Harry's scar and Lily's Sacrifice : a quick revision
How does one split their soul and make a Horcrux?
Reading many essays recently, whatever the topic of the essay may have been, the comments eventually get around to Horcruxes etc. I say etc as this includes, how many Horcruxes LV has made, what they could be, whether Harry is an accidental one, or his scar is one. But how did it happen....
The most mechanical essay I read, in terms of schematics, was Brandon Ford’s Half-Blood, Full Hero: Part 3 Harry and the Horcruxes He poses the point and click theory.
The only creation or intended creations of Horcruxes concerning Harry, we know of in some detail occurred in Godric’s Hollow Halloween 1981. Lets quickly just go through the events.
1. Voldemort kills James = a soul split
2. Voldemort tries to kill Harry by giving Lily the option to live and step aside.
3. Voldemort has to kill Lily = another soul split
4. Lily leaves her blood sacrifice on Harry
5. Voldemort takes aim at Harry and shouts Avada Kedavra
6. BOOM ! Green light. Harry lives, Voldemort becomes Vapormort.
7. Voldemort’s body unaccounted for.
So by the time LV encounters baby Harry, he has already undergone two soul splits. The question that bugs/blinds me somewhat is: do you need to split your soul in order to power the Avada Kedavra? Or is your soul split from taking the life of another? I was up until now inclined to believe that the latter was the way to understand the whole thing. But more recently (and in order to fuel my Harry’s scar could be a Horcrux mission) I have been thinking about the schematics of trying to murder someone, while splitting your soul, while remembering to bring your own object to encase your soul, while remembering to encase the soul with a spell, while remembering to aim straight!
Method 1 : The by product of killing someone results in splitting of soul
The order of events would go something like this.
1. Intent to kill (powers the curse to work) (unknown)
2. Incantation - Avada Kedavra
3. The person dies
4. The soul cannot cope with the complexity of evil of the murder and splits
5. Soul fragment remains/lost
Flaws with the theory
Where does the soul fragment go if not encompassed into a Horcrux?
Does the soul eventually heal? One wonders if time can heal the evil caused and if so what lasting effects this will have on the soul as a whole. There are many murders Voldemort has committed and only some of them have been made into Horcruxes -his soul must look like a scan of sun damage to the skin.
Method 2 : Splitting your soul in order to power the Avada Kevadra
The order of events would go something like this.
1. Intent to kill requires the split of the soul to power the curse
2. Incantation - Avada Kedavra
3. The person dies
4. Soul remains split
The main idea for support for this theory would be from Imposter Moody’s “Avada Kedavra’s a curse that needs a powerful bit of magic behind it” and Bellatrix’s (slightly unhinged) exclamation of “Never used an Unforgivable Curse before, have you, boy…..You need to mean them, Potter! You need to really want to cause pain, to enjoy it.”
Both Imposter Moody and Bellatrix state that you need to invoke powerful magic (not of the good kind judging by the outcome of the spell) either “behind” it or before casting the spell.
Flaws with the theory
Splitting your soul before the actual magic takes affect. Pretty hard to do in reality. What if you do not manage to utter the incantation or mis-aim - then you would have a split soul for nothing. Buuuut, maybe if you do not kill someone to make the soul remain split then it eventually reforms back into one.
Method 3 : Murder, splitting your soul and trapping it into a Horcrux
1. Bring with you an inanimate (choice) object to house your soul
2. Intent to kill -power the curse - split the soul
3. Incantation - Avada Kedavra
4. The person dies
5. Soul split
6. Fragment encased into Horcrux with the use of an encasing spell
We do not know in canon what the encasing spell is, and how it works. Slughorn merely says, “There is a spell, do not ask me…”
I believe that if you need to keep your soul split for a reason (such as Horcrux making) then you have to use method 3 whereby intent and splitting the soul is required. This provides the needed power behind the curse in order to keep your soul split and stop it from trying to heal back with the rest of your soul in your body. I believe that if you kill someone - your soul will split as a by-product of the evil but will eventually reattach to the main soul body as it is in its nature to do so and as it has nowhere else to go.
Lily’s sacrifice
A lot has already been said and written about the consequences of Lily’s death. Those of you reading probably do not need a background of Lily’ character so I won’t bother.
MA: Did she know anything about the possible effect of standing in front of Harry?
JKR: No - because as I've tried to make clear in the series, it never happened before. No one ever survived before. And no one, therefore, knew that could happen.
So JKR has specifically told us that Lily did not know what she was about to do would save Harry’s life or the implications involved. So bang goes the idea that she knew of some charm that would spare Harry and therefore she did not knowingly entrap Voldemort.
Then it goes back to that question of why did Voldemort give her the choice? Who was she but a muggleborn and a thorn in his side who had defied him three times. Answers to this range through:
- LV wanted to use her charms expertise
- LV wanted her to become a DE
- She was already a DE (huh!)
JKR has told us that Harry’s eyes are important, that Harry has his mother’s eyes and somehow they will be significant to the whole story. How? What could possibly be so important about his green eyes?
Have Harry’s eyes been important from the time of his birth? Or only after Lily died?
Harry’s eyes could have been important to the whole story even before his birth - he is a child of prophecy and therefore something about his green eyes could be included under the text - “a power the Dark Lord knows not.”
But had Voldemort not bought into the prophecy in the huge way that he did - then would Harry’s eyes still have been important?
So could Harry’s eyes only have gained their importance after that night in Godric’s Hollow?
The question we need to really ask is - what changed about Harry’s eyes after Godric’s Hollow?
Physically Lily has genetically passed on her green eye colour to Harry from birth - so nothing has changed there. The only other answers I have border on crackpot theorizing,
- Harry witnessed his mother’s murder with those green eyes
- The soul split that LV had as a result of killing Lily went into Harry. So Harry carries with him in his scar, forever, LV’s soul fragment generated from the death of his own mother.
I would say both are pretty significant ideas. A child witnessing his own mother’s murder is horrid - I am not saying Harry now consciously remembers this - I think at the time it happened he may have seen it. Harry’s memories under duress give us a small idea of what occurred. This would make sense because I imagine Lily to be clutching Harry when she is screaming for their lives to LV who has to push her out of the way and failing that, has to kill her.
I used to buy into the idea that Harry’s scar was a horcrux just because the curse that LV fired at him failed. But when you look deeper into it - as LV did not manage to kill Harry, and his death did not occur - how could a Horcrux have been made? What makes more sense is the death just before (Lily’s) may have torn LV’s soul and that part embedded itself in the direction of the failed curse -Harry’s scar.
What may be more important is the idea of Voldemort only choosing “significant” deaths to create his Horcruxes - and now Harry’s scar carries the significance of a failed curse linked to the sacrifice of his own mother. In short, Harry carries with him a piece of LV’s soul, which split off from the main soul when Voldemort killed Lily.
How this will play a part in book seven is still a musing i am working on >
Reading many essays recently, whatever the topic of the essay may have been, the comments eventually get around to Horcruxes etc. I say etc as this includes, how many Horcruxes LV has made, what they could be, whether Harry is an accidental one, or his scar is one. But how did it happen....
The most mechanical essay I read, in terms of schematics, was Brandon Ford’s Half-Blood, Full Hero: Part 3 Harry and the Horcruxes He poses the point and click theory.
The only creation or intended creations of Horcruxes concerning Harry, we know of in some detail occurred in Godric’s Hollow Halloween 1981. Lets quickly just go through the events.
1. Voldemort kills James = a soul split
2. Voldemort tries to kill Harry by giving Lily the option to live and step aside.
3. Voldemort has to kill Lily = another soul split
4. Lily leaves her blood sacrifice on Harry
5. Voldemort takes aim at Harry and shouts Avada Kedavra
6. BOOM ! Green light. Harry lives, Voldemort becomes Vapormort.
7. Voldemort’s body unaccounted for.
So by the time LV encounters baby Harry, he has already undergone two soul splits. The question that bugs/blinds me somewhat is: do you need to split your soul in order to power the Avada Kedavra? Or is your soul split from taking the life of another? I was up until now inclined to believe that the latter was the way to understand the whole thing. But more recently (and in order to fuel my Harry’s scar could be a Horcrux mission) I have been thinking about the schematics of trying to murder someone, while splitting your soul, while remembering to bring your own object to encase your soul, while remembering to encase the soul with a spell, while remembering to aim straight!
Method 1 : The by product of killing someone results in splitting of soul
The order of events would go something like this.
1. Intent to kill (powers the curse to work) (unknown)
2. Incantation - Avada Kedavra
3. The person dies
4. The soul cannot cope with the complexity of evil of the murder and splits
5. Soul fragment remains/lost
Flaws with the theory
Where does the soul fragment go if not encompassed into a Horcrux?
Does the soul eventually heal? One wonders if time can heal the evil caused and if so what lasting effects this will have on the soul as a whole. There are many murders Voldemort has committed and only some of them have been made into Horcruxes -his soul must look like a scan of sun damage to the skin.
Method 2 : Splitting your soul in order to power the Avada Kevadra
The order of events would go something like this.
1. Intent to kill requires the split of the soul to power the curse
2. Incantation - Avada Kedavra
3. The person dies
4. Soul remains split
The main idea for support for this theory would be from Imposter Moody’s “Avada Kedavra’s a curse that needs a powerful bit of magic behind it” and Bellatrix’s (slightly unhinged) exclamation of “Never used an Unforgivable Curse before, have you, boy…..You need to mean them, Potter! You need to really want to cause pain, to enjoy it.”
Both Imposter Moody and Bellatrix state that you need to invoke powerful magic (not of the good kind judging by the outcome of the spell) either “behind” it or before casting the spell.
Flaws with the theory
Splitting your soul before the actual magic takes affect. Pretty hard to do in reality. What if you do not manage to utter the incantation or mis-aim - then you would have a split soul for nothing. Buuuut, maybe if you do not kill someone to make the soul remain split then it eventually reforms back into one.
Method 3 : Murder, splitting your soul and trapping it into a Horcrux
1. Bring with you an inanimate (choice) object to house your soul
2. Intent to kill -power the curse - split the soul
3. Incantation - Avada Kedavra
4. The person dies
5. Soul split
6. Fragment encased into Horcrux with the use of an encasing spell
We do not know in canon what the encasing spell is, and how it works. Slughorn merely says, “There is a spell, do not ask me…”
I believe that if you need to keep your soul split for a reason (such as Horcrux making) then you have to use method 3 whereby intent and splitting the soul is required. This provides the needed power behind the curse in order to keep your soul split and stop it from trying to heal back with the rest of your soul in your body. I believe that if you kill someone - your soul will split as a by-product of the evil but will eventually reattach to the main soul body as it is in its nature to do so and as it has nowhere else to go.
Lily’s sacrifice
A lot has already been said and written about the consequences of Lily’s death. Those of you reading probably do not need a background of Lily’ character so I won’t bother.
MA: Did she know anything about the possible effect of standing in front of Harry?
JKR: No - because as I've tried to make clear in the series, it never happened before. No one ever survived before. And no one, therefore, knew that could happen.
So JKR has specifically told us that Lily did not know what she was about to do would save Harry’s life or the implications involved. So bang goes the idea that she knew of some charm that would spare Harry and therefore she did not knowingly entrap Voldemort.
Then it goes back to that question of why did Voldemort give her the choice? Who was she but a muggleborn and a thorn in his side who had defied him three times. Answers to this range through:
- LV wanted to use her charms expertise
- LV wanted her to become a DE
- She was already a DE (huh!)
JKR has told us that Harry’s eyes are important, that Harry has his mother’s eyes and somehow they will be significant to the whole story. How? What could possibly be so important about his green eyes?
Have Harry’s eyes been important from the time of his birth? Or only after Lily died?
Harry’s eyes could have been important to the whole story even before his birth - he is a child of prophecy and therefore something about his green eyes could be included under the text - “a power the Dark Lord knows not.”
But had Voldemort not bought into the prophecy in the huge way that he did - then would Harry’s eyes still have been important?
So could Harry’s eyes only have gained their importance after that night in Godric’s Hollow?
The question we need to really ask is - what changed about Harry’s eyes after Godric’s Hollow?
Physically Lily has genetically passed on her green eye colour to Harry from birth - so nothing has changed there. The only other answers I have border on crackpot theorizing,
- Harry witnessed his mother’s murder with those green eyes
- The soul split that LV had as a result of killing Lily went into Harry. So Harry carries with him in his scar, forever, LV’s soul fragment generated from the death of his own mother.
I would say both are pretty significant ideas. A child witnessing his own mother’s murder is horrid - I am not saying Harry now consciously remembers this - I think at the time it happened he may have seen it. Harry’s memories under duress give us a small idea of what occurred. This would make sense because I imagine Lily to be clutching Harry when she is screaming for their lives to LV who has to push her out of the way and failing that, has to kill her.
I used to buy into the idea that Harry’s scar was a horcrux just because the curse that LV fired at him failed. But when you look deeper into it - as LV did not manage to kill Harry, and his death did not occur - how could a Horcrux have been made? What makes more sense is the death just before (Lily’s) may have torn LV’s soul and that part embedded itself in the direction of the failed curse -Harry’s scar.
What may be more important is the idea of Voldemort only choosing “significant” deaths to create his Horcruxes - and now Harry’s scar carries the significance of a failed curse linked to the sacrifice of his own mother. In short, Harry carries with him a piece of LV’s soul, which split off from the main soul when Voldemort killed Lily.
How this will play a part in book seven is still a musing i am working on >