LV's Offence of the Dark Arts - OODA 301

[Jen Reese]

No: HPFGUIDX 170397

Mike:
> Now, there is a spell that you use to remove this torn soul piece 
> from your body and encase it into an object. You will not be 
> learning that spell until after your O.W.L.S., that is if any of 
> you pass them. I won't have just any PDE out there trying to make
> Horcruxes, it is a very advanced magic. Most of you would end up 
> removing your whole soul as if you got sucked by a Dementor. 
<snip>
> LV: Can anybody else tell me why we *encase* the soul piece.
> Nott: Master, (pauses for LV to nod at him), Master we encase the 
> soul piece because otherwise it will fly off to beyond the veil and 
> be lost forever.

> LV: That's right. The whole purpose of a Horcrux is to anchor your 
> soul to this earth. While your soul is inside your body, it's 
> anchored but vulnerable. If you get killed, the soul escapes the 
> body and follows it's natural inclination to go beyond the veil. If
> you take your torn piece out of your body, but don't encase it with
> that spell, it's going beyond the veil too. Once you have a 
> Horcrux, no soul pieces can ever escape to beyond the veil. 


Jen: Now that I've laughed my way through your post twice, something 
occurred to me that's been tucked away in my subconcious: No matter 
that Slughorn talks about the spell as 'encasing' the soul, I've 
always thought the importance of the Horcrux spell is getting the 
torn soul bit *out* of the body and not the act of closing it up in a 
jar or what have you.  Because closing it up seems like elementary 
magic.

Getting the soul out though...until Horcruxes arrived the only way 
presented to remove the soul from the body was the Dementor's Kiss, 
not exactly depicted as a pleasant experience in the book if the Kiss 
is similar to the effect the Dementors have on Harry x 100 or the 
comparable number. 

A soul piece already ripped apart from the soul wouldn't be as 
strenuous an experience during removal but still, how to get the 
piece of soul *out* - wouldn't that be the tricky part of encasing 
the soul in an object?  The presentation of soul removal prior to 
Horcruxes coming into the picture seems like useful canon to consider 
for speculating the spell is what initiates the removal of the soul. 

Jen