Those dam Hordevours!

[Judy]

I said, regarding Tom Riddle using the "soul tears" from old murders:
> > This assumes one can "save up" the soul fragments from a murder 
> > and use them later, which I doubt.  I suspect that horcrux must 
> > be made 
> > at or immemdiately after the time of the murder.


and Jo said:
> I'm curious why do you doubt this?
>
> The way I see it is that we are told murder tears the soul, but not 
> that the remnant promptly exits stage left. Why would it?  DD 
> indicates that there is a primary bit of soul, the one still with 
> Voldy, that appears to anchor all the others. 
> 
> A rip caused by murder would, I imagine, remain entire unless the 
> individual attempted to heal it (remorse, reparation etc). Creating 
> a HRX, to me, implies removing the off cut and depositing it 
> elsewhere, something that can be done any time or place, subsequent 
> to the death, that you choose.

Good post, Jo, I copied the whole thing instead of excerpting.

Going back and looking at Slughorn's description of the horcrux, I 
agree there is nothing that says the murder must be recent. However, 
being able to say, "Hey!  I murdered some guy twenty years ago, I 
just realized I can make a horcrux!" seems, well, too easy.  Hermione 
finds a book saying the horcrux is the "wickedest of magical 
inventions", so wicked that the book "Magick Moste Evile" refuses to 
discuss it.  The topic is banned at Hogwarts, and Dumbledore is 
adamant about the ban.  If the problem with horcruxes was that only 
murderers could make them, that doesn't seem evil enough to get this 
treatment. AK is discussed openly, and there are plenty of murderers 
in the wizarding world.  So, I was thinking that it had to be more 
than just a murder in one's past, and that an unwilling human 
sacrifice was part of the actual creation of the horcrux.  

However, I was just talking to a friend, and she said that perhaps 
the murder isn't what makes the horcrux so evil.  What makes it so 
evil, maybe, is how it permanently separates the soul -- she compared 
it to selling your soul to the devil.  So, that is another 
possibility.

As for what happens to one's torn soul long after committing murder, 
I definitely don't think the fragment of soul leaves.  We've seen 
that, when Tom Riddle got rid of fragments of his soul, he became 
less human, even in appearance.  Having part of your soul leave you 
seems to be very rare.  I was thinking more that the horcrux could 
only be made when the rip in the soul was fresh.  After a time, the 
rip would sort of scar over.  But that is just speculation.  I hadn't 
thought of repentance as being needed to heal the soul; I like that 
idea.

-- Judy