Horcrux predictions (Was: JKR's Ambiguities)

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 139878

Amiable Dorsai wrote:
> But you know, the sword *isn't* the only known relic of Godric
> Gryffindor--there's also the Sorting Hat.
<snip> 
> A couple of things:  1)Armando Dippet liked and trusted Tom Riddle.
 I can easily imagine Riddle spending unsupervised time in the
Headmaster's office, as Harry has done.  2) Magical artifacts, like
the Goblet of Fire, and, presumably, the Sorting Hat, can be
confunded. So If Riddle managed to make the Hat a Horcrux, the Hat
wouldn't necessarily know.  3) The trace of magic left be the
Horcrux-making process would be masked by the Hat's own magic, so it
would be difficult to detect.  4)The Hat is a treasured artifact in a
very secure place.  Imagine the irony of one of the Horcruxes being
guarded by the Hogwarts Headmaster--if Riddle has any sort of a sense
of humor, that had to appeal to him. 

Carol responds:

Interesting points, but Dumbledore knows Tom's style and doesn't trust
him. I think he'd be able to detect any Dark magic, as would Snape,
who spends a great deal of time in Dumbledore's office. And we've seen
no signs that Riddle/Voldemort has a sense of humor (other than
laughing at Harry's apparent helplessness and peril) or even of irony.

What we do know about his Horcruxes, at least from Dumbledore's
analysis, is that they're usually valuable in themselves and
significant to him personally, not to mention that they should last
forever or they're of no use in maintaining an *infinite* lifespan
(earthly immortality). The hat, we see, shows signs of decreptitude.
It's "patched, frayed, and dirty" (CoS Am. ed. 316) And note that
Diary!Tom treats it with utter contempt: "This is what Dumbledore
sends his defender! A songbird and an old hat!" (316) 

As for the Sword of Gryffindor, it seems to belong (like Fawkes) to
Dumbledore, not to the current Headmaster. I doubt that it was in
Dippet's office for Tom to convert to a Horcrux--probably a complex
process, in any case, one that he wouldn't dare to risk performing
except in absolute privacy. As Amiable Dorsai notes, he could convert
the diary into a Horcrux at his leisure, along with the ring, at any
time after he learned to make a Horcrux, but converting the Sorting
Hat or the Sword of Gryffindor could only have been done during his
seventh year (the conversation with Slughorn appears to be in his
sixth year, after the murder of the Riddles but before he knows how to
make a Horcrux). Also, just because Harry spends long periods alone in
Dumbledore's office is no reason to assume that Tom did the same.
Harry as the Chosen One and Dumbledore's protege is very much a
special case. The conversation between Dippet and Tom in CoS (243-45)
does not indicate a close acquaintance. (And would Tom have performed
the Horcrux incantation under the watchful eyes of the former
Headmasters? I can't imagine Portrait!Phineas sleeping through a Dark
incantation.)

Moreover, Harry uses both the Sorting Hat and the Sword of Gryffindor
to defeat Diary!Tom--the hat conceals the sword, which kills the
basilisk (whose fang Harry uses to destroy the diary). There's no sign
that Tom recognizes the sword or surely he would have said so.
(Dippet's office is recognizably different from Dumbledore's even
though it's the same room. It contains the portraits but no Fawkes and
no silver instruments. Neither the sword nor the Sorting Hat is
mentioned.)

In short, even as Head Boy (possibly) left alone in Dippet's office
when Dippet was absent, I don't think Tom would have had access to the
Sword of Gryffindor, and I don't think he would have considered the
Sorting Hat worthy of being a Horcrux (not to mention that it
represents the unity of all the Houses, not Gryffindor per se). Again,
both objects have been used against him. I predict that the Sword of
Gryffindor will be used again, not *as* a Horcrux to be destroyed but
to *destroy* a Horcrux--the ill-chosen last-minute substitute for a
magical object, Nagini (assuming that she really is a Horcrux).

On a related note, some posters are questioning whether Moaning
Myrtle's death counts as a murder. If Voldemort ordered Nagini to kill
and eat Wormtail (as he threatens to do in GoF), wouldn't that be a
murder, with Nagini as his weapon? So having the basilisk look into
Myrtle's eyes (assuming that he ordered it to do so) would also be a
murder.

Carol, noting for the first time that the basilisk is "a bright,
poisonous green" (318), much like the poisoned memories in the cave
and the blinding flash of an AK