What about dragon fire? I mean, I'm pretty sure it wasn't mentioned in the same sentence as the word horcrux in canon, but it's a fun bit of speculation.

Of course, the burnt flesh from dragon fire is heal-able in canon, so I guess not.

 

It just says it can't be magically repaired. So if I make a curse with no way to counter or repair damage from it, you can't magically repair that damage. So at that time it can destroy a horcrux. If 100 years latter someone makes a counter to it, well then it stops working on horcruxes.

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It's said that dragons fire could destroy the great rings, but none now live in which the old fires burn hot enough.

 

If this was the case, your spell would never have been able to destroy a Horcrux. The damage has to be truly beyond repair, not temporarily. It can't be a matter of whether someone has figured it out. It has to be a matter of no one ever figuring it out because it's impossible.

 

But I might be impossible to fix, people assume it is impossible until a genius works out how.

 

Presumably, the Horcrux remains undamaged until something that can truly destroy it does so. You'd know it had worked if it had actually been destroyed, because only at that point would a Horcrux be damaged in the first place. No one would ever be able to fix it after that, no matter what spells they devised.


EDIT: That component might be part of what makes them the pinnacle of Dark Magic.

 

I think the issue isn't that something has to be an unstoppable force to destroy a horcrux, just extremely deadly.

Basilisk venom is explicitly not unbeatable. Phoenix tears, while rare, can counteract it. They even pointed that out in Canon!

So if by some miracle someone finds a way to fight fiendfyre, it's not like horcruxes are immediately immune to fiendfyre. It just means there is a method to fight fiendfyre, just as there is a way to fight basilisk venom without affecting its potency on Phoenix tears.

 

Phoenix tears, for a wizard who's not Dumbledore, might be considered a capacity 'beyond magical repair' (for him). In the vast majority of situations, basilisk venom is beyond magical repair, especially for objects which cannot be 'healed.'

 

Phoenixes can't be so rare that their tears are nigh unattainable except to the one dude who's got one as a pet. Oh, and that one Quidditch team that has one as a mascot (even though the team is called the Macaws). After all, phoenix feathers are common enough that Ollivander can restrict himself to using only them and two other cores. They are stated to be very difficult to domesticate and tend to nest on mountaintops, but never considered particularly obscure and their attributes tend to be fairly well-known.

 

In my opinion, the Horcrux has to be destroyed to such an extent that its innate magic wouldn't be able to heal it. The horcrux diary didn't have the healing properties on the level of Phoenix tears so basilisk venom was able to destroy it. After being stabbed, the diary wasn't completely beyond magical repair but it was beyond the repair ability that was woven into it.

 

Phoenixes need not be rare for their tears to be rare.

 

Phoenix tears will heal you, but not revive you. It's possible that there is a tiny window of time in which phoenix tears would fix a Horcrux vessel, but after that the vessel would truly be beyond magical repair.

 

I think I've mentioned it on here before, but my theory is that Dumbledore did complete his Animagus transformation but had no use for it after the initial novelty. Why, you ask? Because his form was a cabbage head jellyfish. Its toxin is extremely weak, it can't really move without a current, and it obviously can't survive without water. Doesn't really jive with the image of the all-powerful wise old wizard. Despite this, Dumbledore did experiment with the transformation in the Hogwarts Lake - incidentally, that is how he developed an interest in Mermish language and culture. However, after a near-fatal incident where he was almost killed by a common turtle, he decided to use one of the many safer and more practical methods of exploring the water.

Oh, and as additional point for the immature: Cabbage head jellyfish are mostly asexual, but when they do have sexual encounters it consists of ejecting sperm into the mouth cavity of other jellyfish. :awesome

 

what

/10char

 

What does this phrase "give her a run for her money" mean?

I know, I googled it, and it basically means that someone has to bust their ass to prove their skills. I get that.

But what does that "give her a run for her money" specifically mean?

 

"A can give B a run for his money" means that A can compete strongly against B afaik. I think it comes from Horse Racing.

 

EDIT: Afrojack's definition below totally beats mine

 

Really? I thought B was usually the implied victor, as in:

"B is supreme at X."

"Yes, but A will give B a run for his money."

In the end, it means that even though B is the assumed winner, A will make him work very hard (run) for the win (his [prize] money).

 

huh you're damn right you know, that's a much more accurate representation

 

To be fair, I don't mean to imply that A can't win, since even the phrase seems to acknowledge A's victory as a possibility, just that B is the preexisting favorite, assumed winner until it is actually defeated by A, if that happens.

 

That's pretty much it. I think the implication is that it is a big thing in itself that A can go as far as to challenge B whereas B is something of a champion at the subject.