Keep Harry Horcrux Free Challenge!

[msbeadsley]

No: HPFGUIDX 140172

Okay, I'm going to play Devil's Advocate here just for the fun of it.

Saraquel:
> The Horcrux in the diary fed off Ginny in order to bring itself to 
> life. If Harry was a Horcrux, intentional or not, that piece of
soul 
> would have been really trying to suck the life out of him and bring 
<snip>
> bring itself to life. Plus, Harry was only a baby when this event 
> occurred so absolutely helpless. 

This brings up a lot of other questions, actually. Did the diary start
draining her or possessing her first? Did it take time to get to the
point where TMR felt enough of an advantage to just suck Ginny dry and
come back as himself? (Tangent: did Ginny's retrieval of the diary
from the boys' dorm constitute her saving Harry's life, making them
even? Or did she do it just so no one would discover she had been
doing the Heir of Slytherin's bidding? When Ginny tried to flush the
diary, did her will create a backlash so that she regained some of her
élan vital? Did the shade have to start all over again when
reunited with Ginny?) I credit Voldemort's inability to drain, or even
influence Baby Harry, to remnants of Lily's protective magic.

> 2)Why does Voldmort need to use legilimency?
> If Harry was a Horcrux, embodied Voldemort wouldn't need to access 
> Harry's mind through legilimancy, the Horcrux would presumably do
it 
> for him and Voldemort would know simply by being aware of that part 
> of his soul.  If Voldemort suspected that Harry was a Horcurx,
which 
> surely he must have thought about, he would have made efforts to re-
> connect with that part of himself and not IMO be so dismissive of 
> Harry and so quick to AK him at the Ministry, knowing that he was 
> AKing his own soul.

Snape tells Harry that Legilimency often requires eye contact and that
Hogwarts is surrounded with protections that should prevent it from
happening anyway. "The usual rules do not seem to apply to you,
Potter. The curse that failed to kill you seems to have forged some
kind of connection between you and the Dark Lord." OoP Ch. 24 US,
Occlumency. So it seems clearly stated that something *besides* (or
instead of) Legilimency is at work here. And there is nothing I can
recall in canon which suggests that the maker of a horcrux can connect
with it/its contents. (If the horcrux maker was able to connect with
the split-off piece of soul that way, he'd almost have an intact soul,
IMO. I think the point is that you lose contact with that part of your
soul; otherwise, TMR wouldn't have gotten Voldier and Voldier with
each horcrux; would he?) Voldemort's obliviousness about the
destruction of the diary would seem to argue against it as well.

> 3)Dumbledore in CoS
> Uk Ed COS p245
> "Unless I'm much mistaken, he transferred some of his own powers to
> you the night he gave you that scar. Not something he intended to
> do, I'm sure 
"
> "Voldemort put a bit of himself in me?" Harry said thunderstruck.
> "It certainly seems so."
> DD seems to think that what was transferred to Harry was
Voldemort's 
> *powers* not a bit of his soul.

Dumbledore's take on events is that Voldemort intended to make Harry's
death the catalyst for his last horcrux, not that he intended to make
a horcrux out of Harry. Dumbledore also seems to think making a
horcrux out of an ambulatory entity is even riskier than making one
out of a diary or a ring. Nor does he know of anyone who ever made
more than one horcrux. So, if that repeated action made of Voldemort's
soul something so fragile and tattered that the sort of violent
(house-flattening) magic GH involved could make an accidental horcrux
in, on, or of Harry (and this is the theory I find most plausible),
Dumbledore might not guess it. Dumbledore would not have told Harry
about it at that post-Chamber moment in any case, while Harry was
being troubled about the similarities between himself and Voldemort.
(Although I am not opining that Dumbledore knew Harry was a horcrux.)
Harry's question, "Voldemort put a bit of himself in me?" may actually
be foreshadowing. Harry says, "a bit of himself," rather than echoing
Dumbledore's phrase, "some of his own powers." 

> 4)Wizards and Muggles
> This one is my favourite and I think the most difficult to counter.
<snip>
> It therefore seems to me that magical powers are a separate entity 
> to the soul. Hence making Harry a horcrux would not necessarily 
> endow him with Voldemort's powers.  So if you then argue that some 

Okay. One word: Parseltongue. Although, IIRC, we didn't see Diary!Tom
cast any spells, he definitely called the basilisk. The ability to
talk to snakes is IMO the most obvious thing (besides the scar) that
Harry got from Voldemort. So the fragment of Voldie's soul in the
diary had it, and so does Harry. How's that for a counter? Unless
you're going to postulate that all of the horcruxes also contain some
of Voldie's powers...which argues against the soul and magical ability
being all that separate.

> UK Ed p473
> "I am sure that he was intending to make his final Horcrux with
your 
> death. As we know, he failed."  I really think DD would have
thought 
> about the accidental scenario.

Why would Dumbledore have thought about the accidental scenario? Even
if he had, what would he have done with the knowledge of that
possiblity? I'm guessing he'd have had a massive case of denial. Hey,
if he loved Harry too much to tell him about the prophecy for all
those years, how strenuously do you think he'd have resisted
(something no more than a possibility, anyway) that Harry actually
harbored a bit of Voldemort's *soul* and was therefore probably
utterly doomed?

> Plus 3 courtesy of Jen in post 140041 
> 6) Even though I personally love the idea Harry is gifted in
> destroying the Horcruxes in a way DD is not, the diary did not have
> any curses upon it the way the ring did. So we can't know that for
> sure yet.

The diary was designed to be seductive, wasn't it? It was meant to
turn someone into a puppet to do the will of Voldemort, or at least
the will of that bit of Voldemort. (The diary definitely had a will of
its own; I wonder if that's a thought worth pursuing...again, no
doubt.)

> 7) Harry did not feel any affinity at all for the locket at 12 GP,
> if indeed it is a Horcrux, nor could he open it, same as the others
> present.
 
Are we assuming that Harry has an affinity for the horcruxes, based on
his reaction to the diary? The same magic that sucked in Ginny could
account for everything Harry felt about the pre-Chamber diary.

> 8) In the cave, DD said: "I think we must resign ourselves to the
> fact that they [Inferi] will, at some point, realize we're not Lord
> Voldemort." (chap. 26, p. 564) And they do!! I know this is pitiful
> little evidence, but I think if Harry is somehow recognized to have
> part of Voldemort in him, the Inferi would not bother him.

There really isn't any clear indication that Voldemort himself could
pass by the Inferi unmolested without using some sort of "Hi Honeys,
I'm home!" magic. Besides, it wasn't until Harry dipped out a cup of
the lake water, something I doubt Voldemort would have needed to do,
that the Inferi reacted. (As a matter of fact, the lack of Inferi
reaction prior to the breaching of the lake surface (since Dumbledore
wasn't, IMO, expecting that necessity when he made the quoted comment)
could be used as an argument in *favor* of Harry being a horcrux (darn
you, JKR!) and the Inferi letting him pass because of it. Also, I
can't help but wonder if something about Lily's sacrificial magic
isn't still at work, acting as a barrier within Harry between the
parts of him that are just him and the parts that are Voldemort;
Harry's 17th birthday may get VERY interesting. (Here I have to stop
and practice my breathing and get that fight or flight response under
control.)

Saraquel:
> I'd also like to thank Brothergib for having mercy on me and 
> suggesting a wonderfully fanciful theory to get Voldemort's powers 
> into Harry.  I loved it, but think, as you said in your second
post, 
> the simplest explanations are always the best!

> >Brothergib wrote:
> >What if Voldemort had succeeded in making Harry a Horcrux that 
> >night at GH. But the love flowing through him from his mother's 
> >sacrifice had violently expelled the Horcrux. This left the 
> >lightning shaped scar (as with the ring) and destroyed GH as well 
> >as Voldemort. Harry would possess many of Voldemort's powers
having 
> >once been touched by Voldemort's soul, but would not technically
be 
> >a Horcrux any longer!!

What in canon suggests that Voldemort meant to make Harry a horcrux?
If he had, would he have emerged re-embodied from the cauldron
intending Harry's death?

IMO, it seems unneccessarily convoluted to have Harry be a horcrux for
a moment and then not one anymore. But it was fascinating to consider.
Are you saying that Lily's love flowing through Harry destroyed GH?

Saraquel:
> It had occurred to me that the scar might represent something coming
> *out* of Harry, rather than something going in.  I was toying with 
> an idea that Voldemort was planning to make Harry into a Horcrux at
> GH, the ultimate humiliation for Harry – to in effect be ruled
by 
> Voldemort's soul from babyhood.  But then that wouldn't square with
> him wanting to use Harry's murder to do it – I ended up with a 
> Horcrux!Inferi <g>

Ewww!

Sandy aka msbeadsley, particularly thanking Saraquel and Valky for
inspiring many mental meanderings