Tom Riddle and the Diary!Horcrux

[Mike]

No: HPFGUIDX 161043

"I grew powerful, far more powerful than little Miss Weasley. 
Powerful enough to start feeding Miss Weasley a few of *my* secrets, 
to start pouring a little of *my* soul back into *her*..." (Cos 
p.310, US)

It occured to me while reading the Chapter Discussion about 
Horcruxes that we may have enough information to make a diffinitive 
conclusion regarding the Diary Horcrux. Much of the evidence comes 
in CoS, the conversation between Revenant Tom and Harry. But let's 
start in PoA.

Our dear Remus informs us that if a Dementor *kisses* you to remove 
your soul, "you'll have no sense of self anymore, no memory, no... 
anything", leaving you an empty shell. This certainly speaks to the 
conclusion that in the Potterverse your memories must reside in your 
soul. The soul that is Vapormort retains all his knowledge of magic, 
all his memories. With no contradicting evidence and only affirming 
evidence, this must be the case.

Take this information back to CoS. Harry's encounter with Diary Soul 
Piece (DSP) is first through disappearing-written conversation that 
transitions to a *Pensieve* memory viewing. Note how Harry falls 
into the scene the same way one falls into a Pensieve scene and how 
Harry's first encounter with DD's Pensieve in GoF reminds him of 
this encounter with DSP. True to the way a Pensieve performs, Harry 
is unseen and unheard but observes everything that happens as if he 
is really there. These two pieces of magic, the Pensieve ability and 
the disappearing written conversation feature, are two things that 
Tom magically loads into the diary.

Let's move on to what the Diary!Tom knew. Off stage, Ginny tells the 
DSP all she knows about the great Harry Potter from her pov. Fast 
forward to the conversation between Harry and DSP as Revenant!Tom. 
Careful reading of that conversation reveals that Revenant!Tom knows 
only what his 16-year-old self knows combined with the knowledge he 
has received from Ginny. As an example: Why Harry survived 
Voldemort's attack is knowledge that Tom wants but couldn't get from 
Ginny. Please note also that this Tom already knows that Salazar 
Slytherin's blood runs in his veins and that his father was 
a "filthy Muggle".

But also note that Revenant!Tom has knowledge and memories of his 
own; Tom Marvolo Riddle anagrams into Lord Voldemort, Dumbledore's 
response to Tom's opening the Chamber re Hagrid, not trusting Tom, 
keeping an annoyingly close watch on him, Lily's *Love-Charm-
Protection* as a powerful counter-charm, etc. The memory that Harry 
visited Pensieve-style is only one of these memories. 

Put this all together. Diary Soul Piece is the repository of the 
memories and the memories stop at what 16-year-old Tom knew 
(augmented by what he learned from Ginny and subsequently Harry).  
Plus the DSP has cognitive abilities so he can converse 
intelligently, first through diary writing then as an almost fully 
formed revenant human. The diary has the Pensieve ability and 
writing ability to allow the primary contact to proceed towards the 
ultimate goal of possesion and regeneration into revenant form.

Tom "decided to leave behind a diary, preserving my sixteen-year-old 
self in its pages," and his method of preserving his *self* was via 
a soul piece, a Horcrux. 

I am assuming that Tom spent his Holidays at Hogwarts, just like 
Harry did. In fact, since the memory Harry visited showed Tom 
attempting to remain over the summer at Hogwarts, this seems the 
most logical conclusion. The diary was Muggle made for the year 
1943. Tom must have bought (or stole) it during the summer of '43, 
just after his fifth year but most likely before he visited his 
ancestoral hovel. He would never have found a '43 diary later and he 
couldn't preserve his 16-year-old self after 1943. 

So, Tom acquired the Diary with the express intent of making it a 
Horcrux and made that Horcrux while he was still 16. He also 
murdered his father and grandparents when he was 16 and framed his 
uncle for those murders. Logic tells me that he brought the diary 
with him and performed the Horcrux encasing spell when he does the 
killing, at his father's house.

It is my opinion that removing a torn soul piece to it's encasement 
must be done in close proximity to the murder that is performed for 
that purpose. Envision a Lord Voldemort having murdered enough times 
to create an "army" of Inferi, not to mention murders that didn't 
become Inferi. If he could remove those torn soul pieces at any 
time, he would be taking a big risk of removing too much soul by the 
time he gets to his Godric Hollow attempt. Furthermore, it would 
render Dumbledore's opinion that Voldemort reserves his Horcrux 
making for "significant" murders as nonsensical. If you can remove a 
torn soul piece at any time because it stays seperate from the main 
soul, how does one "reserve" making a Horcrux? No, IMO a torn soul 
piece remains attached to the main soul and eventually reforms to it 
unless it is completely seperated and removed upon it's tearing.

Therefore, before he starts his sixth year at Hogwarts, Tom has 
created his first Horcrux. This sheds new light on the Slughorn 
memory. It now appears that Tom really did know how to create a 
Horcrux before that conversation, and all he really wanted is what 
Dumbledore said he was really after. Tom wanted Slughorn's opinion 
on *multiple* Horcruxes.

OK, Carol, Steve, Snow, et al, what did I miss?

Mike