The killing curse removes a person from the set of people who are alive and places them in the set of people who are dead.

In the HP universe being alive or dead seems to be a fundamental, basic, non-emergent property that things do or do not have. There are rules that concern it specifically. E.g. "magic cannot return a person to life". Not "magic can't restart the heart" or "magic can't regenerate the brain". Life itself is the property of concern.

Also, EC Scrubb, you've forgotten how horcruxes work.

The killing curse cannot destroy a horcrux. Nothing in the universe can destroy a horcrux directly. The only way to destroy a horcrux is to destroy its physical container, because a horcrux is a piece of soul that needs a body to survive (whereas a human is an eternal soul that doesn't need a body).

In DH, the killing curse hits Harry and Harry dies. A person being dead means that the container is destroyed. The horcrux was thus destroyed. At no other point in the series was Harry dead.

 

I think the more interesting question is what is the Wizarding definition of death. With magic it's not at all unreasonable to assume that there are ways to revive people long after their heart has stopped or to repair brain damage caused by lack of oxygen.

As the existence of souls seems given in HP I'd guess they have something to do with the definition of death, ergo the Killing Curse would also have to have something to do with souls.

 

Well, yeah, if the HP universe works on rules that are human-concept derived then "Magic" is a perfectly reasonable explanation.

 

That's right . . . thanks for that.

So, then, if Voldemort were to possess Harry, and somehow reabsorb the Horcrux into his own body when they separated again, killing Voldemort would also kill the Horcrux. Or, in other words, it'd have the form of a Horcrux, but would no longer anchor a person to this life. Right?

 

I think the only way for Voldemort to reabsorb the horcrux into himself would be to feel remorse.

 

Hey Sesc. I DISAGREE! <drives off>

In all seriousness, this discussion has been beaten to death many times over, and the only consensus seems to be that we fundamentally disagree on these matters. Let's leave it at that.

Speculation, albeit speculation that's hard to refute. For the purposes of my fic, this isn't true, but for canon (which seems to be what this thread is about), your speculation may be well founded.

The reason I bring it up, however, is because I thought of something last night while in bed, and lo the opportunity to bring it up to you came the day after I thought of it.

What exactly constitutes destroying the container? We already know that an object containing a destroyed Horcrux retains its magical properties, so what does destroying it really mean?

 

If by "speculation" you mean "explicitly explained at length by Hermione in DH", then yes.

 

Point. Still didn't address what I was hoping you would, though.

 

Does it retain them? Only the Resurrection Stone (a Hallow) survived such a process I think, and even it was cracked. Who knows, it might have been functioning relatively inadequately.

The container has to be put beyond magical repair, which implies that while some physical form or vestige might remain, it will never function properly again.

Riddle's Diary presumably never worked the way it once did ever again, the Cup didn't survive, Locket and Diadem were destroyed, Nagini killed, Harry died, which I guess counts as being "destroyed," though . . . not beyond magical repair. Unless Harry had straight divine intervention on his side. But I don't think that's what she meant to do.

Destroying it, as it extends beyond physical damage, seems to be anything that negates the object's intended or existential magical purpose, or function. So killing Harry, a living being, is destroying him, even if his body is perfectly fine.

 

From Hermione's explanation we can see:

1. The protections on a horcrux are down to the wizards who create them, as the book warned against making the protections too weak.

2. The protections on horcruxes therefore vary - there is no such thing as a default horcrux.

3. What it takes to destroy a horcrux therefore also varies. The rule is "put it beyond magical repair" - what it takes to do this will depend on what protections the horcrux possesses.

4. For example, basilisk venom is a highly destructive substance and therefore generally destroys horcruxes. But this is not a fixed rule. Had Voldemort been able to get his hands on phoenix tears and imbue the powers of the tears into a horcrux, basilisk venom would not have been able to destroy it.

The key issue seems to be damaging the object beyond its innate ability to endure. If you do this, the horcrux is destroyed, even if magic does possess the ability to repair the damage. It only counts if the dark wizard has thought to include that protection on the object.

In the case of Harry, he was dead. This is beyond the innate ability of the human body to repair, and thus the horcrux was destroyed. That he was returned to life through a special circumstance external to him - the quasi horcrux of Voldemort having his blood, etc. - does not impact his innate ability to resist the damage of the killing curse.

 

The nightmare scenario: a horcrux made from a weapon of goblin steel. It'd be like trying to destroy a Saiyan; get it right on the first try or it'll be twice as hard for the next attempt.

 

True Potterverse immortality?

 

This has been bothering me for quite a while now. E.C. Scrubb remind me of it.
I know a lot of fics, especially post-hogwarts ones, aboard the issue about Riddle's piece of soul inside Harry's body to make him (Harry) more powerful after the Battle of Hogwarts. I think everybody here read one of those, but if you didn't the premise is basically this: Harry's magic (and soul?) had been battling with the Horcrux since 1981 to avoid possession and/or ultimate destruction of his soul. Once the Horcrux was removed, Harry had the magic dedicated to contain it free to use in his every day spell-casting, ergo his spells were a lot more powerful.

That's fanon, and being a person who subscribes to Taure's idea that magic is a skill which can be greater through practice, innate ability and knowledge; I don't like that type of fanon. But the issue still bothers me. Because we read what a Horcrux did to Ginny, and that was because she poured her heart into it, and the Horcrux was located in a diary. Once destroyed she was fine. In Harry's case, the Horcrux was inside him, located in the metaphysical plane where souls reside in the body, where another soul (complete and pure) was already there.
Given that Lord Voldemort's Horcruxes attack when a person is "close emotionally" to it, how much closer could it get than already inside said person? And Harry, like Ginny (and Ron) lived a lot of emotionally weak moments, but unlike the Weasleys when in contact with those Horcruxes, he suffered a direct attack when Voldemort used the connection as a proxy.

Did Lily's sacrifice protect him in other instances, when he was emotionally weak or rip for the possesion? Did his magic protect him like it would do against a magical or muggle disease? And what consequences did the Horcrux leave once it was destroyed? I mean, you can't have a very hostile soul inside you and be 'untouched' or remain safe like any other wizard/witch who doesn’t have it.

 

JKR's line on this is that the purity of Harry's soul protected him. Had he started down a darker path, the horcrux would have helped him along it, but so long as he stayed made of sugar spice and everything nice the horcrux couldn't touch him.

 

It seems to me that JK forgot about the horcrux hunt when she said that.

 

The way I'd take it, for the Horcrux to attack Harry, it'd actually be attacking it's one host. Voldemort seems too intelligent to do something that brazenly self-destructive, so I'd think his Horcrux would act the same way.

 

It makes kinda sense, but that's a boring justification she made. Thanks, Taure.

But the two Horcruxes which were in contact with other people tried to possess them. It's not that self-destructive, it's a MO they have.

 

As per canon, a dead person is beyond magical repair. No witch or wizard has ever been successful at Necromancy; that is, pairing the soul of the deceased with their body. In HP, Necromancers only raise Inferi and Zombies, which are pale shadows of a true resurrection.

Edit: I should probably add, resurrections can be quasi-sucessful with the use of horcruxes to tie the soul to the mortal plan.

 

Grinning Lizard's Scab had this premise. It was quite good...