horcrux timeline and murders

[laura_clapham2002]

No: HPFGUIDX 135858

Hi everyone!  I'm sure this has been mentioned and theorised about 
already but it is too difficult to search through the thousands of 
posts post HBP.
In writing this I am making the assumption that a horcrux needs to be 
made within a relatively short time of the relevant murder - we do not 
know this for sure but it seems to be a reasonable assumption (i 
think).  People have suggested a wide variety of ideas for this, my 
favourite being that the Horcrux must be planned in advance, with the 
murder as the final stage, but hopefully many people agree that it 
seems it would need to be created sometime proximate to the murder.

Okay, so we know Tom Riddle was 16 when the Chamber of Secrets was 
opened - this must have happened before the murder of the Riddle family 
as he wasn't wearing the black ring in the Diary.  So I'm proposing 
that Tom was in his 5th year (after New Year's)when he opened the 
Chamber and killed Moaning Myrtle.
Then between 5th and 6th years Tom murders the Riddle family.  Then 
during his 6th year he has the Horcrux conversation with Slughorn.  IT 
seems this has to have occurred in his 6th year as Slughorn calls his a 
prefect but not Head Boy.  Theoretically he could be at the end of his 
5th year but then you would think he would not have had time to commit 
the Riddle murders...

I already thought Moaning Myrtle was unlikely to have been used for a 
horcrux as I don't htink the murder was technically or directly 
commited by Tom, but now thinking about the timeline it seems even less 
likely as it would have been committed at least 6 months prior.  
However, the Riddle murders to me now also seem less likely to have 
been used  for Horcruxes.  Their murders were committed before The 
Horcrux conversation with Slughorn, and it did not seem like Tom had 
figured out all the necessary steps for creating one - IIRC he asks 
Slughorn exactly how a horcrux gets created.  Also Dumbledore says he 
believes Tom did not like to hold onto things after they had been made 
Horcruxes, and he is wearing the ring during this conversation.

So, it is reasonable to think that he did not manage to create a 
Horcrux for some time following this conversation - in order to 
research this further where would he have gone?  would he have had to 
wait until the summer following 6th year, or perhaps after school 
entirely.  But even if he managed it by the end of his 6th year, would 
the Riddle murders have been "fresh" enough to be used for the creation 
of Horcruxes?

So, if Voldemort wanted to use significant murders for his Horcruxes, 
who would they have been?

Have I missed anything? What do people think?

Laura C