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

[witchyemerald.livejournal.com]

Really, I am not to sure about Nagini in the Horcruxes time line. I always thought she was before Harry, and thats why she was able to help find the "main soul" part.

I thought that the Horcruxes were parts of the soul that anchored the “main soul” to this plan. It was like their first job so to speak.

What I thought was odd was, other then the dairy soul, none of the others attached to living things, tried to take over. It might be because the dairy souls was the largest because it was the first. However you would think the Harry Soul would try to take over.

[nerakrose]

i always thought the entire point of horcruxes was that it was impossible to die because you need to kill the entire soul to die. and so when the killing course rebounded and hit voldy, his body died but (what remained of) his soul didn't, because the curse didn't hit the other parts of his soul as well... idk man.

[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.

[ashindk.livejournal.com]

Interesting question! http://hd-writers.livejournal.com/187545.html#comments (http://hd-writers.livejournal.com/187545.html#comments) Maybe Harry wasn't a Horcrux at all...

[khalulu]

I don;t know the answer - but the idea that you can stay alive by leaving your soul elsewhere in safe-keeping is also found in Slavic folk-lore in tales of Koshchei the Deathless. In fact the Wikipedia aritcle on him said he was the inspiration for Voldemort, but they had no citation for that. He was described as an ugly old man who goes in for kidnapping the hero's love interest, and here's what he did with his soul - HOW he did it I don't know:

"Koschei cannot be killed by conventional means targeting his body. His soul is hidden separate from his body inside a needle, which is in an egg, which is in a duck, which is in a hare, which is in an iron chest (sometimes the chest is crystal and/or gold), which is buried under a green oak tree, which is on the island of Buyan in the ocean. As long as his soul is safe, he cannot die. If the chest is dug up and opened, the hare will bolt away; if it is killed, the duck will emerge and try to fly off. Anyone possessing the egg has Koschei in their power. He begins to weaken, becomes sick, and immediately loses the use of his magic. If the egg is tossed about, he likewise is flung around against his will. If the egg or needle is broken (in some tales, this must be done by specifically breaking it against Koschei's forehead), Koschei will die."

That's from Wikipedia. Russain fairlytales are great.