Possession => Accidental Harrycrux

[dungrollin]

No: HPFGUIDX 155514

Carol wrote (in message 155392):
I realize it's not the only possible explanation, but it makes more 
sense to me than a soul bit causing a cut and entering Harry to 
become an accidental Horcrux.

Dung:
Just out of interest, since I've not been around much, has anyone 
given any of the Possession at Godric's Hollow theories an airing 
since HBP was published? (SFAIK it was Kneasy's brainchild sometime 
early-mid '04, but I can't find a post number to refer you to.)

We don't know much about how possession works, but it's at least 
plausible that it's done with the soul. That Voldy can somehow move 
his soul into another's body, and take control of that body. I 
reviewed Possession a couple of years ago, here:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/116301
(And it's worthwhile, if the subject interests you, checking out 
Annemehr's response down-thread, "Possession: Taking it Further".)

Anyway, here's my take on it since HBP:

Voldemort thinks that using "special" deaths will imbue his 
horcruxes with more power. Is he right, or wrong? I have always 
assumed that it was just serial killer superstition, but had an 
arresting thought this morning... what if he's partly right? What if 
the kind of murder, and the kind of person murdered affects the 
piece of soul which is ripped off? For example, whether the person 
is armed and trying to fight back, or whether they are unarmed and 
begging for mercy.

So Voldy turns up at GH, intent on killing all three Potters. He's 
been mulling over the first few lines of that prophecy, and suspects 
that this baby might have some interesting magical powers; powers, 
moreover, that the prophetess reckons Voldy himself doesn't have.

GoF, ch33 "The Death Eaters", Voldy: "I could not touch the boy." 
I've always found this line interesting, because you don't need to 
touch somebody to AK them, you just point your wand and bang. He 
could be speaking figuratively, of course (but that's no fun!) so 
let's just assume he was speaking literally. He tried to do 
something else before he AKed Harry.

What if, just after tearing his soul by gunning down an unarmed 
mother who freely gave her life that her son might live, he tries to 
possess that son, to discover what this intriguing and mysterious 
power might be? 

Now, either, he finds the experience unbearably painful the way he 
would do later in the MoM, and gives it up as a bad job, or he 
manages to possess Harry for an instant, but is repelled by Lily's 
sacrifice. (Or, thirdly, he succeeds and has a good poke around, but 
doesn't recognise the love stuff as a power – possibly even 
dismisses it as weakness; though this is unlikely, if we're taking 
the "I could not touch the boy" literally). For the purposes of this 
theory, it doesn't really matter either way, even if he only 
possesses Harry for an instant, the following could happen:

The piece of soul which ripped when he killed Lily, has somehow (and 
I appreciate that the vagueness of 'somehow' may hide a plethora of 
inadequacies) been affected by the fact that it was Lily who died, 
who gave her life for Harry, and now that piece of soul is within 
the body of the baby for whom she died. It's not impossible that 
Lily's sacrifice (ancient magic) has so deeply affected this piece 
of soul that it feels a very strong affinity for Harry. So strong 
that it remains behind when Voldemort returns to his own body 
(possibly turning Harry's eyes green at the same time).

Voldemort returns to his own body, frustrated, and levels his wand 
to AK Harry. The AK rebounds upon him and we all know how much he 
didn't like that, leaving Harry with a lightning-shaped scar.

At which point we can speculate that either it was Lily's sacrifice 
alone which caused the AK to rebound, or that it was the fact that 
Harry is now, effectively, a Horcrux which caused the bounce (my 
preferred version). But if the latter is true, Harry only became a 
Horcrux because of Lily's sacrifice, so DD was quite right in PS 
when he said that Voldy couldn't kill Harry because his mother died 
to save him.

Any takers? It's not 100% watertight, but I reckon it floats. Its 
consequences are a little difficult to untangle, though.

Dung.