The Scar

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 159850

Anne Squires wrote:
> > Also, does anyone else think that Harry was able to destroy the
horcrux in the diary without injuring himself because he is a horcrux,
or rather has a horcrux in him (the scar)?  When DD destroyed the
horcrux in the ring he was obviously grievously injured; however,
Harry suffered no ill effects from destroying the horcrux in the
diary.  Maybe by being marked as Voldemort's equal LV inadvertently
gave Harry the ability to destroy horcuxes without injuring himself.
Perhaps Harry is the only person alive who can destroy a horcrux and
suffer no ill effects.
> 
> 
> SSSusan:
> I have looked at this in a very different way.  I believe the
difference between the diary horcrux, which was fairly easily
destroyed by Harry with the basilisk fang, without damage to himself,
and the ring horcrux, which caused significant injury to DD, was how
the two objects were intended to be *used.*  IOW, the ring horcrux was
designed only to house a soul bit and not for some other purpose. 
Whereas the diary was an artifact designed *to be used* -- to be read,
to be written in, to interact with the person holding it.  For this
reason alone I would say that the two horcruxes were "set up"
differently, and that could explain why Harry did not suffer ill
effect while destroying the diary.

Carol responds:
I agree with this paragraph completely. The original purpose of the
diary was to continue "Salazar Slytherin's noble work" and in doing
so, prove Tom to be Slytherin's heir. When he put the memory of his
sixteen-year-old self into the diary, presumably as soon as he
realized that he could not continue to release the Basilisk without
causing the school to be closed down, he had not killed anyone except
Myrtle (using the Basilisk) and was concerned about killing Mudbloods,
not making Horcruxes. The diary retained this purpose after he made it
into a Horcrux, but he needed at least one more that was not
interactive or easily destroyed to serve the usual purpose of a
Horcrux, anchoring the soul to the earth and consequently preventing
death even after the body is destroyed.

Harry did, of course, come near death in the destruction of the diary
(only Fawkes's tears saved him), and he used the fang of the Basilisk
that bit him to destroy the diary, or rather the soul bit and the
memory of young Tom that lived inside it, but it's possible that the
diary could have been destroyed by burning. Too bad Ginny didn't take
that route rather than throwing it into a toilet, which had no effect
on its magical powers. 
> 
SSS:
> In addition to this, the diary hx was likely the first made by Tom, 
> correct?  The ring came later, when, presumably, he was more adept
at the magic involved in creation & protection of horcruxes.  I could 
> easily see each subsequent horcrux having more elaborate (and more 
> deadly) protections placed upon it.

Carol:
Here I only partly agree with you. Yes, the diary was probably the
first Horcrux, but it was not a Horcrux when it was first made, only
an instrument for preserving Tom's *memory* and releasing the
Basilisk, as Diary!Tom tells Harry in CoS. He must have "written" it
before he killed his parents and before he talked to Slughorn, i.e.
before he knew how to create a Horcrux. And of course the ring is not
yet a Horcrux in Slughorn's memory or he wouldn't be wearing it or
asking how to create a Horcrux. (I disagree with those who think he
would wait behind simply to ask whether you can make multiple
Horcruxes. Shy not just try it and see?) I think he found out just
enough from Slughorn (you have to split your soul through murder,
which he had already done, and you have to perform a spell) to spur
him to do more research. With Dumbledore watching him, he would not
have found what he needed at Hogwarts, but maybe he visited
Grindelwald after the murders or maybe he found what he needed at
Borgin and Burkes'. 

IMO, he created those first two Horcruxes at about the same time,
after graduation but before he killed Hepzibah Smith and escaped from
England, probably because his changed appearance from the two new
Horcruxes made it impossible to return to B&B (or because he had no
more use for them). I don't think sophistication has anything to do
with it. If you can create a Horcrux, you can add a terrible
protective curse like the one on the ring if you want to. In the case
of the diary, he didn't want to. It had to be used for its original
purpose as well as for housing the soul bit, and it could not be
hidden or locked away or protected by a curse because the person it
interacted with had to write in it.

I suspect that the locket and the cup, like the ring, are protected by
curses that will be activated when they are opened (the "unopenable"
locket) or cracked open (the cup) as the ring was. (I also suspect
that the Curse Breaker Bill Weasley will be the victim of the locket's
curse and will either die or be saved by Snape, but I'm getting a bit OT.)

As to whether Harry is the only one who can destroy a Horcrux without
being harmed, that remains to be seen. The diary, an interactive
Horcrux, proves nothing one way or the other, and Dumbledore didn't
die from the ring Horcrux because he was saved by Snape (though I do
think it greatly weakened him). Maybe the "powers" that Harry
inherited from Voldemort include the ability to destroy a Horcrux
without being harmed by the curse, but I doubt it, just as I doubt
that either he or his scar is a Horcrux. (Surely, Dumbledore would
know and would owe him that explanation?)

Carol, sure that Snape's knowledge of the Dark Arts and his surprising
healing powers fit into the Horcrux picture somewhere