Science Fiction & Fantasy Stack Exchange is a question and answer site for science fiction and fantasy enthusiasts. It only takes a minute to sign up.
Sign up to join this community
I read somewhere (apologies, I cannot find the source) that Voldemort put high importance on creating Horcruxes. They were all kept in objects of meaning to him and almost all of the deaths were significant.
However it puzzles me that he'd murder people as trivial as a Muggle tramp and an Albanian peasant to create a Horcrux.
In summary, why did Voldemort kill such trivial people (Muggle tramp and an Albanian peasant) to undertake such a serious and significant task as creating a Horcrux?
While it doesn't fit with Voldemort's usual sense of arrogance and dramatic flair, it's important to note how the first Horcrux came into being.
The very first Horcrux made by Tom Riddle was Tom Riddle's Diary. It was most likely created in 1943 immediately after the death of Myrtle Warren, which was caused by Tom Riddle ordering the Basilisk in the Chamber of Secrets to stare into her eyes, thereby killing her.
It is safe to assume that he killed her not specifically to create a horcrux, but rather because she would have been a witness to his opening of the chamber and practice of Parseltongue. However, this act still split his soul and in that moment, Riddle decided to take the opportunity and place that soul fragment into the diary. Since Myrtle wasn't anyone particularly special in Riddle's eyes, there was no sense making sure that the remaining 6 kills were people he considered important to him, because the pattern would be incomplete and the "Power of 7" wouldn't apply.
As such, it freed him to simply kill whoever happened to be nearby whenever he wanted to make a Horcrux. All that mattered was that the object his soul was placed into was important, not who he killed. One could argue that had Myrtle not been in the bathrooms that day, Voldemort may well have attempted such a pattern of "importance" and as a result found it much more difficult to create his perfect set of 7 Horcruxes.
Killing the Muggle tramp and the Albanian peasant may have had some sort of significance to the Dark Lord, though a less obvious one than people like the Riddles, whose deaths’ meaning to him is clear. After Dumbledore explains to Harry that the Dark Lord chose objects that had a powerful magical history for his Horcruxes, Harry doesn’t think the diary seems to fit with that. Dumbledore tells him that it’s significant to the Dark Lord because it was proof that he was the Heir of Slytherin.
“Lord Voldemort liked to collect trophies, and he preferred objects with a powerful magical history. His pride, his belief in his own superiority, his determination to carve for himself a startling place in magical history; these things suggest to me that Voldemort would have chosen his Horcruxes with some care, favouring objects worthy of the honour.’
‘The diary wasn’t that special.’
‘The diary, as you have said yourself, was proof that he was the heir of Slytherin; I am sure that Voldemort considered it of stupendous importance.”
- Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, Chapter 23 (Horcruxes)
Similarly, the deaths of the Muggle tramp and Albanian peasant may have had a less immediately obvious meaning to the Dark Lord than some of the others, but their deaths may still be significant enough to him in some way that he’d use them to make Horcruxes with.
