Horcruxes: Groundrules and Theories

[ongj87]

No: HPFGUIDX 136513

> John K:
> Yes, but... there are so many more ways to incapacitate a person 
> than killing them.  In the scene in the Astronomy tower, Harry 
would 
> have protected Dumbledore or died trying, but Dumbledore didn't 
want 
> him to.  So (rather than killing him), he put a full body-bind 
curse 
> on him.  If Voldemort wanted Lily to live for his own purposes, he 
> would have done similarly.  It would even have been easier.
> 
> I also don't see Voldemort wanting Lily to live because even if he 
> did want Harry to be his heir, he wouldn't /want/ Lily raising 
him.  
> Not only had she proven that she hated Voldemort (and he knew it; 
> she'd defied him three times) but she was muggle-born.  She was 
> pretty much the opposite of the mother Voldemort would idealize.

The parallel between Dumbledore's death doesn't quite match the 
circumstnaces.  The first point being that Voldemort does not care 
for Lily's safety in the way that Dumbledore does Harry's.  I think 
that Voldemort was willing to let Lily live to the extent that if 
she was willing to raise Harry as Voldemort's heir, she would be 
allowed to live.  Otherwise, she would just be in the way.  I doubt 
he would have any problem with killing her if he deemed her 
unnecessary.

True, Lily does not fit the profile of Voldemort's ideal.  Though, I 
think there might be something about Lily's lineage we aren't 
seeing, the clue being Petunia.  I am hopeful there will be an 
explanation to this problem in the seventh book.
 
> John K:
> I still think it's been directly called a Killing Curse, including 
> by Dumbledore, way too many times for JKR to pull this on us.  
It's 
> one thing to make a motivation or an event seem a little strange, 
or 
> to drop hints in the text that something is not as it seems; but 
> this would be another thing altogether, a plot twist out of the 
> blue.  That's not fair to readers, and JKR is a better writer than 
> that, no matter what the H/G shippers say. ;)

I don't believe this is beneath JK, as we all know there is a big 
secret hidden beneath everything.  And the clues are there, as I am 
trying to show.  

As I have said before, I think that only Dumbledore, Lily, and James 
were aware of Voldemort's true intentions.  As for Dumbledore, I 
will get to this point in a moment.
 
> John K:
> I have to admit that this is indeed the most logical explanation 
> I've heard yet for this, though I've been adamately maintaining 
that 
> Harry cannot be a Horcrux.  I just haven't yet heard a 
satisfactory 
> explanation of /how or why/ Harry could have become a Horcrux.  I 
> just don't think Voldemort was trying to do anything but kill 
him.  
> And if Dumbledore thought he was, wouldn't he have told Harry?  
> After all, the Horcrux explanations seemed designed so that Harry 
> could carry on destroying them if something happened to 
Dumbledore.  
> That would be an awfully critical piece of information to leave 
out, 
> no matter how it made Harry feel.  Not to mention the fact that 
> Dumbledore has already learned not to withold information from 
Harry.

First of all, thank you.  I worked very hard on getting the kinks 
out of that theory.

Now I find this to be the most intriguing part of the puzzle.  As I 
pondered this entire theory, I kept asking myself, "If Dumbledore 
knew, why didn't he tell Harry?"

The night at the Ministry in OoP, Voldemort possesses Harry in hopes 
that Dumbledore would be willing to sacrifice Harry in order to get 
a shot at killing Voldemort.  But there is a major flaw in this.  
Voldemort must have known that Dumbledore was aware of the 
horcruxes.  This being the case, Dumbledore must have known that 
killing Harry would have done nothing, for killing the original soul 
piece is meaningless unless you take out the other horcruxes.  If 
you think about it, this isn't valid at all, so why would Voldemort 
do such a thing?

However, this incident would be well explained if Harry was one of 
Voldemort's horcruxes.  This would not give Dumbledore a shot at 
Voldemort, but at Harry.  Given this oppurtunity, Dumbledore would 
have been able to kill Harry, in the process getting rid of one of 
the horcruxes in the process, and say that he was trying to kill 
Voldemort but failed.  Nobody would have questioned him otherwise.  

But Dumbledore didn't do it.  This leads back to, in Dumbledore's 
words, "the flawed plan".

RIGHT after the scene I just discussed occurs, Dumbledore has a nice 
long talk with Harry about the flaw of his plan, that he loves Harry 
too much to burden him with the "beautiful, terrible" truth.  
Dumbledore then revealed to Harry the prophecy of which he was 
burdened to fulfill and shed a few tears.  But did he weep for 
another reason?

I think perhaps Dumbledore did not tell Harry that night the entire 
truth, believing that he could still let Harry live a little longer 
in bliss before the time came.  Sure, Harry would be rightfully 
pissed off at DD, but Dumblydore I think would have been willing to 
make that sacrifice if it meant Harry's happiness.  

Now this part of the theory only works out if you believe that 
Dumbledore ordered Snape to kill him:

Dumbledore, knowing that he would soon be departing from the living 
world, knew he was running out of time and would soon have to 
unleash upon Harry the truth.  He kept putting it off until, 
finally, he couldn't do it.  Or perhaps, he wasn't given the 
oppurtunity.  Perhaps he planned to tell Harry when they came back 
from the Cave.  Either way, he couldn't tell him face to face.  He 
knew the idea would tear Harry to pieces, maybe even drive Harry to 
insanity or suicide.  Dumbledore couldn't face such a thing alive, 
and so he put the explanation into the pensieve, dying with shame 
and grief for his cowardice.

As far as we have been shown, we have no gotten a glimpse at very 
many flaws of Dumbledores.  If my theory were to be correct, I 
believe this would give Dumbledore a more human character and rather 
less than a god. 


> John K:
> Makes sense (though I'm unsure why Harry hasn't found out he's 
> Gryffindor's heir by now), but...  

Harry doesn't know much about his lineage or family and hasn't been 
able to find out.  I think perhaps he will learn more when he goes 
to Godric's Hollow in the next book.

> John K:
> I'm not convinced making Harry a Horcrux would end the Gryffindor 
> line; after all, the Gryffindor descendant would still be alive.  

True, Harry's body would still be existant.  But I think Voldemort 
would think little of mortal elements such as flesh and blood.  And 
by planting a horcrux in Harry to eventually merge with Harry's 
soul, he'd be squashing out all the Gryffindor spirit in him and 
making him a true Slytherin.  In this sense, I think Voldemort would 
see it as ending the line.

> > 2. Earned himself an heir.
> 
A good point.  However, we must remember that Tom loves trophies.  
He liked stealing others prized possessions and making them his own 
as a child, and continued to do so as a mature adult (look at all 
the horcruxes).  I think it would be quite a Riddle-ish idea for him 
to steal Harry, quite a prized possession being an only son and heir 
to Gryffindor, and making him his own.  

> But it would be an enormous risk to raise to full wizarding 
maturity 
> a boy with the power to vanquish him, particularly as Voldemort 
> thinks nobody else has that power.  It would be a classic evil 
> villain mistake - I'll raise my son to be as powerful as me, of 
> course he will do my bidding (but he doesn't, he ends up killing 
the 
> father instead).  Voldemort doesn't make many of these obvious 
sorts 
> of mistakes.
> Besides, he doesn't need Harry as a weapon.  He doesn't need 
> anything as a weapon.  He's the most powerful wizard on earth.  We 
> see throughout the sixth book that Voldemort is really doing quite 
> well for himself, and that's with Harry the weapon on the OTHER 
> side.  And by all indications, he was doing quite well during the 
> first war as well, until Harry came along.
> 

I don't think this is as big a risk as you think.  Nagini we believe 
is one of Voldemort's horcruxes.  She is very much under his control 
and possessed her in the fifth book in the attack on Arthur.  Sure, 
he's been known to possess others before, but let me come back to 
this point.

First of all, let us assume that Nagini's soul has merged with 
Voldemort's soul piece to a certain extent (assuming that this is 
possible).  Nagini would gain the same motives and spirit that 
Voldemort has, so why would she ever turn on Voldemort?  This is 
probably the reason he has so much control over her.  

Now back to my prior point.  Ginny described the symptoms of being 
possessed by Voldemort to Harry in the fifth book.  She said that 
you knew you were being possessed if you had large blank spots in 
your memory and found yourself in places but couldn't remember how 
you got there.  Harry was possessed later in the fifth book at the 
Ministry of Magic by Voldemort but did not experience what was 
described at all.  He remembered exactly what he experienced when 
being possessed.  I think perhaps that Voldemort is able to possess 
Harry in a different way than he does others because Harry is his 
horcrux.  I think in this way he is able to possess Nagini as well.  
Voldemort is able to go into Harry's mind and make him experience 
things that make him think in a different way.  For instance, he was 
able to make Harry experience great pain, so much so that Harry 
wished to be killed by Dumbledore.  Voldemort I think would have 
thought that if Harry even tried to rebel as a mature wizard, which 
I doubted he would, he could probably just possess Harry and change 
his mind.  And speaking of being able to possess Harry in such a 
manner, it would be a very convenient weapon to Voldemort to be able 
to possess Harry and make him go out and do work for him.  In this, 
Voldemort wouldn't even have to leave the house.  How efficient is 
that?

My last argument to this is that the prophecy stated that that the 
person prophecized would have a power that the Dark Lord knows not.  
I think this would have positively eaten Tom from the inside out.  
Voldemort might have thought it to be to his advantage to take Harry 
as his horcrux in order to learn of this power.  In making Harry his 
horcrux, he might see it as him gaining the power himself.  Sure, 
maybe he didn't NEED this extra power, but just knowing he could get 
it might make him oversee some technicalities.  It sure didn't stop 
him when he was trying to get the blood of Harry to maket he potion 
to revive him.  I mean, look at all the risks he took just to make 
that when he could have used anybody.  I don't think it's below him.


> John K:
> I like this idea simply because it explains Dumbledore's little 
> tool.  I don't like it because I can't find any other evidence for 
> it.  And though, as I said, this is a good explanation for 
> Dumbledore's instrument, that's not enough to go on for me, as 
there 
> are other potential explanations for the instrument as well - 
> perhaps it was about the snake that bit Arthur?  Or about control 
of 
> Harry's mind?  Or to find out whether Voldemort was possessing 
> Harry?  All of these would have been much more urgent, and 
> necessitated Dumbledore using the instrument in front of Harry.

I rather came upon an interesting theory upon hearing your 
argument.  What if he meant to use the instrument (assuming it was 
used for the purpose I theorized) in front of Harry?  What if he 
wanted Harry to see it for himself so that later he could explain it 
to him.  Perhaps, later on, knowing he was going to die, he put a 
memory in the pensieve about how to operate the instrument, as to 
assist Harry in reading it.

Again, happy to discuss this topic further with anyone.

- ongj87