Neither Harry nor his Scar is a Horcrux (Was Re: Voldemort's Age)

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 170275

Steve/bboyminn wrote:
> <snipping>
> > Now, because the rebounding AK is such a rare and unusual event,
there could have been some special circumstances that allowed a stray
bit of Voldemort's soul to seek the nearest warm body. That warm body
being Harry, but that is a huge unfounded speculation.
> > 
> > A Horcrux might have been created, but Voldemort, by no means, did
the creating. If it happened, it was just a random fluke of magic.
> 
Jen replied: 

I believe this will be the explanation rather than anything connected
to a real or accidental Horcrux.  I wouldn't say it's completely
speculative however since there's canon in place which would explain
such an event.  I'm not suggesting anything you don't know Steve, but
the outline for what might have occurred is clear in the story, at
least as clear as the idea of powers and/or Voldemort's magic being
inside Harry to explain their connection.  Here it is: 
> 
> A) There's a mechanism in place for a soul piece to be completely 
> torn off from a whole soul if someone commits murder. 
> 
Carol replies:
A mechanism exists to tear the soul through murder, but, according to
Slughorn, a spell is required to encase the soul bit in an object (or
living creature, if DD is right about Nagini). At least we agree that
he didn't (and, IMO, wouldn't) deliberately make Harry a Horcrux
rather than killing or trying to kill him.

Jen:
> B)  Two murders were committed at GH and therefore two soul pieces 
were torn off.

Carol:
I'm not sure that James's death counts as a murder in terms of
soul-splitting. If Voldemort was planning to use the soul bit from
Harry's murder to create a Horcrux (and he had no spare soul bits
hanging around from murders he'd committed that weren't used to create
Horcruxes), I think he would have mader sure that James's death was
"self-defense" or a battle rather than straight-out murder like
Lily's, and he told Lily to "stand aside" because he wanted his last
Horcrux to be made from Harry's murder. It seems to me that he chose
to kill her finally because he had (in his view) no choice and because
killing Harry, the "one with the power to defeat the Dark Lord," was
more important than using that particular soul bit to create his last
Horcrux. 

Yes, Lily's murder would have freshly split his soul. But there's no
indication from DD (or JKR) that Voldemort has lost any parts of his
soul other than those he deliberately transferred to Horcruxes, yet he
apparently killed people before GH whose deaths weren't used for
Horcruxes. The question is whether the soul bits created by murders
other than those used to make Horcruxes (including James's if it
counts as a soul-splitting murder), as well as the fragment created
from Lily's murder, would have just floated away from the main soul
seeking a host to possess rather than staying with the main soul
because no Horcrux spell had been performed. I think that if any
soulbits were released when Voldie vaporized, they would have shared
the fate of soul bits in destroyed Horcruxes, floating off behind the
Veil. 

One thing's for sure: we know that Harry, unlike Ginny, is not
possessed (and her possession when she was killing the roosters and
releasing the Basilisk is different from what happened when
Horcrux!Tom actually started to steal her life force to make it his).
Nothing similar has happened to Harry, which to me indicates that he
isn't a Horcrux, accidental or otherwise. (If his scar is a Horcrux,
despite the absence of a Horcrux-creating spell, he must have some
protection to prevent the soul bit from corrupting or possessing him.
You'd think that Voldie sharing his blood would undo that protection
if it existed, but it hasn't done so. IOW, he hasn't suffered a fate
similar to Ginny's possession and near-death.) Anyway, I see no
evidence that a soul bit, which has to be encased in a Horcrux in
order to anchor Voldie's soul to earth, would seek out a host to
possess (if it did, destroying a Horcrux would not destroy the soul
bit; the soul bit would simply possess the destroyer of its "case" as
the nearest human to possess); no evidence that such a thing has
happened to Harry either at GH or when he destroyed the diary; no hope
for him if it happens when he destroys the locket and other Horcruxes;
no evidence that a soul bit can transfer powers (Ginny spoke
Parseltongue because she was being possessed, not because Diary!Tom's
powers were transferred to her).
> 
Jen:
> C)  A completely unexpected and unique event occurred when the AK 
rebounded and Harry was both 'marked' with a scar and acquired some 
of Voldemort's powers, an event explained by Dumbledore as Voldemort
'putting a bit of himself' into Harry.

Carol:
Actually, Dumbledore says, "You speak Parseltongue, Harry, because
Lord Voldemort ... can speak Parseltongue. Unless I'm much mistaken,
he transferred some of his own *powers* to you the night he gave you
that scar. Not something he intended to do, I'm sure." It's Harry who
says, "Voldemort put a bit of himself in me?" and DD replies, "It
certainly seems so" (CoS Am. ed.). In this context, "a bit of himself"
 means "some of his powers" rather than "a bit of his soul." I don't
think knowing about deliberately created Horcruxes, or the fact that
the diary was a Horcrux, need affect our reading of this passage. I
agree with Steve that Dumbledore would certainly have told Harry if he
even remotely suspected that Harry's scar could be an accidental Horcrux.
> 
> D)  The two share more than powers as the story progresses,
including being able to think each other's thoughts and feel each
other's feelings.

Carol:
Why would the sharing of powers increase because Harry or his scar is
an accidental Horcrux? It would have been one all along. Two things
happen to affect the strength of the scar connection. First, Voldemort
himself is becoming stronger, gaining first a rudimentary body and
then his resurrected former body (don't ask me how that could happen;
it's magic!). Second, he shares some of Harry's blood thanks to
Wormtails' restorative potion. (Of course, the mind link is currently
blocked by Occlumency, but otherwise, it would probably be even
stronger now than it was in OoP.) 

The scar itself forms the link; I think that somehow, perhaps through
a drop of voldemort's magical blood, some of Voldemort's *powers* got
into the cut that was created on Harry's forehead by the AK exploding
outward (an AK doesn't make a mark when it enters its victim). One of
those powers is obviously Parseltongue. The other powers we've seen
that are peculiar to Voldemort or stronger in him than in most wizards
include Legilimency (perhaps manifested in Harry solely through the
mind link; he doesn't seem to have any skill as a Legilimens in the
way that Snape does); possession (which Harry could use--I know you
don't like the idea because you consider it a Dark power) to possess
Voldemort and fill him so full of Love that he can't stand the pain);
and the ability to communicate with animals (which Harry doesn't seem
to share though I certainly expect some sort of conversation with
Voldemort's dear Nagini before Harry kills her, which I think he'll
have to do to destroy the Nagini Horcrux and free that soul bit). If
Harry acquired other powers, like the ability to make his enemies
suffer pain simply by willing it, we've seen no evidence of it, and
much as he wishes to Crucio Bella and Snape, I don't think he's enough
of a sadist ever to use such a power even if he had it. Anyway,
possession is the only power of Voldemort's other than Parseltongue
that I can imagine Harry finding a use for, and that only as a last
resort, a desperation measure. (The U.S. cover leads me to think that
something else will happen, though--Harry summoning Fawkes, maybe.)
> 
Jen:
> E) 'Neither can live while the other survives,' can have several 
interpretations including a metaphorical one.  My thought is 'living'
 constitutes what makes up a life, i.e., thoughts, feelings, actions 
and for wizards, magical powers.  So Harry and LV are sharing more
than powers as the story progresses, they are sharing elements of 
what it means to be alive.  A living soul piece would be a reason for
this while a transmission of powers appears to be an incomplete 
explanation for what they share.
> 
Carol:
But "neither can live while the other survives" implies that neither
is living *now.* Certainly, that's true for Voldemort, who is, as DD
says somewhere, not truly alive, having lost 6/7 of his soul
(pretending that JKR's arithmetic is mathematically sound and that the
first murder would somehow create a fragment that was 1/7 of the
whole, as if a soul were a tangible object divisible into parts in the
first place). As for Harry, metaphorically, he, too, is surviving
rather than living because so much of his life is devoted to the
contest with Voldemort (and, erm, Quidditch). He barely has time for a
relationship with Ginny and seems to me rather emotionally stunted
(not even being aware of the names of his own classmates and having no
close friends outside a very small circle. I think that's
changing--he's certainly more aware of Luna and Neville as people
worthy of compassion and understanding, but his emotional needs always
seem to supersede those of Ron or Hermione; I don't see him making
much effort to understand their needs and a lot of effort on their
part, despite occasional slip-ups like the GoF incident, to understand
his.) Anyway, my idea is that the quest to defeat Voldemort is the
last stage in Harry's journey to completeness (emotional development,
compassion, maturity, etc.) and the victory over Voldemort will enable
him to really "live" rather than surviving, passing time and acquiring
the skills and knowledge to destroy Voldemort. He'll finally be able
to live and love like an ordinary young wizard. He'll finally be "Just
Harry," which is all he's wanted all along. (Maybe he'll even lose his
scar.) Voldemort, in contrast, has permanently forfeited his chance to
"live" rather than "survive" by making his first Horcrux and losing
part of his soul in his evil and unnatural quest for earthly
immortality. There can be no life and no redemption) for him, only
death or some other form of utter and permanent destruction.

Steve/bboy:
> > But, the problem with this theory is that the fount of all
knowledge about the connection between Harry and Voldemort, as well as
our source of knowledge about Horcruxes, an additional fount of
magical knowledge, and our authority on the general Harry/Voldemort
dynamic is all Dumbledore, and Dumbledore, while he seems to
understand the connection, gives no indication that he thinks the bit
of Voldemort in Harry is a piece of Voldemort's soul. 
> 
Jen:
>  This is the hardest obstacle to overcome in my opinion and yet JKR
has again provided possibilities which are part of Dumbledore's 
character to explain why he didn't pursue a soul piece with Harry: 
Perhaps Dumbledore envisioned the first conversation about Horcruxes 
as the time to introduce the topic and not bring up events at GH, 
especially - as Pippin noted - if he wasn't certain.  Perhaps he 
expected to have another opportunity to broach the topic with Harry 
and died first.  Perhaps this was one of the occasions in book 6 JKR
was referring to when she said, "immense brainpower does not protect
you from  emotional mistakes..." in reference to Dumbledore, meaning
he couldn't bear the thought of Harry having a piece of LV in him and
what that would mean.  An obstacle, yes, but not an insurmountable 
one in my opinion.  
> 
Carol"
Perhaps. ;-) But my feeling is that Dumbledore told Harry everything
that he knew or guessed about Voldemort and the Horcruxes before
embarking with him on what he knew would be a very dangerous journey,
particularly to himself. I don't think he would have gone after the
Horcrux in the cave without first telling Harry everything Harry
needed to know. And though he didn't tell Harry everything concerning
Snape, Harry knows that. (He forgets it in the hospital wing, but I
certainly hoe he remembers that DD never actually told him why he
trusts Snape.) He does, however, tell Harry everything that he knows
or guesses about Voldemort, including, IMO, everything he knows or
guesses about the Horcruxes. Not to tell Harry that his scar might be
a Horcrux, or at least contain a soul bit without being a true Horcrux
since no encasing spell was performed, would be unconscionable, IMO.

Carol, whose hopes for DH include Harry's not being a Horcrux in any
way, shape, or form
>