Nagini as Horcrux

[felicitys_mind]

The argument for Nagini as the sixth Horcrux
(Tweaked on 9-9 in response to comments)

In an interview with The Leaky Cauldron and MuggleNet in July 2005, Rowling said,

“Dumbledore's guesses are never very far wide of the mark. I don't want to give too much away here, but Dumbledore says, ‘There are four out there, you've got to get rid of four, and

Comments

[raynemora]

" Thank you so much for sharing your thoughts. Very profound and like nothing else I have ever read about the Unschooled life.

[travisprinzi]

oooh, lots to say here. I've been looking forward to your posting this one. It's rare that I disagree much with your essays. Excellent work overall, but let me offer a few challenges, none of which settle the matter for me, but they give me pause

[felicitys_mind]

Hi, Travis

[travisprinzi]

Good points, all.

I'd be more inclined to think that Dumbledore had concluded that Harry was not a horcrux and that Nagini was one, rather than that Dumbledore though Harry was a horcrux and decided to mislead Harry by telling him Nagini was the horcrux. In other words, I think Dumbledore told Harry the truth about what he actually believed in that office.

I'm still leaving the possibility open in my mind, though, that Dumbledore was wrong on this one. Rowling sort of interpreted her own words: Dumbledore's not being very far off the mark = he has to find and destroy four horcruxes. He's very likely "off the mark" on at least one of them.

Here I go again, swinging further away from the scarcrux theory again...I'll have to start revisiting the old reasons I was tempted towards it to see if they ever had any merit. Janet Batchler told me that her position is that Harry is not a horcrux, but a good enough argument could persuade her. That's about where I am. It makes sense from a storytelling point of view, anyway

[felicitys_mind]

It may be that Harry will wonder if he's a Horcrux, but that would be a bit of a replay of OoTP when he thought he might be possessed and Ginny had to explain to him what possession feels like. And now Harry knows the diary was a Horcrux, so I can't imagine he'd give that much consideration to being one himself. Now we're getting into all the anti-Harrycrux arguments, such as why hasn't the soul fragment tried to take over? We know Voldemort cannot possess Harry without unbearable pain because Harry does love (and Voldemort does not). And Voldemort couldn't Imperio Harry in the graveyard (so if making Nagini a Horcrux gives Voldemort more control over her, why isn't the same true of Harrycrux?). I've also never read a convincing argument to explain how he would get it out of himself, something he has to do before vanquishing Voldemort. Cutting his scar open doesn't work because baby Harry got a cut on his forehead at Godric's Hollow (Hagrid called it a gash or something like that), so why would this soul fragment have even stayed

[sectumsempraa]

wow, that really was quite convincing. I see that you have really thought about this a lot, and now I think even more than before that Nagini really might be a horcrux. I am so glad I read this:)

[sscrewdriver]

Thanks for this essay, I enjoyed reading it very much, and I agree with most of it as well.

- I don't think Dumbledore would have told Harry he believes Nagini is a Horcrux if he didn't believe it. That would be pointless.
- Voldemorts circumstances were very perilous during GoF, so he might have made a Horcrux out of a living thing whereas otherwise he wouldn't have considered it
- Harry does dream that he IS Nagini, and he is connected somehow to Voldemort.

I liked your 'mothering' examples. Relationships with parents are incredibly important in the books - well they would be, they're about kids.

[tunxeh]

Very interesting, and it's good to see someone defending this possibility - it seems to be unpopular far out of proportion to its likelihood. And also, very interesting catch re who killed Frank.

Dumbledore may have assumed Nagini had killed on Voldemort’s orders and eaten Frank Bryce’s body,

But since we know he was incorrect here, how much can we trust the rest of the line of reasoning that depends on this assumption?

Your own reasoning based on what Dumbledore didn't know, how dependant Voldemort was during the following year, makes up for the weakness of this part of the argument, anyway.

Voldemort is not likely to have entrusted Wormtail with Horcrux information, but he would have been able to turn Nagini into a Horcrux using Frank Bryce’s murder without Wormtail being any the wiser.

Would he? I don't think we've been shown what goes into the creation of a horcrux, whether it's a very showy ceremony or something quick and wordless.

the murder comes before the Horcrux is made rather than being an internal part of the Horcrux

[felicitys_mind]

"Dumbledore may have assumed Nagini had killed on Voldemort’s orders and eaten Frank Bryce’s body