horcrux? Still?

Neither side can necessarily prove or disprove at this point. I think that's obvious. But why are those who don't believe that Harry is a Horcrux so adamant to even accept the possibility? There's very clearly AT LEAST a possibility. At least.

... I just wanted to say that. Thanks for listening. Let the endless (until the Deathly Hallows, anyway) discussion continue.

.

I agree that probably the motivation to not think Harry is a horcrux is that folks dont want it to be so. But it's not like the evidence is decisive in the other direction. All of DD's horcrux sleuthing has yielded no clue in the text that he himself thinks Harry is a horcrux (no clear unambiguous clue). And DD has been the reader's guide through the entire process of thinking about horcruxes.

I think there are possible explanations for the connection between Harry and LV that are non-horcrux explanations. One would be that the protection Lily gave Harry also opened a window in him to the mental energies of the one who attacked him at that moment. That is as likely, magic-wise, from what we know in the text so far, as him being a horcrux and that explaining it. It could be that the love that is infused in Harry via blood, the protection, and his own personality was such that it is capable of this kind of empathic relationship with the attacker (remember DD asking Harry if he was feeling sorry for young Tom Riddle at one point?). The parceltongue could have been transmitted in the opened window. In fact, this is an interesting notion--that the protection actually opened Harry up to things, rendered him vulnerable and receptive in a different way even as it rendered him invulnerable and non-receptive of the AK curse. This would maybe account somewhat for his susceptibility to things happening to him, things happening in part because he is a risk-taker and a bit reckless. He is opened out to danger and information in ways no other character (besides DD maybe) is.

I would say, perhaps, that Harry's reception of LV characteristics might actually work against the horcrux idea, especially IF the horcrux is a dormant piece of soul. Because these characteristics are manifestly non-dormant in Harry.

None of this settles anything or even close to it--just to say that there are decent reasons for doubting the horcrux idea, as attractive as it can be on other theoretical levels.

My hope right now is that we will find out that what makes Harry special and able to defeat LV is not the fact that some little piece of him IS LV, but that he has the forces of good on his side. Otherwise the message feels a little pessimistic, and I don't think that's quite what JKR's shooting for.

I think most of these debates will be impossible to settle before the book is read! Ah well. Fun to discuss, at any rate!

I suppose I should have made myself clearer. I am not arguing that the curse was a failure, in and of itself. It failed to do what Voldemort had intended to do, which was to kill Harry Potter. My small point was that I doubted that he was really concentrating on the Horcrux creation as he was casting the spell to kill Harry.

And this is probably where we'll disagree. In my reading of the books, the Avada Kedavra rebounded off of Harry because of Lily's protection and backfired onto Voldemort, which caused his downfall. I do not believe that the spell backfired onto the house. As Voldemort is living, I don't think the spell is what caused the destruction of the house.

Since I believe it was the Avada Kedavra that left him weakened, insignificant and unable, I don't believe it was any sort of release of Voldemort's power onto Harry. Yes, a connection was made. It doesn't intrinsically mean that Harry has been created a Horcrux. I dont think that anyone else was there.

I'm not speaking of the invisibility cloak. I think it's likely that Voldemort was not alone when he went to the Potter's house. I don't think he'd travel anywhere alone, without being surrounded by at least one or two of his Death Eaters. And no, before you ask, I can't back this claim up. I'm just suspicious.

I was using the collective "you." Sorry.

You know how much I like semantics. I'd say his body was destroyed. Not killed.

Oh, I don't know. There's enough "evidence" that's not there as well, I'd say. As far as people not wanting him to be so, yeah, I guess that's true. People don't like the implications. I just don't think that the evidence is all together clear. If JKR decides to make him a Horcrux, then fine. I honestly can live with it. I've learned not to get too hopeful or attatched one way or another concerning theories in books. It saves a lot of disappointment.

I suppose this goes both ways, though. Why are those who believe that Harry is a Horcrux so adamant against even accepting the possibility that he might not be?

I think this is also one of the things that makes me wary. Dumbledore makes mistakes, yes, but he also learns from them. I think he learned in OotP that it was unwise in dealing with Harry (and Harry's relationship with Voldemort) to with hold information like this from him any longer. I think he would have told Harry that there was a possibility that he was one. Who knows, maybe Harry will find some notes Dumbledore left behind that holds a list that Dumbledore kept for possibilities and his name will be on it, but as far as this moment in canon goes, I don't see it.

I agree with pumpkinjuice's ideas on the other possibilities for a the connection they share. There's a lot about that night we don't know, and all we can do thus far is speculate on what happened, how it happened, and the results of the happenings that we don't understand. We don't know exactly how Lily's protection went upon Harry, really, aside that she gave her life for her son. That is a tiny bit unsatisfactory to me.


This is my hope as well.

Albus, I know you posted this elsewhere, but I'm going to respond to it here because it's where I am at the moment!



Direct from HBP, Slughorn's mouth:



The wording "rips the soul apart" means that that piece of soul is separate from the others. The act of encasing it in something else is what the spell is about, not separating a tear. Seems to me from this interchange that the creation of the Horcrux is a deliberate measure of encasing the torn piece and could therefore not happen accidentally. We assume the creation of the Horcrux to be complex dark magic. It is unlikely to think of someone casting an accidental Avada Kedavra. (Oops, sorry about that, didn't mean to just kill you there.) Harry couldn't even cast a deliberate one. The two types of spells are obviously vastly different, but I am going for a comparison that supplies that the accidental creation of the encasement of a soul is unlikely.

Also, the order of the thing as seems apparent from Slughorn's explanation. "The wizard intent upon creating a Horcrux would use the damage to his advantage. He would encase the torn portion --" I guess this is obvious and not extremely arguable. It seems a deliberate spell cast to encase the soul, not something that could accidentally occur.

Also, from your other post.. .

Where has she said this exactly? Can you give me the link?

The paragraph that you are responding to was meant to be read as a whole where I bring up the possibility that the destruction of the house has two main possibilities... the rebounding of the AK itself, or the destruction of the body... I go with the latter.



Hmm thank you for that.. Im not sure how I missed that.. anyway, it strenghtens my argument in that the soul would not need to be split completely, only seperate from the body ... when speaking of my accidental-magic theory.



I'll search around for them when I get home... she said it recently, as well as back in 1999 often I believe, I know they are there.. perhaps in the time that spans between now and when I go home someone will have found the quotes.

~Albus

We have absolutely no evidence to support this at all or any precedents set or described to us that this occurs. Other great wizards have been destroyed by an Avada Kedavra and no damage was done. Lily and James; both killed without destroying their surroundings. Dumbledore himself- one of, if not the, greatest wizards of all-time, destroyed by Avada Kedavra, no destruction to his surroundings from a release of any magic.

I'm afraid I don't undestand how this strengthens your argument at all. Slughorn states that the sould is torn apart, inside the present body.

If someone has committed several murders, their souls split inside them whether they intend a Horcrux or not. It's what happens. When these wizards are killed, the souls still residing in their bodies are destroyed along with it, not floating around linking that wizard to life.

Yes, no other person we see killed by the Avada Kedavra did damage to their surroundings. That is the purpose of the curse. But no other person we have seen killed have had Horcruxes either. It is said that it was pain beyond pain that Voldemort felt as he was ripped from his body. I do not think a body was found amongst the wreckage because of the doubts that lingered in some people's mind over his destruction. It is a plausible chance, given the evidence, that the destroying of Voldemort's body caused the house to be in the shape it was.. destroyed.



Ahh didnt explain it clearly. I meant to say that my other theory was that Voldemort's accidental magic severed my idea of the "torn" soul then removed it from his body, then encasing it in Harry. This is now simplified because no severing of the soul needs to take place, it is already ripped apart, and the accidental magic need only get the soul to Harry and encase it. Sorry for the confusion!

~Albus

The Horcruxes, as inanimate objects. . .that remained inanimate object even after receiving a piece of his soul . . . had no power of their own. They are just recepticals and would not have caused the destruction. Whether the victim has Horcruxes or not; it would have no bearing on the destruction of the house.

Also does not indicate an perpetuation of the destruction of the house.

I repeat, the lack of the body has no bearing on what happened to the house.

And it is equally plausible, given the evidence, that the house was destroyed by something other than Voldemort.

I see what you're saying now, but I think that it weakens your argument, not strengthens it. I edited my post earlier, but I think you'd already posted so you probably didn't see it.

Where did it say that the Horcruxes would not cause such a catastrophe when the body is destroyed? There is no evidence to suggest that Voldemort's body did not destruct with huge force, but there is evidence to say he did. The house, by some means, was partially destroyed. There is no explanation for this therefore leaving it open to Voldemort's destruction causing it. Yes there may be some other thing that happened that night to cause the house to be destroyed, but that does not prove that Voldemort's body was not destroyed.

Given the evidence, I would be willing to bet that Voldemort's did indeed destruct in an explosive manner as I have said. You must remember that Voldemort was inhuman. He had killed and killed, and had split his soul multiple times already. On top of this he had performed other "experiments" to conquer death. We hear of this in the Graveyard as Voldemort says something like "it seemed one or more of my experiments worked... for I had not died". One of these experiments may be the cause of the explosion. But I think that it very well could have been the nature of Voldemort himself. He was inhuman, so much dark magic had altered his body, and he was immensely powerful. Plus he had Horcruxes... this I believe would cause such a body as Voldemort had to explode indirectly. The Avada Kedavra curse destroys the soul right? Every other death the body is dead but untouched. We also know that inanimate objects are destroted when impacted by the Avada Kedavra. So in turn, the Avada Kedavra could not destroy Voldemort's soul, since he has Horcruxes, so it destroyed his body in an explosive manner.

This kind of destruction is imperative to my theory.



Now you said that it weakens my theory? I have read the passage and then your comments, and I still think that the idea is plausible. The idea that Voldemort, after having been destroyed explosively (according to me) that the amount of magic that was released at that moment was sufficient enough to form a horcrux, which was Voldemort's ultimate goal that night.... a seven-staged immortality. The link was there regardless of the explosion of magic, but it adds to the list of things that point my way.

~Albus

I agree with Janet in that the horcrux theory is a possibility. Not much more, in my opinion, and I don't particularly like it. But I'd be ok if he was.



Not for me, actually, but I concede that I may be in the minority here - I wouldn't mind it if Harry died, horcrux or not. Many heroes have died and I'm ok, and death is but the next great adventure, right?



And nobody has been able to offer a satisfactory explanation of how the piece of soul managed to encase itself in Harry. By accident? How can magic that is so complex that it takes a highly intelligent wizard years of study to perfect, happen accidentally? It's just weak, in my opinion. *shrug*

In respect to Harry sacrificing himself because he's a horcrux... I don't know, but I'd like it more if he made a more active sacrifice. In a sense, if he was a horcux, he'd have no choice but to die, which would make his sacrifice much less profound. If he had a choice, a clear choice like Lily had, it would mean so much more, and he'd really die a hero's death, in my eyes. But perhaps the real bravery of the story belongs to Lily? Quite possible, but slightly disappointing.

My only problem with this whole 'accidentally' creating a horcrux thing is to do with the peices of torn/ripped soul.

If, as I am to understand, the soul tears when a murder is commited, would I not be right in saying that Voldemorts soul is not in 6 or 7 pieces, but into many, unless he made sure and kepy count of every murder and every horcrux he created. And if that is the case, wouldn't that mean that prior to his attempt to kill Harry with th AK curse, wouldn't there have been 2 pieces of torn soul ready and waiting to be placed into some object or another since Voldemort had just killed James and Lily? And if Voldemorts intention was to create a horcrux with the death of Harry, what would become of the 2 peices that had already torn away if he had killed Harry?

So I guess my main problem is that, if this theory is true, then the pieces of soul created by the murder of James and Lily both accidentally ended up in Harry. And this is where I have the problem, 2 pieces of soul in one hurcrux....or just one and the remaining piece is the one that is still in Voldemort, or the fact that 2 did go into Harry and Voldemort is souless!!

Now I've confused myself!!!

Valid points Elaine!

I think the gist of what you are asking is the nature of the soul after a murder(s) are performed, right? Well In my opinion they would be torn but still together. You must remember that it is not in the nature of the soul to be torn. It is a heinous crime to tear one's soul.. its even more evil to split it. I do not think the soul is floating around, as we are thinking, when it is "ripped apart". I believe they are torn, but still stay together, like piecing together broken glass... a soul, just torn. Since the soul does not want to be split, I believe it wants to stay whole, so even when ripped apart, it would stay the way it would have if it werent whole, so that would solve your question on what pieces went into Harry, and if Lord Voldemort is soulless. The soul pieces would not jump into the nearest thing to become a horcrux because it does not want to be a horcrux.

I hope that makes sense!

~Albus

Hmm, sort of I think lol. You know I spent a while yesterday rereading the main forum thread, and one thing that struck me, is that most people have a problem with the process of making the horcrux without this fantastically dark magic/spell/incantation being said/thought etc. And I know that the premise of you theory involves this powerful emotional outburst at the time that the AK curse rebounded on to Voldemort from Harry, but I was also wondering if he was not alone that night in Godrics Hollow (which I believe he wasn't otherwise how did he get his wand back) couldn't the 'spell' just as easily caused this other third person to becaome an accidental horcrux and not Harry? Just a thought.A bit jumbled though!
Although I still have a problem with accepting that a part of someone's soul could reside dormant or otherwise inside another human without them being aware of it. I mean it could be like a transplant, in that the body would try to reject it as a foriegn body. Or to fit in with your suggestion, it could be like a cancer waiting to pounce. Not a nice thought.

Yes, because I believe the information Slughorn shares about the Horcrux and the ripping of one's soul does weaken your theory. I didn't say it destroys your theory, but it does weaken it.

And now for some semantical arguments:

For this next portion of my post, I'd like for you to try an experiment with me. Take an 8.5 x 11 inch sheet of paper, and hold it at to opposite edges. . . Grasp the paper very firmly and yank as hard as you can in both directions. What you will be left with is a large portion of the paper in one hand, and a smaller portion of the paper in the other hand that has been torn from the large sheet. They are not still somehow attached (if you've done the experiment properly) to the larger sheet of paper. They are not merely perforated. They are in no way connected with the original piece excepting for the fact that they are still the same material and we know they came from that original sheet, having the same properties. (Now I'm placing my two ripped apart pieces in the garbage can. . .hopefully that won't come back to haunt me.)

Apart: The term apart (from Miriam Webster) - in or into two or more parts : to pieces ; as a separate unit; away from one another in space or time.

Ripped: (same source) to tear or split apart or open; to saw or split (wood) with the grain; to slash or slit with or as if with a sharp blade

The two words used together can mean nothing else than One object having been made into two or more objects, no longer whole but separated.

The way Slughorn talks about the creation of a Horcrux is thusly: One must rip apart the soul by committing murders. (Here we see, and can infer in his future, that Voldemort's soul has already been ripped into many pieces, though they all (until the creation of the Horcruxes) reside within Voldemort's body.) Next, Slughorn tells Tom that one must use these ripped apart soul pieces to his/her advantage by then encasing the portion of ripped soul into an object that becomes the Horcrux. This, he also says, is very dark magic. Not only is this encasement a conscious doing, but it required the creator to do something to encase the already ripped pieces into something else. A soul that is ripped apart and not encased into another object, stays with that person . . . and when that person dies, the pieces of soul that remain in him/her would also perish along with the person. If the soul that was encased was not destroyed when the object or the person was destroyed, there would be no way to stop it and the bits of soul would transfer from one object to another without any conscious effort as each Horcrux were destroyed.

In Godric's Hollow, Voldemort is destroyed and the ripped soul pieces inside of him are also destroyed. Because he had made previous Horcruxes, he was anchored to life, however, and could begin the process of finding a new vessel (or resurrecting his old one) to inhabit. For whatever magical power you hypothesize there was floating around the place at the time of his destruction; the soul pieces were already gone with him and had no chance to inhabit anything by accident. My guess was the only thing going through his mind when the curse backfired was "What the. . ." and then he was gone. No chance to even think about encasing a piece of his soul to commemorate any one of those murders he intended to commit that night. If Harry somehow manages to be a Horcrux, there must be a better reason aside from some unfortunate accidental magic.

Voldemort went into Harry's home with two purposes that night. Killing Harry and anyone who tried to stop him, and using this most significant of murders, that of the one person prophecied to destroy him, to create his last and most significant Horcrux. I believe the bulk of Horcrux creation lies in creating, or modifying rather, an object capable of holding something as unimaginably powerful as human soul-energy.

Voldy cast a killing curse at Harry, an unstoppable killing curse, which left Voldemort's wand, hit Harry, REBOUND back to Voldemort. This killed Voldemort's body, yet failed to destroy his soul, which was anchored to the earth by 5 other Horcruxes. However, at the time of casting this Avada Kedavara, Voldemort intended for the bit of soul that was torn from the murder to be placed within the vessel capable of holding it which he had prepared. Basically, he intended for the torn bit of soul to be completely severed and travel to a different object.

When his body died, this severing of soul happened to a disembodied soul, a soul that should have been required to "move on" or become a ghost, but was unable to because it was anchored to the earth by magical artifacts powered by Voldemort's own soul-energy. I believe it was this severing of soul-bits which released the energy which destroyed the house, Voldemort's body, and anything around it, EXCEPT Harry Potter who was protected from Voldemort by the protection offered by a mother's love and willingness to die in her child's place.

The bit of soul-energy which was severed by the Horcrux creation ritual then did as it was "programmed" to do, if you will, and traveled back along the path of the spell (from Voldemort back to Harry) and attached itself to an object capable of holding soul energy. I.E. Harry Potter, as he had no object prepared to hold the soul, any such objects having been destroyed in the destructive blast which occurred when Voldemort's soul was split without a body to contain the massive energy produced by such a split (energy powerful enough to anchor one's spirit to the material world even after death, I might add.)

Thus turning Harry into a Horcrux. The soul did not accidentally attach itself to Harry, it did as it was told to do by Voldemort's magic. Unfortunately it was like a simple computer program that follows out its instructions and will sometimes do unexpected things. The ACCIDENT occurred when Voldemort died and accidentally destroyed the object he had intended to become a Horcrux, leaving only one living entity in the path of the spell, the only thing capable of holding soul-energy and thus becoming a Horcrux.




Satisfactory?

The problems I have with this explanation are:

1) Voldemort intended to create the Horcrux after his murder of Harry Potter, and as the spell backfired and killed Voldemort instead. . . that portion of his soul was not ripped. He failed to murder, failing to rip apart his soul.

2) The soul that is ripped into pieces is not floating around in the air just waiting to be placed somewhere. It remains inside the individual until it is magically placed in another object. The Horcrux preparation ritual is pure speculation at this point, for all we know from Slughorn and Dumbledore is that there is a spell used to encase a piece of soul inside another object. While the Horcrux creates an ideal for the soul to remain; Dumbledore also makes it clear that once the Horcruxes are destroyed, then Voldemort can be destroyed without the chance of his soul having that anchor no matter how many more peices of his soul are ripped up inside of him.

3) As I did my best to explain in my previous post, the soul requires no more severing once the murder has taken place; the soul is already split. If I may liken it to the formation of a baby and my own practices as a diabetic: it all starts with one cell; that cell splits into many many cells, yet they are all encased in one thing; the baby. These pieces are definitely separate, as I can see each time I look at a sample of my blood under a microscope . . . many individual blood cells, all working together and remaining inside me, making up my matter, until I decide to test my blood sugar and force a needle into my skin, extracting the necessary blood to perform the test. Along those same lines; should I accidentally slice open my finger, the blood does not automatically head straight for my blood strip, though that is what I do every time I willfully poke my finger to extract blood; it has to be taken there willfully by me.

The idea of object preparation is purely speculative, and it cannot be substantiated without the benefit of it occurring in the last book. Using the canon text, Slughorn never mentions that in the order of Horcrux creation. He mentions the murder (which, AK, incidentally does not directly associate with creation of a Horcrux, and so the soul would not have travelled back upon that link because it had no reason to. It was an AK, not a Horcrux creation spell.) as the event that causes one's soul to be ripped apart and he mentions a spell to encase the piece of torn soul.

I counter that the soul was not told to do anything by Voldemort at that time, since he did not intend to make his Horcrux until after the murder of Harry Potter; given Slughorn's information, the soul must be placed in the object after the murder had taken place.

That's an interesting observation that I find myself agreeing with. It also throws up another mystery to solve. It's easy to visualise different soul fragments floating within the body, which acts like a container for them. He must have personally killed thousands so there must be many fragments floating around in his -pardon the term- "soul-case". Of these only 5 had been carted off into different objects as per Dumbledore's speculations (Diary, Ricg, Locket, Cup, object x) that would still mean many other fragments still floating in the "soul-case" unless the rip is temporary and the soul fragments are coalesce together once again unless moved out. In such a case the destruction of his body would have released many of these fragments that could not escape since they were anchored to the plane by the horcruxes and of course there would have been the largest fragment that formed "vapourmort". The fate of these fragments is an enigma, because it's not clear what happened to them. They did not escape the plane, and unless they merged with the largest one, they would not have escaped as a part of "vapourmort". Then where did they go? Enter Harry? Is it that simple for soul fragments to inhabit any object? If then, why require a special spell for horcruxes? Were the fragments destroyed in the fire/explosion etc? That may explain how some bits could have been absorbed by Harry giving him his unique powers. In chamber of secrets this dialogue may give us some clue



(Chapter 18:Dobby's Reward: Chamber of Secrets)

The key word is "Voldemort put a bit of himself in me?". What is that mysterious bit? A pice of Tom's soul? Likely. A piece of soul remnant? equally likely. More like an essence. It's like adding a part of someone to polyjuice potion turns you into that person and gives you all their characteristics for one hour till the potion wears off. Perhaps some of the remnants of Tom's essence were absorbed into Harry giving him all those powers. But what are those?

The idea of essences is not unknown in wizarding world. There are portraits and then there is marauders map, where people leave behind their essence. These objects are not a replica of dead people, but retain some of their traits. That would explain why Harry seems to have inherited only a few of Tom's powers. In fact I cannot recall anything else other than Parseltongue and mind connection and I do not believe that other abilities that he inherited are lying dormant. If you see the above conversation, Dumbledore says that Tom transferred some of his own powers to Harry. That sounds more like Tom's essence than his soul.

The possibility of Harry being a horcrux is both supported and negated by what we know of other horcruxes. We know that Harry and Tom have a connection and that Harry can "see into" Tom's mind. Does this indicate a soul connection? Dumbledore, while commenting n the possibility of Nagini being a horcrux remarks that Tom does seem to have unusual control over her, suggesting that her harbouring a piece of Tom's soul makes him have more control over her. But then, Tom has always been able to control animals since his days at the orphanage and his ability to possess them is well known. He has possessed Nagini as well, so his control over her may be either due to this ability or his ability to control animals, or it may be due to soul connection. But we also know that he does not feel the destruction of his horcruxes and came to know about the diary only after it was destroyed.

On top of it, when he tried to possess Harry in the ministry, he was chucked out due to the pain. In that case would it be possible for his soul fragment to survive in Harry's body for 17 years, when it couldn't so for five minutes? There's much more to the mystery than meets the eye

Yes, it is possible I believe for the soul to survive in Harry for 17 years. It all revolves around the dormant nature of the Soul when encased in a Horcrux. As we know, many lifeforms in our own world have the ability to shut their systems down and create a hardened shell to survive the most extreme of elements. Why wouldnt a Horcrux do the same? Below I explain the defensive nature of the Horcrux and the nature of its dormant state. I also included a quote from LLtWK's post to support my own.


My Post:

The question that was posed is a very interesting one. How could a piece of Voldemort's soul reside in Harry's body, which is so full of the one thing Voldemort detests more than anything? There are many answers to this question, and most likely each one will be wrong in the end, but we will theorize nonetheless. The first thing we must remember is that art of Horcrux making is wonderfully complex. The very idea of a Horcrux is so intriuging yet so wrong. Horcruxes are primarily a tool to escape the clutches of Death, but with the gift/curse of Immortality, one becomes a target for those who lack this way of life, especially when you are an evil Dark Lord.

A Horcrux is used as a tool, a weapon even, to give the creator safegaurds against death. These tools are external anchors containing your soul. Even though you went through the horrific act of splitting your soul, you would still have a certain respect for it, and would not want pieces to be lost due to flamboyance of the Horcrux itself. This is where I believe the true usefulness of a Horcrux comes into play. I believe that Horcruxes go into a dormant state allowing them to survive in such an environment as a cup, or a locket, a ring... or a body filled with love.

In our own world we have many organisms that isolate themselves from their environments in order to achieve an ultimate goal of survival. Seeds can lie dormant waiting for water for countless periods of time, some viruses will remain utterly inactive until a host is found, and many creatures merely hide to escape the persecution of the food chain. So why not Horcruxes? I believe the Horcruxes place the soul in a state that leaves them completely sealed off to the outside world so as to escape detection as well as survive some environments. This is why a Horcrux could pass under the nose of Dumbledore and many more of the finer witches and wizards without causing alarm. This is what I believe to be the nature of a horcrux. Now some will counter that the Diary did not such thing, well it seems I answered that in the fruition of "Is Harry a Horcrux: Thread 5"

Here is my post about the Diary, and I also touch upon the defensive nature of the Horcrux:

Ok I realize that the Diary was a threat, because it led you to believe it was good, then it used you... but all of the Horcruxes would not be threats for the nature of a horcrux is to lie dormant.. in a state in which it would not be expected of anything but the outward appearance of the object it is encased in... its main purpose is immortality.. invincibility... it would be pointless for all of the horcruxes to attack those who interact with them for they would reveal their secrets, and Voldemort's key to destruction. Voldemort gave that diary the memory of when he was a schoolboy, and placed a piece of his soul in it... thus giving the soul a mind of sorts to work with so it can interact with those who writes in the diary... perhaps Voldemort underestimated himself at school, and forgot how power hungry he was, and the mind and memory he had was still in its fertile stage of the discovery of his powers and desires.... then he meets Ginny Weasley, who tells him how Harry Potter destroyed his future self as a baby, and the year before he foiled his plans.... young Tom Riddle, 1/7 of his soul from the future, but all of his memories and thoughts as a child.... begins to form a plan... why wait for his future weak self to get foiled once more, he will posess Ginny weasley through the powers of the Diary his future self cast and open the Chamber as was planned, but in opening the chamber, in his triumphant return to the crimes he had to hide from, he would sap the life from Young Ginny Weasley and give life to the 1/7 soul and memories he was made of... a renegade horcrux... most likely he would find his weakened body of his future self, and somehow, through the darkest of the dark arts rejoin his body, with that of the weakened state, becoming one Voldemort, with the youthful vigor of childhood, but with the age and wisdom of the dark magic he so sought out... and Lord Voldemort would have risen 2 years earlier... but thank goodness Harry destroyed the diary, the source of the memories power and life force(1/7soul)... destroying the prospect of a return from LV, as well as unintentionally destroying a horcrux....

LLtWK's Post to concur:

I believe it is safe to assume that the bits of soul within Horcruxes are, indeed, dormant as Albus states. I might even go so far as to say they do not actually contain any of the soul's personality traits, but are merely "life-force" or "soul-energy." I go into further detail on this in the thread "What is a Soul" found in the Library. I'd link it but I'm lazy.

Anyway, the proof that the soul lies dormant when in a Horcrux can be found in PoA, and is rather simple once pointed out.

Papermort did not age.

The diary was 50 years old, yet Papermort did not have 50 years worth of memories. His only memories were the ones which Voldemort had at the age of 16 and of Papermort's interaction with Ginny and Harry once they gained possession of the diary and began to interact with it.

Papermort did not even have memory of the passage of time. Otherwise he no doubt would have been quite insane after spending 50 years trapped in his own head without outside interaction, or stimulus. Rather, he was only as insane as Voldemort himself was at the time of Papermort's creation. Which was rather less insane than Voldemort after he returned from Vapormort status.



~Albus

Voldemort did indeed commit a murder. He killed himself. One might even say that suicide is the ultimate form of murder, as it is, according to some religions, including that which JK herself seems to belong (as she celebrates Christmas), the most unforgivable of sins.



Slughorn says that murder "tears" the soul. Something can be torn without being separated. Such as tearing a page, without tearing it in half. It is then the act of creating a horcrux which separates the soul fragment from the rest of the soul and places it in an object. You are correct in stating that it is only my speculation that an object must be prepared before hand. This entire topic is speculation, and so we must include speculation in our theories. As Slughorn states that creating a Horcrux is among the most complex of dark magic, I find it hard to believe that one would be able to murder someone then merely wave their wand about and put the bit of soul into a nearby tea cozy or something of that nature. It seems almost necessary, to me, that there must be some form of preparation which goes into allowing an inanimate object to hold what, heretofore, has been the sole province of a living body.

This is supported, if not proved, by Voldemort's use of Nagini as a Horcrux after becoming Babymort and before returning to a body. Dumbledore says that Voldemort must have been in a rush and anxious to create his final Horcrux. I speculate that in his weakened state, Babymort did not have the ability, nor the time, to prepare an object to receive a bit of his soul. Which is why he used a living creature, rather than something more appropriate, like a candlestick, or lead pipe, which would last much longer than a living snake.

p.s.(Before you get excited, note that Harry had destroyed Papermort, which meant that if Harry was indeed the 6th and final horcrux, he reduced the number of Voldemort's Horcruxes back to 5, so when Babymort created another Horcrux with the murder of Frank Bryce it brought the number back up to 6, giving Voldemort the desired 7 pieces of soul once more.)



I disagree. The soul is "torn", we have that much from canon. If the soul were completely severed, then, as mayfair states in her post, all the bits of soul Voldemort had not put into foreign objects would have been floating about willy nilly, and or destroyed, and or dissipate into the ether.

Also a cell allusion does not work properly in this instance. When a cell splits it creates a clone of itself and that clone becomes an autonomous unit, completely independent of its parent. If the soul worked this way there would be hundreds of Ghostymort's flying about as they would have been released, fully formed, into the world when Voldy offed himself. It is more within the realm of what we have been given that a bit of soul is without thought, and no more, really, than a form of energy which powers the consciousness of a living thing. The bits of soul Voldemort placed in Horcruxes are not little hims trapped in snuff boxes and such, they are merely anchors which hold his true self in the realm of the living, even if he were to die.

The reason I believe your speculation about the soul being completely severed is wrong lies in the fact that Voldemort was only able to create a Horcrux out of Nagini by using the murder of Frank Bryce. Indeed, we know that when he tried to kill Harry he was planning on using THAT murder to create his new Horcrux. If he had dozens of soul fragments within him, he would easily be able to just choose one and create a horcrux.

It is only the act of creating a Horcrux which severs the bit of soul which is torn and places it in a foreign entity. Also, I further speculate that the Horcrux must be made at the time of the murder which is why Voldemort is able to choose which murders create Horcruxes.

If this is the case, then Voldemort CHOSE to create a Horcrux at the time he cast the AK at Harry. He was committing the murder that he intended to use to create a Horcrux. The "accident" which occurred was that, instead of killing Harry, he killed himself. After that, the Horcrux creation bit of the scenario continued to function as it was meant.

Furthermore, the reason I believe Harry is a Horcrux is for the simple fact that it is the most likely and reasonable explanation for how Voldemort would have forged a link with Harry by trying to kill him, and how Harry would have come into possession of certain traits which are hereditary to Voldemort. It being an explanation for how those two things may have come to pass which, if you will, relies on canon, while any other explanations are based solely in the realm of pure speculation.

Until learning of Horcruxes we had no idea how to explain these phenomenon, and there was much speculation on the topic, I assure you. My own theory being, the reason Vapormort survived was that when he attempted to kill Harry the rebounding curse somehow forged a link between he and Harry. Harry then acted as an anchor which held V's soul in the material realm so he did not have to make the choice to "move on" or become a ghost. Rather like a Horcrux, really. JK then introduces Horcruxes to the equation, which gives us a possible explanation. As it is the only possible explanation the books have given us, it seems reasonable that it is THE explanation, though the books have not yet stated this outright.

They have, however, stated outright that Voldemort put a bit of himself into Harry. While this is not a statement declaring Harry a Horcrux, it is pretty darn close. It has been my experience with theory speculation in the Harry Potter series that the simplest solution is often the correct solution. Wild theories about Dumbledore being a Time-traveler, while fun, are completely off base, while the solution of how Dumbledore knows all is simply that he is really smart.

When we ask the question of how Harry and Voldemort might be linked we have the simple solution of Harry being a Horcrux, and we have a host of complex and convoluted theories about soul residue and explosions and imprints, which are, if you will forgive the phrase, pure ether of dreams.

If we go further, leaving the realm of the imagination for the mundane, and examine the books from the author's standpoint, the constraints of fitting the story into a limited amount of space, and plotting, we can imagine possible scenarios. We know that the plot of book 7 will contain Harry seeking out and destroying 4 more horcruxes, one of which he does not know its form, then confronting Voldemort. We can also assume that there are going to be at least one-hundred pages devoted to relations between the various characters. For example, we know that Harry is going to go to Bill and Fluer's wedding. These things are going to take up the bulk of the book. There are also several things which must be wrapped up in this novel, such as how Harry will "one day be grateful" he saved Wormtail's life, the saga of Snape, and Harry's relationship with Ginny, to name a few.

With all of this, where is JK going to have space to introduce an entirely new concept of how Harry might have created a link with Voldemort and recieved powers from him? Doesn't it seem more reasonable that she would have introduced the concept beforehand and must only now reveal the truth?

So, on the one hand we have the unlikely possibility of JK introducing something entirely new, somehow squeezing this new concept into the few pages that will not be involved with the things I have listed above and others I have not even thought of. While, on the other, we have the possibility that JK laid the foundation for Harry being a Horcrux from the very first book, added a large hint in the second, which only became a hint after she had written the sixth book, and now in her final book, can reveal the truth with no more than 4 words, two of them rather short.

"Harry is a Horcrux."

hmmm...

I might be repeating what has already been said. Do we know for certain, that every murder tears the soul? Again, is it murder, or just killing another human that tears the soul. If it must be murder, then there is a state of mind that has to go with the killing. Also the taking of a life has been considered justified in war, and in self defense. It seems to me that if LV tore his soul at every murder, then his soul would be much more damaged than just in seven pieces. What am I missing?

From the horses mouth:



The key word is "apart." Separate. No longer attached. Taken from. Isolated. What does he say does this? Killing. Not a spell. Not a preparation. Killing.

I didn't make this up. This is straight from one of the only two authorities that we, the audience, have on Horcruxes. Slughorn. The other being Dumbledore.


Same paragraph; same book:



Portion: part of, a limited part of a whole, a share.

Same page, Tom:



Slughorn again:



What question is the answer "a spell" answering? The question regarding the encasement of the soul. The encasement happens after the murder via a spell. I do not believe, based on examination of this passage of the text and the limited knowledge we've been given about what happened that night at Godric's Hollow that Voldemort was able to perform any spell in order to take the torn portion of his ripped apart soul and encase it into anything; much less into Harry Potter himself.


Robbie1955: Slughorn says "killing rips the soul apart." I assume that means any act of killing, no matter the state of mind.

I think he's pretty well damaged based on all the murders he's committed. The darkness and bleakness of his soul, regardless of Horcruxes. I think the reader gets the glimpses of that depravity and the physical repercussions correlate to the removing of those soul portions from his body and placing them outside of himself.

Ok, so the soul may or may not be ripped apart, as in completely torn off into two pieces at the time of murder. One described Voldemort's soul as "maimed" which would suggest the previously accepted imagery of a soul that had many tears in it, and on one of those tears the soul could be split. Yes, the words themselves seem to suggest that the soul is "ripped" "apart" leaving two pieces, but the phrase ripped apartis used in various ways. Just as the various blunt phrase by Dumbledore suggesting that Voldemort put a peice of himself in Harry (CoS) is brushed away and not taken literally by Harry Horcrux Critics, we too can opt to see the words in a different light.

As for the implications of all this. What does it really matter? As long as killing does something to a soul to allow a spell at a later point to detach it from the whole, what does it matter? In either description of the events that occur to a soul during murder, it still allows for Harry to be a Horcrux.

~Albus

That pretty much answers my question. So if a wizard like wormtail, or snape, now has a torn apart soul, what does that mean to them. We know so little, is it possible that, barring a purposeful alienation of a piece of soul into a horcrux or other separation from the original body, the soul might repair itself, or a spell might repair it through deeds of regeneration?

I don't see how Harry could have been the subject of a spell by "vapormort" that would have made him a horcrux, but LV's soul would have been shredded again right.

Would it make a difference what kind of murder or killing occured as to the percentage of soul that is ripped apart. We don't know a lot about these things do we? We can project that LV has torn collosal chunks from his soul because of the heinous nature of his murders. He has alienated at least 6 soul parts, what the heck could be left?

Is it possible that Harry's power that the dark lord knows not, Love, reknits a torn soul?

You contradict yourself over there. If we all agree that "killing does something to the soul to allow a spell at a later point to detach it from the whole", then there are many thinsg that matter here. The whole point is that a "spell" si required to move the soul to a vessel to establish the latter as a horcrux. There is enough evidence in JKRs universe to suggest that the spell is absolutely essential for creating a horcrux and absolutely no evidence to suggest that soul can be deliberately transferred to a vessel without the spell. Nothing is known of the spell especially how long does it take to invoke. In other words it is not known whether a short utterance or a prolonged chant needs to be invoked to complete the spell.

If we consider those two as absolute parameters, then unless Tom invoked the spell the same time as he fired the curse it is far too unlikely that a piece of his soul entered Harry through that route. But then just because there is no evidence for a soul being encased through something other than murder+spell doesn't mean that there isn't any. Just that we don't know any, but then there was plenty of speculation on secrets of Tom's immortality prior to appearance of horcruxes so possibilities are wide open. The strongest support for Harry being a horcrux comes from the statement where Dumbledore confirms that Tom indeed "put a bit of himself" in Harry. Taken literally that would mean a piece of soul or essence or many other things that would all derived from soul. Philosophically that may be interpreted in may different ways. But the point I am trying to make here is that there is equal likelihood for Harry being and not being a horcrux, but there is enough indication from JKR that he'll end up sacrificing his life in order to get rid of Tom. How that may tie up with horcruxes would be interesting to see.

We were discussing whether or not killing splits the soul in two (not attached to each other) or if killing merely tears the soul (torn but attached). Thats what I said doesnt matter to the rest of the theory.

Also, we do have evidence that the spell can be done without words, we have the many incidences of accidental magic caused my emotions. My main theory for this is that Voldemort was so obsessed with the Horcrux that as he died, his explosive release of magic (what I think destroyed the house) created the necessary spell which travelled along the same route to Harry as his scar did. Thus making this very plausible.

~Albus

You're arguing semantics and furthermore it makes no sense. What does it matter if the soul is torn or torn into pieces so long as all the pieces remain conjoined to the whole? It is impossible for a soul to separate and go into another vessel without the act of horcrux creation. Slughorn is very vague and does not seem to be overly knowledgeable about how exactly horcruxes are created, only that they exist and that they "somehow" through a "spell" cause a fragment of soul to reside in another object, thereby anchoring the rest of the soul to earth so it does not become a ghost or "move on."

Basically, I fail to see a point in whether the soul rips apart and then sits there with all the pieces right next to each other, like a pile of rocks, or as one large rock with huge fissures in its structure enabling pieces to be broken off.

Also, you have not bothered to address the true issue, which is that there is nothing else in the text to date which would explain the bond between Voldemort and Harry and how he might have gained some of Voldemort's abilities. Early in the series JK left hints that some part of Voldemort was residing within Harry since that fateful Halloween night. Later she introduces Horcruxes and makes sure to demonstrate that it is possible to turn a living being into a Horcrux. She also tells us that there is some unnatural connection between Voldemort and Nagini, the same sort of connection which exists between Harry and Voldemort.

If it looks like a frog, and hops like a frog, I call it a frog.

Well it seems that you are unwilling to see beyond a particular point and the above statement just about confirms it. If it looks like a frog and jumps like one, it doesn't necessarily have to be one. It could be a toad. Some might feel, well it's the same things but there is a whole lot of difference.

Without getting into literal descriptions, the point is that there is too much ambiguity to be exactly sure what happened that night. As you say, JKR has all but confirmed that Tom put a bit of himself into Harry and while the possibility of that being a soul piece is highly probable (it probably is) there is a possibility that it may be something else as well. JKR has kept things ambiguous enough to fuel speculation in all matters and the only description one has for horcruxes is the one given by Slughorn vague or not. All that she has said has been interpreted differently by fans depending on what they wish to believe. Take prophecy for example, it's so vague that there could be 10 different interpretations and all could be justified.

There is a huge difference between a pile of rocks and a rock with fissures. For the latter you may need dynamite to pull apart, for the former, just pick a random piece. We have no idea what that horcrux creating "spell" does. Does it act like a dynamite or a crane? So there is enough room for ambiguity if you keep your mind open enough. While you are willing to take her word as it is in many aspects (Tom and Nagini), then it's prudent to allow for diverse interpretations where ambiguity exists. I myself believe that Harry is a highly probable candidate for a horcrux, but there is sufficient doubt to allow an alternative explanation to come in. This was a discussion forum the last time I checked

Hmm interesting comments and developments. The reason I suppose that the state of the soul when murder is committed is being dismissed is due to the fact that it bears no true weight on the theory either way. As long as the soul is able to be seperated and made into Horcruxes, the discussion can go either way. Yes, this is a discussion forum, but the discussion is about Harry being a Horcrux or not and debating over the meaning of a phrase that doesnt really affect the theory does seem a bit tedious... thus, from my perspective, the dismissive nature of LLtWK.

As for the sufficient doubt... I believe, and I have been debating this theory for going on 9 months... that the points put forth have all be bent to fit the theory. I have not seen one piece of counter-evidence that couldnt be absorbed into the theory is some shape or form. When I see that evidence, I will back down.. I will, really... but as of right now.. the balance of the scale seems to be tipped heavily in favor of Harry being a Horcrux.

~Albus

The reason I am discussing the implications of the soul being split versus it being merely torn is because others have argued that there is a separate spell to completely split the soul. I feel that it is an important enough distinction to make since Tom Riddle really became interested at that point - interrupting his professor to hound the point. I think it does have relevance in the Harry being a Horcrux discussion because it deals with the timing and intentionality of making a Horcrux.

And semantics always have a meaning in the story. It's valid to argue on the basis of semantics, wether people agree or not.

As far as Slughorn's knowledge of how Horcruxes are created, he is the only authority we really have on the subject aside from Dumbledore and Voldemort. As Voldemort has not discussed them at all and Dumbledore is more concerned at the moment on finding and destroying them; I treat Slughorn as an authority on them. Of course he's hesitant to discuss them; he's not supposed to tell Tom anything about them! Hence the modification of the memory.

More to your point of argument:

I don't believe, given that the world is magical, that the only explanation for the connection and similarities between Voldemort and Harry is for him to possess a piece of Voldemort's soul. Before, in Chamber of Secrets, Harry says "He put a bit of himself in me?" Dumbledore states "Unless I'm much mistaken, he transferred some of his own powers to you the night he gave you that scar. . ." I tend to think of it more like a blood tranfusion; the recipient receives part of the blood of a donor, complete with DNA - but the recipient does not become the donor in any way. Kind of a "magical transfusion."

I'll touch a tad bit more on this with this next bit, too.

Several reasons why I don't believe Harry can be a Horcrux:
From Sorcerer's Stone
1.

This one seems to me to argue that Lily's blood protected Harry from any part of Voldemort touching Harry at the moment of her death; even someone sharing Voldemort's soul could not touch him. It makes sense to me that his soul, by itself, would not have been able to penetrate that magic either.

Sorcerer's Stone
2.

From Order of the Phoenix
3.

Dumbledore, in several instanced (2, 3, 4, 5,) mentions that the scar links Harry to Voldemort by a special magical connection; and also explains the transference of power; but he never has alluded to it being a piece of Voldemort's soul - which I think would have been pretty important for Harry to realize while Dumbledore was teaching him about the implications of Voldemort's Horcruxes.

4.

5.

From Half Blood Prince
6.

Here we note (and in the description Ginny gives which I am not quoting) that the soul piece can possess a person and the possessed person is aware of the possession. Harry displays none of this.

7.

Here we see that all soul pieces must be destroyed PRIOR to going after Voldemort himself. Not something Harry could possibly hope to do if he has a bit of Voldemort's soul in him. Even if he thought to die at the same time, the risk is too great that Harry would die a half-second before Voldemort thus rendering Harry's death useless in the defeat of Voldemort.

8.

Noting the control that Voldemort has over Nagini; which is not the same as the connection he shared with Harry creating a false-reality for Harry to get him to the Department of Mystery.

9.

This one strikes me as important, but I can't for the life of me remember what about it I was going to say! Gah, brain! Accio, brain!! I think it was along the lines of Voldemort not needing a Horcrux or a bond with a Horcrux in order to use and manipulate people or possess them. He just figured he could do it. That's not quite what I wanted to say, but until my brain comes back. . .

10.

Dumbledore saying that Voldemort handed Harry "uniquely deadly weapons" seems to speak against Harry being a Horcrux because it directly contradicts the evidence that a Horcrux would anchor Voldemort to life.

11.

This mentions Harry's soul as being untarnished and whole. If he had a bit of Voldemort residing in him, Harry's soul would not have been so untarnished and whole. We've seen results of those used by Voldemort (Ginny, Nagini) to cause destruction . . . not something he could accomplish with Harry.

And a Note from JKR herself:
12.

If JKR says Dumbledore's never very far off the mark, and Dumbledore never alluded to or mentioned that Harry could possibly be one of the four remaining Horcruxes, then I think the chances are slim that he is one. When JKR and Dumbledore say Harry's got to get rid of the four and then go for Voldemort, then I believe that's what Harry has to do; and I think he'll be successful.

Just by looking at the text, I don't agree that the balance is tipped heavily in favor of Harry being a Horcrux.

Yes, but each and everyone of these statements can be absorbed into the theory.



Yes, but the scar and the powers (whatever their origin may be) got through to Harry. The magic protected Harry from those who wanted to harm him. The soul, which I believe to be dormant, posed no harm to Harry at the moment thus bypassing the charm. If powers and a scar can make it through, why not a dormant soul?



Would Dumbledore tell Harry that he(harry) is a Horcrux? Would Dumbledore, who may have been unsure about it, really place such a burden on Harry with the knowledge that he must face almost certain death? No, I dont think he would. And yes, there were some minor allusions. The fact that he agreed that a piece of Voldemort may have ended up in Harry (CoS) is an allusion and the explanation of the ability to use living creatures as Horcruxes were obviously enough allusion to spark our interests.



I'm going to quote myself, which I apologize is atleast the 10th time on this forum, about this topic.

This is my explanation of how the soul can be inside of Harry and why we cant use the Diary as evidence against Harry being a Horcrux:

The question that was posed is a very interesting one. How could a piece of Voldemort's soul reside in Harry's body, which is so full of the one thing Voldemort detests more than anything? There are many answers to this question, and most likely each one will be wrong in the end, but we will theorize nonetheless. The first thing we must remember is that art of Horcrux making is wonderfully complex. The very idea of a Horcrux is so intriuging yet so wrong. Horcruxes are primarily a tool to escape the clutches of Death, but with the gift/curse of Immortality, one becomes a target for those who lack this way of life, especially when you are an evil Dark Lord.

A Horcrux is used as a tool, a weapon even, to give the creator safegaurds against death. These tools are external anchors containing your soul. Even though you went through the horrific act of splitting your soul, you would still have a certain respect for it, and would not want pieces to be lost due to flamboyance of the Horcrux itself. This is where I believe the true usefulness of a Horcrux comes into play. I believe that Horcruxes go into a dormant state allowing them to survive in such an environment as a cup, or a locket, a ring... or a body filled with love.

In our own world we have many organisms that isolate themselves from their environments in order to achieve an ultimate goal of survival. Seeds can lie dormant waiting for water for countless periods of time, some viruses will remain utterly inactive until a host is found, and many creatures merely hide to escape the persecution of the food chain. So why not Horcruxes? I believe the Horcruxes place the soul in a state that leaves them completely sealed off to the outside world so as to escape detection as well as survive some environments. This is why a Horcrux could pass under the nose of Dumbledore and many more of the finer witches and wizards without causing alarm. This is what I believe to be the nature of a horcrux. Now some will counter that the Diary did not such thing, well it seems I answered that in the fruition of "Is Harry a Horcrux: Thread 5"

Here is my post about the Diary, and I also touch upon the defensive nature of the Horcrux:

Ok I realize that the Diary was a threat, because it led you to believe it was good, then it used you... but all of the Horcruxes would not be threats for the nature of a horcrux is to lie dormant.. in a state in which it would not be expected of anything but the outward appearance of the object it is encased in... its main purpose is immortality.. invincibility... it would be pointless for all of the horcruxes to attack those who interact with them for they would reveal their secrets, and Voldemort's key to destruction. Voldemort gave that diary the memory of when he was a schoolboy, and placed a piece of his soul in it... thus giving the soul a mind of sorts to work with so it can interact with those who writes in the diary... perhaps Voldemort underestimated himself at school, and forgot how power hungry he was, and the mind and memory he had was still in its fertile stage of the discovery of his powers and desires.... then he meets Ginny Weasley, who tells him how Harry Potter destroyed his future self as a baby, and the year before he foiled his plans.... young Tom Riddle, 1/7 of his soul from the future, but all of his memories and thoughts as a child.... begins to form a plan... why wait for his future weak self to get foiled once more, he will posess Ginny weasley through the powers of the Diary his future self cast and open the Chamber as was planned, but in opening the chamber, in his triumphant return to the crimes he had to hide from, he would sap the life from Young Ginny Weasley and give life to the 1/7 soul and memories he was made of... a renegade horcrux... most likely he would find his weakened body of his future self, and somehow, through the darkest of the dark arts rejoin his body, with that of the weakened state, becoming one Voldemort, with the youthful vigor of childhood, but with the age and wisdom of the dark magic he so sought out... and Lord Voldemort would have risen 2 years earlier... but thank goodness Harry destroyed the diary, the source of the memories power and life force(1/7soul)... destroying the prospect of a return from LV, as well as unintentionally destroying a horcrux....




I theorized that the control Dumbledore was referring to was not the product of the Horcrux, but in fact that the Horcrux was the product of the control. I believe that Nagini had such an attachment to LV that she obeyed his every whim.. thus making her a great living Horcrux. The control over her may have pointed Dumbledore to thinking this way.



Are you suggesting that bearing the anchor to a person's life while being their enemy is not a "uniquely deadly weapon". Harry being a Horcrux for Voldemort would be the most unique, deadly weapon one can find!



Again, refer to my lengthy quote of myself above.



This could work both ways actually:






Hmm interesting quote there. Harry only believes he knows what he is facing? What could possibly be different from Dumbledore's "not far off the mark" conclusion he gave us? Perhaps his being not far off the mark meant that it was indeed a living creature, just not nagini.

~Albus