If Voldemort planned to make 7 Horcruxes and he did not plan for Harry to be one shouldn't there be another one?
1 Answers
From what we know of Voldemort's horcruxes, he had the diary, Slytherin's locket, Hufflepuff's cup, Ravenclaw's diadem, Gaunt's ring, and Nagini the snake. However, Nagini the snake was only made a horcrux after Voldemort had lost his body in 1981, which means that on the fateful night he tried to kill Harry Potter as a baby, Voldemort only had five horcruxes - the first five ones in that list. Harry Potter's death would've made way for him to make his sixth horcrux and seventh soul fragment.
Voldemort only intended to create six horcruxes, as combined with the soul piece in his own body, that would make seven total soul fragments, seven being the number that Riddle had strived for all along. The confusion comes between the phrasing "seven horcruxes" versus "seven soul fragments". This excerpt from the Half-Blood Prince supports this assertion:
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 -?
'Merlin's beard, Tom!' yelped Slughorn. 'Seven! Isn't it bad enough to think of killing one person? And in any case ... bad enough to divide the soul ... but to rip it into seven pieces ...'
Riddle's words are more ambiguous, but it seems like he wanted seven total soul pieces. Slughorn definitely interprets it as such, which means six horcruxes plus the 'prime' soul piece. In any case, Voldemort never had seven soul pieces at any given time - he only had six in 1981, before losing his 'prime' piece. He had four once Harry destroyed the diary in the Chamber of Secrets. He had five when Nagini was made into a horcrux around the time of Goblet of Fire. He had six once more when he was 'resurrected', but then proceeded to lose horcruxes until he was finally killed.
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2This is a good good answer, but not quite correct. The prime piece was never lost, it was the prime piece that fled to Albania, it was the prime piece that inhabited quirrel, that wormtail resurrected. But the prime piece was very unstable when he went to godric's hollow and attempted to slaughter an innocent, a truly evil act, which meant another piece was blasted off it and latched on to harry. so he had, as you say, a 6 part soul when he went to godric's hollow, which became seven when he attempted to kill harry. then taking out the diary in CoS made 6, but creating nagini in GoF made 7 – Au101 Jul 16 '18 at 01:19