Do you agree? (Harry as Horcrux)

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 163783

Carol earlier:
> > <snip> 
> > On a side note, there's no proof that Tom Riddle created one or
more Horcruxes at sixteen, as some posters seem to take for granted. 
> 
> Mike:
> Maybe, but there is no proof that he didn't either. But there is
much  more canon that he did rather than didn't make a Horcrux at sixteen.
> 
Carol again:
Sigh. I don't agree. If he knew how to make the diary into a Horcrux,
he'd have known how to make the ring into one, but the ting wasn't a
Horcrux or he wouldn't have been wearing it. He'd already committed
four  murders (Myrtle and the Riddles), and if he could use one of
those murders, he could have used them all. His questions indicate
that he didn't know how to make a Horcrux. "Can you make more than
one?" is a silly question, IMO, and "isn't seven the most magical
number?" is a question that he should have known the answer to. Why
ask Slughorn, whom he knows will be shocked, such impractical
questions? His intention must have been to find out how to make one,
as he could not have done at Hogwarts with Dumbledore removing such
books from the library, and the other questions strike me as Tom
thinking out loud. To me, the answer to both questions is "Duh!"

Carol earlier:
> > His questions to Slughorn, and his unchanged appearance, indicate
that he had not yet done so. <snip>
> 
> Mike:
> I, for one, have no problem believing that Tom Riddle knew how to 
> play Slughorn after years in his house and being in the Slug Club. 
> Also, Dumbledore admitted that the possibility of multiple Horcruxes 
> was critical information to Tom. 

Carol again:
Of course he knew how to play Slughorn. Even Harry saw that. But he
wants crucial information that he doesn't get--how to make a Horcrux.
After that, he asks the two questions about multiple Horcruxes, both
of which to me seem self-evident. If he's researched Horcruxes and
knows how to make them, why bother to ask Slughorn anything? Just make
a second Horcurs (typo accidental but I'm keeping it), since a
suitable object is available and the first one will protect you from
death, and see what happens?

Mike:
Lastly, how much change in appearance does one Horcrux make? How do we
know Tom's appearance *didn't* change? I think you are assuming
information that is not in canon, not that you can't do that. But it
comes awkwardly after the sentence where you have averred that there
is "no proof".

Carol:
His appearance has not changed since Harry sees him after in the diary
memory, which obviously occurs before he's written the diary and
placed that memory in it. That Tom, the Tom he encounters in the CoS,
and the Tom who visits Slughorn (and has committed four murders) all
look virtually identical. The Tom who visits Hepzibah Smith, though
only a few years older, is paler and his face is thinner. Two
Horcruxes (the ring and the diary) have started to chip away at his
humanness. And, dear Mike, I did say there was no *proof* for your
side, but I didn't say there was no *evidence.* There's evidence on
both sides, but neither argument can be proven or we wouldn't be
having this discussion. And I don't see how my "assumption," which
I've just supported with canon, "comes awkwardly after" my remark
about "no proof" for the other side. The whole remark was an aside in
a post on another topic. It was an unsupported assertion, not an
assumption, and I've now provided the missing support. Look at the
three descriptions of Tom that I've cited, the first one indisputably
before he's made a Horcrux because he hasn't created the diary yet,
and see if you can find any differences. The only one I can see is
(momentarily) red eyes, and they could reflect murderous malice or
greed. Once he's created four Horcruxes, in the DADA interview, he's
markedly different (blurred features), and after a fifth and perhaps a
sixth, he's different again (snakelike).

> 
Carol earlier:
> > I don't think that the diary, though it contained one or more 
> > memories and was enchanted to be interactive (rather like the 
> > portraits, the Sorting Hat, and the Marauder's Map) was a 
> > Horcrux at this point. 
> 
> Mike:
> Ah, to the meat of the matter. You are referring to the *supposed* 
> diary's condition after creation as a repository of memories, but
not yet imbued with a soul piece. Since we have no knowledge of how
that particular diary would function, you can claim it operates any
way you would like and noone can reliably dispute it. Conversely, I
could say that the paintings, the Sorting Hat, and the Marauder's Map
have never manifested into human form (or nearly human had Harry not
stopped the process).

Carol:
The diary as originally created, to cause someone to open the Chamber
of Secrets, would not have required a Tom in human form. All he needed
to do was release the Basilisk and command it to "Carry on Salazar
Slytherin's noble work." Tom chose only objects that he saw as
valuable and powerfully magical to make into Horcruxes, and he would
not have viewed a Muggle diary with no memories in it in that light.
The diary, as Harry (or is it DD?) points out, was the proof that he
was the Heir of Slytherin because it contained a memory or memories
related to his opening the Chamber of Secrets. You're right that we
have no idea how such a diary would function, but we don't know how a
Pensieve functions, either. Both use a memory drawn from someone's
head and enable someone else to enter it. And the Sorting Hat, which
also interacts with someone's thoughts, contains part of the "brains"
of the Founders, not bits of their souls. (Three, at least, probably
never committed a murder, and JKR has said that the sorting Hat is not
a Horcrux, as it would be if it contained bits of *anyone's* soul.)

I'm not denying that diary!Tom became nearly human because the diary
was a Horcrux. We know that to be true. I'm saying that, as originally
written, the diary seems to have included the "memory of [Tom's
sixteen-year-old self"--a self who could not yet have made any
Horcruxes because he had not yet put himself in the diary (that
memory, it seems to me, would have to go in there, too). It was only
when the already valuable, already powerful diary received a soul bit,
after Tom learned how to make a Horcrux (perhaps from visiting
Grindelwald, who is in the books for a reason and seems to be the
wizard alluded to by Dumbledore in HBP as having made a Horcrux) that
he would have been able to possess anyone. And note that the original
purpose of the diary differs from the use to which it was put after
Diary!Tom learns about Harry. At first he only controls Ginny, making
her kill chickens, write on the walls, and order the Basilisk to
attack Muggleborns. When he learns about Harry, realizing that Harry
has somehow defeated his future self, he starts draining the life from
Ginny, in essence de-Horcruxifying the diary and creating a new body
for himself. I don't think that sort of thing was part of his original
intention. It only became possible after the diary, already proof that
he was the Heir of Slytherin, became a Horcrux. Again, Tom didn't turn
ordinary Muggle objects like mouth organs stolen from orphans into
Horcruxes. They had to have a special connection to him and his
history or his powers. The diary, like Nagini if she's a Horcrux,
links to Parseltongue and to Slytherin.

<snip>

Mike:
> As to Tom not creating the Horcrux when he was sixteen; this
presumes that the soul piece chose what age to become when it
rtegenerated into human form. The obvious question would be: Why
didn't the other soul piece we saw regenerate also choose a younger,
heathier form? Why did LV have to regenerate into the deformed state
that came out of the cauldron?

Carol responds:
Nothing of the sort. Diary!Tom is the age of the memory or memories
that Tom at that age put into the diary. His age when he created the
soul bit has nothing to do with it. Nor do I think that the other
Horcruxes have the same power as the diary as they contain no memory
along with the soul bit. Their purpose is to hold Voldemort's soul on
earth, not to reconstitute his body. The diary is unique in that
respect, IMO. As for the form Voldemort took when he came out of the
cauldron, it's the form he took after losing five or six bits of his
soul. It reflects his degenerate state and the loss of his humanity.
The Tom in the diary had killed only one person, Myrtle, and could not
yet have created *any* Horcruxes. He was in the process of deciding to
end the Basilisk attacks and frame Hagrid. *That* Tom was still fully
human except for a split soul. His appearance was not influenced by
that single murder. In essence, the Horcrux possessed the memory using
Ginny's soul, which was also unblemished.
> 
> I have to go with Tom Riddle's own words, "... preserving my sixteen-
> year-old self in its pages,..." (Cos ch 17). You may not consider 
> this to be proof, but combined with the fact that Tom did put a
piece of his soul in the diary, I'm not sure JKR could have made it
more clear without getting clinical. <snip>

Carol:
It isn't proof. Proof proves a point beyond dispute. It's only
evidence, just as "the memory of my sixteen-year-old self" is
evidence. And, of course, JKR couldn't be any plainer in CoS. She
couldn't give away the fact that the diary had become a Horcrux. But
"my sixteen-year-old self" is not the same thing as a soul bit. The
other Horcruxes don't preserve, say, his twenty-year-old self because
they don't contain memories in their pages. They don't even have
pages. They're not intended to store memories, as the diary had to do
if it was to enable the reader to release the Basilisk. They are only
containers for soul bits, anchoring the main soul, the one that
remained in Voldie till it was vaporized and then was given successive
bodily forms by Wormtail, to the earth, preventing death. That is the
reason for creating a Horcrux. The diary was created for another
purpose, to "carry on Salazar Slytherin's noble work." Tom says so
himself. 

And another thing--the soul bit would have come from his
sixteen-year-old self because he was sixteen when he murdered Myrtle
and his parents. So the soul bit, which would presumably cease to
grown and develop, being split off from the main soul, would be the
same age as memory!Tom regardless of when the Horcrux was created. (I
don't think the age of the soul bit matters, but if you think it does,
there's your answer.)

We can't take Tom Riddle's making a Horcrux at sixteen as fact. All we
know is that he created the diary, preserving the memory of his
sixteen-year-old self in his pages, as proof that he was the Heir of
Slytherin. Memory!Tom could have interacted with the reader much as
the Sorting Hat does, writing back and forth instead of speaking, and
taken the reader into the diary's pages, much like a self-activated
Pensieve, controlling and manipulating the reader without having the
power to possess them. We don't know how the diary would have worked
before it was a Horcrux, but we do know its original purpose and we do
know that Tom only made powerful magical objects into Horcruxes.

Carol, simply noting that Tom's making a Horcrux at sixteen is an
assumption, one way of reading the evidence, and that other readings
are equally valid at this point