Horcrux creation and different kinds of magic

[Deb]

No: HPFGUIDX 135152

> Jen: Voldemort has a thing about blood, doesn't he? After 
witnessing 
> the forceful use of Harry's blood in GOF, and the blood payment in 
> the cave in HBP, I think it's a fairly good guess the sealing of a 
> Horcrux requires the blood of the victim. Taken after death, no 
> doubt, since the AK wouldn't shed blood. *shivers* 
 
> Blood--Voldemort believes it weakens people and Dumbledore 
believes 
> in its strength. DD uses it symbolically to forge Harry's greatest 
> potection. That's the reason for the darn gleam, Dumbledore can 
see 
> what Voldemort continually overlooks, that blood is valuable. He 
> understands Voldemort can touch Harry because Harry's blood 
weakened 
> him, not the other way around. 

Deb: 
Thanks for your comments, Jen! 

I agree that both DD and LV have strong beliefs about the power 
of the blood that runs in a person's veins. Yet LV sees the weakness 
from the stand point of heredity... is one pureblood or not, is one 
a true witch or wizard or merely a flawed imitation. Hence his own 
enormous drive to over come his own heredity.. to become the 
greatest wizard not just of his own time but of all times... and a 
halfblood at that. And by becoming immortal... (again speculation on 
LV's thought processes) sealing his place in the pantheon of what 
ever dieties the WW holds to... or the hierarchy of Greatest 
Wizards.   DD on the other hand sees blood both symbolically and in 
reality as the Life Force. I think DD's "gleam" also indicated he 
saw in someway how this new vulnerability of LV's could be utilized 
to vanquish him... it maybe that this "additive" will neutralize to 
some extent other spells and rituals LV might have gone through in 
his quest for immortality. I think in away DD is hoping that Harry's 
blood is going to act like an antidote to the emotional and 
spiritual poisons has been pouring intoo himself for so long. LV now 
has a bit of that old magic, the magical protection of love, running 
through his veins, yet it will not protect him as it does Harry 
(though LV might think that it will). Rather, IMO, it will increase 
his vulnerability, make him more arrogant, and further is downfall.  
It is again LV's choice of action- this time  to use Harry's blood 
in this ritual - that has weakened him... Like LV's choice to attack 
Harry as an infant also weakened him. LV's impulsiveness and 
arrogance is setting him up to fail. This is his hubris... his 
exaggerated pride and self confidence that will ultimately be his 
undoing.    

 
 
> Jen: I'm with you here. I don't see how Voldemort could make a 
> Horcrux without first performing the murder and possibly using the 
> blood of the victim to seal the deal. The price for selling part 
of 
> his soul. 
> 
> And Voldemort must have *desperately* wanted to seal his final 
> Horcrux that night at Godric's Hollow, meaning he did have six 
going 
> in. It would be a victory for him, to have all seven souls sealed 
> and his enemy vanquished. But the ritual never took place when he 
> was ripped from his body. 
> 
> I'm on the fence about Harry becoming a Horcrux that night. It 
seems 
> so important to JKR why Harry survived that night: Lily's 
sacrifice. 
> And then she answered the second half of the mystery in HBP: Why 
did 
> Voldemort live? 

Deb: 
I read the matter of how many Horcruxes a bit differently. As I 
read HBP I understood DD to be saying that one piece of soul stays 
with LV ... and the other six pieces are kept hidden and (from LV's 
POV) safe. I think that LV could not be animate without a piece of 
soul in residence as it were. Slughorn tells TR in the Penseive 
(complete) memory " Well,you split your soul, you see....and hide it 
in an object outside of your body. Then even if one's body is 
attacked or destroyed, one can not die, for part of the soul remains 
earthbound and undamaged. But of course, existence in such a 
form...few would want it, Tom, very few. Death would be 
preferable".  Now Slughorn is talking here about splitting the soul 
in half... and TR/LV is thinking of more pieces than that. IMO... 
here too he makes a fatal error in judgement by choosing to separate 
his soul into such small parts and to scatter it so widely. But the 
answer to JKR's question IMO is that Voldemort lived because he had 
already created the horcruxes... because his soul was already 
divided.  
 
>Jen: JKR definitely likes her characters to live in the gray area,  
> it's possible she's saying 'look, even with part of Voldemort's 
soul 
> Harry is still making the right choices'. But it taints things, 
too. 
> Then it wasn't just Lily's sacrifice that saved Harry, it was also 
> being forcibly sealed as a Horcrux against his will. Magic so dark 
> you can't even read about it at Hogwarts! Dark, very dark. It 
would 
> make a great ending, how Harry discovers he's a Horcrux and what 
he 
> does to destroy LV's soul inside without killing himself, 
> but....there would be some flaws to overcome with that plot 
> development. 

 
Deb:
 as I mentioned above I don't think Harry is a Horcrux... I 
think when LV's body and psyche got shattered by the failed spell, 
Harry got the equivalent of psychic sharpnel which transferred the 
Parseltongue ability to him.. and I think some of LV's ability as a 
Legilimens... but in Harry this manifests more as empathy.. ability 
to read others emotions - when he was "receiving" flashes from LV in 
OP he was able to quite accurately identify LV's emotional state 
even at a great distance.  Part of the reason, IMO, he does not 
trust Snape is because Snape is too good a Occlumens and Harry can 
not read him at all... I think Harry at times senses that Snapes 
outer aspect and his inner emotional state are not congruent... they 
don't match up. And this confuses Harry and leads him to 
misinterpret many things about Snape... as he did from his very 
first dinner at Hogwarts... when he decides the pain in his scar 
comes from Snape.. when actually it came from LV/Quirrell.  
Snape has been trying very hard to get Harry to stop broadcasting 
his own emotions.. to put up his shields and become unreadable... I 
suspect Snape can read him very well and knows that LV will be able 
to also. But I also suspect that Harry feels blunted in someway - 
less tuned in and less effective-- when he is not able to sense 
things around him. I think Harry's final task will be how to 
vanquish LV without killing him... how to end this reign of terror 
for the Wizarding World without endangering his own soul. He must 
become "too noble" like Dumbledore to use the Dark Arts he has 
learned... 
Deb