Harry as a "Horcrux"--my view (long!)

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 164062

Julie wrote:
> <snip>
> Reasonably solid conjecture based on canon:
>
> We've heard no direct canon on what happens to the separate soul
pieces when a soul is "torn" and the wizard doesn't encase one of them
in a Horcrux. Still, it doesn't seem likely they leave the body and
"float" about, so if one doesn't removed the piece and place it in a
Horcrux, then the torn piece remains within the body. (Presumably this
is what happened with Snape, if he has in fact killed before
Dumbledore, or he did actually kill Dumbledore thus tearing his soul.
Not to mention the state of all the other DEs who've committed murder
for Voldemort).

Carol responds:
This part I agree with.
>
Julie:
> We also have no direct canon on what happens to a soul piece after a
Horcrux is destroyed. Is the soul piece destroyed along with it? Can a
soul piece be destroyed? Canon only mention the destruction of the
Horcruxes, not the soul pieces, so I would assume the soul pieces do
survive, and in this case "float" off somewhere, beyond the veil or
into some other plane where they remain in some sort of waiting mode.
<snip>

Carol responds:

I would think that a soul, and consequently a soul bit, is immortal
and indestructible. (I mistakenly thought that DD referred to
destroyed soul bits, but the reference was to destroyed Horcruxes;
consequently I'm reposting and deleting the old post.) The whole idea
of a soul is that it's the part of a person that has eternal life,
even after the body dies, which is what makes the idea of a Dementor
sucking out someone's soul so disturbing. So the question is, what
happens to a soul bit when a Horcrux is destroyed? Is the soul bit, in
contrast to the damaged main soul, which will presumably go beyond the
Veil when Voldie dies, somehow mortal? Are the soul bits from the
destroyed Horcruxes now dead, gone, nonexistent? 

To me, it seems more likely that they've gone beyond the Veil, where
the main soul would already be because of the AK if it weren't for the
Horcruxes "anchoring" it to the earth. Clearly, the soul bits
themselves aren't "anchored" like the main soul, or there would be no
point in destroying the Horcruxes. Dumbledore says, "[A] withered hand
does not seem an unreasonable exchange for a seventh of Voldemort's
soul" (HBP Am. ed. 503). So The soul bits from the two destroyed
Horcruxes are clearly gone, if not necessarily destroyed themselves.
They're not floating around looking for a host. And if a soul bit
that's been detached from the main soul and placed in a Horcrux to
anchor the main soul is not itself anchored by other Horcruxes (if it
were, DD would not speak of the soul bits from the destroyed Horcruxes
as if they'd been destroyed along with the Horcrux), I don't see how a
loose soul bit (if the soul bit is actually detached by the murder and
not merely perforated, so to speak, so that it can be detached later)
could do anything other than what the soul bits released from the
Horcruxes appear to do, seek their eternal home beyond the Veil.

I don't think, for example, that it would seek a host, e.g., the
nearest wizard, to possess. We know, for example, that Harry wasn't
possessed by a loose soul bit at GH since OoP extablishes that he's
not possessed (except briefly in the MoM), and the soul bit in the
diary was a special case. It had the *memory* of sixteen-year-old Tom
as a body to reanimate him, and it had Ginny's soul to leech out and
be absorbed into him. The soul bit itself could not reanimate him, nor
did it turn Ginny into a Horcrux, or a Voldemort in a female body, by
permanently possessing her.

If all the Horcruxes had the power to possess a person interacting
with them, there could conceivably be seven Voldemorts in seven
different bodies, one of them the real Voldemort and the rest
Horcrux!morts. Instead, the other (nondiary) Horcruxes merely "anchor"
a soul bit, and, if the ring is any indication, attack the person who
tries to destroy them with a powerful curse. I seriously doubt that a
soul bit can normally possess a person or float around aimlessly
waiting (for what?). IMO, a soul fragment remains with the murderer,
as you say, until and unless it's encased in a Horcrux. Only in the
special case of the interactive diary could a soul bit possess anyone,
and in that case, it drained the person's soul to "feed" Diary!Tom and
bring him to life with someone else's soul. I doubt whether even
Voldemort himself anticipated that outcome. (What would have happened
if Diary!Tom met Vapormort, or the real Voldemort in any form? Could
he have planned or hoped for such an encounter?)

Carol Trelawney, who correctly predicted that it would snow in Tucson
last night but didn't anticipate how that would effect subsequent
events or the prematurely posted original version of this message