#horcux

[lulublack90]

Prompt 29 - First

@jegulus-microfic August 29, Word count 482

Previous part First Wolfstar part

The wolves arrived first and had already started down the winding path into the forest when Regulus and James appeared with a loud crack. Regulus watched as they picked their way through the twisted roots of trees and layers of bracken as though it was nothing while he and James struggled. His brother had always been graceful, but this was something else. His body movements were lithe. Not a single ounce of energy was wasted as he passed through the forest like some ethereal entity. His gaze fell on Remus and Marcus. They had the same lithe gracefulness that Sirius had, they were part of the forest. These thoughts quickly left his mind when he tripped over a particularly high root and would have fallen flat on his face if James hadn’t grabbed the back of his cloak and yanked him back upright. 

“Careful, love,” James smiled softly before they started forward again. They looked up and realised the wolves had disappeared.

“We were supposed to stick together,” Regulus growled. It had been the last thing he said before they disapparated. He couldn’t even hear their footsteps. They continued in the direction they'd been heading in, hoping they’d meet them at the Gaunt place at some point. 

The further into the forest the eerier it felt. Regulus had to draw his cloak around him tighter and cast a warming charm on himself as his teeth began to chatter. James wasn’t fairing much better. Even his ridiculously heated body was struggling. It was an unnatural cold, Regulus realised. A spell cast to deter anyone from travelling further into the forest. But they had no choice, they had to keep going. 

Just when Regulus thought his teeth were about to crack with how hard they were clacking together, the cold disappeared, and they were left in the almost tropical-feeling autumn breeze.  

“That was weird,” James said, his eyes darting about, looking for the next thing. 

“We can’t be far now,” Regulus said quietly, not wanting to disturb the forest that now felt too close. They broke through a cluster of trees that had grown so closely together that Regulus’s cloak had snagged on the branches, and he’d ended up tearing it. James had promised to help him mend it. James had somehow got through with only a thin scratch on his cheek. They stepped through the last of the trees and into a gloomy little clearing where a dilapidated shack stood along with Sirius, Remus and Marcus. 

“Where the bloody hell did you go?!” Regulus spat at his brother. “We looked away for one second, and then you were gone!” Sirius looked taken aback. 

“Sorry, we caught a scent,” He nodded his head towards the shack. “There’s a Horcrux in there, we can all smell it,” Regulus’s eyes widened as he looked past Sirius at the building. It couldn’t be that easy, could it? 

Next part

[iamnmbr3]

for horcrux is an imaginary friend hp au, I think it would try to corrupt him. Telling him things like, you're the best, you deserve to get take what you want, when you're powerful enough they'll all love you, like roxy from fnaf's voicelines to herself.

https://freddy-fazbears-pizza.fandom.com/wiki/Roxanne_Wolf/Audio for reference

It would also be interesting to see where the Horcrux's allegiance ended up. I mean, if it's other self is trying to kill Harry does it want to aid and abet that, or does it want to help Harry survive? Does it view it as if Harry becomes the corrupted Dark Lord ruler of the world rather than the Horcuxes main body, that's probably more fun for the Horcrux bit. Or does it want to get Harry to join the side of its other self? OR does the Horcrux in turn get slowly influenced by Harry's morals, world view and experiences? (Experiences like having genuine friends that actually care about you, which Tom never had etc.)? If Harry still destroys the soul bit in the end what is their last meeting in King's Cross like? How does Harry feel afterwards? So much interesting fic fodder.

[department-of-landing-strategies]

Percy and Regulus being similar is great, and I like how it potentially incorporates the Black Brothers relationship alongside Sirius's relationship to Percy. However, what I haven't really seen anyone question is if Percy and Regulus are similar, does that affect Percy's relationship with Lord Voldemort himself?

Percy was in a high position upon Voldy's takeover, so Percy probably had to have talked to He-Who-Lacks-A-Nose's inner circle or Horcux Man himself at some point. Obviously, I would imagine that similarities to Regulus would possibly affect Percy's relationship with Bellatrix and maybe Rodolphus depending on how well he knew Bellatrix's family. However, currently, I'm stuck on if The Dark Lord had any relationship with Regulus and if that in turn affects his relationship with Percy.

[satineainsel]

“You, though, are still something of a mystery, Hadrian Gaunt. How could you, my flesh and blood, side with the boy who represents all who are against me?”

“Because you murdered my parents,” Harry snaps. “Tortured me. I have no reason to side with Voldemort.”

“You could be great,” Thersander sneers. “Could stand by the side of the greatest sorcerer in the world as my heir.”

“I can be great without you.”

Thersander’s lip curls. “All you are is because of me.”

[s-coupid]

hate Hate the parallel between regulus and harry

[emmashouldbewriting]

I finished a nice calm 2hour stream of Disney Dreamlight Valley over on my Twitch... and behold, the goblin appeared for her attention.

Like she hadn't spent 20 minutes distracting me while she zoomied after a moth 🫠😂

[roseunspindle]

Peace-weaver - freothwebbe

Severus is furious with Dumbledore when he realizes the man has just been raising Harry to die. 

Yes, Severus can admit he made mistakes with Potter (those things he saw in the boys mind during occlumency “lessons”, partly because if he only looked for James in the boy he wouldn’t have to see Lily in him. Lily who he got killed.

The thing is, Dumbledore in his dying rush and his belief that Severus will do precisely what he says gives out to much information. 

A horcrux. The boy is a horcrux and therefore is very, very valuable, if not precious to the Dark Lord.

So he goes to Voldemort, speaks of Dumbledore’s plans and the truth about Potter. 

Within a week, Voldemort, now that the Light has something he wants, is suing for peace. His main price being Harry Potter as his spouse.

Severus does what he can, and wrangles himself as part of the marriage by virtue of his vow to Lily’s child. He’s not excited. Really one spouse will be Voldemort the other Harry Potter...he’d never really imagined himself marrying but in a few fancies he’d thought his marriage partner/s would at least hopefully like him a bit. 

The Order of the Phoenix, representing Harry, the Light, and the Ministry, agrees with an odd add on of one Luna Lovegood as another spouse.

Severus was there at the meeting, having brought the proposal, ignoring Dumbledore’s glaring, and Luna Lovegood, permission to be in the meeting granted to her by her father, declared she’d be marrying with Harry. As, she said with a wry smile “a representative of lightside purebloods. (Severus knows the girl, who once insisted his hair was so greasy do to the amount of wrackspurts muddling his brain. Could care less about pureblood interests in general, but was quite loyal and the gratefulness on Potter’s face, realizing he wouldn't be marrying two adult men all by himself is telling about where Miss Lovegood’s loyalty lays.)

The perplexed look on Voldemort’s face when Severus shares memories of their future bride with him is... amusing to say the least, though he quickly stuffs that emotion back behind his occlumency shields.

-

Harry does not, under any circumstances want to marry Voldemort or Snape. In many ways two of the men responsible for his parents death. 

 He’d never even though of marrying Luna (but he is so very very happy that he will be now). 

But the pain he felt over Sirius’s death and the information Snape had given him (making Dumbledore also responsible in a way for his parents death and certainly for his miserable life up ‘til now.)

He knows why Snape did this, thinks that in a few years, he may even be grateful for Snape including himself in the situation. The man couldn’t have predicted Luna of course. (Who could?)

He doesn’t want others to loose their loved ones like he has, he doesn’t want more war orphans like himself and Neville. Part of the peace agreement his marriage will seal is a cessation of hostilities on Muggleborns and Muggles alike. Along with Some of Voldemort’s more violent Death Eaters remanded back to Azkaban. (Bellatrix, the lestranges, a few others.) The ones who can’t function in “real” life (not killing/torturing) at all. 

Their side, lead now by Amelia Bones, will see to a lessening of restrictions on certain of the Dark Arts.

There are protection clauses in the document as well. No torture for any of the spouses, no imprisonment disguised as protection.

It’s all very good, if one wasn’t you know a sixteen year old boy essentially being sold for peace. 

Amelia insists on meeting with him and Luna privately to have a straight forward conversation about it. She, being a rational and reasonable adult and politician was not happy having to have politics resolved by archaic marriage practice's and even less by one involving a sixteen year old boy and fifteen year old girl.

Harry is grateful that at least one adult seems to find this an actual problem. Molly had unfortunately just been crying about how she’d always hoped Ginny and Harry would marry, instead of realizing that maybe doing that right in his hearing wasn't very nice. 

As many discussion are had, eventually betrothal documents are signed and both dark and light side come together to plan the wedding of the century. 

[simply-cooler]

i was today years old when i found out that reg x james is called sunseeker because reg is a seeker. i mean, i knew that he was a seeker but that never crossed my mind. i js thought the seeker part came from him seeking out the horcuxes. AND. i thought that starchaser was james CHASING regulus (the star). this is so crazy (or maybe im just stupid)

[themostobsessed]

🦊 says there's not enough love for Cup . Do you also think that 20-something Tom looked older bc of making horcuxes and mainly from working in retail 😹🕯️

[saintsenara]

where was the seaside cave that tom visited as a child do you think?

somewhere among the seven sisters in east sussex:

why?

because the cave is the location in which he hides the only horcux which connects him to his mother.

"the seven sisters" is a term used to refer not only to these cliffs, but to the pleiades star formation.

and one of the stars of the pleiades...

is merope.

[hollowed-theory-hall]

do you have thoughts on the diary horcrux and why it seems to have been so much more sentient than the other horcuxes? (also do u think riddle could really have come out of the diary?). thank you for all your incredible meta.

Thank you for your compliments! 😊

So, I kinda have thoughts about anything Harry Potter related, so, yeah.

Okay, I'll start with the second part, actually. Tom Riddle in the diary definitely thought he could come out of the diary, and he seemed to be correct. By taking Ginny's life force he was able to appear outside of the diary. And according to Harry, he got more solid as he took more of her life:

but the longer Riddle stood there, the more life was dwindling out of Ginny . . . and in the meantime, Harry noticed suddenly, Riddle’s outline was becoming clearer, more solid. . . . If it had to be a fight between him and Riddle, better sooner than later

(CoS, page 292)

As for the magical theory of why it worked, I already mentioned here that in Alchemy, everything is alive. Everything that is alive is made up of three components:

1. Soul (Sulfur)

2. Body (Salt)

3. Life (Mercury)

So what Tom is doing is stealing Ginny's mercury — her life — he says as much:

But there isn’t much life left in her [Ginny]. . . . She put too much into the diary, into me.

(CoS, page 289)

Now a life can only be used to create something equal to it — another life. If you want to bring someone who isn't alive (dead or unliving, like the diary) to life, you'll need another life to do it. It's a life-for-a-life scenario since in Alchemy everything works according to the law of equivalent exchange.

This law means all energy or components can only transform into something equal to it. If you want to cast a spell, you'll need to put magical energy in it equal to the effect you want to cause.

It's the same here. He kills Ginny and gets his own life in exchange for hers.

What somewhat bothers me about it is that he seems to have a body get created as well. Like, his current body (salt) is the diary itself, hence why when Harry stabbed it he died, but he was making himself a new one. The only way to do that, is to extert something of equal energy. In this case, I believe it was Ginny's magic. He wasn't just pulling out her life to create a life for himself he was pulling her magic to make him a body:

But there isn’t much life left in her. . . . She put too much into the diary, into me. Enough to let me leave its pages at last. . . .

(CoS, page 289)

He says she put too much into the diary, not just life. I believe he was feeding on her magic too, which leads into the first part of your question.

I don't think he's necessarily more sentient. Like, I think all Horcruxes could be as sentient as the diary. And we see the locket become more sentient as the trio wears it. And I think that's the crux of it.

The Horcruxes seem to steal magic from their surroundings, which makes them more powerful and more sentient as a result. The diary spent years in Lucius Malfoy’s office, sucking up bits of magic from him and anyone else who visited that office. Then he had a whole year of Ginny (and Harry for a bit) writing to him. This all means he has plenty of magic to make him sentient.

The other Horcruxes, in contrast, didn't really have any human interaction until their destruction. Besides the locket, which we do see growing in sentience:

“There was a locket.” “What?” said Harry and Ron together. “In the cabinet in the drawing room. Nobody could open it...”

(DH, page 166)

No sentience in OoTP, nothing felt magical about the locket.

“Can you feel it, though?” Ron asked in a hushed voice, as he held it tight in his clenched fist. “What d’you mean?” Ron passed the Horcrux to Harry. After a moment or two, Harry thought he knew what Ron meant. Was it his own blood pulsing through his veins that he could feel, or was it something beating inside the locket, like a tiny metal heart?

(DH, page 239)

After Umbridge wore it for a bit, it had more sentience. It has a heartbeat, it feels alive like it didn't before. Hermione doesn't mention this sense existing the first time, and that's because this pulse wasn't there.

She held out her hands, and Harry lifted the golden chain over his head. The moment it parted contact with Harry’s skin he felt free and oddly light. He had not even realized that he was clammy or that there was a heavy weight pressing on his stomach until both sensations lifted. “Better?” asked Hermione. “Yeah, loads better!”

(DH, page 249)

And the longer they wear it, the more effect the locket has. The more magic it has to become more sentient and influence the trio. Throughout Deathly Hollwos, the Horcrux becomes more powerful the longer they wear it:

Then something closed tight around his neck. He thought of water weeds, though nothing had brushed him as he dived, and raised his empty hand to free himself. It was not weed: The chain of the Horcrux had tightened and was slowly constricting his windpipe.

(DH, page 321)

The Horcrux was still swinging from Ron’s hand. The locket was twitching slightly. Harry knew that the ting inside it was agitated again. It had sensed the presence of the sword and had tried to kill Harry rather than let him possess it.

(DH, page 321)

Then a voice hissed out from the Horcrux. “I have seen your heart, and it is mine.” “Don’t listen to it!” Harry said harshly. “Stab it!” “I have seen your dreams, Ronald Weasley, and I have seen your fears. All you desire is possible, but all that you dread is also possible. . . . ”

(DH, page 325)

So, I think it's all a matter of how much magic you feed the Horcrux.

[ripfairy12]

#sad Tom and his Unresolved childhood trauma, sometimes i think people kept forgetting that all that evilness truly come from his lack of Love during childhood and growing up in poverty and an abusive orphanage made him crave for Validation, and Greatness, he wanted to erase his past Identity that he view as weak and pathetic because he sees himself so far off compared to all the other Hogwarts students (especially slytherins) that’s why he’s so ambitious and he will do violent things to get what he wants because that is exactly what a boy who grew up alone, poor and during a time of War would do. The bombing between muggles that wake him up for most of the night clutching his sheets scared, and the children and matriach that was supposed to be his Mother that secluded him into thinking he was a freak and strange and even possesed by demons 😭.

I think that the time he was about to create his first Horcux by k wording his entire family, he wasn’t absolutely sure about doing it thoroughly until they basically drove him to, his Father hated him and his grandparents hates him more, he saw no chance for a family then, he realised that he truly was alone that he’s just nothing but an orphan with no one else. and so he had nothing else to lose.

The way he clutches to the Slytherin name is just his coping mechanism, the Muggle world has rejected him and it’s bitter, and if he cannot even claim his Wizard ancestry then he truly is alone in this world.

[department-of-landing-strategies]

Okay, so Percy Weasley and Regulus Black are compared in canon, and canon Regulus goes into the cave for the locket horcux and never comes back out. Therefore, Percy being the one to destroy all the horcuxes, instead of the golden trio, would be someone similar to Regulus finishing what Regulus started.

[hazelnut1]

Horcuxes

[iamnmbr3]

Ok but Ron leaving in book 7 almost completely ruined everything. Because he asked Hermione to come with him. And if she had said yes then Harry would've gone to Godric's Hollow alone and almost certainly been killed or captured. And Voldemort would've presumably seen that he had the locket and realized he was hunting Horcruxes and then moved the remaining ones or reenforced their protections.

And that's the best case scenario. Because remember that because Harry is a Horcux himself, being in the presence of Nagini and the locket and Voldemort himself at Godric's Hollow causes him to collapse and go into a sort of feverish fugue state where he gets stuck reliving some of Voldemort's memories.

So if Voldemort didn't just kill him on sight he would've seen something was very wrong with Harry. And he would've known that Nagini's attack couldn't have caused it. And Voldemort is probably the foremost Horcrux expert in the world. So he might've gotten curious and finally figured out what Harry was. At which point depending on whether he was willing to destroy a piece of his own soul he either would've figured out the correct way to kill Harry permanently or else just taken him prisoner and kept him somewhere forever.

Either way. Massive blow to the war effort.