Grindelwald taught Tom about making Horcruxes

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 139710

Jen wrote:
> <snip> I tend toward the idea Tom hadn't yet made the diary into a
Horxcrux when he talked to Slughorn, but *had* put his memory into it
(that seemed like two different processes to me, the way DD described
the diary as a memory and a weapon). <snip>

Carol responds:
I think you're right. He had to have written the diary (placed his
memory of himself inside it) at the end of his fifth year after he
killde Moaning Myrtle (considering the basilisk as his weapon as the
wand was his weapon for the AKs) but before he killed his parents and
certainly before his talk with Slughorn, which occurs after he killed
his parents (he's wearing the ring) but before he knows how to make a
Horcrux.

I think the diary was not originally intended to be a Horcrux. It was
created to continue the unfinished business of killing "Mudbloods" at
Hogwarts--"Salazar Slytherin's noble work." I think he must have
visited Grindelwald during the summer between his sixth and seventh
years, learned how to make a Horcrux, and converted the diary into one
without compromising its original purpose.

I think it's different from the locket, cup, and ring Horcruxes in two
important ways. It's easily destroyed and it interacts with its
victim, who is supposed to provide his or her own soul to resurrect
the memory of Tom Riddle. The later Horcruxes are solid metal, not
easily destroyed, and are protected by curses (or poisoned memories
and Inferi). They do not, as far as we can tell from the ring and fake
locket, take the soul of the person who breaks the curse and destroys
the half or quarter or eighth or sixteenth of Voldemort's soul
enclosed within. Also, the other Horcruxes were hidden. The diary was
placed in Lucius Malfoy's (or his father's?) possession to be used at
the proper time. (Lucius, of course, used it at what LV considered the
improper time.) Grindelvald, no doubt, suggested the use of solid,
virtually indestructible objects and may have given him the idea of
magically hiding them. (LV's choice of objects significant to him and
hiding places associated with his life is his own doing--or
undoing--and not IMO part of what he would have learned from
Grindelwald.) 

I'm still not sure that Nagini is a Horcrux and I'm absolutely certain
that Harry isn't (okay, 90 % sure--I was wrong about Mark Evans, to
name my most glaring error).

Carol, who's pretty sure that Bill Weasley's skills as a curse breaker
are about to come into play and not at all sure of his chances of survival