Math Question: Horcruxes

[amiabledorsai]

No: HPFGUIDX 152670

-steven1965aaa:

> According to Prof. Slughorn you make a Horcrux by "splitting" your 
> soul.  So Riddle makes his 1st Horcrux.  Now 50% of his soul is in 
> horcrux #1 and 50% remains in his body.  
> 
> When Riddle makes the 2nd Horcrux, what is split?  The soul piece 
> which remained in his body after he made the 1st Horcrux?  If so,
> that 50% soul piece is now split, so Horcrux #3 contains 25% of
> his soul and Voldmort retains 25% in his body... 

> Is that the way it works?  Is my thinking on this too linear and 
> not "magical" enough?  Does this matter?  
> Questions/comments/theories?


Amiable Dorsai:
I can think of a few possibilities, assuming that mundane mathematics
applies to souls.  

Since Riddle knew what he planned to do from the beginning, perhaps he
contrived to split off only a seventh of his original soul for each
Horcrux.  
Or it could be that, in some sense, the soul fragments remain
connected--the "Harry is a Horcrux" crowd maintain that this
connection is what actually links Harry to Voldemort--so, there's no
reason to believe that the fragments wouldn't equilbrate over time. 
In other words, the half soul would "drain" into the quarter souls
until they were all thirds of souls, and so on as the splitting
progressed.

A third possibility is that, after a splitting, Riddle plays Ray
Charles CDs until he's absorbed enough soul to make another Horcrux.

Amiable Dorsai