Skip to main content

harry potter - How could Tom Riddle's diary know what happened between Tom and Hagrid?


It is said that Tom Riddle's diary was made into a Horcrux via the murder of Moaning Myrtle via Basilisk.


If that was the case, the soul piece that went into the diary was split off when this happened.


Yet, the diary piece of soul, somehow, showed Harry things which happened AFTER the murder - such as conversations about school closing with Headmaster and confronting Hagrid to frame him.


How could the diary-bound soul fragment know this?


Did Tom Riddle continue writing into the diary to keep that fragment updated? (that was the only plausible explanation I can guess at, since he was the only one who knew those scenes).



Answer




I have 2 options, the first of which, is that horcruxes do not need to be created at the exact moment you kill a victim. We know from JKR that there is a process and a spell or 2 that need to happen to create a horcrux, and we also know that killing damages the soul, which allows a piece to be broken off.



MA: What is the process? Do you-- Is there a spell? Is there a-- What do you have to do?


JKR: I see it as a series of things you would have to do. So you would have to perform a spell. But you would also-- I don't even know if I want to say it out loud, I know that sounds funny. But I did really think it through. There are two things that I think are too horrible, actually, to go into detail about.



Slughorn says,



‘By an act of evil – the supreme act of evil. By committing 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 –’



So this process seems somewhat time consuming. We also know a damaged soul can only be repaired through remorse.




Ron: "Isn't there any way of putting yourself back together?" Hermione: "Yes, but it would be excruciatingly painful."


Harry: "Why? How do you do it?"


Hermione: "Remorse. You've got to really feel what you've done. There’s a footnote. Apparently the pain of it can destroy you. I can’t see Voldemort attempting it somehow, can you?"



So given this, we again don't have an exact date that he created the diary, but I would hazard that he created it AFTER he was told he could no longer stay at Hogwarts over the summer, and decided to close the chamber, and frame Hagrid. This to me is the most logical conclusion as the Diary was intended to be used to open the chamber again.


The second option which is a very simple fix to adding memories after the fact.


We know how easy it is for memories to be extracted in Harry Potter, and in fact the memories we see through the diary have striking similar feel to memories viewed through the pensive.



Once before, Harry had found himself somewhere that nobody could see or hear him. That time, he had fallen through a page in an enchanted diary, right into somebody else’s memory . . . and unless he was very much mistaken, something of the sort had happened again. . . .




This memory is the only one that Tom chooses to show Harry, and it may simply be because it is the only memory added to the Diary in a way which can be shown like this. So creating the Diary immediately after killing Murtle and then added the memory of catching Hagrid after the fact is a simple feat.


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

harry potter - Do the Kwikspell courses work?

In Harry Potter we are introduced to Kwikspell course in The Chamber of Secrets (and never hear about it again). We see Filch taking courses, presumably by mail. The descriptions of Kwikspell make me think it is for people who are weak in magic (kind of like how Neville was supposed to be when he was younger), but had magic in them nonetheless. However, Ron's comments later in the chapter make it sound like it is mainly for Squibs to learn magic. However, it is strongly implied through out all the books that Squibs are essentially Muggles, and will never be able to do magic. How then is a Kwikspell course supposed to work? Do we have any information to know if it works at all? Is it a scam? An answer from any level of canon is welcome. Answer Kwikspell courses are (probably) useful to some wizards, but not to squibs. The Kwikspell course literature comes with two testimonials. Madam Z. Nettles of Topsham writes: ‘I had no memory for incantations and my potions were a family joke...
Post a Comment
Read more

futurama - How much time is lost in 'Time Keeps on Slippin''

In time Keeps on Slippin' , Farnsworth creates a basketball team which he matures by abusing Chronitons. This leads to time skipping forward by random, but ever increasing amounts. How much time was skipped in this way? Answer Unfortunately, I don't think a good estimate can be made for this, for two reasons: Many of the time skips move forward by an indeterminate amount of time. At one point, the Professor mentions localized regions of space skipping forward much more than others. We then see two young boys on the street below complaining about having to pay social security, only to suddenly become senior citizens and start complaining about wanting their money. Thus, each individual could have experienced a different amount of time skippage.
Post a Comment
Read more

languages - Do we ever see written English in the Star Wars films?

In Empire Strikes Back , we see a transcription of what R2's beeps and bloops mean, but it's not English (sorry for the low quality, it's from the 2004 DVDs): I'd assume it's what Basic looks like when written, but is there some point in the the Star Wars films we see written English instead? (This sort of spun off from a discussion in How do people understand astromech droids? .) Answer At one point there was English but it has been phased out in subsequent versions of the films. Chris Gould at DVD Active did a comparison of all versions of each of the Star Wars films, and in his comparison of Episode 4 , there are a couple of screenshots showing how the power gauge for the Death Star tractor beam was changed. I imagine there are probably more to be found in his other comparisons but I haven't got around to reading those yet.
Post a Comment
Read more

Was the "pure soul" of Harry's what had really hurt Voldemort?

In the Order of the Phoenix, Voldemort possesses Harry, and it hurts. Greatly. I think that Dumbledore explained that it was because Voldemort's rotten soul was incapable of assimilating Harry's pure soul, that Voldemort didn't understand the love and friendship etc that Harry has in his heart. But, I think it was a lie. Remember that in Deathly Hallows, while looking for information regarding Horcruxes, it is discovered that it is in fact possible to merge a soul fragment back, but that the process was extremely painful. Now then, if Voldemort tried to possess Harry, and Harry had a fragment of Voldemort's soul, I think that it could have been the true cause of Voldemort's pain: the fact of having his soul so close of another fragment. I think that Dumbledore knew that fact, but had to lie to Harry because it was inappropriate to let him know that he had one of Voldemort's soul fragments at the moment. Is that right? Or was it truly the pure soul of Harry's...
Post a Comment
Read more