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

Re: Horcrux making

[jodel-from-aol.livejournal.com]

Well, I take the Doyleian view, and just think that Rowling had lost control of the story by the time she wrote the flashback, to the point that she *forgot* that Tom was supposed to be planning to make a Horcrux from the child's death.

She had pretty clearly decided, possibly at the last minute, to stack the deck against the Potters, for whatever reason (no wands at hand? really?), and of course had to cram in a joke ("nice costume, mister") despite the fact that I gather that trick-or-treating hadn't really become much of a British thing, even as late as '81, having lost track of the backstory of what Tom had intended by that murder is all just of a piece with the rest. Everything was just jerked about by the author so the universe could deliver Harry some answers.

For my own part, I think Tom had been fixated on a subborning Gryffindor artifact to complete his set, and had been balked of access to one. I suspect the Sword hadn't made an appearance for generations, and he hadn't remembered that the Hat had been Godric's too. Or, possibly the Hat had never sung about that during Tom's years at Hogwarts, or Tom couldn't be bothered to pay attention to a talking hat. But in any case, he already had the first five by the time he showed up to ask for the DADA post, and probably felt he could wait for the last one. After all, he had all the time in the world.

Of course being handed a Child of Prophesy-- a personal prophecy all about *him*-- made an excellent substitution, and the fact that the child's parents had both been Gryffindors was just icing.

But of course Rowling couldn't be bothered to set that up by then, she just wanted it over.