Have I just transfigured out the Horcrux!Locket?

[jjjjjuliep]

No: HPFGUIDX 137897

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "saraquel_omphale" 
<saraquel_omphale at y...> wrote:

> "So in fact, this *is* the real Horcrux, but he has 
 transfigured
> it to look like a fake horcrux and put that note in it to mislead
> anyone who found it?"
> "I rather think he has, Harry."
>
> 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.

Where is there any canon for any of this?  We have no proof of 
Voldemort making anything else false.  Why would the locket be false?

Furthermore, you contend:

> No-one had to find the cave.

How else would the locket be found; that is, the fake locket which 
you are now contending is real?  How would it be retrieved from the 
basin in the lake if there was no need to go to the cave?
 
> 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.  I
> think this might help solve the puzzle of the potion.  But that
> needs thinking about

Actually, from his speech to the Death Eaters in the graveyard in 
GoF, it is clear that not only do some or all of the DEs know about 
the idea of a Horcrux, it is logical to infer, from the canon, that 
they know there are multiple Horcruxes.  He says to them (paraphrase 
follows):  "You, who know better than any, what I have done.  I, who 
have gone further than anybody along the path that leads to 
immortality."

> 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.

Well, first of all, the discovery that the locket is fake is revealed 
at that point in the story line for maximum dramatic impact.

Second, neither of them look at the locket because of the life and 
death nature of their quest:  Dumbledore is dying as they return to 
Hogwarts, and Harry is not going waste even precious seconds on the 
locket as Dumbledore is more important to him--to his heart.  Once 
they get to Hogsmeade, they see the Dark Mark, and their first 
thought is for the possible dead Hogwarts student or faculty/staff 
member.  Obviously during the scene with Draco and the ensuing fight 
and then Harry's pursuit of Snape, there is no time to stop and look 
at the locket.  And Harry, in his grief and shock, only remembers the 
locket because he kneels on it.   I think it's entirely 
understandable that the locket is forgotten in the life and death 
events that begin once Dumbledore has finished drinking the potion.

> Following my thoughts down the line of Voldemort transfiguring the
> Real Horcrux!Locket, to look like a fake one.  Should we assume that
> ALL the remaining Horcruxes have been disguised in this way, to look
> like something innocent?  If so, then Hufflepuff's cup could well be
> at Hogwarts – somewhere in the Trophy Room maybe.  The Tom Riddle
> Award for Special Services to the School (nice ironic twist), or
> maybe the Quidditch Cup or the House Cup. Is the trophy room on the
> way to DDs office from the main door? 

What canon is there for any of these contentions?  IMO they are 
entirely unsupported.

Why would only the remaining Horcruxes be transfigured?  Why wouldn't 
Voldemort, someone relatively organized and focused, have not done 
that to all of them to ensure secrecy?  Where has he ever done 
anything like this before?

In addition, there is only one volume left in the series.  Book 7 is 
going to be relatively straightforward:  Harry IDs the last Horcurx, 
Harry finds all of them and destroys them, Harry has his last meeting 
with Voldemort.  From a literary point of view, this is an entirely 
satisfying framework.  All of the clues we need are are pretty much 
in the 6 books, and JKR will take Harry--and us--through all of them 
as the series wraps up.  There is a simple, elegant outline and 
process at work in the first 6 books (although HPB was a bit more 
ungainly with all of the (necessary to be sure) exposition). Why 
would she suddenly now add a clumsy, convoluted story which adds 
nothing to the emotional richness of having Harry solve all of these 
mysteries with the information he has at hand?  If all of the 
Horcruxes Dumbledore told Harry to look for are wrong, how is Harry, 
working with the information he has, going to figure it out?  JKR is 
not going to introduce huge amounts of expository backstory in Book 7-
-that is what HBP was for.  She's said that we should kind of think 
of 6 & 7 as 2 parts of the same book. So in 6 we get tons of 
backstory and in 7 we get the resolution of the plot.  It is not 
going to be super complicated or unnecessarily convoluted.

> Or is it one of the objects
> in DDs office – remember that sleight of hand that Voldemort made as
> he was leaving, which Harry interpreted as an attempt to go for his
> wand?  Wouldn't the office of his enemy be a great place to hide his
> Horcrux,  - very significant to Voldemort? 

What actual proof do we have from canon that any sort of spell was 
done in DD's office that day?  Apart from the fact that to assume so 
contradicts the rest of the series to date, it's also important to 
remember that DD could see invisible signs of magic where they were. 

> I know timelines are not helpful here.  Voldemort came back to
> Hogwarts, 10 years after he supposedly managed to get hold of the
> cup.
>
> How does this impact on the Ravenclaw/Gryffindor horcrux?

It doesn't.  Based on the canon--that is, based on the way JKR has 
structred 6 of the 7 books pubished--the Ravenclaw/Gryffindor Horcrux 
is going to be an item we've already seen.

> Dumbledore just said he found the ring in Marvolo's house.  He never
> got to tell Harry the story, was that because he didn't find the
> ring in its real form, and plotwise, telling Harry that vital bit of
> information would have given the game away?

?  If JKR had Dumbledore tell us that he found the ring qua ring, why 
would we doubt him?  What canon do we have that DD dissembles or lies 
to Harry?

> So now I'm chasing, what is the significance of the RAB note if
> Voldemort himself wrote it. And could Harry use the locket as a
> double bluff on Voldemort to serve his purposes. i.e. Harry destroys
> all the Horcruxes, including the locket, but having destroyed the
> Horcrux!Locket, transfigures it back to look like the fake one. 
> Goes to Voldemort with fake looking locket and says – Hah, I've
> discovered your secret, now you are mortal, I can kill you. 
> Voldemort laughs, thinking that he has fooled Harry into believing
> that there was only one Horcrux and then 

..what?

Why would Harry go through all this effort?  Why would Harry even 
tell Voldemort, from a strategic POV, either that he's discovered the 
secret of the Horcruxes or that he's destroyed them all (save for the 
moment we see VM dying)?   Why would JKR add all of this to a story 
which is already jam-packed with details? 

> OK, this is an easy starting point.  I did not really mean to say
> that Voldemort meant `really any-body' when he wrote RAB. I just
> needed to put something in there to get the theory off the ground
> and that was the first thing that came to mind.  That the letters
> RAB, are an acronym rather than someone's initials, occurred to me
> really early on, and I think, that in the context of this theory, an
> acronym would be more appropriate.  However, you're right, to date I
> can think of nothing that they could stand for.  Although, as has
> been pointed out on the list, many times, if we are talking about
> Regulus, what does the A stand for.  So this is a problem for both
> sides of the camp.

Regulus (and Sirius) had an uncle called Alphard.   It is not 
uncommon for nieces and nephews to hold the given names of their 
aunts/uncles as their middle names.  Furthermore, Alphard is a star 
in the constellation Hydra, and is in fact, the heart of the Snake.  
I think it's pretty clear that R.A.B. is Regulus Alphrad Black.  JKR 
is either surprised in that interview that people could figure it out 
so quickly OR, more likely IMO, pleased that her readers understand 
what she is doing and are able to follow and play the game along with 
her.  

> What does Harry do when he sees the locket and the note, he
> immediately assumes it is worthless.  Can you not see Voldemort's
> contempt, that Harry sees only what is on the outside, and does not
> penetrate beyond it.  Just like the people around Voldemort at the
> time who took him to be so charming and so helpful, and could not
> see, to him, the Real, Powerful Voldemort underneath, they were
> beneath his contempt.
>
> The diary is also very ordinary looking.  The importance to
> Voldemort is not in what it looks like, but in its significance.  If
> he was concerned about looks, then - Mirror, mirror on the wall, who
> is the fairest 
 – I rest my case about looking good.

Except--the diary looked ordinary only from the outside.  Once you 
opened it you saw it was blank, which was peculiar.  What was even 
more peculiar about it is that it "talked" to you.  That is not 
ordinary.   The locket at  #12 is not ordinary--no one could open 
it.   And as the group of people who tried to open it included a 
number of adults fairly well-versed in magic, that is not ordinary.  
At the same time, the fake Horcrux locket opened immediately.  (I 
know you posited that the slip of paper might have contained the 
soul, but why would Voldemort entrust his soul to something a gust of 
wind could carry off?  It is not logical.)

> Just had another thought, re Valky's idea that Lily was intended to
> be a living Horcrux.  She was in Gryffindor, Head Girl, brilliant
> student – a living example of the perfect Gryffindor.  Anyway
> Horcrux!Lily has always been a bit of a left-field theory, but I
> really do like it!

But there is a method to JKR's madness.  The founder-related items 
are actual, discrete, items which were literal possessions of the 4 
founders.  Why would one of them not fit the mold?

I understand that details can be interpreted in many ways (the way 
JKR has so very carefully constructed Snape's character being her 
most brilliant example).  But IMO there is a big difference between 
using details from the canon to buttress an argument and taking one 
detail, out of context, and spinning a huge story about it.  Maybe 
I'm wrong and confused because I thought that this list was for 
discussing canon and to me that theories about what happens are 
firmly grounded in patterns, details, descriptions, and events of 
what has gone before. 

It is only my opinion, but it is a pretty unshakable one:  we are not 
going to have any more long expository passages in book 7.  There is 
no space in the story for any more backstory or convoluted ways to 
get from Point A to Point B.  JKR's work (despite a Flint here or 
there on the secondary details, which are not crucial to the story 
arc) is tightly plotted, woven together, and most importantly, highly 
and precisely logical.  IMO not to recognize that, and not to play 
the game she has set forth for us within the constraints she has so 
very carefully constructed, is to seriously undervalue what she has 
done.

Obviously all of the above is my opinion, and the mileage of others 
will no doubt vary.

jujube