I'm assuming most of you have already been to mugglenet and/or JKR's site, but she gave us a wonderful gift... the title of book 7!!! I won't post it in case you want to find out for yourself through the mystery door, but once you do please post your theories/queries on this new development through the comments!
**By Kim I.** In a recent conversation with one of my Harry Potter obsessed friends, we discussed the possibility that Harry is not the human Horcrux. We originally suspected Harry to be the Horcrux in part because of Dumbledore's explanation of why he believed Nagini to be a Horcrux. DD seems to rush through the topic and provide weak reasons for why Nagini is a good candidate. It seemed to us that JKR used this passage as a way to indicate that living creatures can also be Horcruxes; this was the first time, over a year ago, we suspected Harry to be a Horcrux. I still strongly support the idea that Harry is a Horcrux, but there are some other characters that I would like to discuss, as well (I'll leave Harry out of this for now; you all know my thoughts on the issue). Note: I am not proposing that Neville and Wormtail are both Horcruxes, but rather either Neville or Wormtail is a Horcrux.
First Candidate: Neville LongbottomWhy him: Neville was introduced to us early in the story (chapter six in SS). He is described as a somewhat bumbling, forgetful, yet loyal and kind person. He quickly forms a friendship with Harry and Co, and he has been involved in their lives and quests ever since. We also know that Neville is a Pureblood whose parents were tortured into insanity by Bellatrix Lestrange; they currently reside at St. Mungo's where Neville goes to visit them. Recently, we have learned that Neville is a much more valuable player than we believed before. In OotP, Neville joins Dumbledore's Army and shows that he is a talented wizard when he isn't under pressure, and he fights alongside Harry and Co. at the Ministry. Also in OotP, we learn, via the Prophecy, that Neville qualified to be the One qualified to defeat LV (born at the end of July to parents who had "thrice defied" Voldemort). Now, we all know how this song goes; LV picks Harry Potter, the half-blood, over Neville, the pureblood, as his adversary, and the rest is history, right? I don't think so.
Evidence: The most obvious evidence that points towards Neville being the last Horcrux is that he is a pureblood. We know that his entire family is made up of stern, yet respected and powerful wizards. We have also not been given any information, other than Neville's bravery, about why he belongs in the Gryffindor house. I propose that Neville and his family have ties to Godric Gryffindor's lineage. This theory also fits in with the Prophecy, since LV would want to take care of all of the possible opposition to his reign of terror. Neville and Harry are the two candidates, according to the Prophecy, so he needed to take care of them both. Neville is also very forgetful, which I believe is the result of a memory charm to erase the memory of being made into a Horcrux from his mind. I have also noticed that the HP books seem to be mirror images of each other, with GoF serving as the "mirror," if you will (for example, PoA mirrors OotP and CoS mirrors HBP). Recall that in SS, Neville sacrifices himself to try and keep Harry, Ron and Hermione from chasing after Snape and the Sorcerer's Stone. We know that Neville is very brave, and self-sacrificing, so maybe this quality will reemerge at the end of the seventh book.
How did it happen: When LV picked Harry to be the one spoken of in the Prophecy, I believe he knew that the Longbottoms also had a son who could be the one mentioned. LV doesn't seem the type to pick Harry on a whim; he must have seen something in Harry, or decided somehow that Harry was the one to be his adversary. In order to cover his bases, I believe his plan was to make Neville, the other contender for his arch-enemy, into a Horcrux, and he then planned to kill Harry. LV probably went to the Longbottom’s house with Bellatrix as his lackey. LV had previously killed someone, and used this killing to make Neville into a Horcrux. Since Neville and his parents had seen LV and his Death Eater enter the house and perform an odd spell on Neville, Bellatrix needed to ensure their compliance. She first tortured Alice and Frank into insanity, and then performed an incredibly strong memory charm on Neville, so strong that it damaged Neville's memory permanently.
What does this mean for the series: I think that at first, Harry will think that he is the human Horcrux. Harry will then realize, or Hermione will tell him, that it doesn’t make sense for LV to make him into a Horcrux, and then try to kill him. Harry and Co. will eventually realize that Neville would be an obvious choice for a Gryffindor Horcrux, and Harry will refuse to kill Neville in order to defeat LV. Neville will probably convince Harry that he has to be sacrificed, perhaps by going behind the Veil, and will die, killing the soul fragment within him.
Second Candidate: Peter Pettigrew / WormtailWhy him: Wormtail was first met, in rat form, in the sixth chapter of SS, but Wormtail as a wizard wasn't met until the end of PoA when Sirius and Lupin confronted him. Wormtail is known as a weak wizard who likes to become friends with the biggest bullies on the block so that he can use them for protection. In school, Wormtail is in Gryffindor house with his friends James, Lupin, and Sirius, and when LV was rising to power, Wormtail betrayed his friends' trust in order to gain the protection of the powerful Dark Lord. After LV was reduced to "Vapormort," years later, Wormtail found him, nursed him back to health, and helped him regain his body. Wormtail is rewarded with a strong silver hand, and is suspiciously missing from OotP, and we learn in HBP that he has been at Snape's house at Spinner's End, acting as Snape's servant.
Evidence: The first piece of evidence that tipped me off that Wormtail could be a Horcrux is that Wormtail still owes Harry a life debt. Since Harry has to be the one to kill LV in the end, and I doubt LV would trust this rat with one of his Horcruxes, perhaps the debt can be repaid by sacrificing himself. Wormtail is half-blood at the least, since he was allowed into the Death Eaters' circle and we also do not know why Wormtail was sorted into Gryffindor. He has never shown bravery in the past, but perhaps lineage ties to Godric Gryffindor secured his place in the house. The fact that Wormtail is hidden away at Spinner's End with Snape also seems suspect to me. Lucius, Bellatrix, and Snape seem to be the DE that LV trusts the most, and so far Lucius has been given a Horcrux, and Bellatrix was in jail, and therefore a poor guard for a Horcrux, but Snape has yet to receive his treasure. I believe that rather than Wormtail being given to Snape as a servant, he was sent to SE in order to receive protection from Snape so that no one could be in contact with LV's only Horcrux with the ability to think and reason for itself. At first glance, Wormtail's loyalty to LV seems the same as any of LV's other followers, but taking the other information into account, it seems like this loyalty is different. He did, for example, track down LV, nurse him back to health, and give him a body.
How did it happen: When LV ordered Wormtail to kill Cedric in the end of GoF, I believe he had not yet made his final Horcrux (since he intended to make his final Horcrux with the death of Harry at Godric's Hollow that fateful Halloween). LV realized that he finally had a chance to make his final Horcrux with Cedric's death, the death of an innocent, and used a willing, groveling Wormtail as his Horcrux host. Remember, Wormtail has been in hiding ever since, probably protected by LV and/or Snape from harm.
What does this mean for the series: Harry will eventually wonder where Wormtail has been for the past two-plus years, and will try to find him in order to collect on the life debt. He will probably be trying to find Wormtail so that he can coerce any Horcrux-related information out of him. By then, perhaps Hermione will suggest it to him, or he will have a more developed and fine-tuned Horcrux-radar and will sense that Wormtail is the last Horcrux. He will force Wormtail to repay his life debt by sacrificing himself and destroying Voldemort’s last Horcrux.
I strongly believe that LV has made a human into a Horcrux, the question is who. There are rebuttals to Harry, Neville, and Wormtail being this Horcrux, but I believe they are the strongest candidates for the Gryffindor heirloom. Please let me know what you think about this theory.
**By Kim I.** As we all scramble to try to figure out the plot of the seventh Harry Potter book, or at least to figure out the body count at the end of the series, other literary works have inspired several editorials. In order to try to make sense of the crazy clues and red herrings we have to sort though, I am going to examine one end of a famous literary work, and one obscure myth that may relate to the end of the HP series. (Note: any plot synopses I was unclear on were verified by
www.wikipedia.org)
First of all, I would like to examine the end of Lord of the Rings. I can already hear people groaning and defending HP against the LotR fanatics, but I bring this ending up mostly to prove that its opposite will be true for HP. In the end of LotR: Return of the King, the LV-esque character, Sauron, is defeated; however, his second-in-command, Saurman, escapes and vandalizes the Shire, the hobbits' home. Frodo, the protagonist, is too wounded; both his body and his spirit are too broken to allow him to go back to his life before his journey. Frodo ends up going to a place similar to heaven, where he finds eternal peace.Applying this to the HP series paints a dismal picture. If HP followed this pattern, LV would be ultimately destroyed (his Horcruxes would be destroyed, similar to the ring in LotR), but his follower(s) would continue to wreak havoc. I see Bellatrix Lestrange or Lucius Malfoy being the Saurman of this story; one or both of them would most likely invade, and attempt to destroy Hogwarts. After Harry defeats LV, he will have too many psychological and physical wounds to be able to coexist with the rest of the wizarding world. He will most likely, following in Frodo’s footsteps, die a hero.
I do not think that the LotR story has set up a precedent for the end of the HP series. The only idea that seems to fit with the rest of the plotline thus far is the destruction of LV and his Horcruxes. I do not see any reason for Bellatrix and/or Lucius to destroy Hogwarts. Although they may prefer the Dark Magic taught at Durmstrang, their families have attended Hogwarts, and there is no real closure to be obtained in the destruction of Hogwarts. I also do not think Harry has to die at the end of this series. Unlike HP, in LotR, Sauron was the ultimate villain of all time, whereas we know that there have been Dark Wizards before LV; for example, DD defeated Grindewald and was able to live in the wizarding world, just as I believe Harry will.
Next, I will examine a more obscure myth; that of Koschei. Koschei is a character in Russian mythology that is also known by the names Koschei the Immortal, or Koschei the Deathless. The story is that Koschei separated his entire soul from his body and hid it in a needle, hidden inside an egg, in a duck, in a hare, in an iron chest, buried under a green oak tree on the Island of Buyan. The myth explains that as long as Koschei's soul is undisturbed, he is safe from all harm. Each step of the protection on Koschei's soul has its own escape route, as well (for example, if the hare is killed, the duck flies away). The egg and needle seem to act like voodoo dolls, though, in that if they are tossed about, Koschei's body is also thrown in the same direction. If the needle is broken, Koschei's soul is vulnerable, and he will die. (I would also like to note that several versions of Koschei and characters based off of him appear in everything from literary works to operas to video games.)Although this is a very strange and obscure myth, I believe it is the best indicator of how the HP series will end. Koschei clearly has many of the same traits that LV does, such as a fear of death, and taking an incredible number of precautions against the destruction of his soul. The main differences are the voodoo quality of the hiding places of Koschei’s soul (but we still do not know if LV's Horcruxes may have a similar effect on him. I am basing this assumption on DD’s explanation that LV is so used to most of his soul residing outside of his body that he cannot tell when a piece of it is destroyed.) The second difference is that Koschei hides his soul as a whole inside multiple protections, whereas LV hides seven parts of his soul in different hosts, which are individually hidden. The main similarities between the stories are that, first of all, they deal with antagonists who are afraid of death, and they are willing to rip their souls from their bodies in order to assure their immortality. Another note of interest is that if you count the number of hiding places for Koschei’s soul, there are seven, just like the number of Horcruxes LV created. I recently read an excellent editorial on www.mugglenet.com that deals with the "lock and key" mentality of the Horcrux protections. It explained that the Horcruxes may be hidden in such a way that you must discover and destroy them in a certain order to find and destroy the next Horcrux (the previous Horcrux acts as a key for the lock on the next Horcrux). I believe that this story helps explain the strength in the Russian Doll technique of hiding the Horcruxes, or soul. This myth does not help illuminate how Harry and friends will destroy the Horcruxes because based on which version of Koschei is examined; there are vastly different outcomes of the battles.
I honestly have no idea how the HP series will end. I, like many other HP nerds out there, enjoy trying to find clues and literary precedents to help point us in the right direction. The story I hear HP compared to most often is Lord of the Rings, so I tried to analyze its ending in comparison with a possible ending for HP. In my searching for other literary works to compare to HP, I came across the myth of Koschei. I believe Koschei’s myth can be helpful in understanding the concept of Horcruxes, but it is difficult to sort through the many characters based off of Koschei to determine the end of Koschei's story. If you all have any ideas of other literary works (ie: The Narnia series) that you would like me to consider, please let me know.
Ok, so I'm sure most of you, if there are any left, read and visit Mugglenet.com on a regular basis. It was stated on there that JKR posted that it is important why Dumbledore was in possession of the invisibility cloak. And while I don't actually have an actual theory persay, I thought I'd at least open the floor up to discussion about this topic. Maybe if I have more time, I'll try to write a theory later, but for now... any ideas?
Helena Bonham Carter is all set to play Bellatrix Lestrange in the film adaptation of "Order of the Phoenix" and I have to say, I think she'll be perfect for the part! She was so amazing in "The Heart of Me" and of course, "Corpse Bride." Any other ideas as to who would make the perfect Bellatrix?
http://www.usatoday.com/life/movies/news/2006-08-02-carter_x.htm
