Accidental Harrycrux : a theory

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 155287

Mike wrote:
> My hypothesis for how one creates an accidental Horcrux postulates
> that the encasement spell is cast prior to committing the murder. My
> basis for this belief comes from examining Slughorn's explanation:
>
> "The wizard *intent* upon creatig a Horcrux would use the damage to
> his advantage." (HBP p.498, US, Slughorn speaking, my emphasis)
>
> I read this as the wizard must create the intent, have the
> encasement object and use the 'spell' to mark the object as well as
> prepare to capture the torn piece of soul. <snip>

Carol responds:
I understand what you're saying. However, it is impossible to encase
something that does not yet exist. The soul piece must be torn off
*before* it is encased (enclosed) in the object that will become a
Horcrux.

I hate to use argument by analogy because it proves nothing, but
perhaps it will clarify what I'm saying. (Forgive the gruesome
imagery; I was going to use pieces of fruitcake, but I thought this
idea would come closer.)

Suppose that an axe murderer wants to prove that he's killed someone
by "encasing" a body part, let's say the head, in a suitcase and
mailing it to the victim's wife. He must first commit the murder and
"split" the body before he can "encase" the part in the suitcase. If
he locks the suitcase (performs the encasement spell) before he cuts
off the head, he can't "encase" the head. By the same token, Voldemort
must murder someone and split his soul, creating a soul fragment,
before he can encase (enclose) the fragment in an object and make that
object into a Horcrux.

As I see it, the murder does not have to be committed with a Horcrux
in mind. He can use a previously committed murder, for example that of
his father, to create a Horcrux. He didn't know how to create a
Horcrux when he killed the Riddles and took Marvolo Gaunt's ring from
Morfin as a souvenir. We don't know exactly when he learned how to
create a Horcrux, but certainly it was after the conversation with
Slughorn, at which time he was wearing the ring. If I'm right, he used
his father's murder, committed when he was sixteen, to create a
Horcrux when he was at least eighteen. He already had the object, but
he didn't cast a spell to encase the soul bit until after he had
committed the murder and after he knew how to create a Horcrux.

I think you're confused by "intent on creating a Horcrux." As I
understand it, any act of murder splits the soul, but the parts of the
damaged soul normally stay inside the murderer. In the case of
Voldemort and possibly Grindelvald, a part or parts that were split
off through an act or acts of murder were encased in an object or
objects after the murder or murders, using a spell that Slughorn
either can't or won't reveal.

You can't encase a soul bit until after you commit the murder because
the soul is not split until the murder is committed. (In Voldemort's
case, he had multiple murders and multiple soul bits to choose from,
and the Horcruxes, at least some of them, appear to have been created
some time, probably several years, after the murders that split off
the particular soul bits.

It's simply logic. The soul bit cannot be encased before it exists.

> > Carol, wondering if the diary (which IMO was not originally
intended as a Horcrux) and the Marauder's Map operate on the same
principle, with a bit of the makers' powers and personality enclosed
in the magical object so that it interacts with the reader as the
maker himself would (handwriting and all), no soul bit required
> >
> Mike:
> Interesting..., add the Sorting Hat to that mix. Are you thinking
> the Marauders found some way to create a low-voltage non-soul
> Horcrux (without killing, I hope)? Maybe a thousand years ago,
> Horcruxes weren't considered so evil. Intriguing to think the
> Sorting Hat could be a four-way Horcrux of the founders?
>
Carol responds:
I'm not suggesting that the Marauder's Map is a Horcrux, which
requires an act of murder to create and which exists to keep the
murderer's soul on earth so he can't be killed.

I'm saying that it's possible to create an object that thinks for
itself and interacts with a reader without encasing a soul bit. The
Marauders appear to have placed some part of their personalities in
the Maruader's Map so that it will "speak" in their "voices" (respond
in their handwriting as they would respond to that person). Witness
all four Marauders insulting Snape, knowing who he is and expressing
surprise that he'd become a professor. No murder and no soul bit required.

I think that the diary was originally created in much the same way, in
this case with a memory removed from sixteen-year-old Tom's head on
June 13 of his fifth year (the day he killed Moaning Myrtle using the
Basilisk), much as Snape and Dumbledore remove memories from their
heads to place in the Pensieve. No soul bit was required for the diary
to serve its original purpose, seducing a reader into releasing the
Basilisk. Memory!Tom had the power of possession, just as the real Tom
did, before he knew how to create a Horcrux. Once it became a Horcrux,
Memory!Tom had the power to leave the book, using Ginny's soul, not
the encased soul bit, to give himself life. (Notice that he does not
share her personality, powers, or memories. He knows only what he knew
at sixteen and what she has told him about Harry through the diary.
His powers and personality remain his own.

Carol, imagining herself trying to "encase" a piece of fruitcake in a
box after the box is sealed and finding it impossible