Tom Riddle and the Diary!Horcrux

[Mike]

No: HPFGUIDX 161144

Carol, I don't think I explained my theory very well the first time, 
my evidence being that you used many of my conclusions as if they 
argued against my position. So forgive me, I'd like to try to 
clarify.

> > Mike previously:
> > 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.

Mike now:
Two things come out of this Lupin quote. First, memories reside in 
the soul and, second, your sense of *self* comes from your soul. 
Both of theses are important to the Diary Horcrux. 

With Tom putting a piece of soul into the diary he is putting in all 
of his memories up to the point of Horcrux creation. Think of every 
year of Tom's life as a movie. Instead of having to pick scenes out 
of each movie to download into the diary, he has downloaded every 
movie instead. He doesn't have to guess which scenes will be needed 
later on when the diary is deployed, he has every scene possible, 
they all reside within the soul piece.

Now, Tom being the genius that he is, he figures out how to 
incorporate a Pensieve-like device into the diary. With the addition 
of the Pensieve device, the interactive soul piece can chose which 
memory to display Pensieve-like to it's audience. There is no need 
for Tom to chose which memories to put in the diary, he has put 
*all* of them in and the interactive soul will chose which ones to 
*play*.

Then he goes one step further, and this is the real key to the 
potency of the diary, he figures out how to allow the soul piece to 
be interactive. He animates the soul piece if you will. The soul 
piece containing Tom's knowledge and memories to date of creation 
has now been endowed with the ability to use the knowledge and 
memories to fully interact within the limits of the tools at hand. 
That is, it can respond intelligently through written word, it, like 
LV in his spectoral state, can possess another, and as it comes 
close to regenerating a body it becomes a functional entity that can 
wield a wand.

When Lupin tells us that without a soul you'll have no memories, it 
follows that the soul, or in this case each bit of soul, *has* all 
the memories. The soul that survived Godric's Hollow retained all of 
LV's memories and knowledge. And although we have all used the term 
*main soul piece* (myself included) there is no canon to support this
reading. Dumbledore refers to that "seventh piece of soul" not the 
main soul piece. The piece of soul in the diary has shown that it 
not only retains Tom's memories but, through it's interactive 
abilities, has continued to learn. Just as Vapormort had not only 
retained all his memories but also acquired new memories and 
knowledge right up through his regeneration. 

There is every reason to believe that, if given an ability to 
interact, every soul piece could interact as well as the soul piece 
that was Vapormort and that now resides in Voldemort's regenerated 
body. Certainly the diary soul piece showed all the abilities that 
Vapormort displayed with the caveat that being *encased* in the 
diary, it was not free roaming, if you will. It could only interact 
with the person in possession of the diary.

>  
> Carol responds:
> <snip>
> Yes, it's the soul bit that possessed Ginny and enabled Diary!Tom 
> to put a bit of his soul back into her, but that may not be the 
> original purpose of the diary, which DiaryTom specifically says is 
> to open the Chamber of secrets and release the monster. Bear in 
> mind that that's exactly how the diary is used until Diary!Tom 
> learns about Harry from Ginny, at which point "killing Muggleborns 
> [didn't] matter to him anymore and he became obsessed with talking 
> to Harry.

Mike:
See, this is what I was talking about, Carol. You've made two 
critical points here that bolster my theory and you make them as if 
they run counter. Marbles in the mouth slurs the speech, how did I 
get that to transition to my writing? Oh well, try, try again.

How was the diary designed to get the Chamber of Secrets open? By 
possession! Very early on in CoS, the Basilisk has already been 
released (Harry hears it during his detention with Lockhart that he 
got from the flying car arrival). Ginny is already strangling 
roosters and has no memory of where she was, but after a lapse in 
memory finds herself covered with blood. Possession was the method 
that the diary was intended to use to get the Chamber open, or else 
the diary was going to have to find a Parselmouth, wouldn't it?

And what says that the intention wasn't to completely possess and 
attempt to regenerate a body while stealing the soul/life force out 
of the victim? The diary soul piece did almost succeed in doing just 
that. Why couldn't that have been the plan all along? JKR has 
revealed that if Diary!Tom had succeeded in regenerating it would 
have greatly increased Voldemort's power. Doesn't this sound like 
she envisioned this as Voldemort's intention with regards to the 
diary Horcrux?

I'll step into the world of speculation here. If Voldemort is not 
yet immortal and settling for just getting his "old body" 
back, "embracing mortal life" again before "chasing immortality", 
what does he still need to do to become immortal? I submit that he 
has not yet conquered aging. In fact, just the opposite, he has 
ravaged his "mortal" body, his "old body". How could he get a *new* 
body? If the diary horcrux succeeds in stealing the life force from 
a witch or wizard, there would be a fully functional, young Tom 
Riddle body in the WW. This body is anchored to the sixteen-year-old 
soul piece in the diary. The theory might be that while anchored to 
the sixteen-year-old soul the body remains forever sixteen. Then the 
Voldemort soul in the "old body" is removed to a new Horcrux, after 
transferring all of it's knowledge/skills/memories into the sixteen-
year-old body. Tom/Voldemort would still have his seven part soul 
and all of his magical abilities are residing in a never-aging body. 
Pure speculation, and it can't happen now. But it sure sheds light 
on "his anger was terrible to behold" when he found out what Lucius 
did with his diary.

Back to Carol's points:

> The memory Harry enters acts exactly like a memory taken from 
> Snape's or Dumbledore's head (or poured from a vial)--memories 
> that are not soul bits <snip>

Mike:
Right. The memories come *from* the soul piece and are *played* 
through the Pensieve feature that Tom incorporated into the diary.
Tom made the soul interactive so it could chose what to say to the 
whomever wrote in the diary and it could reveal whichever memory 
that it wished to reveal. Think of it this way. How would the memory 
of Tom framing Hagrid for openning the Chamber advance the process 
towards the goal of openning the *real* Chamber? Wouldn't that 
memory confuse the issue, lead one in the wrong direction? On the 
other hand, if the soul piece has, as you said above, refocused on 
gaining Harry's confidence, then this memory is revealed for a 
completely different intent. It demonstrates that the diary soul has 
not only the ability to think, it can also reveal whichever memory 
it thinks will achieve it's new goal.

> Carol again:
> So, IMO, it's just a memory. Diary!Tom remembers what he knew 
> when he created the diary--to "carry on Salazar Slytherin's noble 
> work." 

Mike:
Right again! Diary!Tom, the soul piece, remembers not only this 
memory, but all Tom's memories. Like I said above, how would showing 
a potential victim that Hagrid opened the Chamber lead that victim 
down the path towards openning the real Chamber? Obviously it 
doesn't. But conditions have changed. The Chamber has already been 
opened by Ginny. Tom is now giving an alternate explanation (a false 
one) for how the Chamber got opened 50 years ago. If the diary is 
only meant to get the chamber re-opened and the memories have been 
preselected, why would Tom be preselecting a memory that explains 
falsely how the Chamber was opened 50 years ago *to* the person that 
is openning it now? Do you think the diary showed Ginny that memory?


> Carol again:
> <snip>
> He would also have placed additional spells on it to make it
> interactive and to control the reader (an Imperius curse would
> do the job) 

Mike:
Here I'll have to disagree. The Imperious curse is placed on one 
wizard by another wizard. A soul performing possession is canon, a 
wizard casting Imperious through a book onto another wizard is too 
far of a stretch for me and it isn't needed.

> Carol continues:
> and he may well have added a few more memories from that
> year so he knew about the "annoyingly close watch" DD kept 
> on him after that. <snip>

Mike:
Once again, a soul bit with all of Tom's memories. No need to guess 
and preselect which ones might be needed.

Carol continues:
> But even though Diary!Tom is empowereed by the soul bit, I don't 
> think he knows that. He just knows that in life he had the power 
> to possess people and as a memory he retains that power. <snip>

Mike:
OK Carol, now your getting silly ;-) A memory that retains the power 
to possess? Down post you quote Dumbledore when he said, "A mere 
memory starting to act and think for itself? A mere memory, sapping 
the life out of the girl...?" We both know that it was the soul 
piece doing the possessing.


> Carol responds:
> "Revenant Tom"? Can you explain how you're using that term and 
> whether it's somehow different from Diary!Tom, who refers to 
> himself as a memory? <snip>

Mike:
Sorry for mixing around the names. I refer to Diary!Tom while he is 
still in the diary and Revenant!Tom when he has assumed human form 
down in the Chamber. They are both the animated soul piece, Revenant!
Tom is just further along the path towards regeneration as a human.

> Carol:
> <snip>  --information that Diary!Tom apparently didn't have.
> There's no evidence that he had yet killed his father, only that 
> he hated him and didn't want to use his name, <snip>

Mike:
Ahh, but if Tom had killed his father and used that murder to make 
his first Horcrux he wouldn't want to reveal any piece of that 
information to Harry. He wouldn't and doesn't broach any part of the 
story that has anything to do with Horcruxes. And there is no 
evidence that he *hadn't* yet killed his father, either. This is as 
good as time as any to talk about when he made this Diary!Horcrux.

Revenant!Tom said, "I decided to leave behind a diary, preserving my 
sixteen-year-old self in its pages, ..." (CoS p.312,US). Four pages 
earlier Revenant!Tom refers to himself as a "memory". Well, what 
would you expect him to say? A Horcrux? A Piece of Soul? After the 
fact, we know that he *was* a Horcrux, Dumbledore explained it in 
HBP. 

In this above quote, Tom says he preserved his 16-year-old **self**. 
Why doesn't (JKR have) Tom say he preserved his 16-year-old 
*memories* in the diary? Because he didn't just preserve memories, 
he preserved his "self" and your sense of "self" is intrinsic to 
your soul, Lupin said so. I take you back to Lupin's explanation 
that without a soul you have no "sense of self". I'm not of the 
opinion that JKR accidently used the same terms.

So what do we have:
1. Tom Riddle made a Horcrux by encasing a soul piece into a diary.
2. This diary is interactive with the person possessing it.
3. Souls and soul pieces retain the power of possession.
4. The diary soul piece possessed Ginny.
5. Sense of self is retained in the soul.
6. The diary revenant claims to have preserved his 16-year-old self.
7. Souls and soul pieces retain knowledge and memory.
8. The memories of Diary!Tom stop at what 16-year-old Tom Riddle 
knows, not including what he learned from present day interactions.

Thats my canon that shows that the Diary!Horcrux was made by a 
sixteen-year-old Tom Riddle. Is there any canon that refutes any of 
these? 

> Carol again:
> in Slughorn's memory, which occurs some time after he's killed his
> Muggle relatives but before he knows how to make a Horcrux, or he
> wouldn't be wearing the ring. Nor would he ask those questions:
> "But how do you split your soul?"  "How do you encase the soul 
> bit"? etc. Surely not knowing whether you can split your soul more 
> than once is not sufficiently important to risk discovery for. If 
> he knew that he'd *already* split his soul and knew how to make a 
> Horcrux, he would just do it! <snip>

Mike:
Yep, I think he did just do it, when he killed his father. And 
Dumbledore said that what Tom wanted to particularly learn from 
Slughorn was the question about splitting your soul more than once. 
He said that Tom knew he wouldn't get that information from a book. 
Speaking of books, isn't that where Tom learned how to create a 
Horcrux? Whether you believe it was before or after this 
conversation with Slughorn, Slughorn obviously didn't tell him how 
to do it. But Slughorn did give an opinion about multiple Horcruxes, 
however grudgingly. So what makes you so sure that Tom didn't learn 
how to make Horcruxes from a book before this conversation and only 
wanted Slughorn's opinion, the one that he couldn't get from a book? 
Tom certainly deftly maneuvers Slughorn all the way to the question 
of multiple Horcruxes, then stops there. If he didn't even know what 
a Horcrux was before this conversation, what would take him all the 
way to the point of asking about multiple Horcruxes?

> Carol responds:
> <snip>
> You haven't proven that Memory!Tom, who *calls himself a memory*
> and talks about placing the *memory* of his sixteen-year-old 
> self in the diary *so that the Chamber can be opened again* is 
> himself a soul bit. I think he's *empowered* by the soul bit
> beyond the original function of the diary. The Pensieve proves that
> memories are not soul bits. They can't possess anyone, nor is Harry
> possessed when he enters the memory. <snip>

Mike:
I hope I have now.