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Suggest pagesMuggles' Guide to Harry Potter/Books/Half-Blood Prince/Chapter 23
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Chapter 23 of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince: Horcruxes
Contents |
[edit] Synopsis
Harry heads to the castle as the Felix Felicis potion is wearing off; Nearly Headless Nick tells him that Professor Dumbledore has returned and is in his office. Memory in hand, Harry presents himself to Dumbledore, who is apparently amazed and very pleased with Harry's success. He fetches his Pensieve, and they journey into Slughorn's fifty year-old memory.
Slughorn is talking to Tom Riddle, who asks about Horcruxes. Slughorn explains it is the darkest of Dark magic. It is possible to split a soul and encase the shard in another object; if killed, the perpetrator does not actually die because his soul shard is trapped and remains earthbound. Slughorn says souls are not meant to be split because it takes the ultimate evil, murder, to rip a soul apart. Prodded further, Slughorn reveals that there is a spell, but claims he does not know it. Riddle asks if one Horcrux can keep someone alive, is not more better? Seven, after all is a very powerful number. Slughorn, horrified, tries calming himself by saying this is all hypothetical. Riddle agrees, but as he departs, Harry sees the same wild joy on Riddle's face as when he learned he was a wizard.
Dumbledore tells Harry that Tom Riddle's diary, that Harry destroyed four years before, was almost certainly a Horcrux. He believes it was not only a safeguard, but also a weapon, intended to be passed on to, or planted upon, a Hogwarts student who would become possessed by it and reopen the Chamber of Secrets. Dumbledore suggests that this was a risky act if Riddle only had one soul fragment and believes there are others. Dumbledore recalls Voldemort's statement the night he returned: "I, who have gone further than anybody along the path that leads to immortality," and theorizes that, in a bid for immortality, Voldemort may have divided his soul into seven pieces (as the young Tom Riddle claimed that seven was the "most powerfully magical number"). As long as any Horcrux survives, Voldemort is unable to be killed. Dumbledore speculates that Voldemort only used unique items for his Horcruxes — objects with a significant history that no one would destroy. The seventh soul shard is evidently within Voldemort himself. Two Horcruxes have been destroyed: Tom Riddle's diary (seen in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets) and a ring once belonging to Marvolo Gaunt, Voldemort's maternal grandfather. Dumbledore reveals that his injured hand resulted from destroying the ring, and it was only his own skill and Professor Snape's timely action that prevented the damage from being much worse. Dumbledore believes that of the four remaining Horcruxes, two will be Hufflepuff's cup and Slytherin's locket; the third may be a Ravenclaw artifact. The only known Gryffindor artifact, the sword, remains safe in Dumbledore's office. He suspects that the final Horcrux is in Nagini, Voldemort's pet snake. Although placing a Horcrux in a living being is possible, Dumbledore says it is not the safest place, as living creatures can be killed. Harry learns that Dumbledore's many absences from Hogwarts were because he was searching for Horcruxes, and Dumbledore tells Harry that should he locate any more Horcruxes, Harry will be permitted to accompany him.
Dumbledore says he does not believe Voldemort knows when a Horcrux is destroyed, as he seemed unaware that Tom Riddle's diary had been destroyed until he learned it from Lucius Malfoy. Dumbledore suggests that with that, plus the fiasco in the Ministry, Lucius may well be happy to be safely tucked away in Azkaban. Dumbledore tells Harry that Voldemort can be killed if all his Horcruxes are destroyed by someone with uncommon skill and power, someone like Harry, who possesses the ability to love.
[edit] Analysis
Trelawney's prophecy stated that "The Chosen One" would have powers the Dark Lord does not possess. That power is love, and Dumbledore realizes that it is Harry's abilities, combined with his capacity to love, that will empower him to defeat Voldemort. Unlike Harry, who is emotionally intact, and whose friends support him out of loyalty and amity, Voldemort is psychologically and spiritually shredded, capable of feeling only hate, envy, and rage, and controlling his followers through fear and coercion. And while Harry finds it difficult to fathom that something so simple as love is the more powerful force, he understands that, once again, it is also about choices; Voldemort's actions are based on the prophecy, but Harry would choose to fight Voldemort whether or not the prophecy had been made. That choice, and the ability to make that choice, is largely what gives Harry powers that Voldemort lacks and prevents Harry from falling victim to the Dark side.
Dumbledore believes that Voldemort's snake, Nagini, is also a Horcrux. It has been suggested that Voldemort's final Horcrux might have been generated via the death of Frank Bryce, the Riddle Manor caretaker that Voldemort murdered. Voldemort's wand was also used to murder Bertha Jorkins in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, so it may have been her death that allowed Voldemort to create a Horcrux that may be embedded within Nagini. It is also possible that all his Horcruxes were in place at the time of his encounter with Baby Harry; the weak and disembodied Voldemort may have been unable to create Horcruxes after that incident. This would rule out a Horcrux being made from either Bertha Jorkins' or Frank Bryce's deaths. However, Dumbledore is correct in his assertion that Nagini is much more self-aware than an ordinary snake would be, and that Voldemort seems to have much more control than expected. As Dumbledore had said, at this point we enter into the realm of speculation; as Dumbledore did not know of the circumstances surrounding Frank Bryce's death, or Bertha Jorkins', his speculation does not quite tally with the readers' understanding. Nagini was already acting most decidedly unsnake-like when Frank Bryce was killed, so the best assumption is that Voldemort's final Horcrux was actually created from the earlier death of Bertha Jorkins, and was retained in Nagini.
Dumbledore is not quite correct in saying that the sword is Gryffindor's only known artifact; there is also the Sorting Hat, which says it once belonged to Gryffindor. Being in some small way sentient, though, there is some question whether it is properly an artifact.
[edit] Questions
[edit] Review
- Why might Voldemort have created so many Horcruxes? Was this wise? If not, explain.
- What is the significance of each object Voldemort hides the Horcruxes in?
- Why did Dumbledore risk putting the ring on his finger knowing the dangers? What is the result?
- Why was Dumbledore so frequently absent from Hogwarts?
[edit] Extra Study
- How would love be able to defeat Voldemort? Does Harry truly understand its significance?
[edit] Greater Picture
One Horcrux was previously seen in Grimmauld Place. "A heavy locket that none of them could open," matching Slytherin's locket that has been seen in the Pensieve memories a few times now, was discovered and discarded during the cleanup of Grimmauld Place. A paper inside a fake locket that will be found later in a secret sea cave is signed R.A.B., which are the initials of the late Regulus Arcturus Black, a repentent Death Eater and Sirius's younger brother. The locket at Grimmauld Place will prove hard to find; originally Kreacher had set it aside, unable to part with any valuable Black heirlooms. It is later stolen by Mundungus Fletcher, who was seen earlier busily looting Grimmauld Place. When Harry, Ron, and Hermione eventually catch up with Mundungus, he will inform them that the locket was extorted from him by Dolores Umbridge at the Ministry of Magic.
Curiously, even though Harry clearly sees Slytherin's distinctively-shaped locket during his and Dumbledore's forays into the Pensieve, Harry fails to recognize it as the same one that was found and then discarded at Grimmauld Place (in Order of the Phoenix), nor will he fully realize that another locket that will be collected from a sea cave near the book's end is also different until he finds a note inside explaining that it is a fake Horcrux. Dumbledore will also fail to notice the difference; however, he will be in an extremely weakened physical and mental state after recovering the locket and it is possible that peoples' memories do not necessarily record small details so accurately.
Dumbledore states that he believes that Voldemort is unable to feel when his Horcruxes are being destroyed, given that he did not know the diary had been dispatched until told by Lucius Malfoy. What Dumbledore has not told Harry is that a second Horcrux, the ring, has also been eradicated, with no apparent response from Voldemort. It is learned later that Snape is able to bring information about Voldemort to Dumbledore, and he would have reported Voldemort's reaction to the ring's destruction had Voldemort been aware of it. While Harry learns that the ring Horcrux has been destroyed, he must remain unaware of just what Snape's true role is for a while longer.
If Riddle was telling the truth when he spoke to Slughorn, it indicates that he found nothing about Horcruxes in the library and that the book, Secrets of the Darkest Art (which we learn in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows is an authoritative source on the making and destruction of Horcruxes) had already been hidden away. Even then, though, Tom Riddle and the truth had, at best, no more than a nodding acquaintance. So it is entirely possible that Riddle had a greater understanding about how to create Horcruxes than he let on and could have created one. The author has stated that the ring Horcrux was made via the death of Tom Riddle Sr., which happened at the same time as Tom collected the ring from Morfin Gaunt; thus, if the ring was on Tom's finger in the memory, it must already have been a Horcrux. One of Dumbledore's infrequent mistakes is seen here; Dumbledore stated that once the ring was made into a Horcrux, Tom no longer wanted to wear it. He is wearing it in this memory, and it is presumably already a Horcrux. Possibly, a better statement would have been, "Once he had made a second Horcrux, he felt a need to keep them all safe and separate from himself." Thus the ring Horcrux would have been hidden once he had made the diary Horcrux.
It is certain that Riddle would have waited to hide the ring Horcrux in the Gaunt shack until Morfin and Marvolo were no longer there. He had learned from Morfin that Marvolo had died. Having framed Morfin for Tom Riddle Sr.'s murder, Riddle would have known that Morfin was in Azkaban, but there is always the possibility, slim though it may be, that he would break out or be released. Presumably it was only after hearing about Morfin's death in prison that Riddle thought it safe to return to the Gaunt shack and hide the ring there. Having taken great pains to conceal his original name, and especially his middle name, Voldemort thought that it would be impossible to make the connection back to the Gaunt shack.
