harry potter - If the Diary Tom Riddle Had Succeeded, Would He Have Been a Horcrux?

If Tom Riddle had succeeded at returning as a living person from the diary, would he have been a Horcrux?

In thinking about it, it seems pretty black and white. Either diary Tom Riddle -- a manifestation of the diary which was a Horcrux -- would have been a Horcrux himself when free from the diary, or while, yes, a product of a Horcrux, he would not have been a Horcrux once he was free of the diary.

But, which would it have been and why?

For example, if one were to rip a page from the Horcrux diary, would that page on its own be a Horcrux? Or is a Horcrux always a sum of its parts? The diary is the only Horcrux, I believe, that can be examined like this. The remaining Horcruxes were all inanimate objects, aside from Nagini.

★ An answer from canon, any of J.K. Rowling's interviews, or Pottermore would be great. An answer given within the spirit of canon is perfectly fine.

Answer

Either diary Tom Riddle -- a manifestation of the diary which was a Horcrux -- would have been a Horcrux himself when free from the diary, or while, yes, a product of a Horcrux, he would not have been a Horcrux once he was free of the diary.

But, which would it have been and why?

He would still have been a Horcrux. The diary would, most likely, be emptied and have become a normal diary - I say this because, so far, we have never seen evidence of souls being cloned, only divided. So:

• The soul could not divide (complexity of spells and requiring murder to perform the division)


• The soul could not clone itself (no evidence it is possible at all)


• Therefore, the soul could only move.

Move where? To a brand new body and leave the old diary behind. Thus, the Tom Riddle that is seen would still be the horcrux itself and the diary becomes useless.

To have a body means nothing: this Tom Riddle would have still been a horcrux. Perhaps, he would have become more powerful than the normal Voldemort (if only he had as much experience as the original): this "body" would share the properties of a normal horcrux, meaning it would be nearly indestructible.

For example, if one were to rip a page from the Horcrux diary, would that page on its own be a Horcrux? Or is a Horcrux always a sum of its parts? The diary is the only Horcrux, I believe, that can be examined like this. The remaining Horcruxes were all inanimate objects, aside from Nagini.

This scenario is not possible. A property of the horcruxes is that they are extremely hard to damage - if they are indeed damaged, then they "break" and are "destroyed" and no longer are horcruxes.

You should not be able to rip a page of the diary with your bare hands. If you did it with, say, Gryffindor's sword, you would be able to do it - and the horcrux would be no more since you managed to damage it.

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To reinforce this, I'd like to say that it was unlikely that we could have ended up with two horcruxes:

Murder is not the only requirement. It also needs a complex spell. Clearly, Tom already knew the spell, but I doubt he would have tried to do it, because:

• It was risky - he simply did not know the result of splitting himself (an actual horcrux) again.



• It was imprudent - the situation was crazy, he was merely coming back to life - why rush things into making yet another horcrux? He can do it later, preferably once he gets out of Hogwarts.


• Up to this Tom's knowledge, doing so would break his "seven-horcruxes-lucky-charm". I'd hate to have 8 instead of 7 :)