The owner is not guilty of murder, except for by the law. Law deals justice to the one who orders the attack when they can't deal it to the one who actually did the deed. Seeing as how Voldemort never 'did the deed' himself and was the one who ordered it then, yes, he would be persecuted by the law, but he wouldn't be able to make a horcrux through this.

We have been having this discussion on someone else's thread for the past couple days and I feel bad. Sorry Jbern. If we want to keep talking about this, let's move it to another thread.

 

I don't mind. You folks seem to be having a lively discussion. Personally, I hate the concept of a Horcrux. For Bungle and its sequel it works, but otherwise no thanks.

My opinion, I suppose the Basilisk could be used by Tom to create a Horcrux. The reason I say this is the Basilisk could not create it's own Horcrux.

Still, to my recollection, it's never specified that Tom ordered it to kill Myrtle. It might have done it on it's own and that's why Tom put it back into storage realizing how much attention it called to it. Fortunate that he had a fall guy in Hagrid. (Maybe Tom gave him the Arcomantula - in case he needed a patsy?)

That might even be a plausible reason why when it is freed, it might have gone out of it's way not to kill anyone for fear that it would be put into storage again.

Jim

 

I'd not really considered that before - but then again, the whole thing with the Basilisk rubs me the wrong way.

If the Basilisk could wander the halls like it did in CoS, without Dumbledore immediately being alerted by some ward or other that there is a massively scary dark creature running about, why couldn't Tom have simply told the people he actually wanted to keep alive to skip dinner some night, and had the Basilisk slither into the Great Hall about mid meal, after a simple explosion or other distraction (imperioused naked veela anyone?) to make sure everyone looked at where the basilisk was entering from at the appropriate moment. He could have killed most or all of a generation worth of people that he didn't care for, catching them absolutely by surprise.

 

Direct action is the key to murder. When pulling the trigger of a gun, you are directly acting in the taking of a life. The gun has no will of its own. It is completely reliant on the shooter for every aspect of the killing process. A basilisk, by contrast, is in control of itself. Even if it is following the will of another--be it from parseltongue suggestion or even the imperius curse--it is, to some degree, acting of its own will and abilities and is not reliant on anyone else to kill.

EDIT: POST NUMBER 200!!!!!

 

Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them states that "The male has a scarlet plume upon its head." If there is a male then there is a female. If there is a male and a female then they can have sex and produce baby basilisks.

If they can reproduce then they are a magical species and not a magical construct.

Finite.

 

If all you need to do to create a Horcrux is to let loose a dangerous animal, then every time someone walks into a lethal trap they would create a horcux. Every auror who used lethal force would have one. For that matter, how could Tom be sure that Myrtle would actually die? In Harry's time, the snake only petrified people - they all got lucky in the books, sure, but a bathroom is *more* likely to contain reflective surfaces than other places.

Was Tom hanging around the girl's bathroom, just waiting for some random student to wander in, enter the stall and sit down, then see the basilisk? I've always wondered how the basilisk got up to the bathroom, anyway. It was a very steep, very long slide, and the snake must have weighed many tons. Did Tom somehow levitate it up into the castle? I won't believe that until JKR says it herself! During CoS, I seem to remember that it was moving around through the pipes (the mind boggles) but it certainly did not exit through the toilet - THAT would have been a plumbing disaster, and very very obvious.

Frankly, I doubt it would fit in any reasonable-sized bathroom, and it certainly couldn't HIDE in one. If Tom cast a notice-me-not spell of THAT size, it would probably make the entire room hidden.

 

Following your way of thinking, when someone is killed a murderer makes a horcrux? In HBP is mentioned that "an act of murder rips a soul apart" (qoute from Polish version and could have different wording than actual thing), but if your theory is right, then in HP universe should be minimum a dozen of wizards, who are nearly immortal. Creating a horcrux is probably some kind of freaky ritual, which utilise an act of murder to separate a bit of participant's soul, so aurors rather don't have any of these things.

If my memory serves me right, Myrtle came to the bathroom before Riddle (she was crying, beacuse some girl was mean to her or something like that), she heard Tom entering bathroom and heard when he was speaking in the Parseltongue (probably opening an entrance to the Chamber), when she wanted to check what happened, she saw "huge yellow eyes" and died, so it's rather easy to assume that her death was purely accidental - after all, her death caused Voldemort only trouble.

You read CoS? If yes, then you should know that basilisk were going from the chamber to school and back via entrance to the chamber - it was probably built as a slide and not stairs, because of that.

E.A.

[EDIT] I hope that everything is ok now - shouldn't be posting, when in hurry. Sorry for inconvenience. E.A.

 

Umm, please reiterate in some sort of sensible fashion because that made little to no sense to me.

 

:?: I don't think any of you are getting the difference between spliting the soul and making the horcrux. Cold blooded murder does not make a horcrux. It is the act of cold blooded murder that splits the soul. Only after the soul is split can a witch or wizard use a spell to implant that broken piece into another object/being. Therefore the argument is pretty pointless on all accounts. I don't know whether ordering someone or something else to murder someone will split your soul as well (i.e. the basilisk argument), but even if your soul does split that doesn't make a horcrux. You have to implant that piece into something else using whatever spell Tom got from Slughorn.