Accidental Harrycrux with a Bloodsucking Snake (long)

[Neri]

No: HPFGUIDX 155070

There seem to be two main varieties of the Harrycrux theory: the
intentional and accidental. Intentional Harrycrux assumes that it was
Voldy's intent to make Harry his Horcrux in GH, which would imply that
Voldy *knows* that Harry is a Horcrux.

Personally it doesn't seem logical to me that Voldemort would try to
kill a baby that he had just made his Horcrux (although one might
think of scenarios that would allow for that too) and this is why I
tend more to the Accidental Harrycrux variety. This one basically
assumes that, as Dumbledore says, Voldy was intending to make his last
Horcrux with Harry's murder, but he splitted his soul over murdering
Lily, and when he lost his body because of the rebounding AK the other
released soul part entered baby Harry. This Variety assumes that Voldy
does *not* know that Harry is his Horcrux.

Or doesn't he?

What if Voldemort indeed did not intend to make Harry a Horcrux in the
first place, but he *had* realized that later, or at least he has come
to suspect that Harry is now his Horcrux? What if all his major plans
and actions in the last books have actually been shaped by that
knowledge/suspicion?  

Assume for a minute that sometime after GH (say, after SS/PS too, to
make things simpler) Vapor!Mort realizes or suspects that Harry became
his Horcrux in GH. What would he do about it?

If he simply kills Harry he'd lose this sixth Horcrux and remain with
only five. Of course, he can try creating another Horcrux later, as
Dumbledore suggests he had done with Nagini. But that would mean
splitting his soul again, so the total number of pieces would be
eight, not seven, one of them lost forever. I don't think this option
would appeal to Voldemort at all. What he'd really want to do would be
to rescue his seven soul parts project. The preferred option from his
point of view would be to somehow retrieve his seventh soul part that
is now embedded in Harry, and encase it in another Horcrux of his
choice, most probably Nagini. Is it possible for him to manage such a
thing? And how?


CLUE THE FIRST

In GoF it is stressed several times in different places that Voldy had
meant to feed Harry's body to Nagini after he kills him in the
graveyard. This is first suggested in Harry's "dream":

*******************************************************
GoF, Ch. 29, p. 576 (Scholastic):

"Nagini," said the cold voice, "you are out of luck. I will not be
feeding Wormtail to you, after all... but never mind, never mind
there
is still Harry Potter..."

The snake hissed. Harry could see its tongue fluttering.
*******************************************************

Harry thinks about it later:

*******************************************************
GoF, Ch. 29, p. 578:

...He had heard Voldemort accusing Wormtail of making a blunder
but
the owl had brought good news, the blunder had been repaired, somebody
was dead... so Wormtail was not going to be fed to the snake... he,
Harry, was going to be fed to it instead...
*******************************************************

Harry tells it to Dumbledore:

*******************************************************
GoF, Ch. 30, p. 599:

"Voldemort got a letter from an owl. He said something like,
Wormtail's blunder had been repaired. He said someone was dead. Then
he said, Wormtail wouldn't be fed to the snake - there was a snake
beside his chair. He said - he said he'd be feeding me to it, instead."
*******************************************************

In the graveyard scene itself Nagini is mentioned several times,
impatiently circling Harry as if waiting for her treat. Here is just
one example:

*******************************************************
GoF, Ch. 32, p. 639:

He could hear noises at his feet. He looked down and saw a gigantic
snake slithering through the grass, circling the headstone where he
was tied.
*******************************************************
 
And then when Voldemort is going to duel with Harry he promises Nagini:

*******************************************************
GoF, Ch. 32, p. 639:

"Just a little longer, Nagini," he whispered, and the snake glided
away through the grass to where the Death Eaters stood watching.
*******************************************************

So I'd say it's not only established but also stressed that Harry was
to be fed to Nagini after being killed.  But fed in what manner?


CLUE THE SECOND

Nagini's venom has a very interesting property – it prevents blood
from clotting. During her attack on Arthur in OotP it is repeatedly
stressed how much blood Arthur has lost:  

*******************************************************
OotP, Ch. 22 – 23, several places:

he reared high from the floor and struck once, twice, three times,
plunging his fangs deeply into the mans flesh, feeling his ribs
splinter beneath his jaws, feeling the warm gush of blood . . .
 
The man was yelling in pain . . . then he fell silent . . . he slumped
backwards against the wall . . . blood was splattering on to the floor
. . .

"Your dad! He's been bitten, it's serious, there was blood everywhere
. . ."

"Mr Weasley was asleep on the floor and he was attacked by a gigantic
snake, there was a load of blood, he collapsed, someone's got to find
out where he is . . ."

"Anyway, they carried him up a few minutes later. He doesn't look
good, he's covered in blood, I ran along to Elfrida Cragg's portrait
to get a good view as they left — "
*******************************************************

The first time we see Arthur in the hospital we are told:

*******************************************************
OotP, Ch. 22, p. 488:

"I feel absolutely fine," said Mr Weasley brightly, holding out his
good arm to give Ginny a hug. "If they could only take the bandages
off, I'd be fit to go home."

"Why can't they take them off, Dad?' asked Fred."
    
"Well, I start bleeding like mad every time they try," said Mr Weasley
cheerfully, reaching across for his wand, which lay on his bedside
cabinet, and waving it so that six extra chairs appeared at his
bedside to seat them all. "It seems there was some rather unusual kind
of poison in that snakes fangs that keeps wounds open. They're sure
they'll find an antidote, though; they say they've had much worse
cases than mine, and in the meantime I just have to keep taking a
Blood-Replenishing Potion every hour."
*******************************************************

And later, when a trainee healer tries muggle stitches on these wounds:

*******************************************************
OotP, Ch. 23, p. 507:

"Well, you know, they do work well on non-magical wounds,' said
Hermione fairly. "I suppose something in that snake's venom dissolves
them or something."
*******************************************************

Is this interesting and highlighted property of Nagini's venom
important to the plot? It might be just my biology background showing
again, but venom/saliva with anticoagulant properties is typical to
bloodsuckers, such as vampire bats (BTW, vampire bats actually don't
suck the victim's blood, they lap it, but the principle is the same.
The anticoagulant agent preventing clotting in their saliva is a
glycoprotein named, naturally, draculin). If Nagini is indeed a
bloodsucker, then Voldy had intended her to suck the blood out of
Harry's body after he kills him in the graveyard. Of course, that
wouldn't be the first time that Voldemort was making use of the
special properties of her venom. He also used it when he was
Baby!mort, mixed with... ah yes, unicorn blood. Do I notice a theme here?


CLUE THE THIRD

In PoA and OotP we were told repeatedly that dementors can suck souls
out of their victims, so we know that this is in principle possible in
the Potterverse. Admittedly dementors don't do it by sucking the
victim's blood, but our case is different. Voldemort isn't interested
in Harry's soul, like any dementor out there. He is interested in his
own soul part that became encased in Harry's body. Is it possible to
retrieve such a soul part by sucking the victim's blood?


CLUE THE FORTH

In HBP Voldemort warns his minions not to kill Harry even if they get
the chance. Voldy must kill Harry himself. Why? Is it just Voldemort's
pride on the line here? Or maybe it is also crucial that Nagini would
get the chance to suck the blood out of Harry's body immediately after
his death, before it can clot?


CLUE THE FIFTH

But wait a minute (I hear some of you saying), Dumbledore said that
Voldemort had made Nagini his last Horcrux, didn't he?

No, he didn't.

In JKR's best sneaky style, Dumbledore actually never says explicitly
that Nagini is already a Horcrux *now*. He doesn't even hypothesize
it, exactly. What he does say is:

*******************************************************
HBP, Ch. 23, p. 506:

After an interval of some years, however, he used Nagini to kill an
old Muggle man, and it might then have occurred to him to turn her
into his last Horcrux.
*******************************************************

That does not necessarily mean that Voldemort had already turned her
into his last Horcrux, only that the idea had *occurred* to him. Note
that Dumbledore also seems to imply here that Frank was the murder
used to make Nagini a Horcrux, but again, very sneakily, he does not
say it *explicitly*. JKR only lets us assume that this is what he
means. Moreover, Frank being the death that made Nagini a Horcrux
wouldn't sit well with another thing that Dumbledore says only one
paragraph before:

*******************************************************
He seems to have reserved the process of making Horcruxes for
particularly significant deaths.
*******************************************************

Frank, and old muggle retainer, would hardly be a particularly
significant death for Voldemort. 

The idea that Frank was the death that made Nagini a Horcrux is also
problematic from the timing aspect. Did Voldy create this Horcrux
before the graveyard, when he was Baby!mort? If so then that would be
his sixth and last Horcrux, so why does he say later in the graveyard
that he decided to settle on his mortal body before courting
immortality again? He had already completed his immortality project,
hadn't he? If, OTOH, you think that Voldemort had intended to make
Nagini a Horcrux *after* the graveyard, then wouldn't he plan to use
Harry's death for that, rather than Frank's?

So as a whole, Nagini already being a Horcrux using Frank's death
sounds more and more like a red herring to me. A very useful red
herring, as it hints to several other possibilities that might be
true, but still a red herring in itself. So what if Nagini isn't a
Horcrux *yet*? She is slated to *become* one, when she can retrieve
the seventh soul piece out of Harry. That would definitely work well
with Dumbledore's words. 

 
CLUE THE SIXTH

Well, not really a clue, more of a hunch, but what's with all these
blood hints, anyway? Does this have any connection with Voldemort
using a bit of Harry's blood for his resurrection? Does it have
anything to do with the gleam in Dumbledore's eyes?


Neri