HBP Chapter Twenty-Three: "Horcruxes"

[for-diddled.livejournal.com]

* So Harry goes into Dumbledore’s office and we all get to see the memory. Brace yourself for some disappointment, people, it’s going to seem really anti-climactic after all the build-up we were given.

* Tom’s attempt to get the info out of Slughorn is “very well done”, if by “very well done” you mean “so blatant that even Mr. Oblivious Potter can see what he’s up to”.

* Riddle’s practically drooling before long. Yup, that boy sure is a master at this sort of thing.

* It’s a bit odd that Slughorn’s so shocked at the idea of killing people. I mean, c’mon, since when has wizarding society ever shown any disapproval of casual violence?

* I’m not sure why nobody’s allowed to talk about Horcruxes in Hogwarts. I mean, sure, there’s the danger that somebody might try and make one, but Muggle schools don’t feel the need to ban people from talking about murder for fear that someone will go on a killing spree.

* Although then again, wizards in general are quite psychopathic, maybe keeping them in ignorance about Horcruxes is the only way to stop them from trying to make some…

* I’m surprised Voldemort is the first wizard ever to make more than one Horcrux. It seems like an obvious enough idea that at least one other person would have tried it, even given the points raised in Sunnyskywalker’s post.

* Or maybe they did, and there’s a long-forgotten dark wizard’s soul hiding away, just waiting for somebody to resurrect them…

* “A mere memory starting to act and think for itself?” What, you mean like portraits which can have conversations with people, lock students out of common rooms when they’re annoyed, or pretend to be asleep when listening in on conversations? Or people in photographs who can get annoyed and storm off the edges of their picture? Or ghosts who can chat with students? Yeah, Riddle’s diary sure was unique, alright. *rolls eyes*

* “‘I still don’t understand,’ said Harry.” Well colour me shocked.

* Everybody seems a little too ready to buy the six Horcruxes theory. I mean, sure, it’s plausible, based on what we’ve seen, but the evidence for it isn’t decisive by any means. How does Dumbledore know that he didn’t actually make seven Horcruxes? Or that he got around to making all of them? Or that he didn’t stop short when all the soul-splitting made him too unstable?

* And why, for that matter, does anybody wishing to kill Voldemort have to attack his body last of all? Surely if you destroyed that first, it would then be much easier to destroy the other Horcruxes without Voldemort breathing down your neck and trying to stop you.

* Wow, these Horcruxes must be really dangerous, if Dumbledore was almost killed trying to destroy one. Remind me again why exactly he’s sending Harry to get rid of them?

* Wait a minute… Dumbledore says that Tom would have chosen special objects as his Horcruxes, and that the diary was special to him, even though it didn’t seem special to anybody looking at it. So how do we know that at least some of the other Horcruxes aren’t also special to Tom without looking special? Why assume that they all must be showy magical heirlooms?

* I’m not sure why Rowling needed to have Harry “counting on his fingers”, since it just makes him look like an idiot. Then again, Hogwarts doesn’t seem to offer any education in mathematics, so maybe wizards in general can’t actually count up to six in their head.

* Now you see, this “reserving Horcruxes for significant deaths” thing is where Voldemort’s love of the dramatic really bites him on the backside. If he’s just killed random muggle homeless people, he could have had seven or more well before he went after Harry, and nobody would have noticed or, unfortunately, cared.

* “‘An admirably succinct and accurate summary, yes,’ said Dumbledore, bowing his head.” Hmm, so now Dumbledore’s praising Harry for, essentially, repeating what the Headmaster told him all of forty seconds ago. No wonder that boy has a superiority complex.

* Although sadly enough it seems like repeating stuff you’ve heard/read is considered the apex of intelligence in the wizarding world. Cf. every time Hermione gets praised by a teacher.

* Dumbledore warns Harry that, even though Voldemort’s soul is damaged, his brain remains intact. Well, I suppose we’ll just have to take Albus’ word for it, since it’s certainly not obvious from Voldie’s behaviour.

* All this talk of Voldemort’s brain reminds me of the fan theory that his plans are so rubbish because the resurrection ceremony didn’t work and he ended up returning as an idiot. *sigh* It’s sad when the best way to make sense of a series is to assume that the main villain’s suffering from brain damage.

* I have to admit, I do quite like the idea of Voldemort trying to squash a potential threat and instead making his own worst enemy. I mean, yeah, the whole “person tries to avert a prophecy, and in so doing ends up bringing it to fulfilment” trope is quite common, but it’s not a bad one for all that. A pity this angle was ditched in favour of the silly wand lore business.

Comments

[hwyla.livejournal.com]

I've long been suspicious of those little stand-up memories. Note that there is also a third one. The memory of Bertha Jorkins talking about the boy that hexed her for catching him kiss someone by the greenhouse.

Your idea is a new one on me, I'll need to think more on it. I've always figured it was Aberforth whose identity he was hiding in the Burke memory. I used to think Albus sent Aberforth to Burke for that memory with the Peverell ring in hand - under guise of a fence. The ring was specifically mentioned as not on the table where it had previously been any longer. And then came DH and the stone hidden in the snitch, leaving me with the obvious fact that Aberforth didn't sell the ring at all.

Of course, I never felt he HAD to sell it. It might have just been for a bit of prompting. However it would have raised questions in Burke's mind to see that ring again when youngTom used to wear it.

[oryx_leucoryx]

Well, even before DH I was convinced Dumbles had collected the memories a long time before Harry's Hogwarts years. I don't believe Morphin survived in Azkaban into the 1990s (all the time since 1942 or so, when he wasn't in good health to start with), and Hokey was described as an old elf ca 1950. If he had both those memories a long time earlier, and both memories mention the locket (and Hepzibah explicitly mentioned Caractacus), I don't see why he wouldn't go to Burke to fill in the missing details. Albus *likes* knowing things, it is acting on said knowledge that is a problem for him.

The only question was what had prompted him to start seeking those memories in the first place. When I still wanted to give Albus the benefit of doubt I assumed it was seeing the transformation Tom's appearance had undergone that sent him researching, but now I agree with jodel that Dumbles got involved in this following Hepzibah's death. I think what happened was that her heirs were searching for the cup. They asked Hokey, but had a hard time getting anything from her (other than perhaps that she had last put it in the usual place under the usual protections) because she was must have lost her mind, believing she had caused her mistress' death and probably forced into elf-retirement (because who would want such a dangerously senile elf?). So they needed a Legilimens. Preferably one not known for using his powers for illegal purposes. Their contacts directed them to Albus.

From Hokey he got to Burke. How would a starving witch get hold of Slytherin's own locket? And isn't it interesting she was ready to give birth around Christmas? (It is possible the parts of the memory we weren't shown identify the year exactly, but even without that additional info, at least he had the time of year.) And wasn't the trouble with the Chamber of Secrets claimed by Slytherin's heir? So either he researched the genealogy of Slytherin's heirs or he looked up wizards named Marvolo. With access to the quill the latter should have been easy enough, much easier than Tom's research. He could have found every wizard named Marvolo born in the 19th century and where he lived when he was 11.

[hwyla.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I mainly thought it was a recent memory simply because the ring had disappeared from the table since Harry had last been there. And that Harry specifically noticed it messing.

But as I said in my post, the fact that the stone turns up in the snitch in DH means the ring was obviously still in Albus' possession. So it's disappearance from the table was more of a red herring.

[terri-testing.livejournal.com]

Both good ideas, and I'm ashamed to say I never gave any thought to the discrepancey. I like Oryx's better, thought; that Albus investigated that early (and did nothing substantive about what he found out) seems more probable to me than that he never checked out Burke until that last summer.