Nagini as Horcrux

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 146285

Deb wrote:
> > Ahhh yes but IF the boa had been Nagini then would the snake have
owed Harry a life debt for setting it free from the zoo? Or if not a
life debt, then just have felt less inclined to harm Harry because it
was grateful to him? 
> 
Kelleyaynn replied:
> 
> Good point. Perhaps that is why Wormtail now owes Harry a life debt.
Maybe that life debt was intended for Nagini first, but since the 
original snake was a boa, that couldn't work out and JKR switched it
to Pettigrew.

Carol responds to both:
As I understand it, a life debt is owed by one wizard to another, not
by a creature to a wizard. We've heard nothing about Buckbeak owing
Harry a life debt, and Harry saved his life in PoA. (He does attack
Snape in HBP, but he doesn't save Harry's life, which is not in
danger, at least not from Snape, who has ordered the DEs to leave the
grounds). I suspect that the boa constrictor could not owe anyone a
life debt, even if a creature can owe one, as he's probably not
magical, and in any case, Harry didn't save his life; he merely set
him free (purely by accident).

I also don't think the boa constrictor was intended to resemble
Nagini, who is clearly evil, circling around Harry in the graveyard
because Voldemort has promised her Harry as a meal. (In GoF, "The
Dream," Voldemort consoles her for the loss of Wormtail, whose mistake
in letting Barty Sr. escape has been rectified by the murderous Barty
Jr., by promising her Harry.) Odd behavior for a creature who owes
Harry a life debt or any kind of debt. Nagini (if I can ever find the
reference!) is a venomous green; the boa constrictor has "glistening
brown coils" (SS/PS Am. ed. 27). And the narrator refers to it as a
"he"; Nagini is a "she," an important point since (as I said in
another post," she is symbolically a "mother" to Voldemort in his
fetal form, providing the venom for the potion that created him (note
that Baby!mort, among his other revolting traits, has a snakelike face
and scaly skin) and her "milk" (the venom again) sustains him in this
form. (It appears to be Baby!mort's only food.)

Harry has a friendly conversation with the boa constrictor in SS/PS
(although it doesn't actually speak to him). I expect he'll converse
with Nagini in Parseltongue at some point, with both of them speaking,
but he'll regard her as an enemy and she'll see him as her intended
prey. (That Nagini can speak to and be understood by a Parselmouth is
revealed when she tells LV that there's an old Muggle on the stairs in
GoF chapter 1--interesting that a snake would know a Muggle from a
wizard.) I don't think JKR ever intended for the snake, which is
primarily a plot device to show Harry's ability to talk to snakes (and
to perform accidental magic), to be Nagini, whose relationship to
Harry has to be antagonistic. She is Voldemort's familiar and, as DD
points, has a very strong affinity with him that suggests she may be a
Horcrux. 

As I said earlier, her life force doesn't seem to have been lessened
by Voldemort's possessing her in OoP, and Harry (seeing from the
snake's POV in his vision) thinks her thoughts as well as Voldemort's.
The thoughts have merged into a single entity--Nagini doesn't
distinguish betwwen her own desires and Voldemort's--but she still
senses a conflict between her desire to bite and her actual mission,
which relates to the Prophecy orb in the Department of Mysteries.
(I'm sure this dual nature is what DD is referring to as "in essence
divided"--one body, two natures or selves.)

Nagini obeys Voldemort as the Basilisk obeyed Tom Riddle, the Heir of
its original master, Salazar Slytherin, and it may be that nothing
more is involved in the affinity between them than LV's inherited
ability to speak Parseltongue, but I agree with Dumbledore that
there's more to it. We know that Voldemort's appearance, both in fetal
form and in adult form, is snakelike, which again suggests the
possibility that she's a Horcrux. Not only does she share his nature,
with a soul bit inside her, but he shares hers, as indicated by the
scaly skin (in fetal form), the flat face, and the slits for nostrils.
Making the earlier Horcruxes blurred Voldemort's features and made him
less human, but there's no indication in the Pensieve memory of the
DADA interview that he was already snakelike. Something happened after
that to create an extreme change in his appearance--the disappearance
of his nose in particular. Did he test his immortality by drinking
some of her venom? Would that alone be sufficient to explain his
altered appearance, so changed (according to DD) that very few people
knew who he was when he returned to England to recruit followers?

There is some question, apparently, as to whether he was actually
snakelike at that time (ca. 197), but unless he already had his
present-day appearance (in a body identical to the one he has now),
it's unlikely that the Death Eaters would have been able to suppress a
gasp of horror when they saw him in the graveyard. Also, when we see
only his face sticking out of Quirrell's head in SS/PS, it is already
"chalk white with glaring red eyes and slits for nostrils, like a
snake" (Am. ed. 293). That description suggests to me that he was
equally snakelike before Godric's Hollow. If so, the explanation would
seem to be that Nagini was already a Horcrux, the last to be made, and
that choosing her as his soulmate, so to speak, he took on aspects of
her appearance, indicating that his lost humanness (not humanity,
which he never had) was replaced by snakelike cunning and (figurative)
venom.

It's possible, of course, that he made her into a Horcrux at some
point *after* Godric's Hollow, but as he couldn't use a wand until
Pettigrew made his fetal body, and he was already not able to drink
but dependent on her venom for sustenance at that time, it seems
likely that he made her into a Horcrux before he was turned into vapor
at Godric's Hollow.

Setting aside alternative suggestions for the sixth Horcrux(including
Harry the Horcrux, which belongs in some other thread), can anyone
offer any other explanation for the nearly symbiotic lives of Nagini
and Voldemort and for Voldemort's snakelike features, or a way that
Nagini could have been made a Horcrux *after* Godric's Hollow rather
than before it? LV certainly wouldn't have trusted either Quirrell or
Pettigrew to perform the Horcrux spell for him, even if they could (I
doubt that anyone except the murderer can remove and encase the soul
piece). (As I said before, I don't believe in accidental Horcruxes,
nor is there any evidence that Nagini was present at Godric's Hollow
even if accidental Horcruxes can be created.)

So is she a Horcrux, and, if so, when did she become one? If she isn't
a Horcrux in your view, why not? And how can we explain all the
affinities between Nagini and LV, including his dependence on her
venom when he's in fetal form, if she's only his familiar?

Carol, trusting Dumbledore on this one but still wanting to hear what
other posters think