Horcrux question

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 187803

zanooda wrote:
> 
> I'm not sure the cup Horcrux could play serious mind tricks on Hermione, because it just didn't have enough time to find out what her fears and weaknesses were. Ron has been in contact with the locket for weeks, maybe even months (I can't remember right now when exactly he left, but HRH had the locket from the beginning of September). 
> 
> The soul bit in the locket knew exactly *how* to torment Ron, because it had enough time to establish the connection with him ("I have seen your heart, and it is mine"). Besides, Ron seems much more susceptible to "mind tricks" than Harry and Hermione, just look how Veelas affect him :-). So even if the cup tried something on Hermione in the Chamber of Secrets, it was probably not that effective, IMO.

Carol responds:
I would add that, unlike a locket or a ring, which can be worn (or the ring could have been worn if it weren't cursed!) or a diary with which the reader is forced to interact, a cup can probably interact with its user only if it's drunk out of. I imagine that the tiara, which can also be worn, would interact with anyone who put it on and become somehow addictive (just as it was to Helena Ravenclaw before it even became a Horcrux). The wearer, however, would probably keep it secret just as Ginny kept the diary secret. But how can you wear a cup or otherwise interact with it? Only by drinking from it. What it would do to you then or how it would influence your mind, I can't guess. I'm quite sure that's why the cup (in a way, the "safest" Horcrux) is the only one that was destroyed offpage.

I'm not denying Ron's susceptibility (though I don't think that the others were entirely immune to the Horcrux), but I think the fact that he wore the locket (near his heart) for prolonged periods had a lot to do with it, just as Ginny reacted directly with the diary (and was taken in by Tom's charm and seeming empathy). Probably, if the ring hadn't been cursed (possibly because in the ruins of the Gaunts' hovel, it was the least protected of the Horcruxes except the diary), it would have worked on the mind of the wearer in much the same way as the locket or (theoretically) the tiara.

Carol, who imagines that the cup behaved exactly as Harry says the locket did when Ron stabbed it--it screamed and nothing else