A reflection on Horcruces and Dumbledore

[terri-testing.livejournal.com]

I've argued before that Dumbledore knew from the start that Harry had become Tom's Horcrux.

But, if he were as smart as he thought he were, he should have realized that that fact alone proved that Riddle had others (or some other means of avoiding death when his body was destroyed, and Horcruces do seem to be the only known means).

He deduced that Riddle had planned to manufacture a Horcrux from the baby's death, right? Not either of the parents' deaths.

Therefore, the death that created the soul-fragment that landed in Harry, was Riddle's own from that reflected AK.

If he hadn't already been anchored to life by another Horcrux somewhere, he should have merely died.

So Dumbledore ought to have started looking for another Horcrux in 1981....

Comments

[lynn-waterfall.livejournal.com]

I guess that makes sense, but the implications of that...

Wouldn't that tend to indicate that if you make a lot of horcruxes, you're bound to create another whenever you "die"? Or that you're highly likely to?

If so, Harry didn't kill (or may not have killed) Voldemort after all.

Furthermore, once you create n horcruxes, you're safe from death even if all n horcruxes are destroyed, because you'll just create a new one when you "die." At least until you, um, run out of soul. (Gah, I hate the way these books treat soul as a physical thing.)

[sharaz-jek.livejournal.com]

... you're right. Unless it was specifically the AK-plus-side-effects-of-rebounding-off-a-shield-of-pure-love, but your implications are far more fun. But once the soul becomes that ravaged, presumably it has some implications for the wizard besides turning them into a flayed baby for eternity if they ever end up in the afterlife - maybe once the limit is reached, it's too weak to stay anchored to the living world even with Horcruces? (My model of the Potterverse soul is that it's the ethereal equivalent of the brain - it's the hardware on which the software of the mind runs, and so far it seems fairly consistent with the soul's behaviour in the books).

[lynn-waterfall.livejournal.com]

Yeah, having a too-shredded soul might affect your ability to stay in a body. Seeing what Riddle was like after he got a new body, it does seem like one's mind is affected by creating too many horcruxes. At least, I'd like to believe Riddle was smarter than that at one point.

Now that I think of it, creating n horcruxes wouldn't make you entirely safe from death. If someone destroyed your death-throes-horcrux while you were disembodied, presumably you'd just die.

[sharaz-jek.livejournal.com]

If someone destroyed your death-throes-horcrux while you were disembodied, presumably you'd just die.

That's an interesting point - before Horcruces were added, I assumed Vapourmort was similar to a ghost. Does the disembodied spirit of a Horcrux-user need the Horcrux once its body has actually died, or does it merely need something to anchor it during the process of dying? (Maybe Vapourmort was more like a ghost than I thought and is in fact a mere echo of the original Voldemort, with Horcruces merely anchoring a ghost rather than the original soul, giving another possible reason for the mental deterioration).

[oryx_leucoryx]

Unless it was specifically the AK-plus-side-effects-of-rebounding-off-a-shield-of-pure-love

Or perhaps suicide while having a Horcrux (as opposed to just 'dying' while having a Horcrux).