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

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 170399

Carol earlier:
> <snip>
> > 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.
> 
> Jen:  Well, I can nod along with most of your paragraph except for
Harry being equivalent to Hufflepuff's cup!  I don't think he'll win
because he has a soul piece; a soul piece would only explain what
happened at Godric's Hollow and why Harry and Voldemort are connected
 by the scar.  The premise I accept for why Harry will vanquish 
Voldemort is that he possesses a power Voldemort 'has not at all,' 
which makes possible Harry's loyal friendships, the ability to call
objects and beings/beasts to him when needed most and his willingness
 to sacrifice himself for others.  None of those characteristics come
from an LV soul piece inside of him but from his own 'untarnished and
whole' soul.

Carol again:
Well, we're not too far apart, then, if all we disagree on is the
*mechanism* by which Harry acquired his connection to Voldemort and
some of Voldemort's powers. You think it's a soul piedc: I think it's
a drop of Voldemort's magical blood. (More on that later if I
remember.) As long as Harry isn't a Horcrux helping to anchor voldie's
soul to earth and having to be killed or destroyed, which leads into
the vicious circle of how he can kill Voldemort if he has to be killed
to make voldemort mortal, I can live with the mechanism being a soul
piece--not an accidental Horcrux or a Horcrux of any kind (the human
equivalent of Hufflepuff's cup), and not possession because we know
he's not possessed, but the cause of the mind link and Voldie!powers,
which I agree make Harry uniquely capable of defeating Voldemort. I
just don't think that it's possible to create an accidental Horcrux
and don't think that Harry or his scar is one, whatever caused the
mind link and shared powers. (I think, again, that DD was right about
the Horcruxes and that he would have mentioned the possibility of
Harry's being one if it were at all possible.) Maybe at some point
he'll *think* he's a Horcrux and be willing to sacrifice himself, but
the power will defeat Voldie is *Love*, not a soul piece or a drop of
blood or whatever *caused* the connection between Harry and Voldemort.
I'd bet my books on that. (I won't go so far as to eat the Sorting
Hat, though!) So maybe we're making too big a deal about what caused
the transfer of some of Voldie's powers to Harry and forged the mind
link; maybe it's the powers and the mind link themselves that matter
(along with Love, of course).

About the drop of blood idea, which I still like: When Voldie needed
to resurrect his old body (and I do think it's his old body magically
reconstituted and not a replica with different DNA--he could have
chosen to look like his father or his younger self if he were creating
a new body; instead, he gets the same snakelike face that he had
before): the ingredients (besides whatever was in the potion in the
first place--and it's interesting that this potion requires an
incantiation to work--we haven't seen that before) are the bone of the
father, which I suppose forms the skeleton; blood of an enemy, which
of course forms the blood and maybe the whole circulatory system; and
the flesh of a servant, which would form the skin, muscles, etc.
Obviously, they're not the skeleton of his father, the flesh and
muscles of Wormtail, and Harry's blood--they magically transform into
his own. But it seems that the blood of the enemy has to be magical
blood--Wormtail says that they could use "another witch or wizard--any
wizard" (GoF Am. ed. 8-9) rather than Harry to speed up the
process--nothing about using a Muggle (one of which is conveniently at
hand). So I still think, based on that scene and lines like "not a
drop of magical blood in their veins" (as applied to the Dursleys that
magical power is in the blood. Voldemort specifically wants Harry's
because of the Love protection; otherwise, he might agree to use "any
witch or wizard."

At any rate, regardless of what kind of "bit (soul piece or magical
blood) got into Harry's cut and gave him some of voldies' powers and
made the scar a mind link, I think it's the scar itself and its
assortied powers (Parseltongue, the mind link, possibly possession)
that matters. As for the power of summoning animals to him that you
mentioned, if you mean Fawkes in CoS, I think the protection was
arranged in advance by Dumbledore: loyalty to DD summoned Fawkes to
him, carrying the Sorting Hat (Fawkes on his own clawed out the
Basilisk's eyes and healed Harry's wound, probably); crying for help
and thinking "help me!" as he put on the Sorting Hat caused the Sword
of Gryffindor to fall out ("help will always come to those who ask for
it"). as for only a true Gryffindor pulling the sword out of the hat,
Harry didn't pull it out; it fell out--and probably only a true
Gryffindor would have gone down there in the first place, and DD had a
very shrewd idea which one(s) it would be. Anyway, it you compare DD's
words in Hagrid's hut with what actually happened, it's pretty clear
that he put the protections in place. And Riddle knows it: "So that's
what Dumbledore sends his defender--a song bird and an old hat"
(quoted from memory in all cases--sorry).

Anyway, I don't think that Harry's soul piece, if he has one and I'm
not convinced that he does, acts as one of the anchors for Voldemort's
main soul, and if it doesn't do that, neither Harry nor his scar is a
Horcrux. He merely has, as we already knew, some of Voldie's powers
and a mind link to the Dark Lord who caused the scar by trying to kill
him. (I still think it was caused by the AK bursting outward since an
AK doesn't cause a scar going in. the scar didn't form first and cause
a shield that deflected the curse or anything like that; it was still
an open cut when Hagrid placed Harry on the Dursleys' porch.)

Carol, glad that Jen abandoned the idea of Immortal Hero!Harry <eg>