I was just thinking about OotP when Voldemort possesses Harry. He can't do it for long because of Harry's goodness/love or whatever (there was another thread about how this allows him to master Occlumency in DH), but why doesn't Voldemort take the sliver of Harry's soul with him? Could Harry have lost that Horcrux at that time?

In canon I think we learn that Horcruxes can be destroyed through drastic measures like Fiendfyre, basilisk venom, and also the Killing Curse.

But isn't there the possibility that Voldemort could regret his actions, repent, and somehow be made whole and therefore mortal? (Or am I imagining this?) There seems to be an idea that souls can be made whole again through regret, but do you think his mind by its presence in Harry could reincorporate that sliver of soul? A sliver of Voldemort's soul attached itself to Harry because he was the only living thing in the room, but when he himself is present in Harry's body as an invading mind, that sliver is unaffected.

Could Voldemort gather/attract the sliver of his soul present in Harry? If so, why? And if not, why not?

Clearly it doesn't happen, but it would be interesting to see how that might affect their confrontation if it's possible or how a fanfic would deal with this.

 

There is the possibility, Dumbledore specifically said as much in HBP, but he also said it was incredibly unlikely. He goes so far as to characterize Voldemort as incapable of regret. It seems likely that he could recall his soul shard from his horcrux objects, and I don't imagine he would have to break them in the process, because breaking them doesn't allow him to recover the soul shard. So basically, yes, he could recover the soul shard from Harry, but I have no idea why he would do that. I'm sure you could put him in some kind of permanent confinement and try to force him to release Harry, but you can't force someone to feel regret. Apart from feeling remorse for your soul-splitting action, there does not seem to be a canonical way of recovering the fragment, but you're welcome to invent something.

 

Thanks for your reply. I think my supposition was a bit unclear. I was thinking more along the lines of a contiguous relationship affecting the Horcrux in Harry rather than Voldemort's conscious release of the Horcrux. Especially since Voldemort isn't aware that Harry is a Horcrux.

For an example of contiguity/metonymy as a kind of magic rule, in ancient Greek sympathetic magic like attracts like (and inversely, opposite counteracts opposite), so I was wondering if Voldemort's Horcrux could or should be attracted back to his own soul because he is present within the same body as the soul fragment.

This would mean Harry loses the ability to speak to snakes earlier (as in On the Way to Greatness) and wouldn't return from the dead as in DH if he's struck by the Killing Curse.

 

That's an interesting theory. Really, all I was saying was that there was no mention of any other way of doing it in the books. If, however, you were to write a fanfiction where you explained such magical theory far in advance of where it became relevant, you might be able to pull it off as a plausible explanation.

 

I think that regret is a way of repairing the soul after damaging it by creating a Horcrux, but I don't think regretting its creation recovers the soul fragment itself. I believe that regret would results in the remaining core soul starting to heal and recover from the damage done to it. What that means for the Horcrux is up for debate - do they continue on as anchors? Do they waste away? Are they still soul containers, but no longer acting as anchors for the healed soul because that healed soul is not the one that sundered itself in return for immortality? You could very well have a rehabilitated Dark Wizard forced to contend against their dark self if their Horcrux gained sentience/independence in the manner of the Diary.

 

Interesting. You're right in that I don't think Dumbledore ever says that the pieces come back together. I suppose I assumed this because if we think about Horcruxes as pieces of a soul, then "repair" contains an idea of bringing those pieces back together. But perhaps this is too literal.

Your reading is interesting though because soul becomes a much more organic thing. By this logic, regret repairs the soul and it grows back or heals over the wound inflicted by murder and Horcrux creation.

The organic line of thought has the two options you mention. We can think of the remaining Horcruxes as limbs separated from the body by a kind of wound. If a dark wizard regrets and heals his soul, those limbs may waste away.

Or, as you say, they could remain as versions of the dark wizard independent of him. Artificial intelligences within objects ready to attack if they are endangered and/or also ready to become embodied and independent agents.

I'm curious if others think that this is the way to read regret and Horcruxes in HP and if they agree with the theory underlying your comment that soul works in this organic way. I like it because it works on a similar level and with a similar kind of ambiguity that we see in the deep magic of Lily's sacrifice, Voldemort's resurrection ritual, etc.

 

The Horcruxes are sentient. They're covered with all kinds of curses and enchantments, but they've demonstrated a willingness to protect themselves, to try to convince threats not to destroy them. Created by soul-splitting sins, each sin is localized to each object, each object housing a snapshot of who their creator was at the time, like Diary Tom Riddle, frozen as the young man who murdered Myrtle Warren. When I said that Dumbledore at least implies that horcruxes can be incorporated, perhaps I should have included the context. He and Harry were making their way to where they hoped the locked would be, and he explained that the way was difficult because Voldemort wanted it to be nearly impossible for anyone to reach the locket. Harry asks why he doesn't just make it completely impossible, and Dumbledore says that he wants to be able to visit his horcruxes, which I would think implies that they are sentient. Voldemort has some desire to revisit the parts of himself that committed each of the soul-splitting sins, most likely to make sure they're still loyal to him. He doesn't want another Diary Tom Riddle who drew attention to himself and got himself killed, and he can feel it when someone destroys a horcrux.
I would argue that the horcruxes either die or reincorporate should their creator earnestly repent of his previous actions. Remorse is presented as a glimmer of hope in HBP, immediately snatched away by the absence of any chance that it would happen. Simultaneously, I should think that to feel bad about it would not be enough; to lose his horcrux he would have to visit it.