Have I just transfigured out the Horcrux!Locket?

[Jen Reese]

No: HPFGUIDX 137862

Saraquel: 
> So, I there you have it.  RAB is *not* Regulus Black.  No-one had 
> to find the cave.  That whiz-bang potion is Voldemort's.  Harry
> has the real Horcrux!Locket.  It's not important where the
> unopenable locket in Grimauld Place is, and the whole Mung thing 
> is either a red herring or part of another plot thread.  IMO, if
> it is relevant at all, Harry will finally track it down and find
> that it is no snake on it, which may prompt him to think again
> about the locket that he has.

Jen: JKR spent so much time explaining who Riddle was in HBP, and 
how he evolved into Lord Voldemort. It was for Harry of course ;), 
but I find myself referring back to it constantly when figuring out 
what Voldemort would and wouldn't do. 

The first thing that strikes me about Voldemort writing that note 
himself, and that RAB refers to "really any-body", was the comment 
by Dumbledore: "There he showed his contempt for anything that tied 
him to other people, anything that made him ordinary. Even then he 
wished to be different, separate, notorious." (chap. 13, p. 277, US).
I *think*, that to Voldemort, a hoax would be a very common thing to 
do. He carefully laid his plans for the Horcruxes, chose significant 
murders, significant trophies, chose the number seven as the 'most 
powerfully magical number'....I think those protections were chosen 
with equal thought as to the significance of the magic.

(Although it did just occur to me Horcrux sounds a little like Hoax, 
doesn't it <g>? I still think Horcrux isn't some big Latin thingy 
but merely a JKR play on 'the crux of the matter'.)

But back to the hoax idea. Another thought. The note itself, "I face 
death in the hope that when you meet your match, you will be mortal 
once more." No, our death-phobic, immortality-loving Dark Lord would 
not put that in writing! No hoax would be worth him demeaning 
himself to even suggest he would ever be mortal again. 

But to add a tidbit to your side of the theory Saraquel, we don't 
get to see Riddle's writing style in COS. Interesting, huh? We get 
to see most of the notes in individual handwritten style, but when 
Harry talks to the diary, it's just written in italic typeface. So 
as not to give anything away?

Saraquel: 
> Also, according to DD, only Voldemort, DD and Harry (possibly 
> Slughorn)know that Voldemort has made more than one Horcrux. The 
> note reinforces the idea that there is only one horcrux out there, 
> and if imaginary RAB had destroyed it, then whoever found the fake 
> one, if they survived, would be tempted to try and kill Voldemort, 
> thus breaking their cover and revealing themselves as his enemy.

Jen: I don't know. This is compelling because the note does speak to 
only one Horcrux existing. But it's also very plausible that it's 
the only Horcrux RAB knew about. Boring, I know, but definitely true 
to canon. If it has taken Dumbledore so long to decipher who 
Voldemort is, what's he's done, how it did it, etc., it's believable 
that RAB found out about only one Horcrux and never thought anything 
else about the possibility of more. No one has ever heard of such a 
thing as six additional ones.

Saraquel:
> It always puzzled me why JKR deliberately had both Harry and 
> Dumbledore not have time to notice the locket. For me, as a
> reader, the discovery of the fake!horcrux did not sit well *after*
> DDs death.  I was so blown out by his death, that I found the
> discovery of the Horcrux almost annoying in taking my attention
> away from it.  But, now it makes sense to me, because DD would
> always have suspected the locket to be the real one and would have
> told Harry so.

Jen: I guess I marked that down to the poison effect! I mean, it 
seemed to fit with the energy of sequence in the cave for me. 
Dumbledore didn't really examine the locket at all, he grabbed it 
from what was left of the green goo, still partially covering the 
locket from the description, then tried to get himself and Harry the 
hell away from the Inferi and the cave. And Harry *never* got a 
chance to see the locket, nor did he notice anything except that 
Dumbledore took the time to pick it up. We couldn't even tell if DD 
really looked at it as he "scooped the locket from the bottom of the 
stone basin and stored it in his robes" all the while "maintaining 
the ring of fire" with his wand. 

A sad thought, though: Harry could tell the locket wasn't the same 
one he'd seen in the Pensieve the minute he picked it up off the 
ground. Do you think DD did realize it wasn't the Horcrux in the 
cave, but couldn't spend the time or energy to explain in the 
moment? And maybe didn't want Harry to know they'd 'failed' without 
having time to really sit down and talk about it? Then it was too 
late, too many other events intervened and Dumbledore never got the 
chance. Wah. 

Jen