Horcruxes?

Question

Can someone please explain them to me? I'm don't totally understand them, I mean, Voldemort killed more than 6 people (way way way way more), so how do you know when your making a horcrux and when your not? And what about the Death Eaters? Did they split their soul everytime they killed someone? Please help!

Answer 1

Voldemort knows more about the dark arts than any other wizard. Horcruxes are very hard magic, and it has to be done in a specific way. Voldemort made a horcrux after each significant death. It is assumed that he was going to use Harry's death as the final horcrux. Up until Voldemort, a soul had only been split ONCE.

A horcrux is not made after every death, and killing someone does not automatically split ones soul.

It is to be assumed that ONLY Voldemort uses horcruxes.

Answer 2

Description: a Horcrux is a magical object created through the use of the Dark Arts: a "receptacle in which a Dark wizard has hidden a fragment of his soul for the purposes of attaining immortality." With part of their soul concealed, a dark wizard becomes immune to death while their Horcrux exists, usually hidden away in a safe location. Even if their bodies are destroyed, part of their soul remains earth-bound and undamaged. However, the destruction of the creators' bodies leaves them in a state of half-life, "lesser than the meanest ghost". Lord Voldemort was left in this state when his attempted use of a Killing Curse on Harry Potter backfired upon himself

Horcruxes are vulnerable to destruction by an outside force, even without the creator's knowledge, as is seen with Tom Riddle's diary and Marvolo Gaunt's ring. Destruction of the Horcrux destroys the fragment of soul contained within it, ending the protection it provides, and rendering the creator mortal, assuming s/he has no remaining horcruxes. A human must have at least one piece of his soul intact on Earth in order to continue living, so if all of the horcruxes of a person had been destroyed, then there would be no way for them to return after being killed, because killing them would remove the last piece of their soul remaining, that inside their body, from mortal existence. It is unknown what happens if a person with Horcruxes is kissed by a dementor.

Even though Dumbledore confirmed that others have created horcruxes before, Lord Voldemort is the only wizard explicitly mentioned as having created a Horcrux, and he is the only wizard known to have created more than one, thus going "further than anybody along the path that leads to immortality."

Creation: Creating a Horcrux requires an act of violence and supreme wrong: the murder of an individual, which is "the supreme act of evil", that "rips the soul apart". The soul of the creator is split, and a spell is cast to infuse one portion of the soul into the intended object, which becomes a Horcrux. Professor Horace Slughorn tells a young Tom Riddle, "the soul is supposed to remain intact and whole... splitting it is an act against nature". It is implied that Voldemort became less human with each Horcrux he created, even before the concept was clearly defined; Rubeus Hagrid, one of the teachers at Hogwarts, commented in the first book that rumours of Voldemort's death were "codswallop" because Voldemort lacked "enough human in him to die".

There is no apparent limitation on the nature of items that can be made into a Horcrux - even living creatures may be used. Lord Voldemort, because of his own arrogance and megalomania, chose objects of significant sentimental or historical value, or as Albus Dumbledore put it, objects "worthy of the honour".

Answer 3

i would say Horcruxes in a nutshell are objects that "encase" a torn piece of someone's soul. because Voldemort's appearance has changed, from normal boy to "snake like", thin slit eyes, strange nose, etc etc, we can assume it was the splitting of his soul that had transformed his appearance! and since he did it like 5 or 6 times, that is why he is able to stay alive even tho his body may get hurt.

so it is an extremely difficult, dark magic, that not many people know how to do or even want to speak about it!! that book, Most Potente Magik or whatever (the dark book from the library that hermione borrowed) even says "of the horcrux, the most difficult and evil of all magic, we do not speak of".... so, we can assume that it is very detailed and difficult spell to perform, u must kill someone and then say the incantations, etc, to encase a torn piece of Your soul into the object, using the act of killing as the tie that binds.

i doubt the death eaters had the guts or knowledge to do it..remebmer Voldemort wants to be known as the greatest wizard of all time. he also works alone, and doesn't trust ANYONE. so why would he let others in on the secret..so his followers can also be "immortal" and stop listening to him?? nope. voldemort is the only one who's gona be willing to split his soul up more than 2 times.

i dont' think harry is the last horcrux. however, i DO think that DUMBLEDORE knew how to do the Opposite magic of the horcrux.. such as binding his soul to the Phoenix fawkes, and allowing that if any is loyal to him at hogwarts, he will "never leave".... somehow allowing him to come back in different shape or form to help harry in the last book!

Answer 4

Presumably one would have to have the object ready before the killing, but that's not really clear. Since it's forbidden magic to start with, and most witnesses don't survive the encounter, there aren't many observations to go by. One or more of the Death Eaters may have made hoarcruxes as well - there have been no details given so far which would tell us. On the one hand it would go with the name; but on the other hand it seems unlikely to me that Voldemort would be sharing that knowledge with others.

Still, Slughorn knew about hoarcruxes and Tom Riddle heard about them somehow, so maybe the technique isn't as obscure as we've been led to believe. Certainly we've seen that unregistered Animagi seem to be pretty common. There doesn't seem to be an easy way to detect hoarcruxes, so there could be any number of them all over the place.

Here's a really odd suggestion that's been tossed around: Harry himself is the last hoarcrux.

Answer 5

No you dont have to split your soul EVERY time you kill someone. Its optional. Voldemort performed a ritual in order to take a piece of his soul out...its a lot more comlicated than just killing someone!!! And you can only split your soul 7 times!!!