Horcrux

File:Riddle's Diary.jpg

Tom Riddle's diary, the first horcrux that Harry Potter encountered, as seen in the film Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets.

A Horcrux is a fictional magical object in the Harry Potter series by J. K. Rowling. The concept of a horcrux was first revealed in the sixth novel, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, although horcruxes are present in earlier novels without being identified as such. Rowling uses the character Horace Slughorn to introduce their properties. They are the main focus of the final book in the series, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.

Description

A Horcrux is a "receptacle in which a Dark wizard has hidden a part 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. For this reason, horcruxes are typically hidden in a safe location. Even if the wizard's body is destroyed, a portion of his soul will remain preserved within the horcrux. However, the destruction of the creator's body leaves the wizard or witch 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, including living organisms. Destroying a horcrux will destroy the fragment of soul contained within it, ending its protection and returning the creator to a state of mortality. If a wizard has created more than one horcrux, he will remain immortal until all are destroyed. Once destroyed, the wizard will die normally if mortally wounded.

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.

Creation

Creating a horcrux requires one to commit a murder, which, as "the supreme act of evil, (...) rips the soul apart." After the murder, a spell is cast to infuse part of the ripped soul into an object, which becomes the horcrux. The spell can be found in the book Secrets of the Darkest Art.

There is no apparent restriction on the nature of the items that can be made into a horcrux. Inanimate objects are usually used, but a living organism can also be made into a horcrux. There is also no known limit on the number of horcruxes a wizard can create. However, as the creator's soul is divided into progressively smaller portions, he loses more of his natural humanity and his soul becomes increasingly unstable.

Under very specific conditions, a horcrux can be made without the intention or knowledge of the creator. The only time this is known to have happened is when Voldemort unsuccessfully used the Killing Curse on one-year-old Harry Potter. Voldemort's body was destroyed by the attempted murder and a portion of his soul was embedded within Harry.

Destruction

Horcruxes are extremely difficult to destroy. They cannot be destroyed by conventional means such as smashing, breaking, or burning. According to the book Secrets of the Darkest Art, 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.

A horcrux can be magically undone only if the creator goes through a process of deep remorse for the murder committed to create the horcrux. The pain of this remorse is so excruciating that the process itself may kill the creator.Template:HP7

Voldemort's horcruxes

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

Believing that seven is a powerful, mystical number (see Bridget Wenlock), Voldemort intentionally created six horcruxes, leaving the remaining seventh portion of his soul within his body. However, Voldemort unintentionally split his soul into eight pieces when his Killing Curse on the one-year-old Harry Potter backfired. It destroyed his body and infused a part of his soul into Harry.

All of Voldemort's consciously created horcruxes were made using objects that had been important or held some sentimental value. He used artifacts from three of the four founders of Hogwarts (he was unable to obtain a relic from Godric Gryffindor), his childhood diary (which contained proof that he was a descendant of Salazar Slytherin), the Peverell family ring owned by his maternal grandfather, and the snake Nagini.

Each horcrux is destroyed by a different person, as shown in the following table:

Horcrux	Created with the murder of	Hiding place	Destroyed by	Destroyed using	Notes
Tom Riddle's diary	Moaning Myrtle	In the care of Lucius Malfoy	Harry Potter	Basilisk fang	Lucius Malfoy planted the diary on Ginny Weasley to reopen the Chamber of Secrets, not knowing it was a horcrux.
Marvolo Gaunt's Ring/Resurrection Stone	Tom Riddle Senior	Gaunt's Shack	Albus Dumbledore	Sword of Gryffindor	Voldemort created this horcrux, not knowing the ring was also the Resurrection Stone, the second of the three Deathly Hallows.
Helga Hufflepuff's Cup	Hepzibah Smith	Gringotts Bank, in the Lestrange's vault	Hermione Granger	Basilisk fang	Stolen from Hepzibah Smith, along with Slytherin's Locket.
Salazar Slytherin's Locket	A Muggle tramp	A Seaside Cave	Ron Weasley	Sword of Gryffindor	Stolen from Hepzibah Smith, along with Hufflepuff's Cup. Originally recovered from the cave by Regulus Black and Kreacher.
Rowena Ravenclaw's Diadem	An Albanian peasant	The Room of Requirement in Hogwarts	Vincent Crabbe	Fiendfyre	Discovered by Harry in the Room of Requirement, but destroyed by a Fiendfyre curse cast by Vincent Crabbe.
Harry Potter	N/A	N/A	Lord Voldemort	Killing curse	When the attempted Killing curse rebounded, a part of Voldemort's soul flew into the nearest living thing, Harry Potter. Since a spell was not cast and the creation unintentional, it is impossible to determine whose death, if anyone's, led to Harry becoming a horcrux.
Nagini	Bertha Jorkins	N/A	Neville Longbottom	Sword of Gryffindor	Dumbledore believed that the horcrux was created through the murder of Frank Bryce, however J. K. Rowling stated that the horcrux was formed earlier with the murder of Bertha Jorkins.

Tom Riddle's diary

Tom Riddle used his diary to create his first horcrux during his sixth year as a student at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. He cast the spell after murdering a fellow student nicknamed Moaning Myrtle.

Before Voldemort's downfall, he entrusted the horcrux to Lucius Malfoy. While aware of its corrupting magical properties, Malfoy did not know the diary was a horcrux. In an attempt to discredit Arthur Weasley, Malfoy hid the diary in Ginny Weasley's book bag. The spirit of Tom Riddle possessed Ginny and through her reopened the Chamber of Secrets. In the end of book two, Harry saved Ginny and destroyed the diary by stabbing it with the venomous fang of a Basilisk.

When asked what would have happened if Ginny had died and Riddle had managed to escape, author J. K. Rowling declined to give a straight answer, but revealed that "it would have strengthened the present-day Voldemort considerably."

To Rowling, a diary is a very scary object. She said in an interview that "the temptation particularly for a young girl, [is] to pour out her heart to a diary." Rowling's little sister Diane was prone to this, and her great fear was that someone would read her diary. This gave Rowling the idea to have a diary that is, in itself, against the confider.

Marvolo Gaunt's ring / Cadmus Peverell's Resurrection Stone

Tom Riddle created his second horcrux using a ring owned by his maternal grandfather, Marvolo Gaunt. He cast the spell after murdering his father.

Riddle took the gold ring, which had a black stone inscribed with a magical symbol, from his uncle Morfin Gaunt, whom he had framed for the murder of his father and grandparents. Riddle wore the ring while still a student Hogwarts, but eventually hid it of the house where the Gaunt family had lived. It was hidden under the floorboards, placed in a golden box, and protected by several enchantments.

Albus Dumbledore found Marvolo Gaunt's ring in the summer of 1996. Dumbledore destroyed the horcrux with Godric Gryffindor's sword. He was also seriously injured after putting the ring on his finger. The injury left his right arm permanently disfigured and would have killed him but for the intervention of professor Severus Snape. The damaged ring was kept for a time on a table in the Headmaster's office.

Before his death, Dumbledore hid the ring's black stone inside a golden snitch and willed the snitch to Harry Potter. Dumbledore had learned that the stone was, in fact, the Resurrection Stone, one of the three Deathly Hallows. Voldemort was unaware of the stone's additional magical properties.

Helga Hufflepuff's cup

Tom Riddle used a cup owned by Hogwarts founder Helga Hufflepuff to create his next horcrux. The spell was cast after he murdered Hepzibah Smith.

Hepzibah Smith, who owned the cup, was a distant descendant of Helga Hufflepuff. Riddle killed Smith, stole the cup, then framed her house elf for the murder.

Voldemort entrusted the cup to Bellatrix Lestrange, who kept it protected in her family's vault at Gringotts Bank. Additional protective spells, including the Gemino and Flagrante curses, were used to protect the contents of the vault. Harry Potter, Ron Weasley, and Hermione Granger stole the cup after breaking into the bank.

Hermione destroyed this horcrux using a fang from the remains of the basilisk in the Chamber of Secrets.

Salazar Slytherin's locket

Tom Riddle created his next horcrux using a locket once owed by Slytherin and which had belonged to Riddle's mother, Merope Gaunt. The spell was cast after Riddle murdered a muggle tramp.

Slytherin's locket was passed down through the generations and eventually ended up in the possession of Merope Gaunt. After being abandoned by her husband Tom Riddle Senior, Merope sold the locket to Caractacus Burke for ten galleons, a fraction of the Locket's true value.

The locket was eventually sold to Hepzibah Smith. Riddle stole the locket, along with Helga Hufflepuff's cup, after murdering Smith. Once the locket became a horcrux, Voldemort hid it in a cave where he had once terrorized two of his fellow orphans. The cave's magical protection included an enchanted boat and the use of inferi.

Disillusioned Death Eater Regulus Black learned about the horcrux and its hiding place. In an effort to bring about his eventual downfall, he and his house elf Kreacher broke through the magical protection and stole the locket. While Black died in the effort, killed by the surrounding infiri, Kreacher took the locket back to their home at Number Twelve, Grimmauld Place.

Kreacher continued to protect the locket for years. However, while the Order of the Phoenix was using the house as its headquarters, the locket was stolen by Mundungus Fletcher, a petty criminal and member of the Order. He gave it to Dolores Umbridge as a bribe when she caught him selling stolen property.

Two years later, Harry, Ron, and Hermione infiltrated The Ministry of Magic, where Umbridge worked, and stole the locket. Ron destroyed it using the sword of Godric Gryffindor.

Rowena Ravenclaw's diadem

Tom Riddle created his fifth horcrux using Hogwarts founder Rowena Ravenclaw's diadem. The spell was cast after he murdered an Albanian peasant.

Ravenclaw's daughter Helena stole the diadem from her mother in an attempt to become more intelligent. She fled to Albania where she hid the diadem in the hollow of a tree.

After Helena died, she became the Ravenclaw house ghost known as the Grey Lady. Tom Riddle, while a student at the school, charmed her into telling him the location of the lost diadem. Shortly after the murder of Hepzibah Smith, Riddle traveled to Albania and took possession of the artifact. Years later, when Voldemort returned to Hogwarts and reapplied for the Defence Against the Dark Arts position, he hid this horcrux in the Room of Requirement, arrogantly believing himself to be the only one who knew about it.

Harry Potter deduced the Diadem's location in the Room of Hidden Things (one manifestation of the Room of Requirement). The diadem was accidentally destroyed by a Fiendfyre spell cast by Vincent Crabbe, who died in the resulting fire.

Harry Potter

Voldemort inadvertently created his sixth horcrux during the attempted murder of Harry Potter in 1981. No horcrux enchantments were described as being cast and it is therefore not possible to determine for sure which murder led to the horcrux's creation.

Harry, as a baby, 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 and destabilized by his continuous murders and creation of horcruxes that, when he was ripped from his body after the Curse backfired, a fragment of his soul was lost and attached itself to Harry. This gave Harry a window into the Dark Lord's mind and his gift of Parseltongue. It may also have been a factor in the Sorting Hat's inclination to place him in Slytherin House—though as Dumbledore points out in Chamber of Secrets, Harry naturally possesses many of Slytherin's ideal traits anyway ("Resourcefulness... determination... a certain disregard for rules") and might well have earned the recommendation regardless.

Years later, Voldemort used some of Harry's blood to resurrect himself, as described in the fourth book. By doing so, Voldemort thus built Lily's protection into his physical form ("His body keeps her sacrifice alive"). Thus, ironically, when Voldemort attempted to make himself "invincible" by killing the Chosen One, he set in motion a series of events that created the opposite—rendering Harry impervious to death, whether by Voldemort's hand or another's, so long as Voldemort remained in his newly-created body. This accounts for the "gleam of triumph" in Dumbledore's eyes in the fourth book: by using Harry's blood, Voldemort essentially guaranteed his own defeat.

Dumbledore never directly suggested to Harry that he could be a horcrux; instead he asked Severus Snape to reveal this information to Harry near the end of his task, hoping Harry would be able to sacrifice himself willingly. Thus, Voldemort attempted to kill Harry, unaware of the multiple protections Harry had against him (Lily's sacrifice, his status as a Horcrux, his status as rightful owner of the Elder Wand), and, by being willing to die, Harry ensured that when he was no longer a Horcrux, the connection between them broken and both he and Voldemort mortal, he could fully return to life and be able to defeat the Dark Lord. Additionally, Harry's willing sacrifice, much like his mother's, ensured that Voldemort would be unable to harm anyone for whom Harry had "died".

Nagini

Voldemort used his devoted pet serpent Nagini to create his final horcrux. He cast the spell after murdering Ministry official Bertha Jorkins.

Voldemort intended Nagini to be his sixth horcrux, which would have split his soul into the magically significant seven pieces. Since he had inadvertently made Harry into a horcrux, Nagini was in fact his seventh horcrux. As with his diary, Voldemort intended Nagini to be a tool as well as a safeguard of his immortality. He frequently dispatched her to perform various tasks for him.

Once Voldemort realized that his other horcruxes had been discovered and destroyed, he cast a powerful protective spell around Nagini. He removed this protection once he believed Harry Potter was dead, mistakenly believing himself invulnerable.

Neville Longbottom, acting on Harry's previous instructions to kill the snake if possible, decapitated Nagini using the Sword of Godric Gryffindor. Once Nagini was killed, Voldemort returned to a state of normal mortality.

Similar objects in mythology and other works of fiction

• Koschei, an evil person in Russian mythology, whose soul is hidden inside a needle.
• In Tolkien's books about Middle-earth there are notable examples of magic used to store or bond a portion of the soul or power to objects, such as Sauron's One Ring and Morgoth's `Ring´ (Morgoth's Ring was in fact the whole of Middle-earth). However, these actions were not aimed at immortality, as Sauron and Morgoth (both Ainur) were in fact already immortal, their true purpose was to create a bond with the material world, so they could use their power to influence it.
• Genie, a supernatural being in Arabic mythology and Islam. In Western culture, genies are generally conceived as immortal beings concealed in an object (most often an oil lamp).
• In Oscar Wilde's book, The Picture of Dorian Gray, the portrait serves to keep Dorian alive and youthful while he commits acts of evil.
• Lich, a type of undead creature in modern fantasy fiction. A lich is a necromancer who stores its soul in a magical receptacle called a phylactery. Until the phylactery is destroyed, the lich cannot be permanently killed.
• In Lloyd Alexander's book Taran Wanderer, the enchanter Morda infuses his littlest finger with his life force, cuts off the finger, and hides it in the woods, making him essentially invincible until the protagonist manages to snap the finger bone and kill Morda.
• In the anime series Yu-Gi-Oh!, there are Ancient Egyptian artifacts known as the Millennium Items. The Millennium Puzzle contains the soul of a Pharaoh, and the Millennium Ring contains a fragment of a demon named Zorc. The 'Spirit of the Ring' is able to make copies of himself and transfer himself into other inanimate objects or people's minds.

• The Soulstones in the popular Diablo computer games are much like Horcruxes, as they contain the souls of Mephisto, Diablo and Baal, and they allow the three Demons to regain corporeal form once again, after the stones have been inserted into a new body.

References

Online resources

1. Frazer, James George, Sir. "The Golden Bough: The External Soul in Folk-Tales".{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
2. Rowling, J.K. "J.K. Rowling's Official Site". {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |accessmonthday= ignored (help); Unknown parameter |accessyear= ignored (|access-date= suggested) (help)