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: Lily's sacrifice

[annoni-no.livejournal.com]

The most interesting possibilities lie in why Lily didn't have *her* wand. It's possible that she was also disarmed quickly/didn't have it, but I think it's much more interesting to speculate that she deliberately threw it away or snapped it. This would tie in very powerfully with the idea that her sacrifice was a deliberate one, and might contribute toward why the effects that resulted from it were so unlike any that had been seen before.

If she deliberately snapped her own wand, particularly if it was the same wand that she had used since she was a little girl (we're ignoring the monstrosity of Troll Logic that is DH wand rules), than she was destroying something that was essentially an extension of herself and her magic, and *crippling* herself in doing so.

Why would she do this? She might have known that she couldn't defeat him in a full on duel, and Fidelius seems to come with built-in anti-apparation wards. Also, does anyone trust Albus to make sure that his followers know how to create a portkey (whose use is supposedly restricted by the ministry and thus the technique is theoretically known only to ministry workers)? Further, if they were in hiding it's likely that their house was not connected to/removed from the floo network. Relying on sacrificial magic might have seemed like her best option option at the time.

Barricading the door after snapping her wand was likely just set-dressing in this scenario. Either to try and get V into a proper state of mind concerning her position/sacrifice, or because she thought it was an appropriate piece of "ritual" lead-up we'll never know.

Which leads to the actual content of what she was pleading. I can believe that she was a nervous wreck when she came face to face with Voldemort. She knew he was there to kill her child, and her best plan to save her baby was little more than a desperate gamble. Lily might even have been aware enough of V's mental abilities, or at least heard enough rumours, to feel that thinking too clearly of her plan was a bad idea, thus her focus on happier memories of Harry. That doesn't mean she couldn't think of anything more concrete to offer in exchange for her son's life.

She might have offered the pleasure of her body (Voldemort almost certainly did take at least of moment of pleasure from seeing/creating her corpse)

She might have offered the use of her magic (It was Lily's sacrificial magic that created another horcrux for Voldemort, tying him more closely to life even though it did him physical harm. If we hypothesize that V had originally intended to create a horcrux that night but later forgot - possibly because it had been a last minute decision - than Lily's magic was even more immediately useful than it might originally have seemed)

She most certainly offered her life in place of her child's (Which was the exchange the magic most clearly enforced)

If Voldemort had explicitly turned down the first two offers, but didn't bother with the third, than the magic may have considered that one to have been implicitly accepted. Whether this was because he decided to just kill her already as in the book, or because he decided to deal with Harry around her as Jodel posited in her Changeling Hypothesis, and Lily sacrificed her life interfering, is impossible to say, though both seem plausible depending on how faulty you believe his memory to be.

Thinking of the scene this way is really the only thing that salvages Lily as a character for me, and seems to be the only way to close the gaping plot holes that Rowling opened up in her version.

(*sits back from rant. breathes. realizes that an extremely long reply has just been made for a thread that hasn't actually been read in its entirety. feels very sheepish while posting.*)