A small question about Harry being a Horcrux. In the sixth or seventh book, we learn that basilisk venom can destroy horcruxes, or the second, but it was specifically stated in the one of the later books that it was the venom that destroys Horcruxes. Because of this I was curious as to how people felt about the fact that Harry was bitten by the basilisk as well.

With all the other artifacts, they were destroyed instantly, so I was wondering how people felt about this. I understand that line continuation isn't something Rowling excelled at, but I'm more interested in the thoughts of everybody, rather than pointing out inconsistencies.

TL;dr Shouldn't the Horcrux inside Harry have been destroyed when he was bitten by the basilisk?

 

I think that the horcrux is only destroyed if the object is destroyed, and and basilisk venom destroys anything.

 

The ring was still intact enough to be worn, despite later examples of everything having a visible shattering effect. You're statement's not much of a deal breaker as a result.

 

EDIT: Nevermind. I see you already mentioned that.

 

Yes, it was stated in seventh book that Basilisk's venom can destroy horcruxes, but maybe to do that, the venom has to put damage on the container at the exact location of where the horcrux lies. The horcrux in the diary lies within the pages, and Basilisk's venom put great damage on the pages. The Horcrux inside the Locket lies inside it, and after Harry opened it with parselmouth, Ron stabbed it with venom-powered Gryffindor Sword, inflicted great damage on it thus destroyed the horcrux.

And I think I remember that in one of her interviews, Rowling said the Horcrux inside Harry lies within his head. This was proven by the existence of the lightning-bolt scar was on his forehead, the mark of the spot where Voldemort's piece of soul had entered.

Harry was bitten, yes, but the fang stabbed him on his hand, not his head. The venom didn't have time to reach the Horcrux inside his head because Fawkes' tears. Maybe if the fang stabbed him on his head, the horcrux will be destroyed - and also kill him as well :awesome

 

That's silly. Harry was already dieing, the venom had traveled through his entire body by that point, and the phoenix tears was something of a very very last moment thing that only worked due to the uber magical properties.

Beyond that, Voldemort's snake was beheaded, which is doubtfully a true strike against the exact point, but it did the job well enough.

 

Maybe it's an exception for the horcrux that lies inside living creature? That in order to destroy it, the creature that becomes the container had to be killed and had to really die? Nagini died immediately after being beheaded, but Harry didn't die (dying =/= die). So the horcrux inside him wasn't destroyed at that time.

 

Perhaps if Harry had actually died (i.e. his heart and breathing stopped completely and his brain function ceased) before being revived by the phoenix tears, it could have worked. However, he never completely blacks out. Everything goes fuzzy, then clears back up after Fawkes cries over the wound.

This eliminates the argument about Nagini at least, though it doesn't really solve the problem of the ring. This is probably just another plot hole that can be filled by citing "intent." I.e., Harry (and the basilisk) had no idea that he was a horcrux at the time, so how could they destroy it. It's also entirely possible that JKR was unaware that Harry was a horcrux when she wrote CoS.

 

Yeah, I think Harry would had to have been bitten in the face for the venom to destroy the horcrux.

 

Or died from the venom. Nagini got her fucking head chopped off, I don't think a piece of soul is going to survive once the container holding it is 'broken'. And we can probably assume that living container vs inanimate container = different rules if you want to cite the ring still being wearable.

Although you could also argue that the ring survived because it was a part of a Hallow and all...

 

We'll if Harry died from the venom, then it doesn't really matter if the horcrux is destroyed or not, because he'd be dead. Phoenix tear's aren't powerful enough to revive the dead.

The ring didn't survive, Dumbledore chopped it up with the sword. Harry only gets the stone from inside the snitch, and that was cracked vertically through the hallows symbol.

 

I'm fairly certain that Dumbledore did wear the ring though, and I find it hard to believe that he would be wearing the Horcrux around school like that. As as to the container needing to be alive seems a bit silly in my opinion, as we see the soul staying within inanimate objects, what difference would a dead body be to that?

 

If my memories about HBP is correct, I remembered that Dumbledore did wear the ring only twice: one when he first found it, and the other when he was trying to convince Slughorn to teach at Hogwarts. Harry, who was with him at that time, noticed it (Half-Blood Prince, check it yourself). Dumbledore had never wear the ring around the school, and he certainly had never wear a horcrux again after that.

As I've said before, that maybe, the horcrux that was put into the inanimate object is different than the animate one. To destroy the horcrux within the inanimate object, we only had to "damage the object beyond most magical repair" (Deathly Hallows, if I remember it correctly), but to destroy the horcrux within the animate/living, breathing object, we had to kill the object. And, to think about it more, it seems logical. Inflicting damage "beyond most magical repair" on living creatures will results on their death, and the Horcrux would be destroyed at that point.

I don't know whether we can create a horcrux on a corpse or not. It was never been said on the books.

 

I'm sorta entertained by the scene in the DH part 1 where the trio is trying their damnedest to magic the locket to pieces, but it keeps self-repairing. If Harry is a Horcrux of similar durability, he could have become a serious badass combatant, repairing himself within minutes of any non-lethal damage, much like a T-1000 Terminator.

It's not canon, but you could play with it.

 

Basilisk venom doesn't destroy Horcruxes. Basilisk venom damages the containers beyond repair and that destroys the Horcruxes. In living containers, healed beyond repair equals death. That's the problem with living Horcruxes. Where inanimte containers will basicly exist forever, living containers simply die at some point. So just stabbing Harry (or Nagini) with Basilisk venom or burning a part of them with Fiendfyre isn't enough, it has to actually kill them.

There's also a difference in being damaged beyond repair and being completely destroyed. Only the diadem completely broke apart and that's because it was burned with Fiendfyre. The fact, that the Resurrection Stone was still usable, doesn't mean it wasn't damaged beyond repair, it just shows that it had magical properties that still worked beyond that damage. It's not like it was suddenly impossible to write in the diary, just because it had a large hole in it. And Harry himself didn't even have a scratch on him.

 

Could be a simple case of Rowling getting her plots screwed up? She does tends to 'drop-the-ball' ocassionally.

 

I don't have a link off hand, but a couple of weeks back I read JR's answer to it when it cropped up during one of those question & answer sessions of hers, and she said that the venom wasn't in his blood stream/him for long enough... but most likely she decided to make Harry a Horcrux at the last moment and a plot hole was made because of it...

 

There were plans to hint at horcruxes in the second book, so I don't think it's beyond plausibility that she had Harry in mind as a pseudo-horcrux way back when she decided to continue the series.

 

Worse thing is, IMO, that super awesome love and blood protection that already neutralized (if it was not some kind of fluke or perhaps power of prophecy) unblockable and deadly Killing Curse, burned Quirrellmort to ashes and made LV create extra complicated plan just to negate this defense, could not prevent sliver of Voldemort´s soul latching on Harry´s scar and making him to something like Horcrux.