Question #4--Why so long for the last Horcrux?

[kennyg1864]

No: HPFGUIDX 183404


We know that LV created the first 4 Horcruxes between roughly 1941
(ring) and 1945 (cup and locket).  I'm assuming the diadem was shortly
thereafter.

(side question about the locket:  Does the basin on the island in the
cave automatically refill, once correctly emptied by drinking?  i.e.,
after RAB stole the real one, how did the fake one get covered by
potion, to be retrieved years later by Harry and DD?  Or did RAB re-do
the potion curse, so that LV wouldn't suspect anything?)

Thus by 1946 or so, LV's soul is in 6 pieces (5 H's + LV himself).  But
IIRC he wanted it to be in the mystical 7 pieces.  So he created an H in
Nagini (in 1994).

Now clearly his motivation in using Nagini was that he wanted an H that
was close by, due to his near-death in 1981.  But the question remains:

Why did he wait almost 5o years for the mystical 7th piece?  Obviously
he didn't have much opportunity to do so from 1981 to 1994.  But if the
7th piece was so important, why did he waste 35 years (1946-1981) *not*
creating it?  And especially in the period between 1946 and 1970, when
he "came out" as LV (no longer Riddle), he would want to have "ultimate
protection", since the formation of a group like the OotP was
inevitable.

Or is it that the "magical 7 parts" is not as important as I recall it
to be, and therefore Nagini was just a fail-safe born out of fear, not
the mystical 7th?

kennyg1864, who is now aware that Nagini is female, which means Voldy's
sorta got two girlfriends, kinda like Hef :-)