How do the horcruxes work

[pickle_jimmy]

No: HPFGUIDX 135338

<phoenixtears at f...> wrote:
> 
> > I'm also wondering how the horcruxes really work.  When you get 
> > killed (like LV should have done when the AK hit him) do you have
> to > somehow get the piece of your soul out of the horcrux? 
> 
> Answer:  Given that LV was not anticipating the rebound of the AK 
> curse he used against Harry, I suspect LV did not have a horcrux
> close at hand, yet his spirit or soul was saved from death. 
> Slughorn's description to Riddle of how horcruxes work doesn't 
> include anything about a need for proximity (p. 497), but merely 
> states "even if one's body is attacked or destroyed, one cannot 
die, 
> for part of the soul remains earthbound and undamaged."

This leads me to ask...
If I create 1 horcrux, and I am AK'd, what happens?

Is it that one part of my soul has been sent to the next life, but 
the part that is in the horcrux takes its place - leaving me alive 
with 1/2 a soul (as I was before) but with no remaining horcrux?

In other words - me and my horcrux - I get AK's twice, I am a goner.
 
---- OR ----

Is it - as long as there is a Horcrux, you cant kill me. The first AK 
destroys the soul that is in me, and I am left soulless but alive. 
Then you AK me over and over but I don't die because the remaining 
part of my soul isn't in me to be AK'd.

===================

The reason I ask, is because it I assume it is case 1. If it were 
case 2, and Voldy lost his soul in the baby Harry AK backfire, then 
all harry has to do to destroy him is find and destroy the horcruxes -
 meaning no need to confront the man himself.
But if it is case 1, are we looking for too many horcruxes? - we 
start with 7 parts (one inside Voldy). He destroys the first himself 
with the backfire on the baby Harry. The second is destroyed in 
Riddle's Diary. The third in the Gaunt ring. The fourth in Slytherins 
Locket. The Fifth in Nagini. The Sixth in Hufflepuffs goblet. And... 
the seventh we don't need because it left whatever it was in and 
returned to Voldy after his portion was destroyed in the initial AK.

Pickle Jimmy - now even more confused than ever.