Sorting Hat as Horcrux?

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 143876

Carol earlier:
> > We know that Dumbledore defeated (not killed) the Dark Wizard
Grindelwald in 1945...
> >
> > I realize that this is all speculation, but why would JKR have
Dumbledore defeat a Dark Wizard in a year of such significance to
Voldemort if there's no connection? Grindelwald is carefully mentioned
early in SS/PS, just as Scabbers and Sirius Black were. Chances are he
was mentioned for a reason. <snip>

MercuryBlue responded:
> Since we've never seen the slightest reference to Grindelwald
anywhere but Harry's very first Chocolate Frog card (and Scabbers and
Sirius had a whole book and more devoted to them), I'm betting that
this is something JKR put in without thinking it through all the way,
and has since realized she did an oops and is hoping nobody will
notice.  (And where you point out that Grindelwald was defeated, not
killed, I'd like to point out that 'defeated' means 'not necessarily
killed'. I doubt Dumbledore did kill Grindelwald, but there is the
possibility.)

Carol responds:
Sorry for being unclear; I meant that the card reads "defeated," not
"killed," and I'm pretty sure that if DD had been the one to kill
Grindelwald, the card would have stated the fact directly. I think
that the date 1945, the same year that Tom Riddle left Hogwarts, is
important. (JKR herself has made the connection between a war in the
Wizarding World and the Muggles' World War II. How that ties in with
Tom, I don't know.) Grindelwald is mentioned not once but twice in
SS/PS (chapters 6 and 13), and JKR did her hemming and hawing bit when
asked in an interview whether he was important, which almost certainly
means that he is. (She did definitively state that Grindelwald is
dead, but not that DD killed him.) If you want to read her comments,
which to me imply pretty clearly that we'll get the back-story on GW
in Book 7, here's the link:

http://www.quick-quote-quill.org/articles/2005/0705-tlc_mugglenet-anelli-3.htm

I can't imagine him featuring in a book whose main focus is going to
be Horcruxes and the road to the final battle with Voldemort unless
there's a Horcrux/Tom Riddle/Grindelwald connection. No other wizard
whose name has come up in the books fits the bill as the one both LV
and DD knew of who had made at least one Horcrux. Previous experience
dealing with GW's Horcrux may have helped him to destroy the ring
Horcrux (though it didn't prevent the nearly fatal injury from the
curse protecting the Horcrux. Only Snape's "timely action" saved him
from that).
 
Carol earlier:
> > Its [the Sorting Hat's] opinions come from "the founders
themselves." And sincerity (from a different interview
http://www.quick-quote-quill.org/articles/2004/0304-wbd.htm ) would be
an odd virtue in a hat infested or possessed by a fragment of Tom
Riddle's soul.
> 
MercuryBlue responded:
> Yes, it would. Just as odd as the virtues of courage and loyalty in
a kid with a fragment of Voldemort (of his soul?) glued to his
forehead. Accept the one, and you have to accept the possibility of
the other, however slim that possibility may or may not be.

Carol again:
But I *don't* accept the one. I'm not sure why you think that I
believe Harry has part of Voldie's soul in him. I've actively argued
*against* the Harry the Horcrux theories. I think Harry has some of
Voldemort's *powers* (as DD himself deduced), including Parseltongue
and possibly some form of Legilimency (which he doesn't yet know how
to use) or even the power of possession, which I've speculated may be
the way he destroys LV (through Love or the Veil or some as yet
unforeseen mechanism). As for Harry's courage and loyalty are
apparently inborn, inherited from his parents as he inherits his
Quidditch skill from James. Those virtues have nothing to do with
Voldemort and were IMO present in Harry (as undeveloped potential)
before Godric's Hollow. The one has nothing to do with the other.

And I believe that the Sorting Hat has the Founder's "brains" in it
(obviously only copies of their values and the gift of Legilimency,
not actual brain fragments), but I don't think it's a Horcrux.
(Arguments on that topic can be found upthread.)

> 
> Carol earlier:
> > The unknown fifth Horcrux (the tiara?) may have been created at
about the same time and obtained through similar means, but I don't
have a specific theory regarding it. It was certainly made before he
began recruiting followers around 1971 because his appearance was
fully altered at that point. (DD says that he was unrecognizable as
the formerly handsome Tom Riddle when he began recruiting followers.)
> 
> MercuryBlue:
> (What tiara?)

Carol:
The tiara that Harry used to mark the place where he hid the HBP's
Potions book in the Room of Requirement. (I've speculated that Harry
might go back to the RoR looking for the book, find the Mirror of
Erised there, look in it and see himself finding a Horcrux--that same
tiara. Just a thought, a "shortcut" to finding the Horcruxes without
taking a whole book to search for them.) Since the tiara is in
Hogwarts, it could be the missing Ravenclaw Horcrux. For all we know,
Tom could have placed it there for safekeeping (having hidden it under
his cloak) when he went for the DADA interview. At any rate, it's a
valuable object mentioned for no apparent reason in HBP, so it's
probably either a clue or a red herring. (I hope it's a clue!)

MercuryBlue:
You know, he wasn't recognizable as handsome Tom Riddle at his job
> interview.

Carol again:
Not quite true. His features were blurred, but DD recognized him. My
point is that he didn't yet have his snakelike features, so he was
either one or two Horcruxes short of the full six at that point. (I
think but can't prove that making Nagini the last Horcrux and in
essence sharing a soul with her is what made him snakelike.)
> 
MercuryBlue:
> Why would 1971 be the turning point? We have no clue what he looked
> like between 1957 and 1995, only that at some point in there he got
> uglier, having made another Horcrux (or two?).

Carol again:
I should have said 1970--eleven years before Godric's Hollow--which is
when LV returned to England and started recruiting followers. (1971 is
the year that MWPP and Severus snape started Hogwarts.) I'm just
saying that the first change in his appearance occurs between the
interview with Slughorn (which precedes any Horcruxes) and the visit
to Hepzibah Smith to acquire the cup and locket. So he has apparently
converted the diary (written on June 13 and perhaps other earlier
dates in his fifth year) and the ring (no longer on his finger) into
Horcruxes at that point. When we next see him at the DADA interview,
his features are blurred, indicating that he's made the cup and locket
into Horcruxes. (If I'm right about the tiara being the fifth Horcrux,
which he hides at Hogwarts, then he's probably made that one as well.)
When he appears again to recruit followers, he's apparently in his
final transformation, fully snakelike and completely unrecognizable
(except presumably to his original followers), indicating that he's
made the sixth Horcrux, Nagini. (He can't have made a Horcrux when he
was in Vapor or Fetal form, and at that point, he's already snakelike
and able to drink Nagini's venom like mother's milk. Almost certainly,
he made her into a Horcrux before Godric's Hollow, and I'm speculating
that he did so before recruiting his followers around 1971.)

If you're not familiar with the Timeline at the Lexicon, you may want
to check it out. While it's probably not 100 percent accurate, it's
quite close to the mark given JKR's known problems with "maths."
(There's really no way to reconcile Charlie Weasley's age with the
Gryffindors having lost the Quidditch cup for the seven years before
Harry begins Hogwarts, for example. And if the Weasleys married just
out of school when VW1 began, how could the gamekeeper not have been
Hagrid and the caretaker not have been Filch? But those are JKR's
inconsistencies, not the Lexicon's.)

Carol, who's beginning to think that the "missing 24 hours" may just
be one of those oversights or inconsistencies on JKR's part and not
significant