Harry Potter And The Methods Of Rationality

Not so. Harry survived a surprising amount of abuse in his years as a Horcrux. (He also got out of several Avada Kedavras, which is not supposed to be possible. If anything were to scream "effect of Horcrux" to me it would be his escaping AK in the last book.)

edited 2nd Oct '12 9:19:36 PM by Exetera

I think that canonically, what happened in the last book was that Avada Kedavra severed the portion of Voldemort's soul from Harry, but Harry's was able to hang on, or return somehow. Aside from that though, while he gets roughed up quite a lot, he doesn't demonstrate more resilience than any other wizard in comparable circumstances. I mean, when he falls off a broom and breaks his bones, it's not like anyone comments that it's odd that he only ended up with broken bones.

All the wizard kids are somebody's horcruxes *

edited 2nd Oct '12 10:33:31 PM by Savoie

J.K. stated Harry wasn't a true Horcrux (Voldemort never did the ritual) he just kinda-sorta worked like one. Are living Hlrcruxes impervious to normal harm? The only true animal Horcrux was Nagini who was killed with Gryffindor's sword, so it may just be that Horcruxing does indeed defend the object just by itself. The bacterium idea: the new bacterium produced wouldn't be a Horcrux since it is a different organism, but assuming that Horcruxing stops the bacterium from just dying of whatever mundane cause, it would still be an awesome Horcrux.

Hang on, can you Horcrux an atom? Or just a grain of sand dropped into the ocean, if not possible.

Harry's screwed.

I'll note that all the Horcruxes in canon could be held in either one or two hands when they were created. I would not be surprised if there were a size range.

But you could have Horcruxed someone's bone. Then it could stay a Horcrux after they die... assuming that it doesn't have Transfiguration-style whole object limitations, in which case you'd still just have to make the bone conceptually separate. Perhaps by opening enough of the body to see the bone?

edited 3rd Oct '12 6:51:50 AM by Exetera

Yes, but in canon nobody thought it might be a bright idea to, y'know, stick some wards on the Triwizard Cup to stop somebody from Confunding it, or to send in magical pest control with a giant snake slithering around, or kidnap Draco Malfoy in sixth year and put him under the Order's protection. Voldemort as a teenager might have been bright enough, but then he started ripping bits off his soul until he was an insanely powerful nigh-immortal nutcase.

Also, if there is a size limit, does your Horcrux have to be a continuous object or can you Horcrux a bag of flour, bake it into a cake and eat it?

It might be that doing that would count as destroying the horcrux. If you actually digested it you'd be destroying it on a molecular level.

If you can do non-contiguous horcruxes like that though, I think I would sooner try turning a block of salt into a horcrux, and then tossing it into the ocean.

That should definitely count as destruction. If eating your Horcrux or dispersing it across the friggin' Atlantic doesn't count as destroying it, I don't know what would. Actually, I'll go with "the Horcrux must remain whole and undispersed" as a general-case rule, it seems sensible and shouldn't leave any major loopholes in that area.

edited 3rd Oct '12 10:26:25 AM by Exetera

At least, if you did something like Horcruxing a block of salt and throwing it into the ocean, then its continued existence should depend on every single piece. I.e., you could (most likely) destroy such a Horcrux by just flying out over the ocean and randomly casting Fiendfyre at the water.

Alright ... I am starting this tomorrow based on the "Best Fanfic You've Read" thread in this forum. Wish me luck!

Good luck! The fanfic is most definitely excellent and will certainly be worth your time. It might even be back to updating before Christmas...

Also, advice for new reader: First time I started Methods I was derailed by Chapter 13, which is weird. The payoff is actually worth it, so do wait until it's explained in Chapter 14. (Hopefully with the modified Chapter 9 this won't be quite so glaring...)

That seems improbable unless you're in a very shallow ocean; presumably much of the salt would be distributed relatively deeply. In any case, enough Fiendfyre to get _all_ the Horcrux salt would be... problematic. You'd end up evaporating much of the ocean! (Unless, that is, you expect to only need to vaporize one salt molecule from the former block, in which case it was a bad idea anyways.)

edited 3rd Oct '12 4:27:07 PM by Exetera

Isn't a Horcrux supposed to be indestructible? It shouldn't dissolve just because you put it into water, it should be forever rebuilding itself much the way the locket couldn't be smashed in the movie. However, getting it from the bottom of the ocean might be problematic.

We're arguing about how to make the Horcruxes actually impossible to destroy rather than just "indestructible" like in canon. It's a kind of different perspective... I think you'll understand what we're getting at a bit more after reading.

edited 3rd Oct '12 4:43:59 PM by Exetera

Just don't get too put off by Early-Installment Weirdness. *cough*musical numbers*cough*

Hush, that got removed in revision.

It's pretty clear that obscurity/inaccessibility is pretty much the way to go here. Harry's suggestions from the relevant bit of this story are all good ones. That said, if you need to be able to get at it at need, you could always just Horcrux an ordinary-looking pebble or bit of garbage and leave it on a beach or in a landfill. Just pick something unobtrusive and put it somewhere specific but nondescript. Canon Voldemort does something pretty close to the worst thing available in this context.

Aside from their near-indestructibility, Horcruxes don't seem to be all that magical - otherwise, Dumbledore would have been able to collect them (or at least find their locations, if not deal with the protections) without the wild goose chase of book 7. So the simplest way to make your Horcrux impossible to destroy would be to pick something innocuous, sell it to an antique shop, and then make a big deal about something else being your horcrux (after helpfully enchanting it with super-durability, of course).

Indeed; though Loophole Abuse is fun it is very hard to perform it in such a way that still leaves you with an entertaining and fulfilling story afterwards. The best way to hide a Horcrux is to make it impossible to find; it is far more difficult to search every square meter of the Earth than to break through any ward available. 'Tis a shame the rest of the Methods world hasn't figured it out yet; it'd be much less of a pain for all involved if Flamel had enchanted the Sorcerer's Stone to look and behave like a mundane stone and then left it on the banks of the Thames.

edited 3rd Oct '12 5:34:21 PM by Exetera

I'd assume that it gives off some sort of magical vibes that can be sensed.

The Sorcerer's Stone is not a Horcrux, however, and had to be present for Flamel to brew up his immortality potion. The only reason it was present in Hogwarts was because Flamel wanted Dumbledore to get rid of it. Making it a random rock on the Thames rather defeats that purpose ... unless you're making it a really big magically-undetectable rock.

Hmm, there's a thought. How big can a Horcrux be? I imagine it'd be awfully difficult for some upstart Boy Who Lived to destroy your last Horcrux if you made it, say, Big Ben.

The bell, or the tower mistakenly referred to as such?

As someone noted previously, every item mentioned so far has been fit in your hand/wrap around your body sized. Presumably you need to actually hold it for the ritual to work. Hence why he only horcruxed the pioneer plaque.

Hell, both of them!

Use the Constitution! It's not doing any good anyway ...

I started reading last night. "I had a pet rock. It died." Hilarious.

The bit where a certain blond haired boy and a certain brown haired boy with a scar on his head go clothes shopping is funnier, 8-)

It would be remiss of me not to suggest that you read

"Oh God, Not Again" as well. It is hilarious. (well, I think so anyway.)

It does not seem like you do need access to a horcrux for it to work - it just needs to still exist. So, really, best practice is to hide it somewhere random - by which I mean "Map and dice" and then obliterate your own memory of doing it. You do not want to know where it is in case of someone getting inside your head, and you do not want people to be able to deduce it from the way you think.. If the scry proof nature of Voldemort's horcruxes were not inherent, but rather another ward he stuck on them, still same plan, only you need to wipe a longer period of time.