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When Voldemort cast Avada Kedavra against baby Harry, he didn't realise what was going to happen. He made a total of 7 Horcruxes, including Harry, but only 6 were made deliberately, despite his talk about 7 being the most powerfully magical number.
So was he still in the process of making his Horcruxes when he went to kill the Potters in Godric's Hollow?
(This question was inspired by: https://www.potterforums.com/viewtopic.php?f=23&t=55164 )
No. Voldemort had planned to split his soul into 7 parts, as 7 was a powerful magical number.
One part would always remain within his body, so he needed 6 Horcruxes.
He hadn't created all of them before Godric's Hollow, he'd been intending to create the last one there, from Harry's murder. At that point, he only had 5 - Nagini came later. It is not known what he'd intended to serve as his final Horcrux.
Voldemort believed that a seven-part soul would be optimal:
“Yes, sir,” said Riddle. “What I don’t understand, though — just out of curiosity — I mean, would one Horcrux be much use? Can you only split your soul once? Wouldn’t it be better, make you stronger, to have your soul in more pieces, I mean, for instance, isn’t seven the most powerfully magical number, wouldn’t seven — ?”
—Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
Note that Voldemort intended to split his soul into seven pieces, i.e. to have six Horcruxes. He still had one Horcrux left to make when he went to kill Harry. Dumbledore speculated that Harry's murder was to serve as the driving force to create Voldemort's final Horcrux.
"However, if my calculations are correct, Voldemort was still at least one Horcrux short of his goal of six when he entered your parents’ house with the intention of killing you.
“He seems to have reserved the process of making Horcruxes for particularly significant deaths. You would certainly have been that. He believed that in killing you, he was destroying the danger the prophecy had outlined. He believed he was making himself invincible. I am sure that he was intending to make his final Horcrux with your death."
—Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
Of course, in at least two cases (Nagini and the diadem), Voldemort used targets of opportunity to make his Horcruxes, but the fact that he waited so long between Horcruxes does suggest that choosing the right murder was generally important to him. Given that Harry's murder was the most significant of all, it seems likely that Dumbledore's reasoning is correct in this case.
What is more, Voldemort would have been very foolish to want to make Horcruxes after the seventh, since by that point his soul had become very fragile.
“You were the seventh Horcrux, Harry, the Horcrux he never meant to make. He had rendered his soul so unstable that it broke apart when he committed those acts of unspeakable evil, the murder of your parents, the attempted killing of a child.
—Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
This, indeed, is probably why seven Horcruxes is the limit. Anything past seven renders the soul so unstable that it risks serious damage.
The Dark Lord wanted his soul to be split into seven pieces - six Horcruxes and the part in him.
“But firstly, no, Harry, not seven Horcruxes: six. The seventh part of his soul, however maimed, resides inside his regenerated body.”
- Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, Chapter 23 (Horcruxes)
Dumbledore suspected that the Dark Lord had been one Horcrux short of his goal at the time he went to kill the Potters, and was likely planning to make his final Horcrux using Harry’s death.
“However, if my calculations are correct, Voldemort was still at least one Horcrux short of his goal of six when he entered your parents’ house with the intention of killing you.”
- Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, Chapter 23 (Horcruxes)
Dumbledore also suspected that years later from his attempt to kill Harry, the Dark Lord decided to use Nagini as his last Horcrux after using her to kill an old Muggle man.
“After an interval of some years, however, he used Nagini to kill an old Muggle man, and it might then have occurred to him to turn her into his last Horcrux.”
This is confirmed in an interview with J.K. Rowling, where she says the Dark Lord turned Nagini into a Horcrux using Bertha Jorkins’s death - which happened years after his killing the Potters.
Lady Bella: Whose murders did Voldemort use to create each of the Horcruxes?
J.K. Rowling: The diary – Moaning Myrtle. The cup – Hepzibah Smith, the previous owner. The locket – a Muggle tramp. Nagini – Bertha Jorkins (Voldemort could use a wand once he regained a rudimentary body, as long as the victim was subdued). The diadem – an Albanian peasant. The ring – Tom Riddle Sr.
- Bloomsbury Live Chat (July 30, 2007)
So, the Dark Lord was still in the process of creating his Horcruxes when he went to Godric’s Hollow to kill the Potters - he’d already had five, but he needed one more to make six.
