horcruxes - how do we know there are only four left?

[wintryshowers]

No: HPFGUIDX 136149

allies426 wrote:
> Horcrux recap:
> 
> 1.  Riddle's diary (destroyed)
> 2.  Slytherin's ring (destroyed)
> 3.  Locket - missing
> 4.  Cup - never located
> 5.  Ravenclaw/Gryffindor artifact - unknown (Hat, Sword, Phoenix?)
> 6.  Nagini (suspected) - whereabouts unknown
> 7.  Piece that is still within Voldemort
> (NO WAY can one of the Horcrux's be Harry, IMO, why try to kill 
> him so many times if he were a horcrux???)
> 
> So after his Horcruxes were reduced in number, what if Voldemort 
> created another one, to re-create seven?  Any offscreen murder 
> could have been used to do it.  I can envision a scenario where a 
> triumphant Harry confronts Voldemort, thinking he has destroyed 
> all of the Horcruxes, only for Voldemort to say, "See, you stupid 
> boy?  Here is my 7th Horcrux, the crumple-horned snorkack of 
> Merlin!" (or something similarly obscure and unpredictable)



Good thought. I agree that Harry is unlikely to be a horcrux, in fact it seems much more probable to me that, by murdering Harry, LV had planned to create a new one - or to replace one.  I could imagine that only after his resurrection, LV had the chance 
to replace the diary-horcrux, although he had certainly been informed earlier about it. Moreover, I reckon, only then did he notice that another horcrux was missing, namely the one in the lake, so he had actually two to replace. I don't believe that one had been stolen before his LV's "death", because I guess he would have checked them regularly (the boat was meant for himself after all, as a means of transport) and found out it was missing. (So in my opinion, the thief must be someone who was still alive in HP 5 or even HP 6. It doesn't seem completely unlikely to me that the R.A.B. message meant "Regards, Amelia Bones". I wouldn't put that past the author.)
 
That would leave him to have to create two new horcruxes, and I 
believe, with the murder-part, he didn't have to wait till after his 
complete resurrection. Maybe that was the reason for the murder of 
the old man in the Riddle House in HP 4, his first murder for 13 
years. I think LV would have chosen something of his father as a 
horcrux, first because - although I'm afraid he would disagree with me and never admit it, probably cursing me for suggesting it - he's 
still longing for a kind of home, for roots and family bonds. Even 
when speaking to Harry in HP4 at the graveyard, he gets 
reminiscient, and only after a while he corrects himself and says the DE were his true family. And secondly, I think it would be important of him to show that LV finally conquered Tom Riddle, by putting a part of his soul in something important to his father, who had always refused him as a child. So it should be something Tom Riddle sr. used to be very fond of and the loss of which to a wizard would deeply offend him. 

In general, LV only seems to murder if "necessary" in his opinion, 
not out of anger or enjoyment like many of his DE (not meant as 
defence!) After all, twice he tells people to "stand aside", whom he 
could easily kill (Lily, maybe he told that to James, too), or whom 
he could have knocked out with a rather harmless spell (Hagrid). That suggest he only kills when working on a new horcrux. 

So the old man could have served the purpose of replacing the diary, 
and Amelia Bones the second horcrux in the lake. Because the thief 
would have certainly destroyed it, therefore I think any search would be useless. 

Susan