I'd had an idea (although not one I really want to write, it merely popped into existence) a while back, based on a story I'd read about cloning (this wasn't a HP fanfic, it was an original piece). It was all pseudo-science, but the whole story is first person up until the cloning happens, which is told in third person. We then go back to first person, and in the final line of the story find out that since the cloning incident, we've seen from the POV of the clone, wh was completely unaware they weren't the original.

So what if each canon Horcrux 'wakes up', and thinks they have just performed their first/second/nth encruxination? You'd end up with 128 Voldemorts running around. There was also something in there about making Dementor-kissed-victims into Horcruxes, so they had a fully self-aware body. And obliviation would have fitted in so as that each Horcurx didn't go "Hey... I didn't wake up as a toaster this morning..."

So yeah, I'd always held that it was the vessel that gave Voldemort his autonomy. If he'd encruxed things capable of movement, they might have been willing allies in his fight against AD. And then pulled a Brutus.

 

I think the Voldemort piece of soul is different in some way to his Horcruxes. A Horcrux that has animate form still isn't on the same level as the "main" Voldemort. The master piece, as it were.

If this were not the case, and there was no qualitative difference between the piece of soul in the Voldemort running around and the soul fragments in the Horcruxes, then each of the Horcruxes (and Voldemort himself) should act as Horcruxes for all the other Horcruxes. When a Horcrux was destroyed, the soul fragment should be anchored to the Earth in the same way as Voldemort was.

However, this isn't factoring the specific method by which Diary!Riddle sought to become alive. Clearly that's quite different to a Horcrux in a living being e.g. Nagini.

My own view on that matter is that, had the Diary been successful, that piece of Voldemort would then have a full soul and would cease to be a Horcrux. Rather, it would be a new independent being of its own. Why do I think this? Because had Riddle been successful, he would have absorbed all of Ginny's "life force". A full soul's worth.

 

To this, I refer back to the very first post I made to DLP: