Did Voldemort make use of a Horcrux already?

[Annemehr]

No: HPFGUIDX 165547

Inge queried:

> As most other subjects, this has probably been discussed earlier, 
> but I'm wondering if maybe Voldemort already used one of the 6 
> Horcruxes which he created.
> 
> What makes me ask is parts of the following speaches from Voldemort 
> in GOF, chap The Death Eaters
> 
> 1) (p 562): "And then I ask myself, but how could they have 
believed 
> I would not rise again? They, who knew the steps I took, long ago, 
> to gueard myself against mortal death? They, who had seen proofs of 
> the immensity of my power, in the times when I was mightier than 
any 
> wizard living?"
> 
> and later
> 
> 2) (p 566): "I was ripped from my body, I was less than spirit, 
less 
> than the meanest ghost... but still, I was alive. What I was, even 
I 
> do not know... I, who have gone further than anybody along the path 
> that leads to immortality. You know my goal - to conquer death. And 
> now, I was tested, AND IT APPEARED THAT ONE OR MORE OF MY 
> EXPERIMENTS HAD WORKED... (my highlights) for I had not been 
killed, 
> though the curse should have done it."
> 
> Ok, to me it appears that at the time Voldemort was hit by the 
> backfiring AK, he may have "died" and lost the soul-piece inside 
> him, which was at that exact moment replaced by one of the 
Horcruxes.
> 
> Too far off?
> 
> Inge

Annemehr:
Well, it's my understanding that the soul-piece that was still inside 
Voldemort when the AK hit him *was* the vapor that spent all those 
years in Albania, because it was tied to Earth by the pieces in 
Horcruxes.  That vapor-in-Albania one was the soul-piece that 
Voldemort knew as "I".  (I'm almost sure JKR confirmed this in an 
interview somewhere, but I couldn't find it.)  On the other hand, he 
never seemed to know that the Diary had been destroyed; I take it 
that this is because there is no self-knowledge in those detached 
pieces -- so that, bits of Voldemort's soul they may be, but they are 
not *Voldemort himself*.

On the other hand, the GoF quotes that you mention above make me 
think that Voldemort had tried other means of cheating death 
*besides* his Horcruxes.  For one thing, if DD is to be believed 
(yes, I know, "if"), the DEs don't know about the Hxes, and for 
another, "one or more experiments" sounds like he tried various 
*types* of things rather than just meaning multiple Hxes.

Reading your post, I remembered this bit of the post-HBP 
Leaky/Mugglenet interview:

"The one that I wondered whether I was going to be able to get past 
the editors was the physical condition of Voldemort before he went 
into the cauldron, do you remember?  He was kind of fetal.  I felt an 
almost visceral distaste for what I had conjured up, but there was a 
reason it was in there, and you will see that."

I wonder if the reason LV was able to get that fetal body was the 
result of some other of his "experiments."  Even though, it seems 
like there is already too much to deal with in DH without adding that 
in.

Annemehr,
hoping that the people are right who surmise that the resolution of 
the Hx problem will take rather less page time than might be expected