I've now started over reading Sorcerer's Stone, and am picking up on things that I didn't before. When Harry sits at the Gryffindor table for the first feast after being sorted, he's looking at all the teachers - when he makes eye contact with Snape, his scar burns. In GoF, every time he and LV tap into each other's thoughts, his scar burns. Do you think there could be a connection between LV and Snape's talent as a Legilimens?

I thought his scar burned there because Quirrell (?sp?) was sitting right there...not because of Snape.

That's what I thought too, on the first reading. This time I'm noticing a little more though. If it were Quirrel, why wouldn't his scar have lit up when they met in the Leaky Cauldron? And even though he'd only noticed Snape because he was talking to Quirrel, it was when Snape made eye contact with Harry that the scar burned. This is just a theory though...and I'm only halfway through my 2nd look at SS so the theory may very well change every few chapters.

Also, I'm trying to form a timeline for LV's horcruxes. We have the murder of his father first, from which he created the ring. Then came the rich fat lady (Myrtle doesn't count, remember? The basilisk killed her) and he made the diary. Who came next? The next two objects we know are the locket and cup, but which deaths resulted in their use? That leaves us with Nagini and whatever of Gryffindor's he managed to get hold of, and those two were obviously the last ones created. The big question is: since we know he desired 7 horcruxes, does he himself count as one or is there a 7th object we haven't guessed yet?

I just read the first book looking for clues - Harry's scar really lit up with pain when he made eye contact with Snape that first night at dinner, but nothing happened when he met Quirrell at first.

Not to take this thread off on a theological trail, but God gave man dominion over animals by allowing man to name them. The Jewish tradition in the OT was not to refer to God by name. So - by not calling Voldemort by his name, everyone but Harry and Dumbledore (who both use his actual name) are giving V god-like power over them that Harry and DD don't give him. Not sure that was Rawling's intent, but it really jumped out at me when I read through the first book again over the weekend, so now I'm wondering how important it is that most of them are too afraid to say his name.....At the end of SS, while Harry's in the hospital talking to DD about what's happened and asking questions, DD tells him to ALWAYS use V's name.

And I'm actually reading the books for the first time - my daughter has filled me in, book by book, as things have progressed - I've finally gotten hooked on my own after hearing her analysis of what's going on. She's just gotten her Master's in Brit Lit, is starting her PhD in Brit Lit and is working on a syllabus for a Fantasy class to teach Spring 2006 - she said she'll assign the first 2 movies for background info and then have them read the books starting with #3. She'll also pull LOTR in and something else in - I forget what the first thing is on the syllabus she's working on - it won't all be Harry Potter but she said it's gotten to the point that she wants to use it in class.

She said that when DD died, she put the book down and started bawling - but she also knew he had to die just like Gandalf and ObiWan Kenobi had to die - "it's just how it has to work, Mom!"

Now we just have to see if I can read the rest of the books before she comes home for a couple of weeks before classes start up again.

Becca, I'm pretty sure that V wanted to divide into 7 parts so there's only 6 horcruxes and he's got the last piece in him. Can't quote chapter and verse because someone else is reading my book now but that's what I remember. I posed the same question about how the deaths that link up with each horcrux earlier in the thread but not nearly as well as you did. Hope some of these people chime in on this issue. Could the sorting hat continue to function if it was a horcrux? Wouldn't it be tainted by the piece of V in it?

MH, hey, missed ya! When you're done reading we'll have a Hogwarts shopping cart quiddich match.

Really ,tho, thanks for the Jewish take. That's been nagging at the back of my head and I couldn't put my finger on why.

As far as DD goes, the old and wise must also show the young how to accept the inevitability of death so I was expecting someone big not to make it. I don't like the idea that Harry (or Ron or Hermione) may be sacrificed in 7. That to me seems too much out of character for what started out as children's books. But then, LOTR was a bedtime story that grew to epic proportions.

I have been doing a lot of reading on the HP forums on the Internet over the weekend (diagonally.org, leakylounge.com, and mugglenet.com.), and everyone is pretty much in agreement that one horcrux is mentioned in each book; the only question mark is what is mentioned in book 3. But of course no one agrees on what they all are. Diary, ring, & locket are the sure ones. Harry's scar? Sorting hat? Snake? Huffelpuff's Cup? Some people are guessing the Gryffindor sword but how could Voldemort get into DD's office to get to it?

One idea about the HBP potions book is that it was Lilly's. Snape was helping Lilly with potions and that is why she was so good at it. He said he was the HBP but he didn't say that was his potions book. Snape was in love with Lilly (or really cared about her because she stood up for Snape when James & Co. would torment him) but Lilly only cared for Snape as she would a brother. Snape is horrified to know he was the cause of her death by repeating the prophecy to Voldemort, and maybe DD had Snape agree to an Unbreakable Vow to protect Harry. That is why DD trusts Snape without reservation.

This makes a lot of sense to me because in one JKR interview she was asked if Snape had ever been in love. She said that was a very astute question. She also said that if you reread the books you can figure out what the horcruxes are. So of course I am rereading all of the books to try and figure them all out. (And of course my guesses won't be any more accurate than anyone else's!)

JKR has said that the last word in the final book will be scar.

So I'm new here, but would love to jump in on the HP stuff. As far as the Horcruxes go, I don't think either Harry or anything at Harry's parents' house could be a Horcrux - it seems to risky, as many have pointed out, to put a Horcrux in a human, for one thing. As for Godric's Hollow, I don't think anything could be there, because the murders LV committed there, though definitely significant, didn't exactly go as planned. Only James and Harry were really supposed to die - after killing James, LV gave Lily the choice to live; she refused and died trying to save her son... and then right after that, LV tried to kill Harry, the curse backfired, and one could assume that in the state he was in after the backfired curse, he'd be unable to create any more Horcruxes. As making a Horcrux seems to be a complex bit of magic, it seems unlikely he'd have had the time to actually make one before (almost) biting the dust.

I think there might be a Horcrux at Hogwarts, though I'd guess it wasn't the Sorting Hat (for no good reason other than I guess I think that a part of LV's soul residing within would somehow corrupt the hat...) - LV did go there at some point after assuming his name to request the DADA job, and DD makes it apparent that getting the position was not LV's prime reason for being there - maybe he needed a way to get ahold of/plant one of his Horcruxes at the school, and getting an interview with DD was as good excuse as any?

On that note, what does everyone think about McGonagle as the new Headmaster?
And, has the Horcrux in the locket actually been destroyed? I tend to think it hasn't - otherwise, why couldn't they open the locket? I bet HP has to return to 12 Grimmauld Place for it in the final book...

I don't think the potions book could have been Snape's - at least not originally. 50 years puts it into Voldemort's time, not James, Lilly and Snape. After all the Chamber of Secrets was opened the first time 50 years ago.

It may have belonged to Snape at some point, but not originally.

The thing about the book is that most of the things in it were useful or just harmless pranks, but the spell Harry used on Draco wasn't - I think it could have killed Draco if Snape hadn't been there. That seemed out of character with the rest of the things he found in the book. Certainly it's not something Lilly would have put in there.

What about the Room of Requirement? Could there be a Horcrux in there? When Professor Trelawney heard Draco's voice when she went into the RoR to hide something, I thought it meant Draco was looking for something, rather than that he was trying to fix something. I guess not, but it still seems strange to me that she could hear him.

Anyway, I think the RoR would be a great place to hide one of the horcruxes and might explain why Voldemort wanted to come back to Hogwarts.

So if one horcrux is mentioned in each book, what are they?

Book 1 - ?
Book 2 - the diary
Book 3 - ?
Book 4 - ?
Book 5 - the locket
Book 6 - the ring

I can't remember which book the snake Nagini is mentioned in. Of course, that was just a theory of DD's, not definite like the other 3.

All of this is interesting. I'm back to reading book 5, it's been so long between the books. In 5 the sorting hat says some interesting things, and remember the sorting hat didn't say anything in 6. As a matter of fact 6 has deviated from the rest of the books, not really recapping Harrys life (maybe she thinks enough people know it) or maybe it's a clue as to how she will proceed. I certainly have forgotten about alot in book 5 and rented the movie 3 this weekend which answered a few questions. How is an old person supposed to remember all of this stuff, I need Cliff Notes on Harry Potter!!!!!!!!!!!!

There's a throwaway comment when Harry runs into the Room of Requirements that mentions him seeing the Vanishing Cabinet (the thing Draco fixes to get the Death Eaters into Hogwarts) when he's trying to hide the potions book from Snape - it kind of makes sense because Draco would presumably want to keep the cabinet (and his progress) hidden from everyone else (much the way Trelawney is trying to hide her alcoholism, etc) - and therefore, if he's trying to be hidden, and she's trying to hide something simultaneously, they'd end up in the same Room. It almost seems like if there were a Horcrux at Hogwarts, it would be in the version of the Room of Requirements that was devoted to hiding things - and that all things hidden in the Room of Requirements were then hidden in the same place, so Trelawney's bottles, the Vanishing Cabinet, the HBP's potions book, and MAYBE a Horcrux are all in the same place?

Correlary to this (or maybe just a different way of explaining it): if Draco was trying to remain hidden while working on/completing the Vanishing Cabinet, Trelawney was able to walk in on him because she was also trying to hide something. Harry couldn't ever get into the Room of Requirements while Draco was also in there because at the time, Harry was trying to find something (Draco), whereas Draco was already in the room trying to be hidden - because Harry's purpose for the Room of Requirements was different than the person using it at the time, he was therefore barred from entering? I really hope that makes some sort of sense....

Would you explain please what a horcrux is? thanks

I agree completely with MHJr (welcome! BTW) about LV not having time/strength to create any more horcruxes after killing Harry's parents. We also seem to be forgetting that Hermione discovered that the potions book was the former property of Snape's mother (whose maiden name was Prince), and that she obviously handed it down to him. That puts the time frame correct for the book originally having been in the school at the same time as Riddle under ownership of Snape's mother. If the book had been Lily's, it certainly wouldn't have had a Dark spell like "sectumsempra" (sp?) scribbled in the margins even if Snape was tutoring her.

The part about Snape making an Unbreakable Vow to protect Harry makes sense. Through all the books he spites Harry as much as possible, but without actually doing him any physical harm - and don't forget that he saved Harry from Quirrell's jinx on the broom in SS.

Interesting point about a horcrux being revealed in each book. I'll have to keep that in mind as I re-read the series...

What about the Womping Willow as a Horcrux? It seems kind of evil, it's a symbol of Hogwarts and it has been present in most of the books. It also played a big part in #3.

Here's a thought - what if the potions book is a horcrux itself??? It is the object of primary focus in book 6, afterall. I know - kind of a longshot, but just a stray thought I figured I'd put out here for discussion.

i think LV could have created more then 1 horecurx from riddles' deaths... he killed his father, grandfather and grandmother... (ring, diary and maybe his award for special service)... he kills the old lady with the necklace and the hufflepuff cup... he only so he uses her for one of those. and he's killed others so, we'll say he's got the cup covered. so that leaves one more... some say the snake, (which came into play in GOF)... LV kills the girl from the ministry and the gardener (frank) from his fathers old house... but he was really weak then and I'm not sure he could have survived a split...

MH Jr... greta thought about the RoR... i thought the same thing... i wonder if harry will think of it in book 7?

I don't think the potions book could be a Horcrux, because I'm not sure where it would have significance to LV, even if it seems to have more importance than just being a source of excellent potions tutelage. One of the things that I think is interesting is that the potions book in a way justifies some of James' and Sirius' dislike of Snape, as it proves that, while at Hogwarts, Snape really was "up to his ears in the dark arts" or however it was that Sirius phrased it in book 5. There's no way Lily would have gone for anything like the 'sectumsempra' spell, I don't think.

I agree with Skye that LV could have created multiple horcruxes from the various murders of the Riddles, and it would make sense in a way, because by murdering the Riddles, he would be killing out the last links he would have to the Muggle world, and I think that would be important for a halfblood wizard masquerading as a pureblood... But for some reason I don't think that would have covered all the horcruxes, and I keep wondering how many he would have been able to make at any given point - I guess I just keep thinking that it would require a lot of power to make just one, and that making multiple horcruxes right after a multiple murder would be too much even for the likes of LV.

Also, LV couldn't have made a horcrux from his father's murder, because he was already wearing the ring (the symbol of the murder) when he asked Slughorn about horcruxes - so at the time of the murder, he didn't know what he was doing quite yet.

All I know is that I have to go back and read again because after reading all of the posts, I didn't notice I didn't pick up on this stuff before.

I find it interesting that there are 7 years at hogwarts to become an official which or wizard, and there are a possibly 7 horcruxes...

Yeah, the ring is Gaunt's - I'm getting sloppy, my apologies. He probably did make a Horcrux at his father's murder, then...

Ya' lost me. Didn't he get the ring when he went back to his mother's childhood home and killed his uncle?

Oh, I'm so glad the borrower is almost done with 6 so I can reread it. I'm with BG...

Quote:

---

All I know is that I have to go back and read again because after reading all of the posts, I didn't notice I didn't pick up on this stuff before.

---

Well, what if one of these Horcruxes was made after Voldemort regained his form? Something with Harry inheriting Sirius/The Black Family heirlooms also. She kind of left that up in the air after Dumbledore mentioned it in the beginning.

What happens to Harry once he turns 17 also? Dumbledore made sure that he goes back to the Dursleys until he turns 17 and then he doesn't have to come back. I thought that was weird. "Just protect yourself until you're 17 Harry and then, watch out....."


Could a spell itself be a Horcrux? What about the Dark Mark? Voldemort crafted it himself and taught it to others. It signals that someone has been killed.