Was the order of destruction of the Horcruxes a coincidence?

Question

I just realized that the order in which the Horcruxes were destroyed was the same as in which they were created: the diary, the ring, the locket, the cup, the diadem, the snake, and Voldemort himself.

Does this have a significance? The chances for this happening are very small.

It's not hard to imagine that Dumbledore planned this. He first discovered about the Horcruxes after the diary was destroyed. He then proceeded to look for the ring- the second Horcrux, and then he went looking for the locket. When he showed Harry Voldemort's memories, he made the cup the obvious next Horcrux to hunt. (The snake was always with Voldemort and they didn't even know what the next Horcrux was). The next obvious option was to find Ravenclaw's item. Then Harry, as a pseudo-Horcrux, was "killed" and then there was only the snake left before Voldemort.

I can't prove any of this, but it seems too much to be a coincidence. Was it necessary to destroy the Horcruxes in the order they were created?

Answer 1

Before trying to answer the question I need to challenge your statement about the order in which the Horcruxes were created. Do you have any evidence for that?

We know that Tom Riddle wrote the diary in his school years and that he had Marvolo's ring when he asked Professor Slughorn about Horcruxes. He got the locket and the cup together during his employment at Burkes. The diadem was probably collected earlier, as we read in Deathly Hallows:

So, Voldemort had managed to wheedle the location of the lost diadem out of the Gray Lady. He had traveled to that far-flung forest and retrieved the diadem from its hiding place, perhaps as soon as he left Hogwarts, before he even started work at Borgin and Burkes.

Anyway above discussion is about the order of collecting the items which were made into Horcruxes. The order of using them might have been totally different and I cannot find any quotes about that. All we know for sure is that the snake was the last Horcrux created.

Going back to the original question, I'm pretty sure that the order of destroying Horcruxes didn't matter. Dumbledore didn't look for a specific Horcrux every time, he searched for any Horcrux. In one of the conversations between Dumbledore and Harry in Half-Blood Prince we read:

“So . . . are you still looking for them, sir? Is that where you’ve been going when you’ve been leaving the school?”

“Correct,” said Dumbledore. “I have been looking for a very long time. I think . . . perhaps . . . I may be close to finding another one. There are hopeful signs.”

Neither of them spoke about a specific Horcrux. Harry used a plural form and Dumbledore said he hopes to find "another one". In fact he was trying to visit places significant to Lord Voldemort, without knowing what could be hidden there, as he tells Harry about circumstances of finding and destroying the ring:

“But how did you find it?”

“Well, as you now know, for many years I have made it my business to discover as much as I can about Voldemort’s past life. I have traveled widely, visiting those places he once knew. I stumbled across the ring hidden in the ruin of the Gaunts’ house. (...)

So Dumbledore wasn't looking for a ring, he just "stumbled across" it at Gaunt's shack. Also he didn't look specifically for the locket:

“Which Horcrux is it? Where is it?”

“I am not sure which it is — though I think we can rule out the snake — but I believe it to be hidden in a cave on the coast many miles from here, a cave I have been trying to locate for a very long time: the cave in which Tom Riddle once terrorized two children from his orphanage on their annual trip; you remember?”

Concluding, Dumbledore and Harry didn't know in which order the Horcruxes were created and never paid attention to learn and keep it when destroying them. The pieces of soul locked in the Horcruxes are independent and it seems they can be destroyed in any order.

But it is still possible that the Horcruxes were indeed destroyed in the same seuence they were created. If they were, is it significant? It might add some mysticism to HP universe.

Answer 2

I don't think there is any canon reason for this. It may not be a coincidence, in the sense that J.K. Rowling might have planned it, but there isn't any particular reason as far as I know. A reason I can THINK of is that Voldemort was most careful about his most recent Horcruxes. I mean, look at regular people. They tend to take more care of what is fresh in their minds. So Voldemort was most careful of the snake. (Harry is a special case, Voldemort definitely didn't take care of him. He just stayed alive long enough to destroy most of the Horcruxes, so he came second-to-last.)