Accidental Harrycrux with a Bloodsucking Snake (long)

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 155171

Mike wrote:
> 
> I don't think you are being fair, Carol. You deny the accidental
horcrux theory because we have no proof in canon.  But you use the AK
busting back out of Harry to create a scar, which is also not in
canon, and IMO is a less likely scenario.

Carol responds:
Sorry about that. I knew that the cut being caused by the spell
bursting out of Harry's forehead was an assumption and I should have
worded the statement more carefully. But how else can you account for
a cut (which is still unhealed when Hagrid places Baby!Harry on the
Dursleys' front porch) from a spell that ordinarily leaves no mark,
and for the force of the explosion (IMO the deflected curse) that
separates Voldemort from his body (and apparently also explodes the
house?) I was being a bit too concise here, trying to get to the main
point. My apologies.

It *is* canon, however, that the scar is not created immediately:

"Under a tuft of jet-black hair over his forehead they could see a
curiously shaped cut, like a bolt of lightning" ((SS Am. ed. 15). So
unless Voldemort's powers entered Harry through the AK (and we know it
was an AK from the blinding green flash in Harry's oldest memory, SS
29, and from JKR's interviews), they must have entered Harry's head
through the open wound. Dumbledore says "He'll have that scar
forever," but at the moment it isn't yet a scar. It's a cut that heals
into a scar.
Mike:
> 
> Well, if we believe the Harry!Horcrux theory we do know the
mechanism. <snip>

Carol:
No. If you believe the Horcrux theory, you postulate a mechanism.
That's not the same thing as knowing it.

Mike:
> Something else to consider. Would a simple scar, even an interesting
> shaped scar, be enough to satisfy the prophesy? My question goes to 
> the "mark him as his equal" portion. IMO, the mark would have to be 
> more significant than a lightening bolt shaped scar. A horcrux,
OTOH, would be a significant way to "mark him as his equal", wouldn't
it? It would also explain the transfer of powers.

Carol:
I agree that "marking him as his equal" means more than giving him a
scar, and I've never argued that "a simple scar is enough to satisfy
the prophecy." I don't know of anyone who has made that assertion,
frankly. I agree that "mark him as his equal" means transferring his
own powers to Harry and at the same time marking him with the scar
that links them to each other. The only thing I disagree with here is
that this transfer requires a soul bit.

Whether a Horcrux would be "a significant way" to mark him as his
equal or not is irrelevant without evidence that he has indeed done
so. We have evidence that the powers were transferred, but we have no
evidence (other than a few scattered hints like Harry's feeling that
Tom was an old friend, surely shared by Ginny when she confided in the
diary) that Harry is a Horcrux and none whatever that a Horcrux can be
created accidentally.

Mike:
<snip> Carol responds with the non sequetor that Harry is the Prophesy
Boy, and there is no requirement for Harry to be a horcrux? Yes Carol,
we know Voldemort wants to kill Harry because of the prophesy, but
couldn't Neri be right, Voldemort changes his strategy to achieve that
end *because* he has realized Harry is one of his Horcruxes?

Carol reponds:
It's possible that Neri is right, but you'll need more than a
rhetorical question to convince me that he is. My apologies if my
argument was unclear and appeared to you to be a non sequitur (note
spelling). Possibly I left out a step in the logical sequence. Let me
try again.

That Voldemort tried to kill Harry *because he was the Prophecy Boy*,
not merely because he wanted another Horcrux (if indeed he did), is
canon. It's also canon that Voldemort has tried to kill Harry on
several later occasions. Clearly, *if* Harry is a Horcrux, Voldemort
didn't intend for him to be one or he wouldn't have tried repeatedly
to kill him, nor did he know of his accidental Horcrux (if that's what
Harry is) as late as the attempted possession in the MoM or he
wouldn't have tried to tempt Dumbledore to kill Harry. And it was not
a bit of Voldemort's own soul that drove him out of Harry's body and
mind during the attempted possession; it was the love Harry was
feeling for Sirius Black, which Voldemort could not endure. I may not
have made the logical connection clear, but it does exist. 

So while Neri could be right that Harry is an accidental Horcrux and
Voldemort has just realized that fact, I think we'd have had a clearer
hint from Dumbledore, who says that he's telling Harry everything he
needs to know to defeat Voldemort and who certainly would have reached
the conclusion before Voldemort did given his superior powers of
deduction. If Dumbledore, who figured out that the diary was a Horcrux
and that there were six Horcruxes in all, didn't figure out that Harry
is or could be a Horcrux, how could Voldemort do so, and how is Harry
supposed to figure it out? 

And what signs do we have that Voldemort has changed his strategy
regarding Harry since the end of OoP, when he tried first to kill
Harry and then to possess Harry and have Dumbledore kill him? Would he
sacrifice a Horcrux so readily? I think not. The only thing that
changed in HBP, IMO, is that he switched his focus from the Prophecy
to Dumbldeore and that he's using Occlumency against Harry. And I
stand by my assertion that there is no evidence for accidental
Horcruxes in canon. You're welcome to prove me wrong by quoting some.
References to non sequiturs will prompt me to clarify my arguments,
but they won't make your side any stronger.

BTW, it occurred to me that one way to get around the more cumbersome
aspects of the Harry!Horcrux hypothesis (as opposed to the unwholesome
and sinister aspects, which are perhaps subjective since advocates of
the hypothesis seem undisturbed by them) would be to have Voldemort AK
Harry right on the scar, bursting it open and releasing the soul bit,
but that would only work if it caused the second AK to rebound like
the first, killing Voldemort but sparing Harry (still protected by his
mother's love). Doesn't seem likely, though, nor does it fit with
"either must die at the hand of the other" since it would require
Voldemort to die by his own hand. Otherwise I see no way out of the
problem of having Harry destroy Voldemort while he is himself still a
Horcrux or having Harry die before he can destroy Voldemort. That
problem is probably the crux of the whole Harry!Horcrux problem.

Carol, still preferring her possession hypothesis but acknowledging
that anything, even Harry!Horcrux, is possible