Horcrux References at Hogwarts - banned books in ROR

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 165855

Dondee wrote:
> In Slughorn's true memory, Slughorn says to Riddel...
>
> "But all the same, Tom...keep it quiet, what I've told - that's to
say, what we've discussed. People wouldn't like to think we've been
chatting about Horcruxes. It's a banned subject at Hogwarts, you
know...Dumbledore's particularly fierce about it..."(HBP pg. 499)
>
> This conversation took place when Dumbledore was Transfiguration
teacher and Dippet was Headmaster. My guess is that the topic of
horcruxes had been banned by the School Governors and the Ministry
long before. Horcruxes are seriously dark magic and no way would any
of the authorities want kids learning about or discussing it. As for
how Riddle found out about them, I can imagine him skulking about
Nocturne Alley on his summers off and reading any dark arts book he
could get his hands on.
>
Carol responds:
Thanks for the canon. As you say, Tom certainly didn't find out about
Horcruxes through any book in the Hogwarts library. Possibly he'd
heard older Slytherins talking about them, or maybe there was a rumor
that Grindelwald had one, which would be a reason for Dumbledore's
fierce opposition and the banning of the topic. Nor did Slughorn
provide sufficient information when Tom questioned him for Tom to
create a Horcrux despite his having already comeeited four murders
(counting Myrtle).

A lot of people assume that Tom created his first Horcruxes while he
was still at Hogwarts, but I disagree. I think that the diary was
exactly what Dumbledore called it, an object "with a powerful magical
history" and "proof that Tom was the Heir of Slytherin" (HBP Am. ed.
505). IMO, it originally contained a memory and was designed to lure
the reader into opening the Chamber of Secrets--exactly what Lucius
Malfoy thought it was--but was not yet a Horcrux capable of possessing
the reader. The diary had to be "special" (Harry's word) *before* it
was chosen as a Horcrux to fit Tom's pattern of choosing objects
"wothy of the honor" of being a Horcrux (505). So the idea that tom
had made Horcruxes at sixteen, or at any rate, soon after the
unhelpful interview with Slughorn (at which point he was wearing the
ring) remains an assumption, not a canon fact.

But Tom had clearly made at least one and probably two Horcruxes (the
ring and the diary) by the time he killed Hepzibah Smith to acquire
the locket and the cup. At that time he was working at Borgin and
Burke's, in Knockturn Alley--just the place to find out more
information on Horcruxes. Another possibility, of course, is a visit
to Grindelwald in the summer of 1945, just after he left Hogwarts and
before he began working at Borgin and Burke's, not coincidently the
same year that Dumbledore defeated Grindelwald (probably by destroying
his Horcrux, IMO).

I don't know, of course, that Grindelwald had a Horcrux, but DD says
that both he and LV know of a wizard who had one, and as Grindelwald
is identified as a Dark wizard defeated by Dumbledore in the same year
that Tom Riddle left Hogwarts, it's a logical assumption that
Grindelwald is that wizard.

Carol, remembering DD's words about Voldemort consorting with "the
worst of our kind" and pretty sure that he had Grindelwald in mind