Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1

Fair Warning:  Major Book/Movie Spoilers Ahead.

I originally saw this in the theater and recently rewatched it.

It's a great movie ... if you've read the books.  Most people that saw it complained about the camping and that it was a big snooze fest.  And some people were horribly confused when Harry and Co. were fleeing the Ministry. Even though Hermione explained what she did and why she did it after they Apparated to a forest in the middle of nowhere, some people just did not catch this due to Ron's Splinched arm.  They had no understanding of what was going on.

I can see where that was confusing.  Whole-heartedly I did not like how their escape was handled because I think it was incorrect from the book.  I don't remember, it's been nearly a year since I read Deathly Hallows, but I remember being irked by that scene because they had to modify it for the big screen.

However, during this rewatch, I noticed something that has, in many ways, stirred up a ton of discussion.  After destroying Salazar Slytherin's locket, Ron says the following.  "Just think.  Only 3 more to go!"

Two thoughts occurred to me when I heard this:  Does Harry and Co. only think there are 6 Horcruxes at this point in the books, unaware that there are 7, or is this an actual error in the script?

I've been doing a ton of research the last couple days trying to determine when/where/by whom Harry, Hermione, and Ron determine how many Horcruxes there are and what they are.

I know for a fact now that in Half-Blood Prince, we see a memory of Slughorn's when he is talking to a young Voldemort, at the time known as his birth name of Tom Riddle.  Riddle asks Slughorn about creating Horcruxes, which shows two things:  1.) Riddle was helpless from day one.  The boy was evil out of the womb.  And 2.) he was already attempting a state of immortality.

I don't remember if in the book he already made the Ring, but I'm fairly certain that before he even asked Slughorn, he had already made the Diary.  Hermione nearly confirms this in Deathly Hallows near the beginning.

However, he still asks Slughorn if it's possible to split the soul 7 ways.  Here's part of the problem.  We know for a fact, as the reader, that there are 7 Horcruxes.  The question is whether or not the group knows this, and if they do, when did they find this out.

However, I found a line from the 7th book that indicates Voldemort's original intentions with these Horcruxes.  Hermione remembers the memory that Harry described of Riddle speaking with Slughorn, asking if it was possible to have the soul split in to 7 pieces.  She then states, due to how painful and dangerous it would be to reconnect these pieces of souls, that Voldemort wouldn't risk making six Horcuxes:

" 'And the more I've read about them,' said Hermione, 'the more horrible they seem, and the less I can believe that he actually made six.  It warns in this book how unstable you make the rest of your soul by ripping it, and that's just by making one Horcrux!' "

So Harry and Co. think Voldemort only made 6.  Which means the line in the movie is correct.  And the only reason I've confused Luke and myself is because I know there was actually 7 Horcruxes.  I don't even think at this point in the book the reader knew there was 7.  I don't remember though, I'd have to reread the books again to make sure.

So ol' Voldy's original idea was to have 7 pieces of his soul, six Horcruxes and then the seventh piece within his physical body.  That way, if his physical body was ever destroyed (i.e. backfiring Killing Curse, lol), he could come back using any of the six Horcruxes.  And there would only ever be 7 pieces of his soul, the six Horcruxes and his recreated soul in a physical body.  I had to come to the conclusion that once you use one of the Horcuxes to regain a soul in a physical body, it does not consume the Horcux.  Basically, Horcruxes are lich phylacteries, which is very fitting of an evil undead dark wizard.  In cannon, specifically D&D, liches typically only have 1 phylactery, but I've read of some super powerful liches *cough* Vecna *cough* that have more than 1.

The number 7 is important because in Numerology, certain cultures, and in the magical world of Harry Potter, it's powerful.  Originally, Voldemort was going to create the sixth Horcrux, the last one, with the death of Harry and his parents.  But that backfired on him two-fold.  It destroyed his body when he only had 5 Horcruxes made, and it also actually created the 6th Horcrux he intended to make, but not with the object he wanted, and he was completely unaware of this.  Harry became that 6th Horcrux.

Later, Voldemort made a 7th Horcrux (Nagini), but that was after Harry destroyed the Diary in Chamber of Secrets.  So, at any given moment in the books, the greatest number of pieces in which Voldemorts soul was split was always 7.  Not 8.  (Sure, he eventually starts losing Horcruxes once the group starts offing them).

So the statement by Ron is correct because they have no idea Harry is a Horcrux, just as Voldemort has no idea Harry is a Horcrux, just as the reader has no idea that Harry is a Horcrux.  (Unless you guessed it before the book came out ... ).

Mystery solved.  That one line from Deathly Hallows helped it all make sense.

The Horcruxes are created (and destroyed) in this order

1. Diary -- Created while Riddle/Voldy was at Hogwarts, 1944.  Destroyed first by Harry in Chamber of Secrets.  Wasn't actually confirmed a Horcrux until Half-Blood Prince.
2. The Ring -- Created 1944.  Left in the the Gaunt home and cursed.  Dumbledore found it and destroyed it, but only after being cursed by it, during the summer between Order of the Phoenix and Half-Blood Prince.
3. The Locket -- Created in 1946, also stolen from Hepzibah Smith, but someone else's death created it. We learned of it in Order of the Phoenix but were not aware it was a Horcrux until Half-Blood Prince.  Destroyed by Ron in Deathly Hallows.
4. The Cup -- Created in 1946, stolen from Hepzibah Smith, descendant of Helga Hufflepuff, created with Hepzibah's death as well.  He stashed it in Lestrange's vault in Gringott's.  It is learned of in Half-Blood Prince, but is not destroyed until very near the end of Deathly Hallows by Hermione.
5. The Diadem -- Created around 1947, when Riddle found it after hearing of the tale of Helena Ravenclaw, Rowena's daughter, who fell in love with the Bloody Baron and stole the diadem, stashing it in a tree (I think in the forests of Albania).  Riddle created the Horcrux with the death of a tramp, and stashed it in the Room of Requirement (a.k.a. the Room of Hidden Things).  Harry inadvertently found it, not know what it was, when he was stashing the potions book of Severus' mother in the room during Half-Blood Prince (the movie did a super-suck job by omitting this.  Yes, Harry hides the book, but Ginny accompanies him.  They don't even show the diadem).  When he attempts to retrieve the diadem after remembering this in Deathly Hallows, he's chased by Crabbe and Goyle.  Crabbe's Fiend Fyre spell destroys the diadem.
6. Harry Potter -- Created in 1981 on October 31st.  Hidden under Voldy's nose for 16 years (Harry was 1 year old at the time), until Harry learned of this through deduction of all the clues Dumbledore left behind, as well as seeing the last memories of Snape after his untimely death.  Voldemort, still unaware that he created 7 Horcruxes by this time, kills Harry and inadvertently destroys the 6th Horcrux.
7. Nagini the Snake -- Created 1994 during the first chapters of Goblet of Fire when Voldemort killed the house caretaker.  Destroyed by Neville Longbottom in Deathly Hallows with the sword of Godric Gryffindor.

That's it!  Voldemort is not a Horcrux.  They don't think he's a Horcrux.  They just think there's 6 because everyone alive (excluding Snape at this point in the movies) is unaware that Harry was an unintentional 6th Horcrux, and since Voldy didn't know of it, he went and created what he thought was the 6th Horcrux, but what was really the 7th Horcrux.  And to make it even more confusing, when Nagini was made a Horcrux, she was one of 6 at that time.  This is because the Diary had been destroyed two years prior to her becoming a Horcrux.

And now I can't explain this to Luke because it will give away everything in the last movie.  I'll have to explain it then anyway because none of this will make sense by the end of that movie either.

This wasn't really intended to be a movie review at all.  It was more so my gripe about things they did poorly in this movie and the last movie.  And I also wanted to bring up this confusion caused by that single line from Ron, which eventually turned out to be correct anyway.  And since Half-Blood Prince REALLY screwed the pooch on all the important details they omitted and the emphasis they put on all the bullshit teenage drama romance crap, at this point in the movies, Harry and Co. don't know about the cup or the diadem.  They definitely think there are 6 Horcruxes, they just don't know what the last 3 existing are.  I'm not sure how they'd know about Nagini either (in the movie only).  I'm suspicious of how they're going to work this out.  From the trailers, it is obvious they develop the necessity to go to Gringott's, but the only reason they do so in the book is because they learn that Bellatrix has had the cup stashed in her vault for ages.  They've known about the cup since Half-Blood Prince, when Hermione figured it out.  And Harry was to have found the diadem in the Room of Requirement in Half-Blood Prince when he was stashing Snape's mother's old potions book there.  He didn't know it was a Horcrux, but he later remembers it when he puts the dots together near the end of Deathly Hallows.  At this point in the movies, they have ABSOLUTELY KNOW IDEA WHAT THE FUCK THEY'RE LOOKING FOR.