Horcrux

A Horcrux is a magical object in the fictional Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling. The first known example of such an object was introduced in the second novel of the series, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, although the concept of the Horcrux was only explained in the sixth novel, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. Horcruxes play a large part in the seventh and concluding book in the series, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.

Description

Rowling invented the Horcrux to be a "receptacle in which a Dark wizard has hidden a fragment of his soul for the purposes of attaining immortality." With part of a wizard's soul thus stored, the wizard becomes immortal so long as the Horcrux remains intact, typically hidden away in a safe location. If the wizard's body is destroyed, part of the soul remains preserved within the Horcrux. However, the destruction of the Horcrux creator's body leaves the wizard in a state of half-life, without corporeal form. The dark magic involved in the creation of a Horcrux is considered most despicable and is therefore rarely published, even in books devoted to the Dark Arts.

A Horcrux can be made from any normal object. Destruction of the Horcrux destroys the fragment of soul contained within it, ending the protection it provides, and rendering the creator mortal if there are no remaining Horcruxes. A wizard must have at least one piece of his soul intact on Earth in order to continue living. Thus, if all of the Horcruxes created by one wizard were destroyed, then there would be no way for the wizard to return after being killed, as his death would release the last piece of his soul from mortal existence.

Lord Voldemort is the only wizard explicitly mentioned as having created a Horcrux (though others are known to have done so) and is the only wizard known to have created more than one.

The idea is similar to the story of Koschei, who is said to have taken his soul and put it inside a needle, which is in an egg, which is in a duck, which is in a hare, which is in an iron chest, which is buried under a green oak tree, which is on the island of Buyan, in the ocean, all in an attempt to achieve immortality.

Creation

The specific spell is unknown, but the creation of a Horcrux requires the creator to commit a murder which, as "the supreme act of evil," "rips the soul apart". Once the murder is committed, the spell is cast to infuse one portion of the ripped soul into an object, which becomes a Horcrux. There is no apparent limitation on the nature of the items that can be made into a Horcrux; even living creatures may be used, though this is hinted at being inadvisable due to the fact that animals can die, and once it does, the fragment of soul can no longer inhabit it, making it "risky business" to make an animal a horcrux. There also seems to be no limit to how many Horcruxes a wizard can create, but in Voldemort's case, each time he split his soul and created another Horcrux, he lost more of his humanity. As the soul is further split and manipulated as such, it becomes more and more temperamental and unstable.

Also, it is possible, under very special circumstances, for a Horcrux to be created without the intention, or knowledge of the creator.

Destruction

Unlike normal objects, Horcruxes are notoriously difficult to destroy. They cannot be destroyed by conventional means such as smashing, breaking, or burning. According to a book Hermione Granger had acquired from Dumbledore's office, a Horcrux represents the exact opposite of a human in terms of containing a soul; while harm to the human body will cause no damage to the soul, the fragment of soul within a Horcrux depends on this corporeal form to exist. In order to be destroyed, a Horcrux must suffer damage so severe that repair through magical means would be impossible. So far, the only things known to destroy a Horcrux are basilisk fangs, the sword of Godric Gryffindor (which is infused with basilisk venom), or very powerful (not to mention dangerous) magical spells such as Fiendfyre. Avada Kedavra could also possibly destroy a Horcrux. It is also possible to return a horcrux to its makers body but this can only be achieved by forcing the creator to feel deep remorse Doing this which can cause the maker to die from the pain.

Horcruxes within the Harry Potter novels

Lord Voldemort's creation of Horcruxes is central to the later storyline of the Harry Potter novels.

In Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, Dumbledore states that he believes it is likely that Voldemort created six Horcruxes from six important murders, and kept the remaining portion of his soul within his body, thus keeping his soul in seven separate locations. Voldemort chose to do so as seven is a powerful, mystical number (see Bridget Wenlock). Thus, anyone wishing to completely kill Voldemort must first locate and destroy all of his Horcruxes, before attempting to eliminate the remainder of his soul that resides in his body.

Dumbledore believed that all of Voldemort's Horcruxes are objects that have had some importance or sentimental value to him.

• Tom Riddle's diary was left with Lucius Malfoy prior to Voldemort's "death." Lucius passed off the diary to Ginny Weasley in an attempt to remove any incriminating evidence against him, and the spirit inside the diary posesses Ginny and opens the Chamber of Secrets. Harry destroys it, along with the Riddle manifestation and the soul fragment, using the Basilisk's poisonous fang to stab into the pages of the diary. Harry takes the diary back to McGonagall's office, where she and Dumbledore confront Lucius Malfoy. Harry returns the diary to Malfoy, but it is not stated what became of it. Dumbledore later realises that the diary was a Horcrux, and one of many, and speculates that Voldemort only discovered that the Horcrux had been destroyed when he "forced the truth out of Lucius Malfoy", and "that his anger was terrible to behold".

• Marvolo Gaunt's ring was discovered by Dumbledore in the Gaunt shack where Voldemort hid it, during the summer shortly before the start of Harry's sixth year at Hogwarts. Events of Tom Riddle's earlier life, as revealed in the Pensieve, suggested that he took the heirloom ring when he framed his uncle, Morfin Gaunt, for the murder of the rest of the Riddle family (which he confessed to after a memory change; Voldemort was the real murderer). Tom Riddle wore the gold-and-black ring at Hogwarts, and it appears on his hand in Horace Slughorn's Pensieve memories. Dumbledore destroyed the ring Horcrux with Godric Gryffindor's sword. He was seriously injured, his hand appearing blackened and burned, and would have died from a "terrible curse" placed upon the Horcrux ring, inflicted when he sucumbed to temptation and tried on the ring. The damaged ring, with its black stone cracked down the middle, was kept for a time on a little table in the Headmaster's office; Harry later noted that it was no longer there, but received no explanation from Dumbledore. Its black stone was later found inside of the snitch Harry had caught in his first Quidditch match that had been left to him by Dumbledore. In book 7 it is disclosed that Voldemort had placed the ring in a golden box, hidden under the rotting floorboards of the Gaunt House. The stone set in the ring is an important artifact in itself, as it is the Resurrection Stone, one of the three Deathly Hallows. It could bring the dead back for a time in a manner both like and unlike a ghost, a fact of which Voldemort remained ignorant (and probably would not have cared about).

• Salazar Slytherin's Locket was once owned by Lord Voldemort's mother, Merope Gaunt. When Merope was homeless and starving after Tom Riddle Senior's abandonment of her during her pregnancy, she sold the locket to Caractus Burke for a tiny fraction of the Locket's true value, not having known its true value (it was priceless) or having simply ceased to care. It was then bought by Hepzibah Smith and was then stolen by Tom Riddle. Riddle then transformed the Locket into a Horcrux and hid it in a cave by the sea in which he had once terrorized two of his fellow orphans years earlier. The Locket was then stolen by Regulus Arcturus Black and his house elf Kreacher. After having rescued the Locket from the rubbish heap, Kreacher hid the Locket in his cupboard before it was stolen from him by Mundungus Fletcher, who then gave the Locket away to Dolores Umbridge as a bribe. The Locket was later disarmed after Harry opened it using Parseltongue and Ron stabbed its windows with the Sword of Gryffindor.

• Helga Hufflepuff's Cup was once owned by Hepzibah Smith, a distant descendant of Hufflepuff. It was stolen from her after her murder at the hands of Tom Riddle. The Cup, like Slytherin's Locket, went on to become one of Voldemort's many Horcruxes. He entrusted it to Bellatrix Lestrange, who kept it well hidden deep in the bowels of Gringotts Bank in her family's high security vault. After an adventurous excursion into the bank, Harry managed to steal the Cup. It was later destroyed shortly before the Battle of Hogwarts by Hermione Granger, using a fang from the remains of the basilisk of the Chamber of Secrets.

• Rowena Ravenclaw's Diadem was stolen by her daughter Helena Ravenclaw, later revealed to be the true identity of the Grey Lady, ghost of Ravenclaw House. After running away with her mother's tiara, Helena was pursued by her then-suitor, the Bloody Baron. Shortly before he caught up with her in an Albanian forest, Helena hid the Diadem in a hollow tree. When Helena refused the Baron's advances, he killed her. Horrified by what he'd done, he killed himself. Years later, Helena's spirit was tricked into revealing the Diadem's resting place by the charming Tom Marvolo Riddle. Riddle traveled to Albania (where he would return to hide in exile years later) and acquired the Diadem, transforming it into a Horcrux. Later, when he returned to Hogwarts to request from Dumbledore the Defence Against the Dark Arts position, he hid Ravenclaw's Horcrux in the one place that he believed he alone knew about, the Room of Requirement. Harry was able to deduce the Diadem's location in the Room of Hidden Things (a manifestation of the Room of Requirement). Harry inadvertantly moved the Horcrux in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince when he attempted to hide his potions book. It was ultimately destroyed by a Fiendfyre started by Vincent Crabbe.

• Harry Potter was the only living entity left in the room when Voldemort's fatal Killing Curse backfired on himself. Voldemort's soul had been so weakened by his continuous creation of Horcruxes that when he was ripped from his body, a fragment of his soul was lost when he fled the scene, and the fragment attatched itself to the only living thing in the room, the infant Harry Potter. This gave Harry a window into the Dark Lord's mind and his gift of Parseltongue. Due to his use of Harry's blood to resurrect himself years later, Voldemort only succeeded in destroying his own soul fragment inside Harry rather than Harry himself when he finally attempted to kill Harry once and for all. This accounted for Dumbledore's "gleam of triumph" upon learning of Voldemort's fatal mistake in using Harry's blood, knowing that it was this mistake that would save Harry. Unlike the other Horcruxes, Dumbledore did not directly provide Harry with the suggestion that he could be a Horcrux; he asked Severus Snape to reveal this information to Harry at the end of his task. Voldemort was entirely unaware of Harry's status as his seventh Horcrux, and when he finally delivered a successful Killing Curse at the boy, instead of killing him he separated and destroyed the piece of his soul from Harry.

• Nagini was said - by Albus Dumbledore - to have been transformed into a Horcrux with the murder of the muggle Frank Bryce in the first chapter of the Goblet of Fire. Once he realized that his other Horcruxes were no longer functional, Voldemort cast a powerful, bubble-like protective shell around Nagini during the Battle of Hogwarts. When he was fooled into believing that Harry Potter was dead, he carelessly removed this protective shell from around the snake. When the right distraction came, Neville Longbottom, acting on Harry's previous instructions to kill the snake should the opportunity present itself, brought the Sword of Godric Gryffindor down on Nagini, severing her head and at the same time rendering Lord Voldemort mortal once again. However, the goblin Griphook had taken the true Sword of Gryffindor in Gringrotts; Neville had at the time had the sorting hat placed upon his head, as a true Gryffindor, managed to obtain the sword and kill Nagini.

Bibliography

Books

• Frazer, James George, Sir, The Golden Bough, "Chapter 67:The External Soul in Folk-Tales". (Wikisource).
• Rowling, J. K. (1997). Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone. London: Bloomsbury/New York City: Scholastic, et al. UK ISBN 0-7475-3269-9/U.S. ISBN 0-590-35340-3.
• Rowling, J. K. (1998). Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. London: Bloomsbury/New York City: Scholastic, et al. UK ISBN 0-7475-3849-2/U.S. ISBN 0-439-06486-4.
• Rowling, J. K. (2000). Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. London: Bloomsbury/New York City: Scholastic, et al. UK ISBN 0-7475-4624-X/U.S. ISBN 0-439-13959-7.
• Rowling, J. K. (2005). Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. London: Bloomsbury/New York City: Scholastic, et al. UK ISBN 0-7475-8108-8/U.S. ISBN 0-439-78454-9.
• Rowling, J. K. (2007). Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. London: Bloomsbury/New York City: Scholastic, et al. UK ISBN 1-55192-976-7/U.S. ISBN 0-545-01022-5.

Online resources

• Frazer, James George, Sir, The Golden Bough, "Chapter 67:The External Soul in Folk-Tales". (Wikisource).
• Rowling, J.K. . "J.K. Rowling's Official Site". {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |accessmonthday= ignored (help); Unknown parameter |accessyear= ignored (|access-date= suggested) (help)