There is some truth to that. On the other hand, Harry and Hermione are nothing to sneeze at either.
Harry Potter has used wits and courage to defeat or escape from Voldemort at least three times (Sorceror’s Stone, Chamber of Secrets, Goblet of Fire). A thing that many seemingly greater wizards have failed to do.
Hermione is the top student (top grades in every subject!) at what we can assume to be the best university for wizards in her country. Even if Hogwarts is the only university, I would think that being the first in all her classes is exceptional. Her general knowledge of magic is surely unparalleled in the student body. In her third year she was actually taking every subject available.
Ron Weasley, the perennial second banana, sometimes seems to me to be the weak element of the trio, but perhaps he will rise to greater heights in the last book.
Ron has to. Being the youngest brother in such a large family, he’ll invariably do something so utterly heroic that he’ll be the pride of the lot… at least for a little bit.
The idea of Harry Potter’s scar, or Harry himself, being the remaining horcrux, has many points to recommend it. JK Rowling says that the scar will prove important. Harry Potter has some of the powers of Voldemort and a mental connection to Voldemort. We know that living creatures can be used as horcruxes.
Arguments against:
[ul][li]If Harry Potter is in fact the horcrux, he might have to kill himself before being able to defeat Voldemort - an absurd situation.[/li][li]At the end of Goblet of Fire, we see Voldemort attempting to kill Harry Potter without any mention of Harry Potter containing an element of Voldemort’s soul or being in any way valuable to The Dark Lord.[/li][li]When would Voldemort have been able to store a portion of his soul in Harry Potter? Right after the curse rebounds on Voldemort, he is separated from his body. I find it hard to believe that a horcrux can be formed without some hard work from the wizard trying to create the horcrux.[/ul][/li]
My idea for Voldemort’s horcruxes:
We will assume that Dumbledore is correct in supposing that Voldemort limited himself to six horcruxes (one part of Voldemort’s soul remaining in his current body.) Those would be:
[ol][li]Tom Riddle’s diary, destroyed in Chamber of Secrets[/li][li]Marvolo (Salazar Slytherin)'s ring, destroyed by Dumbledore[/li][li]Merope (Salazar Slytherin)'s locket, either destroyed by R.A.B. or else the mysterious locket found when cleaning house at 12 Grimmauld Place in Order of the Phoenix[/li][li]Helga Hufflepuff’s silver goblet[/li][li]Nagini the snake[/li][li]An object belonging to Ravenclaw or Godric Gryffindor?[/ol][/li]Dumbledore says in chapter 23 of Half-Blood Prince
«“… I am confident, however, that the only relic of Gryffindor remains safe.”
Dumbledore pointed his blackened fingers to the wall behind him, where a ruby-encrusted sword reposed with a glass case.»
(I think that JK Rowling is a little careless in her phrasing here, because, as we know, the Sorting Hat also used to belong to Godric Gryffindor.)
My deduction is that horcrux # 6 is hidden inside an object that was once owned by Ravenclaw.
Harry Potter’s ancestry: I originally thought that Harry Potter would be the only living person descended from all four Hogwarts founders. But we know that he is not descended from Salazar Slytherin. It seems obvious to me, then, that he is a living descendant of Godric Gryffindor. The name of his parents’ residence is a dead giveaway.
Forgot to say this: why would Dumbledore say that there are four horcruxes remaining? I would think that when the Avada Kedavra course rebounded on Voldemort (when Lily Potter successfully defended her son’s life), that would have used up one of Voldemort’s seven “lives” and therefore he only has six “lives” left, minus the two already destroyed (Riddle’s diary and Slytherin’s ring), bringing us down to four lives, or three horcruxes plus one soul-part currently in Voldemort’s body.
Dumbledore may be dead, but he is not gone. He does have a portrait in the headmistress’ office, after all. There is also the possibility that there is a non-Dark equivalent of the Horcrux.
This thought occurred to me, too.
I also don’t see how Harry can break up with Ginny, but allow Ron and Hermione to come with him. If Ginny is a weakness, it seems to me that Ron and Hermione (as well as the rest of the Weasleys), are also weaknesses that the Dark Side could use against Harry. Ginny is even more intelligent and better at defensive arts than Ron is.
In, I believe, Chamber of Secrets, when the Hogwarts school board removes Dumbledore from power, Fred or George says something along the lines of “He says he doesn’t care what they do, so long as they don’t take him off the Chocolate Frogs.” It’s delivered as a joke, but in Order of the Phoenix we find out that portraits can pass between and exchange information with other portraits of themselves.
In other words, Dumbledore has eyes and ears everywhere there’s a Chocolate Frog picture of himself. And those are collectibles, you don’t just throw them away! No wonder he didn’t want to be taken off the cards!
How did RAB get the locket, though? If it wasn’t possible for one person to retrieve it on his/her own, then there must be another person who knows about it (or who knew about it).
I like the suggestion that Dumbledore found the hiding place of the locket on his own, then realized he needed help to retrieve it. However, why did he pick Harry instead of another OotP member? Why should only Harry (and Ron and Hermione by extension) know about the horcluxes?
Very good question at the end. I’m not sold on Harry being a horcrux, but it may be something that points that way. Only Harry and his closest friends know about horcruxes because Harry is one and he has to know what that means. Perhaps that is the case. Otherwise, I’m not sure WHY Tonks, Lupin, Moody, etc., aren’t told about horcruxes. Or maybe they did, but Dumbledore wanted to test Harry to see if he was up to the challenge?
[QUOTE=Kiminy]
How did RAB get the locket, though? If it wasn’t possible for one person to retrieve it on his/her own, then there must be another person who knows about it (or who knew about it).
QUOTE]
If RAB is Regulus Black, I think it’s possible he took Kreacher, the house-elf, with him. He knew he could trust Kreacher with the secret and, as Kreacher is small, he wouldn’t have had too much weight for the tiny boat one has to use to get to the island in the middle of the lake.
I have a horrible feeling I know what that heroic thing is. Back in the Philosopher’s Stone, we learn that Ron, for all his failings, is brilliant at Wizard Chess, and therefore has excellent strategic skills. In the game, he sacrifices himself so Harry and Hermione can go forward. I haven’t got the book with me to check, but I believe he says something like: “No, it’s ok. This is the way it has to be” when Harry tries to stop him.
I suspect, in the final battle, Ron’s strategic skills will come to the fore again, and he will once again sacrifice himself so Harry can progress - except this time, it isn’t a game…
Does he have one soul-part in his body if he lost a soul-part when the spell rebounded? Or, do we assume that when the spell rebounded, he was already split (murdering James) and therefore had two soul-parts hanging around? If so, why wouldn’t the rebounding spell knock out both soul-parts instead of just one?
I guess my question really is this: If the horcruxes aren’t reversible (though I think they might be) but you kill the original body of the wizard, how does the immortality work? How does he get back to the point of having a body with a soul in it?
The rebounded Killing Curse established a link. That’s what we were told in previous books, I don’t see any reason that the introduction of the Horcrux concept should automatically invalidate the previous theory.
Let’s put it this way - if Harry’s a Horcrux, Dumbledore becomes either a liar or a dumbass.
Another thought: The Death Eaters have always insisted that Voldemort must be the person who kills Harry, on Voldemort’s orders. It would make a lot of sense for Harry to be a Horcrux because of this–Voldemort may have put a piece of his soul into Harry when he killed James (either intentionally or accidentally), and now he wants it back. If someone else kills Harry, that piece would be lost to Voldemort completely.
In GoF, Voldemort wants to kill Harry to retrieve the Horcrux, which would obviously make his return to power easier. This is why he insists that Harry must be the victim of the sacrifice, because no one else has his soul.
The obvious argument against this theory is that Voldemort could have simply retrieved one of the other Horcruxes instead of Harry’s. However, given how weak he has been prior to OofP, he may simply not have had the strength to retrieve the other Horcruxes on his own. It goes without saying that he would not want to have to reveal their existence to any of the Death Eaters, and it would be much easier to convince them that he needs to kill someone they already believe to be an enemy than it would be to explain why he needs to retrieve a heavily-protected bauble.
I’m not convinced the Nagila is a Horcrux, either. Harry has only seen through its eyes clearly when the snake has been possesed by Voldemort.
Presumably the missing time is filled with those who knew Lilly and James closely, perhaps the Ministry, and certainly Dumbledore, etc., from Hogwarts, figuring exactly what to do about Harry, would have been tempting to have a chapter entitled “The Trouble with 'arry” now wouln’t it?
As I think about it though, I find myself going back to basic acting training where I was often tempted to read to much into what a character said and did just as we are here and was constantly pushed to be “in the moment” and for that reason, we have to strongly consider that possiblity that Dumbledore just made a really whopping mistake with Snape.
While it could be misdirection, Rowling opens up the door for this possiblility in D’s first lesson with Harry where he says something along the lines of as an extremely intelligent person he is capable of extremely big mistakes. I think this is Rowling laying the fairness groundwork for the possibility that Dumbledore could legitimately just have been fooled by Snape all these years. After all, he is good by nature and the one weakness of the good is the capacity to trust and have faith in others, to tend not to be as suspicious of the motivations and capacity for evil in others that we have known for a long time and to wish for the best in them, particularly, as in Snape’s case, when they have been tested on a number of occaisions, and not been found wanting.
As for Harry being a Horcrux, I think that this is not possible. James and in particular Lilly sacrificed themselves so that Harry would not be killed. I think that act of love would also have kept Harry from being transformed into a horcrux. Rather the opposite, I believe the evidence is clear that it was an event that did Voldemort considerable damage, transferring to Harry not only parts of some of his gifts, such as parseltounge, but perhaps some of his power as well.
Besides, this would be treading a little too close to Dr. Who and the Keys to time which the whole horcrux thing is treading dangerously close to anyway. I think the number is 6 however because 7 is seen as a “Magic” number, and it makes sense, I think, since Voldemort lost some of his power to Harry, that he would desperately want Harry to be number 7 so that he could regain the power that he had lost.
Which raises a question. If Harry, recipient of part of Voldemort’s power, in defeating Voldemort, upon defeating Voldemort, receive more or all of Voldemort’s power at his death? Does he risk receiving more than that? Will he have a struggle to fight off receiving Voldemort’s will itself? Will Harry’s friends be faced with the dillema of wondering whether they must now kill Harry to ensure that Voldemort is truly dead? Oh, there’s a fine pickle.
This to me would be a much more interesting series of events than Harry having been a horcrux all along.
They may well love each other. Again, I certainly expect angels to love one another, and intimacy, physically or emotionally, naturally ffollows. But if they are angels in the sense I thin of, they are neither male nor female nor alive in the sense we thin of (they are alive in a much broader sense). Homosexual, wile not entirely inaccurate, seems to small and meager and word to describe it. Being straight or gay is just too small to encompass their feeling.
I’m not sure she will with either. Harry will probably never accept that Dumbledore was alright being killed, and that Snape did it because it was the only thing to do. Harry could never have done it, and he will never understand. Similarly, he will never forgive Draco for the crime of being Draco Malfoy.
Also, Rowling clearly doesn’t understand heredity. There may be no further speakers of Parseltongue, but Salazar Slytherin almost certainly has thousands or millions of descendants by now.
Ah, but that makes no sense on it’s own. How a does instant death somehow transmit parts of Voldemort’s power to the target?
Or he’s not sure what Harry is or if Harry can accept it. He may not have realize how deep the link goes. It may be that Harry isn’t a whole Horcrux but only the shadow of a failed attempt.
If Harry isn’t a Horcrux, Rowling needs to go back to writer school. She’s given us a dozen small hints that way, so if it isn’t true I’ll be very dissappointed.
Personally, I don’t think the final battle will be a matter of spells. Harry may ultimately have to convince Voldemort to accept death more than anything else.
I didn’t want this to go by without a big nod–we know two adult wizards can’t cross the lake together, and who else would have taken a young wizard with them? This is a lovely observation, and I think you’re absolutely right that it has to be Kreacher.
I didn’t mean to give the impression that I think they’re talentless hacks. It’s just that the way the plot has been developed they are now poised to go up against wizards who have very remarkable and well-developed magical skills: Voldemort and his many tricks (do you think Harry, Ron, and Hermione could have retrieved the locket on their own?) and Snape (not that I think they need to, but they’re going to feel that they do) and they have not displayed similar innovative tendencies.