If Dumbledore was wrong?

[Miss Wings]

What if Dumbledore had been wrong and Harry wasn't a Horcrux? What would have happened then?

[Kitty279]

The first thought I have was that he would have ended up being killed, as the AK would have hit Harry himself, not just the Horcrux. Beyond that, I'd be even more angry with the MOB for not verifying his theory (it doesn't sound as if a healer ever looked at it!) and sending Harry on that suicide mission needlessly.

Besides, I doubt it was a full Horcrux anyway. I mean, when did Riddle do the ritual necessary for it? That is way too dark to work accidentally and without any ritual, IMO, so in my eyes some sort of leech makes more sense.

[physicssquid]

I always thought that Voldemort had planned to use Harry's death for creating his sixth and final Horcrux, so would have completed the ritual he would have required before going to the cottage.

[Kitty279]

Yes, that's possible. BUT: If you do the ritual beforehand, wouldn't then the next killing seal the ritual? In that case it would have been the murder of James. So, if you can do the whole ritual before the murder, how is it possible that he could kill James, then Lily, and only with Harry it kicked in? At a moment when he couldn't even control it any longer? That's my problem with the whole theory.

[unbeastly]

I always thought he commited the murder and then split his soul rather than do the ritual and then kill the person. The way I understand it is that killing a person damages your soul and them you use that wound to tear it apart and place a piece of it into a vessel and that's why he didn't know he'd created another horcrux because he hadn't performed the ritual yet.

[Kitty279]

Yes, that was how I did read it initially, and that's why I don't see how that was supposed to be a real Horcrux, as he never had the time for any ritual. Personally, I think it more likely that you have to first kill and then finish the ritual, but we don't know much. Either way, I just can't see how that has been working. Doing the ritual beforehand would probably have activated it with the murder of James, and doing it after the killing of Harry wasn't possible, so how is that a Horcrux?

[unbeastly]

A horcrux is just a container for a piece of a persons soul so even though it was unintentional Harry was a horcrux but by that time Voldermort had created so many that the piece Harry got must have been tiny. I think that's why it had a smaller effect rather than taking over the way the piece in the diary did for Ginny.

[physicssquid]

What if the murder that is committed when creating a Horcrux is the murder of an innocent, not just a random person? Voldemort didn't just murder anyone when creating his Horcruxes. He wanted to use Harry's death as the catalyst, so wouldn't it be safe to say that because Harry was a mere babe, and therefore, an innocent, then the cold-blooded murder of an innocent is what is required?

[Kitty279]

Unbeastly, if just any container will do it without further preparation, and Voldemort had one with him, ready to take the soulpiece he was planning on using for Harry's murder, then why did the soulpiece latch onto Harry instead of the prepared container?

Physicssquid, I doubt that was it. As far as I remember, LV used the murder of his muggle family for one of the Horcruxes and Bertha Jorkins for Nagini. Neither of these were what I'd call innocent.

[unbeastly]

I don't think that it would be necessary to create it immediately, from what I can tell murdering someone leaves permanent wounds in your soul and as such wouldn't require the severing to happen immediately. Besides the ripping of Voldemorts soul at that point was an unintentional consequence of the rebounding curse and therefore he had no control over where it was going as such it fled to the nearest safe harbour which was Harry as the closest living being.

[Miss Wings]

Blimey this has certainly gotten interesting..

[Kitty279]

Exactly. It was unintentional and didn't go to the container Voldemort had intended. And if it just latched onto a living being - which isn't the standard soul container - that wasn't prepared to be a container, how was it a real Horcrux?

[teflonbilly]

It is never said that Harry is a horcrux in exactly the same sense as the others that Voldemort deliberately created.

I think it's blatantly obvious from the text as written that Voldemort never intended to create a Horcrux when he went to kill the Potters. That the tearing off of a piece of Voldemort's soul was a by-product of the killing curse backfiring from the wholly independent and unrelated invocation of Deep Magic by Lily when she protected Harry.

This tearing was only possibly (as Dumbledore said) by the already ragged and damaged state that Voldemort's soul was already from having created several previous Horcruxes.

This piece of Voldemort's soul latched onto the only still living being within close proximity, i.e. Harry.

However, it again, is clear from the text, that this soul shard (if you'll allow me to term it as such) was different than the previous deliberate Horcruxes in that it was not able to possess Harry as the Diary possessed Ginny, or the Locket nearly possessed Ron.

Showing that this soul shard did not have the complete retinue of capabilities that a properly created Horcrux would have.

Basically, the only thing that this piece of soul was able to provide was the immortality that Voldemort so desired as the other Horcruxes were capable of.

So, it suffices to say that the piece of Voldemort that latched onto Harry was a type of Horcrux (that is, a detached piece of a wizard's soul that grants a limited form of immortality upon the Earthly plane of existence) but it wasn't necessarily the same type of Horcrux that Voldemort had been creating deliberately on his own througout his career as a megalomaniacal madman.

TB

[physicssquid]

One thing I never fully understood was, whether that little shard was attached to Harry's body, or his own soul. That was never explained properly, but I got the impression that it was most likely attached to Harry's soul. I wonder if anyone else has any ideas, because that has never been explored, even in the various fics that feature time travel, though a few have mentioned it.

[teflonbilly]

Now that's a good question, and I personally am leaning towards your hypothesis of it attaching to Harry's soul.

Which again makes it different than a normal Horcrux for to destroy a Horcrux you had to physically destroy the vessel beyond even magical repair (which Harry's body, even his scar, was not so destroyed.)

TB

[Kitty279]

You know, that makes me wonder what would have happened if Harry had received the Dementor's kiss. Would they have sucked out both his soul and the soul piece, or only one of them? And which one would have been 'tastier' for them? If one could be sure they started with Moldyshorts and you could stop them in time, that could maybe have taken care of the problem. (Not that I wish that on Harry, mind you, just theoretically thinking)

As for the soul piece not being strong enough to possess Harry ... that might not even have to do with the question if it's a real Horcrux or not. The diary was the first Horcrux Voldemort made, I believe, so it would contain half of his soul. At least I believe that usually the remaining soul is split into two, not just some random piece split off. So, by the time of the attack on Godric's Hollow, how much of his soul did Voldemort have left? Even if it was half of it - or most of it - that latched onto Harry, it must have been pretty small and weak.

Sometimes I wonder - if they had killed snake-face with Nagini still alive, would the tiny piece in the snake even have been enough to still tie him to life? Would a tiny fracture of the soul be enough of an anchor?

Think about it like that:
Diary - 1/2 soul left
Ring - 1/4
Cup - 1/8
Locket - 1/16
Diadem - 1/32
Harry - 1/64
Nagini - 1/128
And even if it didn't always split straight in half, how much soul was truly left, both in Voldemort and in his last few soul anchors? The diary was a much better anchor than Nagini, I think, just from sheer size alone. Not to mention how fractured and unstable the rests were already in the end.

Besides ... if Voldemort couldn't touch Harry due to Lily's protection and it could even block the unblockable Killing Curse, how was a soul piece able to latch onto Harry? Should it not have been rejected under the circumstances?

[ayrine_sun]

first for the Demontors kiss, just ask yourself what you would eat, a good meal healthy and fresh or something rotten? It's the same with the demontors, Harry soul is innocent one, full of good and bad feelings but also there is happiness in it. it's a soul who love. Voldemort only feels hatred, anger mesprise and self-satisfaction, it wouldn't appeal a demontor IMHO, not nutritive at all.
also apart of risking Harry soul to be digested for eternity in a demontor stomach while having his body intact, in a contrary of the killing curse who well kill Harry but let his soul intact, there is the fact that being exposed to a demontor kiss and surviving it with your soul would be so terrible that Harry would probably end in St.Mango, the bed near the Longbottoms. Seriously, in his place, I had prefer death.

As for the division of the soul, splitting in half doesn't really mean 50 percent, it just a part of it, a soul isn't material, I can't see it being quantified. too weird.

as for the last, it's true that it's weird too, the soul latching but not being rejected. I do believe that Lily protection stopped Voldemort to possess Harry completely. Maybe because the soul isn't material as magic or physical touch it got past the protection but was limited. not very convincing? then the whole concept of the scare burning and visions would also be impossible. Kitty, you found another plot hole. again.

[ayrine_sun]

As for the diary being a better anchor, I don't know. In a way the soul was more stable and Voldemort was more sane then (compared to now) but Nagini is also the 6th part or 7th one, in theory the number 7 (in numerology) could boost the whole anchor thing. It's what I understood from the 6th book, the continual soul splitting was due to:
1-he wanted to use the diary to open the CoS.
2-he didn't want to take a risk if one of his Hoxcrux was to be found.
3-he used the number "7" to increase his chance of survival.

All in all. IMO it's like quantifying the wind, you can calculate its speed but not its quantity.

[Kitty279]

I don't know ... the Dementors are pretty rotten themselves, so they might like the bad soul piece first, too. Who knows their taste? But when you put it like that, Harry's soul sounds more tasty.

Yep, I'd prefer death, too, it's just wondering about the theory behind the whole thing.

But if you can split the soul, then it has to be diminished over time, right? Voldemort sacrificed one piece after another, put them into vessels - so, the soul in his own body can't have been whole. Even if it wasn't a split in half exactly, it was reduced over time, otherwise the whole Horcrux scheme makes no sense. So I wonder about the power each of these pieces had.

There are just too many plotholes when you try to think things through and consider the whole series as a whole, not just each book for itself. Sometimes I feel sorry for JKR because we are analysing her work so obsessively and keep finding mistakes

[ayrine_sun]

well, the more reasons to want to eat Harry's, my mom always says "wolves don't eat each others", plus demontors eat Happiness, so they would like, IMO, Harry's.

but does a soul diminish? for me a soul is immortal, you can only hurt it yourself, and everybody is responsible of their own. even if it is rotten, even if it's scared, it doesn't "fad out" or "weak". it can turn you into a saint or a devil, but it's still here. but well, that's metaphysics... Plus I never saw the Hoxcrux as real separation of the soul or else how could it be an anchor, it more complex than that?

anyway, what I can gives JK credit for is: a part of her mess up, she did create really complex characters and she knows them well.

[ayrine_sun]

another question: does a demontor kiss really sucks the soul or is it a metaphor? are the victims really soulless or are they just turned to vegetables due to the horror of being exposed to the demontor's effect X 1.000.000.000?
well, I always wondered this.