Hey, so...if Harry's a horcrux, shouldn't something like fiendfyre, basilisk venom, etc. be the only things that can kill him? Voldemort killed him with an AK but can that destroy a horcrux?

Sorry if this has been discussed before, I searched and didn't find it.

 

Yes.

In before flames.

 

I wasn't sure if an AK could destroy a horcrux, thanks for the answer.

 

So....you ever read the Harry Potter series?

 

Yeah but, I didn't know that an AK could destroy a horcrux. I must have missed it at some point then. Do you know when it was mentioned?

 

In the seventh book. When the horcrux in Harry is destroyed by Voldemort's AK.

:facepalm

Also, it doesn't say that basilisk venom/fiendfyre/AK's are the only things that can destroy them. Those are just examples of some things that can. There are probably many. They just have to be really badass/unstoppable spells/venoms/potions to destroy a horcrux.

 

I know that Voldemort AK'd Harry and destroyed the horcrux but i was wondering if any old horcrux can be destroyed by an AK and if not then why could the horcrux in Harry be destroyed by an AK.

Then my next question was why they didn't just AK the locket.

 

If this is a troll, you got me, but...

Assuming a normal Horcrux could be fucked up by an AK, you would think Regulus would have done it in his dying moment when all the Inferi were coming, and Kreacher when a-running.

Assuming they can be, I don't think that Harry can mean an AK. Way too easy for a normal wizard to destroy one, honestly, if an AK can be used.

 

To destroy the soul piece in a Horcrux, you have to damage its container beyond repair. For inanimate containers, this means you have to damage it with Fiendfyre or Basilisk Venom, because the Horcrux can still repair any other damage. For a living container however, damaged beyond repair simply means dead. And that's a lot easier. It's possible simple old age could have killed the soul piece inside Harry, when he died at ninety years old.

So, using the Killing Curse on an inanimate Horcrux wouldn't work, because you can't kill what's not alive. While on the other hand, having Harry choke to death on a peanut would destroy the soul piece.

 

A horcrux has to be 'damaged beyond magical repair'. Whatever spell or creature or potion can damage something beyond magical repair should work.

EDIT: Darn, too slow.

 

Thanks i understand. Me and a friend had a thought and i figured you guys could help.

 

A few quibbles:

1. There's no indication that Horcruxes actually repair themselves - rather, it seems like they are merely highly resistant to damage in the first place.

2. The effects of the Killing Curse on inanimate Horcruxes are in the strictest sense unknown. However, the Killing Curse can and does have an effect on inanimate objects. Voldemort cast one in OotP that missed Dumbledore and hit a desk, setting the desk on fire. If a life-killing curse can have a physical effect on non-living objects, it's possible that it could destroy an inanimate Horcrux.

The operative term here may be "unblockable" - i.e. if it can't be blocked by a wizard, perhaps its damaging effects can't be repelled by even the sturdiest of magical objects - any object in the way of the curse could suffer physical damage, which in the case of a Horcrux is sufficient to destroy the Horcrux.

EDIT: Correction - I looked in DH and Hermione does mention Horcruxes repairing themselves. Sorry 'bout that.

 

Fair enough. I thought I read somewhere Horcruxes can repair themself, but I could be mistaken. I suppose an object, than can only be damaged to an extend that it's unreparable, doesn't really need to repair itself.

EDIT: Retraction ninja'd.

While it's technically true it's never been proven, that the Killing Curse doesn't work against inanimate objects, I don't think there's any real reason to assume it does. The Killing Curse has one very simple effect. It kills. It doesn't choke a person to death or damage them so much he dies from it. It simply makes life stop. Some spells might be so powerfull, that they actually cause some physical damage (scorched walls, burning desks) when they hit something they can't actually effect. But that just seems residual damage from spell failure. Like Neville blowing up his feather in Charms. If that were enough to destory a Horcrux, they could just pass it around to First Years for levitation and wait untill someone blows it up.

But the effect of the Killing Curse itself, killing something, wouldn't work. Because, like I said, inanimate Horcruxes aren't alive, so there's no life to end and thus damage beyond repair.

 

The whole "damaged beyond repair" thing is pretty dodgy, really. Harry's holly wand was apparently damaged beyond repair - until he fixed it with the Elder Wand. Harry himself was dead, but that didn't stop him from coming back to life, so it appears he wasn't actually damaged beyond repair either. It seems to me that there isn't really any sense in which something can be damaged beyond repair entirely. There always seems to be some rare magic that can fix it.

So what it really seems to mean is "damaged beyond normal ability to repair". Which is a very flexible notion. As the wizarding world advances and gets better at magic, including getting better at repairing things, do horcruxes become harder to destroy?

 

There does seem to be some effect - Nagini survived Hermione's blasting curse (in Godric's Hollow), and in the movie Ron and Hermione make a specific effort to try and kill her using a Basilisk fang before Neville beheads her with Gryffindor's sword.

 

I call troll.


And:

That's assuming Dumbledore was correct. Additionally, regarding if horcruxes would become harder to destroy, that depends if the reason being "damaged beyond normal ability to repair" was due to Voldemort's enchantments or the actual magic of the horcrux. If anything, horcruxes should become easier to destroy as more effective magics are discovered over time, unless a better horcrux creation method is discovered to keep up with the times.

That said, the soul in the horcrux could be layering charms on itself through hosts, but I don't think that's what you meant by horcruxes becoming harder to destroy.

 

This is entirely speculation, but I had always assumed that it was because casting an AK damaged your soul. I don't mean casting it in self defense or on an animal but to cast it knowingly on a piece of soul that has no real defense against it. That was the first step needed to split the soul was it not? To kill in cold blood knowing and accepting that you are killing that part of a soul and doing so with a spell that if it is anything like cruciatus curse requires you to mean it could cause the damage to outweigh the benefits.

I have no proof for any of this mind you.

 

I'm curious as to why the Basilisk venom didn't destroy it when he was bitten in year 2.