More HBP

[psocoptera]

Harry. Oh, Harry.

I hadn't realized before that his scars from Umbridge were like real permanent scars. But of course they're curse scars, of a sort; they can't be removed. Oh, Harry, "I will not tell lies" on your fist like that.

And I've just realized how I think it should end.

Dumbledore thinks, and thus we think, that the six Horcruxes were Tom's diary, Marvolo's ring, Slytherin's locket, Hufflepuff's cup, "something of Gryffindor's or Ravenclaw's", and the snake. Harry keeps reciting this list to himself.

And thus this list is WRONG. It is misdirection. If the closing plot is as simple as collecting four plot coupons and redeeming them for one death of Voldemort, there's no real shocker there - there's nothing left that's as weighty as the revelation of the prophecy, the revelation of the Horcruxes, etc. I have sometimes thought that in the end, it will just be a Quidditch game, and Harry will end up on a broom having to find some small thing that will win the day, and that would be funny, but Rowling is clearly doing *more* than that. And even if it's really hard to find the four things, and one of them is somewhere really unexpected (the Sorting Hat, say - it seems to have bits of the Founders in it, and it's always seemed like there's more going on there than we know), and friends of Harry's die, in the end, at the last possible moment, he will manage to cast the whatever and will win.

So I think I know where the last Horcrux is. It's Harry.

We know that it somehow takes a death to create a Horcrux, that V. was planning on using *Harry's* death to create his last Horcrux, and that the rebounding of the curse "connected Harry and Voldemort somehow". What better way for "that little bit of Voldemort's powers to be transferred" than by a little piece of Voldemort's *soul*?

But this creates a beautiful situation. If Harry succeeds in destroying the other Horcruxes, *Voldemort can't kill Harry* until he's had time to hit a new checkpoint to archive create a new one. But Harry can't simply destroy the last Horcrux like he did the others - would he have to kill himself?? Or maybe it's so inextricably bound to his magic that he'd have to sever his magic somehow? Whatever the situation, *there* is a powerful scene. Because we all *know* Harry's going to save the day *somehow*. There isn't that much tension in "will he manage to do it". But "will he manage to do it at a tragic cost", ah, there is the tension.

Also, on a totally different subject, I assume Slughorn will know what the emerald Potion was, and what it actually did to Dumbledore?

Comments

[wayman.livejournal.com]

I like your Horcrux theory.

[irilyth]

I like this theory a lot too.