CHAPDISC: HBP 23, Horcruxes

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 160315

Pat wrote:
> 
> I'm starting to wonder if Voldemort has still been saving the last
> horcrux for Harry's death, thus Snape's insistence on "saving Harry
> for the Dark Lord."  Dumbledore was definitely uncertain as to the
> last horcrux, and so now I'm wondering if the DL has decided that
> Harry will be the Gryffindor horcrux.  Just a thought.
> 
> thanks,
> Pat, enjoying this chapter discussion and everyone's responses
>

Carol responds:
I'm a bit confused. "Saving the last Horcrux for Harry's death" and
making Harry a Horcrux are two different things, and essentially
incompatible. Dumbledore thinks that Voldemort intended to use Harry's
death to split his soul and then encase that soul bit in a Horcrux (an
object, preferably a powerful magical object that's unlikely to
corrode or be otherwise destroyed (to keep the soul bit from being
released). The diary (and Nagini, if she's a Horcrux, are atypical in
this respect). Voldemort would not want to make Harry into a Horcrux.
He wants Harry, the Chosen One who, according to the prophecy, can
defeat him, to be dead. If, as Snape tells the DEs, LV wants to kill
Harry himself, it may be because he still lacks a Horcrux and, as
before, wants to use Harry's murder to split his soul, but that
doesn't mean that he would make a Horcrux of Harry's body--hardly a
powerful magical object that's likely to endure forever like, say, the
locket or the cup.

Those who believe that Harry (or his scar) is a Horcrux believe that
it was made one accidentally when the soul bit entered Harry. I have a
different view. I think the cut on his forehead was caused by the
deflected AK bursting outward with renewed force, causing Voldemort's
body to be ripped apart and releasing his core soul fragment. I don't
think that the soul bit(s) from Lily's murder (and the various other
murders he had committed but hadn't used for Horcruxes) was floating
around loose and somehow made its way into Harry. Perhaps a drop of
Voldemort's magical blood got into Harry's cut and transferred some of
his powers to Harry. But Harry's soul is uncontaminated, as Dumbledore
has said, and I don't think that his scar is a Horcrux, either,
because a spell is required to encase the soul bit and no such spell
was used--only the killing curse that rebounded onto Voldemort.

So the question for me is only whether Nagini was already a Horcrux
and what the Ravenclaw object is. For others, its whether Harry is an
accidental Horcrux. But the idea that Voldemort might deliberately
make Harry a Horcrux, which IMO would require keeping him alive
forever, seems incompatible with Harry's death, which we know
Voldemort wants (and has attempted on at least three occasions, four
if we count Diary!Tom).

Carol, who thinks that Harry also has the power of possession, which
will play a role in the destruction of Voldemort