How did Harry become a Horcrux?

Question

To make a Horcrux, certainly murder can't be the only requirement. It is obvious a proper spell is needed for completing a Horcrux. Voldemort could have made a thousand Horcruxes, as he had already murdered a thousand people. But, how on earth did Harry become a Horcrux, with Voldemort murdering his mom and not using the Horcrux-making spell? Certainly Avada Kedavra is not the spell used for making a Horcrux.

Answer 1

J.K. Rowling addresses whether or not Harry is a proper Horcrux in Pottercast with The Leaky Cauldron (citation below) and reveals that Harry is not a Horcrux. Read on:

"Here is the thing: for convenience, I had Dumbledore say to Harry, "You were the Horcrux he never meant to make," but I think, by definition, a Horcrux has to be made intentionally. So because Voldemort never went through the grotesque process that I imagine creates a Horcrux with Harry, (SU: Mm-hm.) it was just that he had destabilized his soul so much that it split when he was hit by the backfiring curse. And so this part of it flies off, and attaches to the only living thing in the room. A part of it flees in the very-close-to-death limbo state that Voldemort then goes on and exists in. I suppose it's very close to being a Horcrux, but Harry did not become an evil object. He didn't have curses upon him that the other Horcruxes had. He himself was not contaminated by carrying this bit of parasitic soul."

[SNIP]

"I do think that the strict definition of "Horcrux," once I write the [Harry Potter Encyclopedia], will have to be given, and that the definition will be that a receptacle is prepared by Dark Magic to become the receptacle of a fragmented piece of soul, and that that piece of soul was deliberately detached from the master soul to act as a future safeguard, or anchor, to life, and a safeguard against death." JK Rowling - Pottercast 12.23.07 - The Leaky Cauldron

No, Harry was not an official Horcrux. There is a spell used to complete the process, which JKR has not yet revealed.

From Half-Blood Prince:

A Horcrux is the word used for an object in which a person has concealed part of their soul."

"I don't quite understand how that works, though, sir," said Riddle. His voice was carefully controlled, but Harry could sense his excitement.

"Well, you split your soul, you see," said Slughorn, "and hide part of it in an object outside the body. Then, even if one's body is attacked or destroyed, one cannot die, for part of the soul remains earthbound and undamaged. But of course, existence in such a form ..." Slughorn's face crumpled and Harry found himself remembering words he had heard nearly two years before: "I was ripped from my body, I was less than spirit, less than the meanest ghost. . . but still, I was alive." "... few would want it, Tom, very few. Death would be preferable."

But Riddle's hunger was now apparent; his expression was greedy, he could no longer hide his longing.

"How do you split your soul?"

"Well," said Slughorn uncomfortably, "you must understand that the soul is supposed to remain intact and whole. Splitting it is an act of violation, it is against nature."

"But how do you do it?"

"By an act of evil — the supreme act of evil. By commiting murder. Killing rips the soul apart. The wizard intent upon creating a Horcrux would use the damage to his advantage: He would encase the torn portion —"

"Encase? But how — ?"

"There is a spell, do not ask me, I don't know!" said Slughorn shaking his head like an old elephant bothered by mosquitoes. " Do I look as though I have tried it — do I look like a killer?"

"No, sir, of course not," said Riddle quickly. "I'm sorry ... I didn't mean to offend . . ."

Half-Blood Prince - chapter 23 - Horcruxes - US Hardcover

Answer 2

Although the spell is unknown, there exists a spell that is used to create horcrux, intentionally of course.

As explained here,

Creating a horcrux requires one to commit a murder, which, as "the supreme act of evil, (...) rips the soul apart." After the murder, a spell is cast to infuse part of the ripped soul into an object, which becomes the horcrux. The spell can be found in the book Secrets of the Darkest Art.

Voldemort had already created five horcruxes before going to Godric's Hollow to kill Harry, (and I suspect he was going to use Harry's death for making his last horcrux, although I have no canonical evidence to support my assumption). This evil act had made his soul highly unstable. [Ref: Page no 114, Deathly Hallows]

“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!”

When Voldemort attempted to kill Harry, his killing curse rebounded off the protection spell and killed him physically. But due to the instability of his soul, a part of his soul was blown off during his death and sought out the nearest living thing, which incidentally was Harry. This is how Harry became Voldemort's sixth Horcrux, his accidental and unintentional Horcrux.

Answer 3

You ask "with voldy murdering his mom and not using the horcrux making spell?". The answer was provided by Dumbledore (emphasis mine):

“Tell him that on the night Lord Voldemort tried to kill him, when Lily cast her own life between them as a shield, the Killing Curse rebounded upon Lord Voldemort, and a fragment of Voldemort’s soul was blasted apart from the whole, and latched itself onto the only living soul left in that collapsed building. ...” [ Deathly Hallows, Dumbledore finally explaining to Snape the full story as Harry is observing from Snape's memory ]

So, there were two events that happened to make Harry a "Horcrux" (quotes are there on purpose - see Slytheincess' answer):

• Avada Kedavra, when bouncing off of Lily's protective magic around Harry, hit Voldemort himself instead, and ripped off a part of his soul.

• Once his body was dead/gone/destroyed from Avada Kedavra, that ripped off soul piece tried to find a new host, and Harry was the only host available.

Answer 4

For making a horcrux,certainly murder is not the only rule.

Murder is not the only rule, but it is a necessary step in order to create a horcrux.

It is obvious, we need a proper spell for making one.Voldy would have made a thousand horcruxes, as he already murdered a thousand people.

He only wanted 7 because he believed 7 to be the most powerful magical number.

But, how on earth Harry became one, with voldy murdering his mom and not using the horcrux making spell? Certainly Avada kedavara is not the spell for making horcrux.

That's explained in @ykombinator's answer.

My two cents: just as Voldemort handpicked very exclusive/rare objects for his horcruxes, he handpicked his victims as well. James or Lily were two meaningless people on his way to power. He could dispose of them. Harry, on the other hand, was the one he marked as an equal after hearing about the profecy. So Harry, of course, would have been the last and most important victim of the set.

What I don't really know is whether Voldemort had already picked an object to make a horcrux with when he went to kill Harry. I guess the spell is to force the part of soul to "store" itself in a specific physical container. In absence of the spell (since Voldemort's body was gone, so he wasn't able to perform it), the part of unstable soul found a life-form in baby Harry and stayed there, something Tom Riddle did not intend or foresee.

Answer 5

When Voldemort went to Godric's Hollow, he had already created 5 horcruxes. He was timing all his horcrux creation to significant killings and important objects to encase part of his soul. Harry was the biggest threat to Voldemort created by the prophecy. It must have seemed a very important killing for Voldemort. He was so intent on making Horcruxes and to evade death in all possible manner that he had forgotten basic rules of old magic.

Therefore, when Voldemort went to Godric's Hollow, it can be assumed that he went prepared to create a Horcrux with the killing of Harry Potter. What was the supposed object cannot be said with certainity.

We do not know the procedure of making a horcrux as it has not been discussed or described. It is possible that the wizard intent on making a horcrux has to cast the horcrux creating spell, followed by killing to rip the soul apart and then some other spell to encase the soul fragment.

But as the curse to kill harry potter rebounded, it split voldemort's soul as planned. But Voldemort's body was gone. He could no longer encase the soul fragment to complete horcrux formation. Soul has a property to live in a body. Only a encasing spell can put the soul outside the body in a physical object. Voldemort's soul which was left unstable latched itself to the only living thing it could find, Harry himself.

This was the reason that Harry contained the soul but was not posessed by it, rather it was becoming a part of him and providing him qualities like being a parselmouth.

Answer 6

I completely support ykombinator's answer with this additional thought:

Voldemort was an extremely skilled and powerful wizard. He had spent years to hone his skills. That means he came prepared. Since Voldemort was mortified by death, it's reasonable to assume that making horcruxes wasn't his only preventive action. I think he protected himself with the most powerful artifacts and spells available, as well.

So there might have been a spell to transfer his soul into a new body should he be killed. Or maybe he unleashed the horcrux spell as a last-second attempt to do something when he realized he was dying.

All in all, it doesn't feel right that he would die without any struggle after all these efforts to stay alive.

Answer 7

Yeah! Even I feel the same. Voldemort was so obsessed with making the last horcrux that he was actually waiting for the opportunity but the prophecy must have interrupted his mind and he might have thought to finish it before moving to make the next one. So, he might have jumped to Godric's Hollow to kill 'em all. But, since several things must have crossed his mind, which might have made him weaker and the spell he cast was so weak that Lily's magical love destroyed voldemort.

Answer 8

See, Harry became a horcrux since on the night of his parents death, Voldemort tried to kill him with an avada kadavra curse. The spell rebounded and took Voldemorts body.(well not really, just Voldemoert became powerless). Part of Voldemorts body/soul that Voldemoert lost that night went into Harry through the curse. This is sort of hard to explain, but imagine that the blade of magic that came from the wand went into the scar that it made on Harry's forehead. Then, the curse rebounded, and Voldemort lost part of himself, and that, just like the wand magic, went into Harry's scar, and then became part of Harry. I'm hoping this helped.

Answer 9

OK so, when the curse rebounded on Voldemort, the horcrux was Harry because Harry was the closest and only living thing,so technically Harry is the horcrux Voldemort never meant to make. I hope that answered your question.

Answer 10

since its me, i have a theory. lily potter was never killed by Voldemort directly. you see, James found out that Voldemort was there to kill harry, and he purposefully went to fight him. . .without a wand. he did this so that he could buy lily time to get away with harry, so he must have known he would die. . . which means he died for lily and harry. this means that when Voldemort tried to kill lily to get to harry, it was her the curse rebounded off of, hitting Voldemort. this exploded the house, which is what really killed lily, something harry would never have seen. and Harry's scar is there from Voldemort soul entering it, since he would have been the only living thing in the room. remember, Dumbledore said that only powerful dark magic could have caused him to get that scar, but he never says that it was definitely avada kedavra that caused it.

Answer 11

As said by Slytherincess, JKR did approach this question:

Here is the thing: for convenience, I had Dumbledore say to Harry, "You were the Horcrux he never meant to make," but I think, by definition, a Horcrux has to be made intentionally. So because Voldemort never went through the grotesque process that I imagine creates a Horcrux with Harry, (SU: Mm-hm.) it was just that he had destabilized his soul so much that it split when he was hit by the backfiring curse. And so this part of it flies off, and attaches to the only living thing in the room. A part of it flees in the very-close-to-death limbo state that Voldemort then goes on and exists in. I suppose it's very close to being a Horcrux, but Harry did not become an evil object. He didn't have curses upon him that the other Horcruxes had. He himself was not contaminated by carrying this bit of parasitic soul.

I like to assume that since when Voldemort's soul split an additional time from being so unstable, and the piece attaches to Harry (the closest living thing it could survive off of), it kept Harry from being killed with the killing curse. After all, you can't kill a Horcrux with the curse. The boy who lived likely owed his survival to the person who tried to kill him in the first place.

Answer 12

Harry was not a Horcux in the formal definition of the word but, because he was entirelty unique (having a slice of soul intended for a horcux dwell inside of him for 17 years) it is easy to lump him in with horcuxes for brevity. As several other answers have quoted, Dumbledore was not saying that Harry was a dark magical container for Voldemorts soul fragment that Voldemort used the Horcux spell to create. Nor, was Harry possessed by Voldemort because of the soul fragment. We know this because Harry was possessed by Voldemort in the Fifth book and it was a completely new and terrifying experience for him (and Voldemort for that matter).

Instead, like a Horcux Harry possessed a fragment of Voldemort's soul that would teather Voldemort to life while still in Harry and other than the fact that if Harry had died Voldemort's soul fragment would also have been distoryed do to lack of container--that is where the similarities stop. Harry experiences visions of Voldemort's emotions, and circumastances but through the lense of his own brain, morals and personality and was never swayed to agreeing with the values, actions or emotions of Voldemort's soul fragment. There is a spot where he didn't even realse he was feeling elation from Voldemort's soul connection because he himself was so miserable. Harry felt the feeling from the soul tie but it didn't effect his misery at all (so much so he couldn't even recogize the physicial/mental symptoms as happiness until much later). He didn't have a negative effect on those around him. There is a theory that him being a Horcux(which he is not) is why The Durselys were so awful but it doesn't hold any water as Harrys presence doesn't effect his dormates, the Weasleys, Sirus, or Ron/Hermione when they stay /live together at various points in the books. The fragment of soul has the opposite effect in fact, it intergrated into Harry's mind body and soul adding skills, aptitudes to his innate gifting as well as insight to know and understand his greatest enemy that no other person would have ever known because Voldemort was so private and secretive. So much so that Dumbledore says Voldemort's closest followers would give anything to have Harry's insight into their masters private world. This point (the souls intergration into him rather than him being tainted by it presence) is proven by his ablity to produce a patronus even with a piece of the evilest soul in history cohabitating with his soul. Patronuses are not only hard magic but only people with pure hearts are able to cast them and by pure 'heart' I think they are actually referring to whole souls.

The biggest thing that should leave us without a shadow of a doubt that Harry isn't a true Horcux is that he was able to die for the people in the hogwarts battle and invoke the deep love magic that serves as magic protection against the killing curse/evil magic. If Harry was a horcux which is intrinsically bad, dark magic- evil he would have be unable to access the opposite power magically- love. His horcuxness would have inhibited it, instead it cleansed him of the piece of soul that never belonged, thus the power of love always being stronger and more far reaching than the powers of darkness and evil, in ways that evil cannot even concieve or imagine.

As for how a slice of Voldemort's soul ended up in Harry I believe that it is necessary to understand that souls are fundamentally meant to be whole and do not opporate properly once torn, split or removed. Voldemort, who separted his soul's worth from his physical existence, devalued his soul to the point of loosing touch/control over it. When Riddle made the 1st Horcux (most likely the ring) I am sure the slice to his soul cost him alot. (if healing a ripped soul can kill you with the pain then ripping it out also must cost alot) whether pain or something else, there is a theory that I think has merit-- but I cannot remember the source so if anyone else knows it please add--that Voldemort had to give up something physically each time he ripped out a bit of his soul to encase in a horcux- and you didn't know what part of yourself you were going to give up because you couldn't predict what part of your soul you would break off/ encapsulate. So each time he did the horcux spell I think it was like a unbreakable vow or a blank check to give up the portion of his physicality that the fragment of his soul represented. There was no obvious phyiscal sign of from his first horcux (because we see him interact with Sugghorn and with Hepzibah in the memories in HBP so it could have been castration or anything not immediately obvious or Voldemort could have hid it with magic. I believe with the diary he had to give blood,if not all his blood alot of blood enough blood to write the entire story. The Locket could have been when his eyes went from human to red. We know is horcuxed changed him phyically because when he goes into see Dumbledore to hide the tiara his face is waxey although still recognizable but not the handsome boy/man he used to be. So I think eventually he had to give; his hair, his pigment, his blood, his eyes, his ablity to reproduce, and his human voice to his horcuxes before Harry ( I don't know what he gave to Nagini in his prebody state maybe this was his hair and his nose should have been on the previous list). Anyways with all that in mind back to the question at hand how did Harry come to have a fragment of Voldemorts soul attach to him? I think there are several possiblities but the 1st is that Voldemorts soul had become so wrecked so unstable and unable to do what a soul is supposed to do that when he tried to kill a baby after just murdering a woman he didn't even need to- his soul broke off a piece due to the shear gravity of the travisty he was commiting even though it didn't work but he himself died. The soul was able to attach to Harry's soul because Voldemort forfeited his entire body in the process. Seems like it would have been mentioned if they had found Voldemort's body at the Potter's house- since it never was lets assumed it wasn't found. Voldemort says, >"Aaah … pain beyond pain, my friends; nothing could have prepared me for it. I was ripped from my body, I was less than spirit, less than the meanest ghost … but still, I was alive. What I was, even I do not know … I, who have gone further than anybody along the path that leads to immortality. You know my goal – to conquer death. And now, I was tested, and it appeared that one or more of my experiments worked … for I had not been killed, though the curse should have done it. Nevertheless, I was as powerless as the weakest creature alive…” (GF33)< So Voldemort himself says the remainder of his soul was ripped from his body and then we have to assume he(his remain 7th of his unecapsalted soul) somehow fled to Albania leaving both his body and a fragment of his soul that had broken off due to how horribly degrating his actions in the Potter house were to even his irreprensively damaged soul. Voldemort was both so out of touch with his own soul and the splitting was so complete that he didn't even realize he was leaving a piece behind (also with no ablity to reintegrate into himself because after so many horcuxes he was incable of remorse you need a soul for that.) So, that portion of soul used his body as payment to latch onto Harry (magical memory like harry's wand recognizing an enemy, Voldemorts soul knew what it was magically supposed to do when split and then ripped out of his body - bind itself to something else magical using voldemort's physical self as prearranged payement.) But because no dark spell was used in the binding no dark object was created in the soul attatching itself to harry. Making Harry like a horcux but also not a horcux at all.

The other idea is that he has the sword of Gryffindor with him and he was prepared to create his final horcux, in his plan of a seven piece soul, when he killed Harry (and therefore the vality of the prophecy that anyone could defeat him). So regarless of wheather there is horcux prep (meaning you have to do some dark magic before the killing that splits the soul so that you can do more dark magic to incase it in a magical object making it a horcux) or not perhapse when the spell backfired and killed him leaving his unstable soul to cleave from his body perhaps the death still split his soul and the part that he intended (and possibly prepared) for the horcux he was going to make indeed did make a clean split so by the time he was ripped from his body Voldemort wasn't intouch with both of his pieces of soul. He suceeding in creating his 7 part soul but never had the chance to encapselate it.The rest of the theory is the same from my point of view; his body paid the magical payment to bind this split part to a magical thing in the room, no dark spell meant I couldn't bind itself to an object but a person might have been diffent so to Harry it went taking the entire physical body of Tom Riddle as magical payment for its continued existence in Harry.