[HPforGrownups] Nagini as Horcrux (Was: The Last Horcrux Still Unmade)

[Kathryn Jones]

No: HPFGUIDX 146506





>  >From the little we learn about Horcruxes in HBP, they don't affect
> Voldie's power. He has his peculiar abilities, ranging from wandless
> magic and Legilimency to Parseltongue and possession, from a very
> early age, and he can manipulate Basilisks and cast Avada Kedavras at
> sixteen. He creates the diary and ring Horcruxes before he kills
> Hepzibah Smith at about age twenty. The Horcruxes don't affect his
> powers, which remain consistent (until he's vaporized and bodiless).
> What they affect is his appearance. We can see a change in him even in
> the interview with Hepzibah Smith. He's thinner and paler, but oddly
> still handsome. In the DADA interview, at which time he probably has
> made at least the locket and cup Horcruxes in addition to the diary
> and the ring, his features are blurred, but he doesn't yet look like
> the Voldemort that Harry has encountered. *He isn't yet snakelike.*
> 
> But when he returns to England later and begins recruiting followers,
> he's unrecognizable, as Dumbledore tells us early on. When we see his
> face in SS/PS sticking out of Quirrell's head in SS/PS, its definitely
> snakelike, suggesting that he was snakelike before he was vaporized.
> The features of the terrible fetuslike baby!mort are also snakelike;
> moreover, it is "born" from a potion made from Nagini's venom and
> unicorn blood (IIRC). It is nurtured on her "milk" (venom). And the
> resurrected Voldemort, restored to a body apparently identical to his
> old one, is again snakelike.

KJ writes:

    While I agree with much of this, there are a few things I see 
differently. We know that Riddle killed his father and grandparents in 
his sixth year and graduated in 1945. JKR has also suggested that this 
time coincided with the death of Grindlewald who I suspect had something 
to do with Riddle learning how to make horcruxes. Riddle told Harry that 
he "left behind a diary" preserving his sixteen year old self so that he 
could influence someone else. I think that Tom tried to get into 
Hogwarts to retrieve the diary, which we know he did or he could not 
have made it into a horcrux later. We know that after graduation Tom 
tried to get hired by Dippet. I think that this was his first attempt to 
get the diary. I think that the ring was his first horcrux using the 
soul split caused by the death of his father. After graduation, he 
worked for B&B for a while and acquired the locket and cup. He also 
murdered a decendant of Helga Hufflepuff. He then disappeared, not in 
1945 as is stated in the Lexicon. It would have been in '46 or '47.  Ten 
years later, he was back to again apply for work at Hogwarts. I think 
that is when he reacquired the diary. The information on non-verbal 
spells, the hand-movement Voldemort made when he left, and Dumbledore's 
suspicion that he was there for another purpose, I think are all clues. 
His appearance would indicate that he had made at least two horcruxes. 
He told Dumbledore that he had pushed the boundaries of magic further 
than they had ever been pushed. This would only have to be two 
horcruxes, the ring and the cup, or the ring and the locket. He had 
already begun to recruit followers at that time. Dumbledore listed Nott, 
Rosier, Mulciber and Dolohov as already being named "Death Eaters". 
During his travels,he then made his third horcrux by using the diary and 
the death of Grindlewald which he eventually gave to Lucius for 
safe-keeping. I believe he would have used those years away locating a 
descendant of Ravenclaw to use for the fourth horcrux which is likely to 
be the wand that Ollivander has disappeared with and an appropriate 
death to use for the locket, the fifth horcrux. When he returned in 1970 
   he began hiding the horcruxes or giving some of them to his DE's. We 
know that he gave the diary to Lucius and we suspect that he gave the 
cup to Bella. The locket was hidden in the cave, the ring was hidden in 
the Gaunt house, and if the wand is the fifth, it is unaccounted for. I 
believe that Harry's death, Voldemort's "equal" was to be used to make 
the sixth horcrux, which is another reason that Voldemort is still 
pursuing him. The DE's have orders to leave Harry for him personally. On 
Voldemort's return, he stated that he had gone further on the path to 
immortality than any other wizard.  He did not say that he had completed 
the journey. Considering the fact that he is no snakier now than he was 
on his return, I do not believe that he has made Nagini a horcrux. I 
suspect that as a result of the backlash caused by the rebounded spell, 
a splinter of soul hit Harry, causing his scar and the transfer of 
powers, making Harry the sixth unintended horcrux. Perhaps Nagini will 
come into it on the basis of the blood transfer. The snake may be unable 
to differentiate between Harry and Voldemort at a crucial moment because 
  of the soul pieces and the blood. Perhaps she will be the instrument 
of Voldemort's downfall. That would be ironic. Perhaps Harry's nature 
would prevent Voldemort from accessing that final soul piece.
KJ