Harry Horcrux redux :)

[Geoff Bannister]

No: HPFGUIDX 155018

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Emily" <imamommy at ...> wrote:
>
> Alla:
> > Heeee, it seems like we did not talk about Harry horcrux recently :)
> snip
> 
> imamommy:
> Thanks for bringing it up!  I've been trying to wrestle with this one 
> lately.  I still bank on Harry being a horcrux; I read the essay you 
> referenced, and I'm not convinced Ms. Bostelmann is interpreting the 
> info correctly.  I also found this on Mugglenet:
> http://www.mugglenet.com/editorials/thenorthtower/nt44.shtml
> 
> It contributes some other ideas to the discussion, including the 
> thought of an accidental horcrux.  It seems to me that forming a 
> horcrux would need to be pretty intentional; it's highly advanced dark 
> magic.
> 
> I still hold the H!H theory because of the mind link.  Also (about to 
> beat dead thestral) I still think Harry may survive a dementors kiss 
> by somehow releasing that piece of Voldemort's soul instead of his own.
> 
> What I've really been struggling with is why LV would want a human 
> horcrux, and why he would try to kill Harry if he made him one.  Could 
> he have perhaps hoped to somehow have an Inferius!Horcrux!Baby Harry?  
> (EWWWWWW!)  LV was definitely pushing the limits, but what exactly did 
> he hope to accomplish?

Geoff:
I am tempted to emerge cautiously from my trench under my tin hat to 
re-enter the discussion on whether Harry is a Horcrux or not, coming down 
on the side of the argument that he is not.

I have said in the past that I believe that, to create a Horcrux, the victim and 
the spell caster need to be close together. That is just my theory; I can't 
recall any canon to support it but I am using it as a launch pad.

We are told that a Horcrux is created, "by an act of evil – the supreme act of 
evil. By committing murder. Killing rips the soul apart. The wizard intent 
upon creating a Horcrux would use the damage to his advantage: he would 
encase the torn portion-" [1]

Now, considering Harry as a possible Horcrux, it has been suggested that 
it could have happened at Godric's Hollow. Passing beyond this for a 
moment. I think on the other occasions when Voldemort and Harry were 
close together, the conditions for creating a Horcrux did not obtain. At the 
end of Philosopher's Stone, the question has been raised as to whether 
Quirrell died because of Harry's attack or Voldemort's withdrawal from his 
possession. Whatever the cause, Voldemort was in disembodied form and 
was not able to wield a wand. One the next occasion when they met directly 
at the end of Goblet of Fire, it was Peter Pettigrew who actually murdered 
Cedric; at that point in time, Voldemort was again in no state to use a wand. 
Later in the face off, he was more intent on killing Harry than doing anything 
else to him. And in the last encounter at the Ministry of Magic, Voldemort did 
not murder anyone, although he tried to hit Harry with an Avada Kedavra.

Dumbledore comments on Voldemort's progress in HBP:
"However, if my calculations are correct, Voldemort was still at least one 
Horcrux short of his goal of six when he entered your parents' house with 
the intention of killing you. He seems to have reserved the process of 
making Horcruxes for particularly significant deaths. You would certainly 
have been that. He believed that in killing you, he was destroying the 
danger the prophecy had outlined. He believed he was making himself 
invincible. I am sure he was intending to make his final Horcrux with your 
death." [2]

So, if there had been a chance to make Harry into a Horcrux, it would have 
had to be at Godric's Hollow. But it would seem that Voldemort was 
obsessed in destroying the person he saw as his most dangerous opponent. 
I agree that on this occasion he did commit murder twice but I believe that 
his intentions were then directed to killing Harry and that he did not give 
any thought to making him a Horcux. As this point, those he had created 
were all encased in "objects" and the thought that he could create a living 
fragment case may not have occurred to him.

I cannot subscribe to the idea that a Horcrux could be created accidentally. 
This is not mixing the wrong ingredients for a potion and creating 
something new and unexpected. The spells for a Horcrux must be very 
specific and powerful. I do not think that in the sudden turmoil of the backfire 
and personal disembodiment which would have been disorientating, to say the 
least, that Voldemort would have been able to do anything further in the way 
of casting spells and I see Lily's protection – whatever form it did take – 
saving his life and nothing else.

[1] HBP "Horcruxes" p..465 UK edition
[2] ibid. p.473