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

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 170376

Jen:
> I'd say it all comes back to the prophecy.  If Harry is marked as
Voldemort's equal and 'either must die at the hand of the other' that
means they should be equitable (except for the 'power the Dark Lord
knows not').  As a Horcrux, Harry would be acting as an anchor for
Voldemort and keeping him from being killed but Harry wouldn't be 
equal to him in this way. <snip>

Carol:
Exactly. Which pretty much destroys the Harry!Horcrux argument right
there. 
> 
Jen:
> Which brings me to what some will think is a very odd 
conclusion....the possibility that Harry is *also* immortal right now,
anchored to Voldemort's Horcruxes because he shares part of 
Voldemort's soul.  And what power does Harry have that the 'Dark Lord
knows not'?  The power to love, to be willing to destroy the 
Horcruxes and sacrifice himself if it comes to that in order for 
Voldemort to be destroyed.  Voldemort *can't* do the same in order to
destroy Harry because he's never known love.

Carol:
But Horcruxes are the antithesis of Love, and being a Horcrux seems
antithetical to using Love magic to conquer Voldemort. Also, I don't
see how having a bit of *Voldemort's* soul in him would make Harry
immortal, any more than Nagini, however long-lived a magical snake may
be, is immortal because she's a Horcrux (if she is, and I think DD is
right). We know that Horcruxes can be destroyed, as both the diary and
the ring have been. Why would Harry!Horcrux be any different?

Also, though this may not matter to people who aren't DDM!Snapers,
Snape's attempts to protect Harry would be stripped of their thematic
significance if Harry were immortal. And wouldn't Harry have died from
the Basilisk venom if it hadn't been for Fawkes's tears? He certainly
didn't seem immortal in that scene?

As I said, before, I think that the "bit" of Voldemor that entered
Harry's cut and gave him some of Voldemort's powers was physical. The
"gleam" in Dumbledore's eye when he learned that the resurrected
Voldemort had some of Harry's blood in him could have been a
recognition that the same thing had happened to *Harry*--he was
"marked as Voldemort's equal" not by the scar per se but by what was
in it, a bit of Voldemort's magical blood, now sealed inside the scar.

As for the question someone (Deb?) asked about what happened to the
soul bit from Lily's murder, possibly nothing happened to it at all.
Voldie probably had a lot of unused soul bits from various murders,
which would need to be detached and encased by a Horcrux spell before
they could leave the main soul. Normally, of course, a soul bit would
remain within the murderer until and unless it was placed in a
Horcrux. We have no indication that the soul bit from Lily's murder or
any of the others would just fly off looking for a host, nor, if a
soul bit could possess someone, would it need a cut to enter through.
Are all the soul bits from all those other murders Voldie committed
still flying around looking for hosts? Clearly, they haven't found
them or we'd have heard about it. 

I think that *if* any soul bits came loose and detached themselves
from the main soul, they went behind the Veil. More likely, without a
Horcrux spell to detach them, they remained with the main soul, like a
loose tooth ready to be pulled or a perforated postage stamp ready to
be detached from the main sheet, because they were anchored to the
main soul by the Horcruxes. *If* they could escape, surely they'd have
gone behind the Veil, free to die. I don't think that's what's
happened, though. Voldie has lost the 6/7 of his soul that he's
deliberately placed in Horcruxes and retains one seventh (2/7 at that
point because he hadn't yet made his last Horcrux). Yes, the math is
odd--killing wouldn't automatically split off 1/7 of a soul, but it's
JKR's math, not mine).

Anyway, I see no need to complicate the plot by making Harry a
Horcrux. Just let him share some of Voldie's powers (we need to see at
least one more in DH) and the scar connection, as he already does, and
destroy the four remaining Horcruxes (with help, probably) as we've
been promised. I expect and hope that the heart of DH will be Harry's
emotional development, not some magical complication making him the
human equivalent of the Hufflepuff Cup. Harry is not a superhero. The
whole point of the books is that he's an ordinary wizarding boy with a
unique history, one or two unusual powers (Parseltongue and a mental
link to Voldemort and Love), a lot of luck, a lot of courage and
resourcefulness, and loyal friends--a boy who seems to be outmatched
by his enemy but who will win the conflict through those means, not
because he's an accidental Horcrux. Or so I fervently hope.

Carol, who thinks that the whole David/Goliath aspect of the
Harry/Voldemort conflict would be ruined if Harry were immortal, and
"either must die at the hand of the other" suggests that he *can* die