Voldie and the aging process (Was: Half-Blood Prince disappointing)

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 146316

Scam wrote:
<snip>
> Death is something that occurs to everyone who is born (I mean 
biologically, and so, please do not spin off on the born once and born
again thought process ..). It is the rule of nature that death come to
the physical body. 
> <snip> 
> Also, if the 7th part in LV body dies due to natural causes .... 
how on earth does he think he has conquered death? He would still need
someone's help to resurrect him ... and nobody knows where his
horcruxes are! A big HA HA to the very idea of defeating death..... 
> 
> Scam -- shell-shocked by her own brilliance ... and sooo happy 
> that if HP can't kill LV, then age will :))))

Carol responds:
The point of the Horcruxes is to keep Voldemort's soul on earth, to
prevent it from going through the Veil, so to speak. As long as even
one Horcrux remains, Voldemort can't die, even if his body is
destroyed, as it was at Godric's Hollow. It doesn't matter where the
Horcruxes are. As long as they exist intact, the seventh part of his
soul, the part that's attached to his spirit and his identity, can't
die, no matter what happens to his body. That's why his soul left his
body at Godric's Hollow but remained on earth as Vapor!mort. The
Horcruxes he had made, all of them intact at that time, kept him from
dying.

Evidently, LV had taken measures to prevent physical death before
Godric's Hollow. He tells the Death Eaters at GoF that they know of
his plans to defeat death, yet it's unlikely that he's told them about
his Horcruxes. (Bellatrix, who is not present, may be an exception;
Lucius Malfoy certainly didn't know that the diary was a Horcrux, only
that it had something to do with the monster in the Chamber of
Secrets.) We can speculate that his experiments included everything
from immunizing himself to snake venom to attempts to slow or stop the
effects of aging. (If wizards have aging potions that even the Twins
can make, they surely have anti-aging potions as well. Maybe part of
young Snape's job as a DE was to keep Voldie well supplied with such
potions.)

At any rate, Voldie's new body does seem to be mortal (he admits as
much to the DEs in the graveyard scene in GoF), but that doesn't
concern him at the moment. He wants to get rid of the one wizard he
perceives as a threat, Harry Potter; then he can return to mundane
matters like ensuring physical immortality.

Assuming that his resurrected body, despite its snakelike features and
other peculiar characteristics, is subject to the normal aging process
(and I'm not certain that it is), the worst that could happen is that
he would become like Tithonus, the mortal man who was granted immortal
life so he could live with the goddess Eos (Aurora) on Mount Olympus,
but Eos forgot to ask Zeus to grant him eternal youth. So his spirit
couldn't die, but his body withered away until eventually she turned
him into an insect (not a likely fate for LV, of course). I don't
think Voldie would allow himself to suffer a similar fate, and if he
discovered signs of aging in his resurrected body after, say, a
hundred years of living in it, he would use whatever means he could to 
counter the aging, if necessary, possessing other wizards (preferably
young ones) to keep himself alive and embodied. (I don't think we'll
need to worry about it because Harry will find a way to destroy him
permanently; I'm only thinking of what LV might face if Harry died.)

But LV cannot be killed or permanently destroyed while the Horcruxes
exist. If a deflected Avada Kedavra curse can't kill him, neither can
old age. The most either can do is to destroy his body, and unlike an
AK, death from old age gives plenty of warning that it's coming, and
Voldie, powerful and cunning as he is, would use whatever means he
considered necessary to prevent it.

To put all this in its simplest form: While even one Horcrux exists,
the soul fragment in Voldie can't die even if his body dies (frpm old
age or any other cause). So Harry *will* have to kill or otherwise
destroy LV, body *and* soul, after he's destroyed the Horcruxes that
keep LV's soul from leaving the earth and passing beyond the Veil. 

Carol, noting that if Voldie could be defeated by old age, there'd be
no need for the Chosen One and we'd have no story