Tom Riddle and the Diary!Horcrux

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 161328

Carol earlier:
> > It's altogether a different sort of thing. Tom Riddle could
> > have placed a memory or memories of himself at sixteen in
> > the diary for 1943, months or even years before he made it into a
> > Horcrux encasing a soul bit. (The diary was already, as Dumbledore
> > said, valuable to Tom because it proved that he was the Heir of
> > Slytherin. and that proof was in his memories, not in the soul bit
> > that anchored his core soul to the earth.) <snip>
>
> Mike:
> The problem with your scenario is that there isn't simply memories
> in the diary of Tom at sixteen. The diary!revenant has a long
> conversation with Harry that displays knowledge, learning,
> intelligent thought and memories. All of these qualities are
> displayed from the perspective of a sixteen-year-old Tom that has
> learned new things from Ginny. Memories aren't knowledge, they can't
> think for themselves. But the diary!revenant does think for itself
> and does have knowledge and skills of a sixteen-year-old Tom.
>
> In my scenario, Tom's memories of openning the Chamber and
> everything else are in the diary because they come with the soul
> piece. And the ability to open the Chamber with the diary exists
> with the soul piece. So my scenario keeps the diary just as valuable
> to Tom, if not more, it really can open the Chamber from the
> beginning.
>
> Your scenario requires Tom to select which sixteen-year-old memories
> he thinks will be useful, how he could determine this you haven't
> explained. And still the diary is useless as a tool to open the
> Chamber until it got the soul piece. We only saw one memory from
> Tom's fifth year, his framing of Hagrid. But we did see an
> intelligent being, sixteen years of age. How does the it make sense
> that the diary!revenant is sixteen if it generates from an older
> soul piece?
>
Carol responds:
Sigh! I'd really like to drop this thread, as I see your point but
don't agree with it. To reiterate briefly, in my view, the diary was
created when Tom was sixteen with memories from the year 1943, but it
was not at that time a Horcrux. Instead of writing a diary, he simply
placed in key memories at key dates to prove that he was the Heir of
Slytherin. He may have added charms to make it interactive with the
intent of reopening the Chamber of Secrets. But what you're calling
Revenant!Tom only came into existence when the diary, already a
powerful magical object of value to Tom, was turned into a Horcrux by
the addition of a soul bit. At that point, the memory of Tom as a
collective entity became capable of possession and independent thought
beyond interacting with the reader. (For example, he could change his
motivation from killing "Mudbloods," the origingal purpose of the
diary, to focusing on Harry--meeting and killing him. What he knew of
Harry, he of course learned from Ginny.) I've already explained how I
think the diary could interact with a reader without being a Horcrux.
Just look at the book that compelled a reader to keep reading and
never put it down. Ron warns Harry that books can be dangerous, and
Mr. Weasley warns him of the dangers of objects that can think for
themselves. (Look at the Sorting Hat--not dangerous, but it contains
some of the "brains"--not souls--of the Four Founders. It can think
for itself and interact with anyone whose head it sits on, but it
isn't a Horcrux.)

Why didn't Revenant!Tom, as you call him, have any memories later than
age sixteen? Because the soul bit, whenever it was placed in the
diary--not necessarily at age sixteen, when Tom himself tells Slughorn
that he doesn't know how to make a Horcrux--was split off after a
murder committed when Tom was sixteen. So even if the soul bit
incorporates additional memories, not those originally implanted in
the book like the one that Harry was invited into, those memories
don't go beyond the time of the murder or the original creation of the
diary.

I can't tell whether the murder is that of Moaning Myrtle--the diary
was created after her murder, after Dumbledore's "annoyingly close
watch" on Tom prompted Tom to put the memory of his sixteen-year-old
self into the diary--or the murder of his father, which Tom doesn't
mention but GoF!Voldemort does. I tend to think that it was the Myrtle
soul bit, which fits with the purpose of the diary and is significant
as his first murder. It makes sense to me (sense from Tom's pov) to
use Myrtle's murder for the diary and his father's for the ring. But
neither soul bit would extend the memories any farther than his
sixteenth year even if a soul bit contains memories.

I still don't think that it does. IOW, I think that the diary contains
memories because it's supposed to be interactive, but the other
Horcruxes exist solely to encase the main soul and anchor it to earth.

I'm not surprised at the inconsistencies in JKR's descriptions, for
example, having memories quite clearly in the brain in the DoM scene,
yet saying that the self is in the soul, which is why the Dementors
are so terrible. (I'd like to know how Barty Jr. is living with a
brain but not a soul, but I don't think we're going to see him.) But
I'm quite sure that a soul bit is distinct from a memory, and that it
was an ordinary, Pensieve-type memory that Harry fell into in the
diary. I'm also quite sure that no other Horcrux contains what you
call Revenant!Tom, which came into being specifically because of the
interactive nature of this particular Horcrux.

Incidentally, I think that Dumbledore simply destroyed the ring
Horcrux, and with it the soul bit (which was probably released to go
beyond the Veil rather than destroyed because the soul is immortal).
He was attacked by the protective curse on the ring, but there's no
evidence that he was possessed or that he encountered a Memory!Tom
like the one in the diary.

Carol, sure that the diary was originally intended for another purpose
and was made into a Horcrux at a later time using a soul bit from a
murder committed when Tom was sixteen