My post, Is Harry a Horcrux, which I wrote in haste two months after HBP was released, has generated 441 comments, and counting. It’s quite an issue! Personally, I’ve been back and forth on it. When I initially posted on the topic, I was against it. After a lot of reading and consideration, I was at least persuaded of the possibility that Harry (or his scar) was a horcrux and began exploring the possibility in my “Looking for Horcruxes” posts.
Felicity’s newest essay on whether or not Nagini is a horcrux takes up the Scarcrux theory. While I’m not convinced on every point she makes, she’s added one as a result of my questions in the comments that rings true and sounds quite convincing against the scarcrux theory:
Moreover, the killing curse didn’t work against Baby Harry as Voldemort expected because of the “ancient magic†protecting Harry due to Lily’s sacrificial death, and that’s another reason for me to reject Harrycrux or Scarcrux theories. It was ancient protective magic. So thematically, it just doesn’t work that Lily’s sacrifice and the protection her death imparted to Harry somehow enabled part of Voldemort’s evil soul to enter her child. The mind/powers transfer does work with that ancient protective magic because Harry now has tools no other wizard possesses (the magical window in to Voldemort’s mind), tools that will enable him to vanquish the most evil wizard ever. These tools and powers are neutral, not evil, as we’ve seen: Harry’s ability to speak Parseltongue enabled him to free the boa at the zoo, save Justin from an attack during the dueling match, and open the Chamber of Secrets to save Ginny and defeat Diarymort. As Dumbledore said, Parseltongue is a gift found among the great and the good, not just dark wizards.
As far as the Nagini stuff is concerned, I’m still not sure I buy it. Let’s face it – Dumbledore’s bound to be wrong about at least one of his horcrux guesses. Rowling said he’s “never far wide of the mark,” not “he’s always right on the mark” in response to a question about horcruxes. She confirmed that there are four remaining (which shoots down a mistaken fifth horcrux). So Dumbledore is correct about the number. His summary of what they are has become quite the mantra: “The locket, the cup, the snake, something of Ravenclaw’s or Gryffindor’s.” To me, if there’s an error in that guesswork, Nagini is it. The snake speculation is screaming, “Wild guesswork! Doubt me!” But you’ll definitely be interested in Felicity’s thoughts on that, and Nagini is at least back on the table for me as an option, even a really viable one.
Probably the most important piece of evidence is Dumbledore’s little experiment with the smoke snakes and the “in essence divided” question. I take that to mean the same person (same soul), but in two different “essences” (Nagini and Voldemort). At the same time, this gets a bit complex. If it’s a soul piece in Nagini, how is Harry’s mind linked to what Nagini is doing? Perhaps, as Felicity suggests, Voldemort is possessing Nagini that night, but then I fail to see how it becomes a horcrux experiment; Voldemort can possess just about anything – why would his possession of Nagini prove her to be a horcrux?
In any case, my interest in the Harry vs. Nagini subject has been re-awakened, and previous conclusions have been rattled. Lots more thinking to do. But my guess is that this is one of those issues that JKR has ultimately not given us enough info to solve prior to the release of Book 7.
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{ 17 comments… read them below or add one }
After reading Felicity’s very interesting comments on the Scarcrux, I wanted to make an argument to support Harry’s scar being a horcurx.
Felicity mentions that the ancient magic that protects Harry could not have allowed part of Voldemort’s evil soul to enter Harry. I agree with that, in part, but I think this is exactly why Harry’s scar is a horcurx. The Horcrux is supposed to reside in an object, inside. But this horcrux could not due to the powerful protective magic and instead of entering into Harry, it laid upon the skin on his forehead. Didn’t you ever consider it curious that Voldemort’s host [Prof. Q.] felt a burning sensation ever time he touched Harry, and Harry also fells a burning on his forehead? The scar burns. Why? Why does the scar burn? This scar burns because there is a portion of Voldemort on Harry’s forehead. When Voldemort is near or is in an excited emotional state, angry or happy, Harry feels it, his scar burns. It seems to me that there is still a connection between the scarcrux portion of voldemort and Voldemort’s soul, a connection that requires closeness or high emotions to ignite it.
Nagini, is she a horcrux or not? I vote that she is not a horcrux. If Voldemort was forced to make a horcrux that night in Godric’s hollow from Lily’s death, then Voldemort had met his quota. The only way I can understand why Voldemort would show any sort of concern about killing Lily is that if it was for a self-centered reason, like he already had begun the spell to create a horcrux. If Voldemort did not make an horcruxes that night in Godric’s hollow, he would still have had 5 horcruxes. Why on earth would he choose to use a snake as a horcrux, a living creature as his final horcrux?
Tracydaisy–
The Nagini argument is here if you want to read it. What Travis posted was a paragraph:
http://felicitys-mind.livejournal.com/3963.html
Thanks tracydaisy…I meant to link it, but forgot! I’ll link it in the post.
Thanks, Travis. I just tweaked a bit to make it clearer and shifted a paragraph around. Since no one reads my LJ unless they find my link on HP_Essays, I linked to you back in the body of the essay.
Tracydaisy–
The point I’m making is that whether we’re talking about Harrycrux or Scarcrux, the fact is that it’s thematically inconsistent for Lily’s sacrificial death to impart a protection on her baby but cause her baby to become the “wickedest of magical inventions.” And my reading of canon says Harry was marked as Voldemort’s equal by other means that don’t thematically contradict that ancient magical protection. At least that’s the argument I demonstrate in the essay.
Thanks Felicity. I’ll read your essay in a few days. I’m sure it will be very interesting, but I’m a little busy right now. By the way thanks, for all your hard work. I’m not an essay writer, but I appreciate that you and Travis are.
I take the “in essence divided” to mean that there were two parts of Voldemort’s soul in Nagini (and that snakes don’t have souls, so Nagini doesn’t count) – the Horcrux part and the remnants of Voldemort’s soul, possessing Nagini.
Still, I think it’s possible that Nagini AND Harry (or his scar) are horcruxes; if JKR says there are four left, she could easily be meaning four external ones that Harry has to search out and find – in short, four different legs on Harry’s Horcrux quest – and that there is a final part left in Harry himself. (Remember, she’s not too particular about numbers.)
Clearly, if Voldemort mistakenly made Harry a Horcrux, he could still make Nagini one too to complete his seven-part soul – and thereby unknowingly make it eight.
Remember, too, that Voldemort knows the diary was destroyed, so he could have made *another* one to get back up to seven. At any rate, I’m pretty confident that at some point late in Book 7 Voldemort will realize that Harry has tracked down most or all of his Horcruxes – and will at least try to make new ones.
Wow Felicity that sure is a lot to think over.
Here are my thoughts on your ideas:
If I take your ideas, at this point in the story Babymort is putting together a plan to return himself to his body. He is contriving a way of removing Harry from the safety of Dumbledore, so that he can take some of Harry’s blood for regeneration, because this way he thinks he will be invincible, and then he plans on killing Harry. If Voldemort has this plan in mind, why would he not follow through with using Harry’s death later for the sixth horcrux. “He seems to have reserved the process of making Horcruxes for particularly significant deaths. You would certainly have been that….. I am sure that he was intending to make his final Horcrux with your death.†~Dumbledore. It seems a little strange that Voldemort would waste a horcrux on Nagini, when he could do what he always intended to, kill Harry and make his final horcrux from this murder.
Vulnerable Voldemort makes a horcrux out of a snake. Voldemort’s vulnerablity doesn’t have anything to do with horcruxes, at this point he believes he has five. Even if Voldemort made Nagini the six horcrux, he still needed Wormtail to nurse Nagini and feed him. Voldemort is still in the same state he was in. Making a horcrux out of Nagini didn’t make Voldemort less vulnerable.
Voldemort’s control over Nagini was already apparent before Frank’s death. She was like an obedient dog.
During the final battle, why would Harry’s powers be greater at controlling Nagini, if Voldemort’s supreme control over Nagini is based on the assumption that she has part of Voldemort’s soul in her?
Voldemort using Murtle’s death as a means to make a horcrux–
It is not clear to me that Voldemort made a horcrux with Murtle’s death. Voldemort did not know how to make horcruxes at that point. In 1943 Murtle is killed, in the summer of 1944 he kills his father, and grandparents; it has to be in 1944 -45 that he has his first discussion with Slughorn about horcruxes, because Tom is wearing Marvolo’s ring.
Here is a break down: Voldemort uses the basilisk to kill Murtle; he steals his uncles wand and takes Marvolo’s ring, then kills his father and grandparents; he then returns to school and speaks with Slughorn about horcruxes. Which means, Murtle’s death could not have been used to make a horcrux unless, you can extract your severed soul from your body a year later, and make a horcrux.
I’m interested in your arguments about horcrux spells being an after thought, but I’m not convinced yet. Do you have anymore evidence on that point? I’m of the strong opinion that a horcrux spell is cast prior to the killing.
How long after a killing does a wizard have to perform the horcrux spell. What does the soul do, split and wait for it to be removed, and if so Voldemort would not have needed to kill anyone else to make horcruxes because he must have already killed 6 people. If the soul is torn how long is it vulnerable to being removed from the body. It seems to me that the removing has to take place at the same moment as the tearing of the soul. It just makes greater sense for the spell to be cast in anticipation of the killing, rather then in the aftermath.
Felicity are you saying that the scar on Harry’s forehead was caused from thoughts going into his brain, which would be the transfer of some of Voldemort’s powers?
Thanks for your feedback, Tracydaisy!
In the first place, I think we need to acknowledge a major plothole in Goblet of Fire—Why didn’t Fake Moody just portkey Harry to the Riddle House on the first day of school and get the rebirthing ceremony over with? It seems pretty stupid for Voldemort to have waited 10 months in the first place, but that’s what happened.
So while your question about why Voldemort didn’t wait until the rebirthing ceremony to make Harry into a Horcrux is a very good one, my own gut tells me that’s another plothole. And if your argument is that Voldemort wouldn’t have made a Horcrux out of Nagini at the beginning of GoF but would have waited until June at the end of GoF to make one out of Harry’s death, then Dumbledore’s list (cup, locket, Nagini, something of Gryffindor’s or Ravenclaw’s) is all wrong even though Rowling said his guesses are “never very far wide of the mark.â€
My point about Voldemort’s vulnerability is that he wanted the magic power of a seven-part soul to get him through a difficult year. That’s why he wanted to make six Horcruxes in the first place–because seven is the most magically powerful number. So in that sense, he felt he was making himself less vulnerable by making the sixth Horcrux out of Nagini. It didn’t have anything to do with Wormtail.
We didn’t see Nagini until GF1. She had gone off to explore the house, and when she returned, she told Voldemort there was an old Muggle man listening in the hallway. I don’t see how that is evidence that he had any unusual control over her. Crookshanks would have done the same thing. The part of my end scene is just something I would like to see happening because it would be a parallel to the end of GoF when Harry’s powers were stronger than Voldemort’s in making the bead of light head for Voldemort’s wand. That light beam had resulted because they were both using wands Fawkes’s feather cores, but even though Harry was an underaged and unqualified 14 year old and Voldemort was back in his full powers, Harry’s powers were stronger. Nagini is the dark counterpart of Fawkes and both Voldemort and Harry have the power (from Slytherin) to speak to her in Parseltongue. My Nagini battle scenario envisons Harry’s ability, through Parseltongue and whatever other powers he has to be able to at the very least throw Nagini into confusion by countering Voldemort’s orders to her. I never said Voldemort would have “supreme†control over Nagini as a Horcrux, nor did Dumbledore.
I think Riddle learned to make Horcruxes from one of the banned books he found in the Room of Requirement. Moaning Myrtle was killed in June 1943 during Riddle’s fifth year, and he made the diary sometime between her death and his next birthday on December 31. Canon says he learned about his family history during that same fifth year, so it seems clear to me that he killed the Riddles and framed Morfin during the summer immediately after he killed Myrtle with the Basilisk.
When I first read the chapter in which Dumbledore and Harry saw Slughorn’s real Horcrux memory, I thought Riddle already knew how to make Horcruxes but was pretending not to know because the subject was banned. His real question was whether he could split his soul into seven parts (Dumbledore told Harry that what he really wanted to know was whether he could split his soul into seven because no book would be able to give him that information). So IMO Riddle had already made the diary Horcrux before he talked to Slughorn. He then made the ring Horcrux after talking to Slughorn.
You can certainly hold a different opinion, but you have to explain how Riddle learned how to make Horcruxes since Slughorn didn’t know and the subject was banned at Hogwarts.
From what we learned from both Slughorn and Dumbledore is that to make a Horcrux, the murder comes first and the Horcrux-making follows. We don’t know more than what they told us, but nothing that either said supports the idea that the murder comes after or that the murder is an internal part of the Horcrux-making. Perhaps it makes sense to you that the spell has to be cast before the murder, but it doesn’t to me, and Dumbledore and Slughorn seem to be saying the opposite.
It was Rowling herself who said the scar is a magical window into Voldemort’s MIND. It was Dumbledore who said Slytherin’s POWERS were transferred into Harry. And it was Dumbledore who distinguished soul on one hand and mind/powers on the other. That’s canon. My examples of the brain in the DoM leaving thought-scars and the Sorting Hat having “brains†are examples to show that that there is no need for Harry to have any part of Voldemort’s soul in him to explain his ability to speak Parseltongue or the mind-to-mind connection he has with Voldemort through the scar.
Felicity,
I’m going to have to think over all you’ve said in your most recent post. However I will quickly comment that the idea that Tom already knew how to make horcruxes before speaking with Slughorn is interesting, and I never thought about that. Good point.
I do have a question for you.
When I am think about theories there are certain pieces that must fit into my theories for me to proceed with them. Here is one of the pieces. Harry’s scar burns.
Harry’s scar burns. This seems significant, atleast to me, it has occured in almost ever book. Based on your theory of the mind/powers transfer instead of soul/horcrux tranfer why does Harry’s scar burn?
Harry a horcrux ?
Well either J.K. came to be uninspired or Voldemort finaly proves to be an idiot. Why would he place a piece of his soul insisde someone he wishes to kill ?
Harry’s scar does burn, but only Voldemort’s mind makes it burn. The scar didn’t burn at all during Chamber of Secrets, not when Harry was touching the diary Horcrux, not when Harry fell into the diary Horcrux to watch the memory of Hagrid being framed, not when Diarymort was nearby and trying to kill Harry with the basilisk (and Diarymort was corporeal enough to pick up and use Harry’s wand), etc.
The scar only burns in connection to Voldemort’s mind, not to parts of Voldemort’s soul. So that again is an example of the mind-to-mind link from the scar.
Felicity,
You did your homework. I’m going to think about this awhile.
I don’t mean to get techinical but when you refer to a mind connection, do you mean the physical brain or just thoughts?
Well, if the brain in the Department of Mysteries is a guide, thoughts are inside brains. Obviously Voldemort’s physical brains weren’t transferred into Harry, but the mind-to-mind link is connected to the brain even though the conscious mind doesn’t have to be a physical brain. Vaportmort had no body for 13 years, so he didn’t have a physical brain, but when Vapormort possessed Quirrell, he could make Harry’s scar hurt just by thinking about Harry or looking at Harry (Harry’s scar hurt even through Voldemort’s face was under a turban at the opening feast, and Harry’s scar hurt terribly when Voldemort just looked at him in the graveyard).
Weak minded people can be controlled by Voldemort, why not animals, like snakes?
“I can make animals do what I want them to do, without training them.†Young Tom Riddle said this to Dumbledore when they first met in the orphanage. [HPB 13, pg 271]
Where & when did Tom Riddle learn to make horcruxes?
Your point on Tom already knowing how to make a horcrux before he spoke to Slughorn is possible. I have just reread the scene and it isn’t a certainty though, there is room for the possibility that Tom didn’t yet know the spell to create a horcrux. Tom just seemed so eager asking “Encase? But how?†[HBP 23, pg 498]. Tom Riddle finding a book with some information on horcruxes in the Room of Requirement is an interesting assertion, and I can see that as well. I too wondered where Tom learned how to make horcruxes, but my thoughts lead me down another road, the road to Knockturn alley and Borgin and Burkes. Borgin and Burkes of course is a shop devoted to dark arts items, so it seemed reasonable to me that Tom could have gotten the information he needed on horcruxes there. We know that after school he worked there.
Horcrux spell a before or after
In your essay you say “To make a Horcrux, the soul needs to be split first by a supreme act of evil—murder—so that a torn portion could be encased in the object.†— This is not what the text states, though.
Slughorn gives an overview.
“Well, you split your soul, you see, and hide part of it in an object outside the body.†~Slughorn [hbp 23 pg 497]
“By committing murder. Killing rips the soul apart. The wizard intent upon creating a Horcrux would use the damage to his advantage.â€~ Slughorn [hbp 23]
“There is a spell, do not ask me, I don’t know!†~ Slughorn [hbp23]
I don’t think Slughorn new that much more about horcruxes at the time. He wasn’t the Defense against the dark arts teacher. And it is only an overview, not instructions.
We do not know whether the horcrux spell comes before or after the murder or many details about the horcrux making. We all are reading into what is being said by the characters. I am willing to admit that I don’t know, because I don’t. I just have ideas and thoughts on it. I don’t think that it is possible at this state to exclude the possibility that the horcrux spell is prior to the murder or happens after. My reason for asserting the opinion that the horcrux spell comes first has to do with Voldemort’s merciful ultimatum to Lily the night she died. I never could understand it. Voldemort’s mercy seems to go against everything we know about him. It seemed to me that more then likely Voldemort’s motive wasn’t mercy, but something else. What else would have motivated a cold blooded killer to offer someone who was in the way their life. If the horcrux spell came first and a murder had to immediately follow it, this could explain why Voldemort offered Lily her life. Here’s a scenario Voldemort began the horcrux spell to make his final horcrux; Lily won’t get out of the way, so Voldemort knowing this is his final horcrux murder offer Lily her life, she declines and Voldemort has no choice other then to kill her and make the final horcrux from her murder. Now you may ask where is the proof, the canon, the quotes, well of course there are none, it’s just a way of understanding some events. It’s that simple.
Mind / Powers – the Soul
I know that you are making the point against Harry being a horcrux and that the connection is a connection of the mind and not the soul. I am thinking on it, and you made a valid point about the scar burning, but I’m not there yet.
I don’t follow your reasoning re: the offer to let Lily live. Voldemort was calling her a “silly girl” and telling her to stand aside so he could kill her baby. That is not mercy. That’s psychotic confusion. My own feeling is that he saw his mother Merope in Lily for a minute and it threw him for a loop. There are several passages in which Voldemort appears to have sympathy for Merope, so I think he had a latent “mother moment” when he saw Lily with her son. Voldemort told her to stand aside a few times and called her a girl, but he quickly grew impatient and just AK’d her. He needed her out of the way so he could kill Harry.
Slughorn is not the only person from whom we learned something about Horcrux making. Slughorn didn’t know the spell to use, but the point I made in the essay is that Dumbledore clearly does. He had to learn everything he could about Horcrux-making because he needed to know what all the possibilities were and about any special information he needed to know in order to destroy them.
He told Harry, “After an interval of some years, however, [Voldemort] used Nagini to kill an old Muggle man, and it might then have occurred to him to turn her into his last Horcrux.”
We got a lot more information from that statement than we did from Slughorn. Dumbledore surmised that Voldemort had used Nagini to kill Frank Bryce and the decision to turn the snake into a Horcrux was an afterthought. So we learned: 1) the murder is what counts, not the method used to kill (killing curse, lethal poison, etc.), 2) it doesn’t matter whether the murderer killed directly or used a proxy he was controlling (Slytherin’s basilisk, Nagini), 3) the murderer doesn’t even need to be considering making a Horcrux at the time of the murder to be able to make a Horcrux from that murder later on, and 4) the murder comes before the Horcrux is made rather than being an internal part of the Horcrux-making process.
And that is logical given what Slughorn had already said and given that it’s highly probable that Riddle made the ring Horcrux from the Riddle triple homicide months after they were killed. Dumbledore didn’t know of any murders that Voldemort had committed between the Riddle murders and Hepzibah Smith’s poisoning.
So for me, speculations that Voldemort needed to peform a spell before killing Harry require so many things to be completely undermined, particularly information we got from Dumbledore. And as Rowling said (I know I’m a broken record), Dumbledore’s guesses are never very far wide of the mark.
And there is still the ultimate thematic problem. A Horcrux is the wickedest of magical inventions, and to accept Harrycrux and Scarcrux theories, you have to believe that Lily’s sacrificial death turned her baby into one. I don’t buy it, and there is too much canon evidence IMO to explain Harry’s Parseltongue and mental connection with Voldemort without resorting to Harrycrux and Scarcrux theories.
Okay mercy, sympathy I don’t care what you call it. It’s just not in Voldemort’s character to be merciful or sympathetic. My point is it wasn’t mercy or sympathy, but an ulterior motive, which I explained above.
“After an interval of some years, however, [Voldemort] used Nagini to kill an old Muggle man, and it might then have occurred to him to turn her into his last Horcrux.â€
Dumbledore’s comment to Harry could be understood the way you have stated. But I really think it isn’t a direct statement meaning this happened and then that happened. All I think Dumbledore is stating is that it wasn’t a planned murder / horcrux.
Is it possible my ideas are wrong, of course.
About Lily’s sacrificial death, it didn’t turn her baby into a horcrux. It saved his life. It protected him. It is because of her sacrifice, that I believe the horcrux did not do what it was intended to do, encasing itself in the body of Harry. The horcrux remained on the outer part of Harry, his skin.
There is no possible way that harry could be a Horcrux. It even says that Voldemort went directly from Lily to Harry. No Time ofr spells