A random HP thought

[kate_nepveu]

This is appallingly spoilery; be warned.

The Harry-is-a-Horcrux theory seems to have run around fandom like wildfire. I admit it explains the Parseltongue and the mental link, but I note that it requires:

1. Horcruxes can be made accidentially (which, I suppose, if the spell is to be cast at the instant of a murder, might work);
2. Horcruxes can be made without the caster's knowledge (which, I suppose, if you're promptly disembodied, might be understandable); and
3. Horcruxes can not be recognized when the caster comes face-to-face with one (which, I suppose, might be implied by the fact that Voldemort doesn't feel the destruction of other Horcruxes).

This is pretty tough to pull off. But, if you can get past all that, note:

This means that Harry's not the sixth Horcrux, the unknown thing that's likely Gryffindor's or Ravenclaw's (with the seventh part residing in Voldemort's body). He's a seventh, one unknown to either side; and if he is, then he's in for a nasty surprise when he's destroyed the locket, the cup, the snake, the thing of Gryffindor or Ravenclaw's, and then faces Voldemort thinking that Voldemort is mortal.

Comments

[cheshyre]

If Harry is a Horcrux (doesn't that sound almost Suessian) then why would Voldermort now want him dead/destroyed?

[kate_nepveu]

Because of #2 & #3: V doesn't know he's a Horcrux.

[cheshyre]

How does that make sense with the prophesy?
"Neither can live while the other survives"

What happens when a horcrux is destroyed? Is that bit of soul lost forever, diminishing Lord V? Or is it returned to V, meaning that by the end Harry could be facing a very human Tom once more?

[kate_nepveu]

Page 503: "That seventh piece of soul will be the last that anybody wishing to kill Voldemort must attack--the piece that lives in his body."

Page 507: "'Does V. know when a Horcrux is destroyed, sir? Can he feel it?' Harry asked . . . ."
"A very interesting question, Harry. I believe not. I believe that V. is now so immersed in evil, and these crucial parts of himself have been detached for so long, he does not feel as we do."

Page 507-08: "Without his Horcruxes, V. will be a mortal man with a maimed and diminished soul."

[corruptedjasper.livejournal.com]

I'd think V would notice if he kept getting bits of soul back. I think, at best, you might be able to return it to yourself if you destroy it the right way or recapturing the freed bit of soul or whatever, but I don't think it'll return over a distance of however much automatically.

[clanwilliam.livejournal.com]

It doesn't mean he gets his soul back at all - if the Horcrux is destroyed, it could well be that the soul part is destroyed. Which means that V. won't notice since he's lived without it so long.

I think of it as being essential caches of something that he needs to go on living - but in many ways, V. is essentially soulless in terms of our understanding of what a soul is, but the soul is something that can keep him going.

[richboye.livejournal.com]

I'll admit that I thought the exact same thing, but decided against it, because that would mean that in killing Harry, as Voldemort desries to do, he'd be destroying part of his own soul.

Also, I doubt one can create one accidentally.

I've been hashing out the etymology of the word - 'crux,' I get, but what allusion is she striving for with the 'hor' prefix?

[(Anonymous)]

Re: the "hor" prefix. Perhaps "outside of" as in the French "hors de combat"? A soul fragment outside of one's self? Just a thought.

MA

[corruptedjasper.livejournal.com]

Hora, hour/time? Horae, the goddesses of the seasons? Horrendus/horribilis/other variations?

Ah, this one sounds promising: Horreum, warehouse/storage place.

I don't have a greek dictionary, but I think that one nails it. Although it's kind of weird to use 'crux' as bit-of-a-soul.

[richboye.livejournal.com]

'Horreum' seems to defintively be the source. 'Crux,' I think, is being used not because of any religious tones pertaining to the soul, more along the original origin as a 'necessary support' or 'essential' - crucial, for example.

[corruptedjasper.livejournal.com]

Ah, that's a good one. 'Crucial' or anything along those roots doesn't exist in my classical latin dictionary, though (as far as I can find), so I suspect it's a medieval formation. Another possibility, or rather shade of meaning (she seems to like dual-purpose words), is the Crucio root -- in various permutations meaning torture. Since creating a horcrux is done by rending a bit off the soul by killing, you could count that as torture.

[richboye.livejournal.com]

Well, really, crux just means 'beam' (or post/support - it's a building term).

It's just that being crucified (put on the beam) can be excruciating. So the crux of the matter is, does she mean tortue with the 'Crucio' curse? I think she does; I thought she was making an allusion to extreme pain, i.e. excruciating pain, the pain of being crucified, that of, being placed on the crux.

[corruptedjasper.livejournal.com]

The verb "Cruciare", first person singular form "Crucio", means 'to torture', and 'to crucify' only in Lactantius, according to my dictionary. I still suspect medieval/Dark Ages latin and classical latin changes. After all, given the crucifixion, it's not at all strange that the word became wildly popular once Christians were involved with the language.

[kate_nepveu]

Hence #2 & #3; V doesn't know that Harry's a Horcrux.

I doubt one can create one accidentially too . . . but it does explain the Parseltongue & the link so very well.

[corruptedjasper.livejournal.com]

Neither can live while the other survives, though. If this theory was correct, it'd be closer to say Neither can live while the other dies.

On the other hand, since we haven't had any Voldemort point of views, we *don't know* that Voldemort knows this or not, so only your point 1 remains. I'll note that Draco was sent to kill Dumbledore, not Harry, and Snape apparently wasn't instructed to kill Harry off either, at least not as a priority.

[kate_nepveu]

In books 4 & 5 V clearly tries to kill Harry, which means he must not know.

[corruptedjasper.livejournal.com]

Or he considers the risk acceptable, after all, he's got 5 others. And I'm not sure if you're supposed to be able to get your piece of soul back from a horcrux, but maybe when the horcrux is destroyed it just flutters in the air waiting to be shoved back into either its regular body or a new horcrux, and only dissipated if you don't do that. If that was the case, he might want Harry killed only when he is present himself, so he can recapture the bit of soul.

[kate_nepveu]

I grant that nothing we know rules this out; it seems metaphysically inelegant to me, but that's not a substantive argument.

(I still think V. doesn't know.)

[corruptedjasper.livejournal.com]

Personally, I feel that Harry is probably not a Horcrux.

But what if *Ginny* is one, having taken over at least part of the Diary-Tom?

Now that would put some serious murder-suicide tones into book7.

[kate_nepveu]

I don't think that's consistent with the ending of book 2, but it's very interesting to contemplate.

Also, and But...

[richboye.livejournal.com]

I through this in over in rasfwrj, but I'll add it here as well.


"Voldemort's mother, who "betrayed" her pure legacy by marrying a muggle
was named Merope. As per the Encyclopedia Mythica, Merope was -


"A Greek mythological figure, Merope is one of the seven Pleiades,
daughters of Atlas and Pleione. The Pleiades were virgin companions of
Artemis. Merope lived on Chios, and was often pursued by Orion. Merope
did not love Orion and married a mortal, Sisyphus."
http://www.pantheon.org/articles/m/merope.html


That last sentence is a neat allusion, huh?"

[sienamystic.livejournal.com]

Part of the theory I've seen kicked around is that if Harry is a Horcrux, he's the Griffindor object. Which might throw the math off, or not work with the "accident" idea about him becoming one, but that's what I've seen in a few places.

[kate_nepveu]

Yes, I can't see him deliberately being the Gryffindor object for the reasons I've stated here.

Harry being a horcrux

[(Anonymous)]

I think Harry being a horcrux is a verrryy possible theory. Either V. didn't know he put his horcrux, or he did it on purpose. I think he did it on purpose. Because then it would make him invincible to the prophecy. The prophecy that Harry would kill him. Harry can't kill V. until all the horcruxes are destroyed. So basically, Voldemort put a peice of himself in the person that was supposed to kill him. And he wouldn't care about killing Harry/horcrux, cause wouldn't he rather end the prophecy with one horcrux less. And who said he can't make new ones either. Maybe he'd rather lose one horcrux, after all, Dumbledore says V can't even feel it when he loses a horcrux.

This is what I think will happen in the final book.

Harry will destroy the remaining horcruxes but fail to find the last one. Dumbledore might already (based on the theory that D. is still alive) have figured this out but he won't want to tell Harry. Voldemort will track Harry down because he will think Dumbledore is dead, and he won't be afraid to kill Harry in the open. Sadly, I think V will kill Harry (but he won't realize that he just destroyed his last horcrux, and he won't even know he is mortal again). Then Neville Longbottom (who will end up being the true Chosen One to kill V, since it was between him or Harry) will come out with revenge and bravery (after all, he is a Gryffindor) and step in front of Vold.. V will probably laugh in his face and won't even bother to raise his wond, cause first of all, it's Neville, second, he still thinks he's immortal, and third, he thinks he just killed the Chosen One. Finally Neville will kill V.. And yeah that's what I think...

-Fred

[hhw]

yahtzee63's theory of Harry the Horcrux:

Voldemort went to Godric's Hollow to kill baby Harry. James fought him -- in vain, but apparently well. Voldemort, realizing this to be a serious battle, used James' murder to cast the Horcrux spell, fixing his attention on some relic of Godric Gryffindor that was in the house. (Remember how JKR once said the name of Godric's Hollow was very significant?) He did this at the same time Lily was casting the protective charm on Harry. The protective charm did the one thing that would ensure Voldemort could not kill Harry: it made Harry the Horcrux instead. Harry could no more die than Voldemort, once Voldemort's soul was partly contained in him (as well as in six other beings/objects). Therefore the Avada Kedavra failed. The spell Voldemort cast scarred Harry and refracted back onto Voldemort himself (due to the soul transfer), which is what turned him into the Evil Gray Mr. Bill-like Thing of Books 1-4.

[kate_nepveu]

Hmm. Still requires that V. either not recognize H. as a Horcrux [*] when they come face-to-face, or have some way to recapture the bit of soul once H. is dead (which latter I really doubt), but interesting, thanks for bringing it to my attention.

[*] Is it just me that finds that word impossible to type?

[reesei.livejournal.com]

I have to wonder how this ties in to Dementors, who can suck the soul out of someone's body.

Can the Dementors return the bit of Voldemort-soul to him if they take it from Harry?

One possibility for Godric's Hollow is that Voldemort just didn't realize what would happen if he put all of his soul into Horcruci - after all, no one has ever made more than one before. He overdid it, and ended up dead.

To become rebodied, he had to take something from Nagini in the unicorn-blood and snake-venom potion; part of his soul, maybe?

Just throwing things out there.

[kate_nepveu]

(I am suddenly flashing, most disconcertingly, on a Bujold novel. Nevermind.)

I wouldn't like to be the one to convince a Dementor to give up a piece of soul that it's got, but--or, wait, could a Dementor go to Kiss Harry & get interrupted and only get the piece of V's soul?

. . . probably not. The world is a better place for my realizing that I can't plot.

[reesei.livejournal.com]

(In which way? I'm assuming you mean one of the Chalions. Curse, with an encapsulated soul, Paladin, with conduits to properly distribute soul or tethered bits of demon souls? Any could relate, in different ways...)

It would hinge on how directly and thoroughly Voldemort controls the Dementors. And if they can actually regurgitate consumed souls on command. If you want disconcerting images, Voldemort as baby bird is right up there.

[kate_nepveu]

_Paladin_ (rot-13): jura Vfgn ergheaf gur fbhy-ovgf gb gur tebbz jubfr anzr V unir sbetbggra.

And, yes, that is extremely disconcerting.

[polkais4lovers.livejournal.com]

Reading all the previous comments, I think they bring up interesting points. First, I ask this: do we know that Voldemort used Adava Kedavra on Harry? Also, do we know that the Adava Kedavra spell is used to create a horcrux? I'm not sure if it was ever specified, just that the act of killing mangles one's soul to enable the capture of it in an outside object. I think the brevity of Slughorn's conversation with TR was completely intentional so we would hit this junction as to whether or not a horcrux could be created unintentionally. My gut reaction is yes, it could be, because I think to kill with the intention to then make a horcrux requires a specific spell. There have been other wizard murderers, why haven't they made horcruxes as well if it jut required the desire to remain immortal?

I think James is the descendant of Gryffindor, which is why Voldemort, the descendant of Slytherin, decided to kill his child who, like him, had one muggle parent. I think something with Lily's sacrifice created a magical contract- these, we've come across in GOF but werent too well explained- which, by Voldemort acting to break it, the action failed and the last of his soul departed his body, part of it entering Harry and the other wandering off to Transylvania or wherever. I think Harry's scar is where Voldemort's soul shard entered his body, and when Voldemort is near or emitting emotion Harry feels it in the scar, as the soul wishes to rejoin with him as the concept is unnatural.

Sorry that was ridiculously long. Oh, and one last thing- since JK had divorced, I think it would be like her to implement that in the wizarding world, marriages or other magical contracts were inalienable on penalty of death. Have you seen any instances of divorce in Harry's world?

[kate_nepveu]

False!Moody says Harry is the only person known to survive AK.

We don't know that AK is used to create a horcrux.

since JK had divorced, I think it would be like her to implement that in the wizarding world, marriages or other magical contracts were inalienable on penalty of death

You're assuming that she didn't want to be divorced! I know some divorcees who'd want anything *but* marriages being indissolvable!

[kate_nepveu]

RE: Harry & AK: the narration says the same in book four, and probably other places.