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

[elfundeb]

No: HPFGUIDX 170284

Carol:
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.

Debbie:
This seems half-right to me, with the difference being that I expect that
any soul-bit that is released from the body without being encased in a
horcrux (I can hardly stop from writing whorecrux) automatically seeks The
Next Great Adventure.  However, I'm not sure that destroying a horcrux
doesn't damage the soul bit to the point that it cannot escape beyond the
veil.  (This question, which I cannot answer for certain, metaphorically
touches on the question of Voldemort's redeemability, but I see the
destruction of a horcrux as bringing the evil one ( i.e., Voldemort) one
step closer to his final fate, rather than releasing a piece of soul that
can rejoin the soul's remaining core.)

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.)

Debbie:
In my mind, encasing a horcrux with one's body is very different from being
possessed, and therefore, the fact (established clearly in OOP) that
Harry has not been possessed (except for that brief moment at the MoM) has
no bearing on the Harrycrux theory.  It's an entirely different thing, as
the horcrux acts as a coffin.  I tend to see any Harrycrux as embedded in
the scar and/or in his forehead.  Because all pieces of the same soul have
an affinity for one another and share certain qualities, Harry feels
Voldemort's visceral emotions and sometimes can perceive specific events.
However, all the evidence is that Harry's own soul remains distinct, and
dominates his understanding.  In other words, Harry can feel the presence of
whatever Voldy transferred to him, but it doesn't overpower or control him.
Voldemort can only do that in the usual way, as he does (briefly) at the
MoM.

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."

Debbie:
This is just a matter of interpretation.  You think Dumbledore's statement
is intended to exclude the transfer of a soul; I think he was deliberately
ambiguous because he had no knowledge, only conjectures.

Carol:
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.

Debbie:
I believe we've aired our disagreement on this point before, but taking into
consideration Dumbledore's past history of withholding information from
Harry, his willingness to let people -- especially Harry -- figure things
out for himself, and the uncertainty about whether a horcrux can be created
accidentally (which I'm certain is unprecedented), I think he'd be very wary
of sharing a theory with Harry which implies that the only solution is for
Harry to sacrifice himself.

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!).

Debbie:
I propose that, just as Sirius' feelings were less acute in animal
form (enabling him to escape from Azkaban), Voldemort's feelings were less
discernible to Harry until Voldemort was restored to an adult human body.
Even for that short time between Voldemort's rebirth and his employment of
Occlumency, Harry only shared Voldemort's emotions when they were
particularly powerful.  Harry's capacity to share Voldemort's feelings did
not change, but Voldemort's feelings became more powerful.

And more importantly, Voldemort's feelings don't rob Harry of the ability to
think independently, indicating that Harry's own soul is intact.  Harry is
most vulnerable to Voldemort's emotions when he is tired or sleeping, i.e.,
when his mind is most open to outside influence.  There are circumstances
that make him feel the presence of the horcrux more, but it is encased
within the scar, or his head, or whatever, and is not merged with Harry.

I have an unposted dissertation on Harrycrux theories in my drafts folder.
Maybe I should do something about it before it becomes obsolete. ;-)

Debbie
who has all the W.O.M.B.A.T. answers (she thinks) but is having computer
problems and hasn't taken the test


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