Dear Friends, How Exactly Does One Utilize a Horcrux?

[jakuako.livejournal.com]

Ok, maybe I've missed the essay on this -- it seems like a fairly obvious problem -- and if so, maybe one of you can link me to the discussion. My questions concern the nature of Voldemort's first death slash second coming. Let's recap:

First, Lily dies for Harry, offering him magical protection.
Second, Voldemort AKs Harry, but the curse rebounds and his already damaged soul is once again split in two.
Third, one half of it latches onto Harry, making him a Horcrux and Voldemort is, for the moment, vanquished.
At this point in time he now has no body and six Horcruxes: Harry, the ring, the diadem, the cup, the locket, and the diary (the agreement being, I think, that he turned Nagini into a Horcrux after he was brought back in Harry's fourth year, yes?).
Right, I'm okay with all of this so far.

The part that bothers me is the whole bodiless-weak-spirit-floating-around-Albania-for-thirteen-years thing. Maybe I'm completely off the mark, but my assumption would have been that Voldemort died that night. That there was nothing left of his soul except for the piece that made itself cozy inside Harry and the various other pieces scattered across the country. That in order to bring him back the way Pettigrew did, Pettigrew would have had to sacrifice one of Voldemort's Horcruxes (assuming he knew where one was, which, I know, he didn't), leaving him with five more Horcruxes and one active piece of soul inside his regenerated body, rather than six Horcruxes and this extra random piece that somehow survived the Killing Curse even though his body didn't. I mean, that's not how AK works, right? It kills both the soul and the body, it doesn't detach the soul from the body and allow the soul to go floating about looking for snakes to possess. So how exactly was it that Voldemort survived the rebounded curse? Yes, I know his soul split and I know his body was destroyed and I know the one remaining part of his soul was so weak it was practically worthless until he got Quirrel to slaughter some Unicorns for him, but the point is that last part of his soul was still out there ... alive.

What gives, JKR?

Comments

[thusspakekate.livejournal.com]

Honestly, I think JKR's magical theory is a bit wonky here. Maybe you could say that since Voldemort had already fracture his soul, he had weakened the connection between soul and body, so that was what allowed that last bit of soul to detach, float away and chill in Albania, as some sort of self-preservation instinct. But I don't think the exact mechanics or whys and hows are every really addressed.

Another thing that doesn't make sense really is that Harry became a horcrux in the first place. An accidental horcrux, really? I'd think that with magic as dark as that, you'd need intent, or else horcruxes wouldn't be such a mysterious and hidden form of magic. Because I'm sure people AK each other all the time (people are jerks, murder happens) and if you could just create a horcrux on accident like that...well, it seems like there'd be a lot more horcruxes lying about.

[jakuako.livejournal.com]

Celestlyn had some interesting things to say on the topic of Harry's being an accidental Horcrux even without intention a few comments below. I'm with you in that there are quite a few things that remain unexplained, but I'm willing to buy into the idea that Voldemort's soul was simply so damaged already that losing a piece of his soul to Harry could have happened. If that's the case, however, think how easy it must've been to make Nagini into a Horcrux. She's got an even smaller and more unstable bit than Harry has!

[celestlyn.livejournal.com]

Dumbledore said to Harry, when explaining Horcruxes and souls, that killing split a soul in half. I took that to mean that there would be a half a soul floating around with no vessel. A true Horcrux is different in that one kills intentionally with a plan to create a Horcrux and carefully chooses the vessel it resides in,like the ring or diadem. A soul fragment from a random killing would probably just remain a useless fragment floating around, as there was no intent to kill to create a Horcrux and preserve it in a vessel, an act of unspeakable evil.

Dumbledore was trying to save Draco from damaging his soul by carrying out his plan to kill Dumbledore. He wasn't creating a Horcrux, but just the act of intentional killing would have damaged/split his soul. Severus then asked him, "What of my soul?" To which Dumbledore replied, "His (Draco's) soul is not yet damaged." (Meaning Draco had not yet killed anyone intentionally and Severus had. Dumbledore was telling Snape that his soul was already damaged from killing and killing again would not be as tragic as it would if Draco damaged his still innocent soul. No Horcruxes were being created though.