Do you agree? (Harry as Horcrux)

[Neri]

No: HPFGUIDX 164070

 
> Geoff:
> <snipped>
> Ever since I read HBP and the long drawn-out threads began to analyse, 
> dissect and theorise over these objects, I have increasingly found them 
> annoying. We have talked recently about the wizard soul and, in message 
> 163780, I posed the rhetorical questions "However, if a person is made 
> into a Horcrux, where does the soul piece reside? Indeed, what form 
> does a soul fragment take? Where does our own soul reside for that 
> matter? Can we see it, touch it?"
> 
> As a Christian, I ponder over where my soul is. I suppose that many of 
> us think of it as being inside our heads, like thoughts and feelings
etc. 
> But the fact is that I, along with other believers like myself,
consider that,
> although it is an intangible, it covers more than our thoughts and  
> feelings. It is the essential 'me' which I believe will go into the
afterlife.
> 
> The fact that JKR is manipulating something which is intangible rather 
> like a specific object is what both puzzles and annoys me.<snip>


Neri:
I definitely agree that the whole discussion about Horcruxes has
become way too mechanistic. Probably much more mechanistic than JKR
herself had meant in the first place. Potterverse magic isn't very
mechanistic to begin with, especially in its deeper levels, and
Potterverse souls are based on a deep moral and religious concept.
Therefore I doubt there is any meaning in asking "where in the body is
the Potterversian soul located?". It's a question that arose largely
out of good intentions: the hope that it would be possible to
de-horcrux Harry like getting rid of a brain tumor or something. But
I'm pretty certain that if Harry will have to get rid of Voldemort's
soul bit in Book 7, it won't be a mechanical process. Yes, it is
possible that Harry will lose his scar together with the soul-bit, but
it will only be a symbol. It doesn't mean that the soul-bit resides
*in* the scar, and you could get rid of it by erasing the scar from
Harry's forehead with Mrs. Scower's All-Purpose Magical Mess Remover,
or something of that sort.

It is true that encasing souls inside objects sounds mechanistic, but
who does such things in the Potterverse? Only super evil wizards like
Voldemort. And as Slughorn explains, it is an act against nature. The
soul was never meant to be manipulated, cut to pieces and encased, and
Voldemort is going to pay dearly for treating it that way.  

So, if Harry has a Voldemort soul-bit in him (as a Horcrux or not) the
reasons for it will be thematic, and the method of removing it
(assuming it is removed at all) will be thematic too, not mechanistic.
My current top three guesses are, in no particular order, are:

1. Harry will make a choice to sacrifice himself, therefore making it
impossible for the Voldemort soul-bit to reside in him (this was
already foreshadowed in the way Harry banished Voldemort in the
Ministry in the end of OotP).

2. The soul-bit itself, after many years of living inside Harry, makes
a choice to redeem itself by departing.

3. The soul-bit becomes a part of Harry, therefore severing its
connection with the rest of Voldemort's soul parts and no more
functioning s a Horcrux.


Neri