Has Voldy "used" a Horcrux?

[Steve]

No: HPFGUIDX 133694

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "melhersheybar"
<mhersheybar at h...> wrote:

> 
> This is Mhersheybar again -
> 
> I guess what I don't understand then is why a Horcrux is needed to 
> make you immortal.  If the piece of LV's soul that was in him at the 
> time he tried to kill Harry still survived, even if LV's body was 
> gone, then it wouldn't matter if there were other pieces of it 
> stowed in various places. I read the Horcrux explanation to mean 
> that you were protected because if one piece of your soul (and, as 
> it happened, your body) were destroyed, the other pieces outside 
> your body were there to keep you alive untill you could figure out 
> a way to fully restore yourself.
> 
> The Horcruxes to me are like having bank accounts in different 
> countries - if the money you keep on yourself gets used up, go to 
> another bank and make a withdrawl. When the killing curse backfired, 
> it should have "killed" that piece of LV's soul, leading him to need 
> to go get one of his Horcruxes to replenish himself.  
> 
> Mhershey


bboyminn:

Naturally, since it is a new and crucial element of the story, the
Horcrux has become the hot topic of conversation, but I think before
we get too deep into it, we need to set some ground rules for what it
is and how it works before we can start speculating on what it means
to the story and the characters.

MHershey is right, in as far as he/she takes it. Obviously, Harry's
goal is to destroy all the external Horcruxes before he can destroy
Voldemort. This apparently means that the human embodiment (Voldemort)
of the soul must be the LAST to be destroyed. As long as there are
hidden-object-enclosed parts of the person's soul around, the person
can not be destroyed. To kill that person, does not kill that soul,
and it is that embodied soul that becomes the 'ghost' or vapormort
that roams the earth. So, again, first all the external fragments of
the soul must be destroyed, then and only then, can the remaining
Voldemort embodied soul be destroyed.

So how does the Horcrux work?

Has Voldemort killed six and only six people in his life? I don't
think so. I think a key factor is that, in a very limited context, the
killings must be ritual killings for the specific purpose of creating
a Horcrux. 

True, killing in general may fragment your soul, but it doesn't matter
unless you take a fragment out, and store it in an object. It's clear
that Voldemort's killings were not ramdom acts. He chose specific and
significant people. If he just wanted to create Horcrux, he could lurk
around alleyways killing the homeless, but he is trying to create the
most powerful and complex Horcrux cluster ever. He kills magically
significant people, and hides the corrosponding bits of his soul in
very significant and powerful magical objects, and he is creating
SEVEN objects; seven being a very magically significant number. This
is all very purposeful and calculated.

So, Voldemort's embodied soul may be in a hundred fragments, but it
doesn't matter because they are all collected together in one place,
his body. What does matter is that six fragments were stored in
external magical objects. 

Now the question becomes, is it the killing that creates the Horcrux,
or must that be done by a separate ritual, and most likely within a
certain period of time?

The killing only fragments the soul, but the soul, at least as I see
it, is not instantly separated from the body; is simply become a
fragment within the body. Now in a certain Horcrux ritual, at a
certain time and place, one of the fragments can be placed into an
object. Logically, the few the total number of fragments, the larger
the fragments would be. So, in the first few killings, he was able to
hide large parts of his soul. Now, after many many killings, the size
of each fragment is smaller and less powerful.

As long as there are the extrenal fragments safely protected by their
magical objects, the embodied soul is protect. Harry task is to first
destory the object-based soul fragments, so that when he confronts
Voldemort in the final battle, Voldemort is vulnerable.

So, whether you believe me or not, I still think we need to have a
foundation for how this Horcrux Charm works before we run too wild in
our general specualtion.

Steve/bboyminn.