The Diary!Horcrux Great Debate

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 163833

Carol earlier:
> > 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. <snip>
>
> Mike:
> The first one *is* the Diary!Tom, right? I'm not sure what you're 
> referring to. How can the first Tom be before he created the diary
if it is the diary? As to indisputable, sorry, as I've just said
above, it isn't indisputable that Diary!Tom looks that way after the
first Horcrux since imo Diary!Tom is the *result* of the first Horcrux.
>
Carol responds:
Sorry to be unclear. The first Tom is *not* the Tom that Harry
encounters in the Chamber of Secrets. There's the Tom in the *memory*
that Diary!Tom takes Harry into, the memory of his framing Hagrid that
he placed in the diary CoS chapter 13, "The Very Secret Diary," and
there's Diary!Tom himself, whom Harry encounters in chapter 17, "The
Heir of Slytherin." One is a memory, unaffected by the diary's being a
Horcrux. Harry can only observe him as he later observes the various
Pensieve memories, not interact with him in any way. He is as he was
near the end of his fifth year, after he killed Myrtle but before he
had created the diary that contains that memory. The other, Diary!Tom,
is a nearly flesh-and-blood being possessed of most of Ginny's soul.
They are not the same. The second one may be affected by the diary's
being a Horcrux (note the red eyes) though I don't think he has yet
killed his parents since he doesn't seem aware that his hated Muggle
father is dead. The first, though he has killed Myrtle using the
Basilisk, has not yet created the diary or even decided to place the
memory of himself into it. He's just figuring out how to keep Hogwarts
from closing and concluding that he has to close the Chamber of
Secrets and frame Hagrid. Soon after that, he decides to create the
diary as a way of carrying on Salazar Slytherin's "noble work." He
does so by placing *that* memory, and perhaps others, in the diary
(which he apparently enchants to make it interactive, much as the
Sorting Hat is). The memory that he placed in the diary has to have
occurred *before* he placed the memory it in the diary. Ergo, we're
seeing Tom as he looked before he had created any Horcruxes.

Also, I see no evidence that the Horcrux object has to be present at
the murder scene. (Sorry--snipped that part of your post.) Did he have
the diary in his pocket when he killed Myrtle or the Riddles? I doubt
it. He didn't go to Little Hangleton intending to find and kill his
father. He went there looking for the Gaunts, his Slytherin relatives.
And when he found out about "that Muggle," he killed his father for
revenge. Sure he took Morfin's ring, but he didn't kill Morfin. It was
a souvenir, just like the harmonica, only more valuable to him
personally. But he didn't make it into a Horcrux because, IMO, he
didn't know how. 

By your logic, he couldn't have used the murders of the elder Riddles
to make a Horcrux. He'd have to kill someone else because all he had
at that time was the diary (Myrtle's murder, surely) and the ring (his
father's murder). The other two murders were just wasted if he killed
only to create Horcruxes. Also, he should have turned the ring into a
Horcrux on the spot if he knew how to do so. The diary Horcrux, if it
were a Horcrux and not just proof that he was the Heir of Slytherin,
would have protected him from any harm. And though the cup and the
locket were both present at the murder of Hepzibah Smaith, the murder
was committed to obtain them. Only one of the objects, presumably the
cup, could be made into a Horcrux using her murder. For the locket,
he'd need someone else. By my reasoning, two soul fragments were
available, from his Riddle grandparents. Either one would do, though
he would probably prefer the grandfather's if he could distinguish
between them, because he was concerned with eradicating the Riddle
line. Why not use that one for the locket rather than taking the
locket with him to commit some other, unknown murder, unconnected to
his bloodline, which was by then extinct except for him? 

Nope. I just don't see the evidence that the object has to be present
at the murder, and I take his questions to slughorn as very strong
evidence that he didn't know how to create a Horcrux at that time. At
any rate, my view that any murder splits the soul and the soul bit
remains available until it's used in a Horcrux is irreconcilable with
your view that the Horcrux object must be present at the murder, for
which I can find no supporting evidence in canon. We'll never convince
each other. I just wanted to clarify my view regarding the different
Toms in CoS and why I'm sure we *do* know what pre-Horcrux Tom looked
like.

Carol, counting on a Grindelwald/Riddle connection to explain when and
how Tom learned to create Horcruxes and still certain that he did not
create one at age sixteen