Dumbledore's Horocrux?

[Ex-Professor Remus Lupin]

Just a random thought from my friend. Fawkes is Dumbledore's horocrux. He defeated Grindelwald (spelling?) and may have killed him as well and created a horocrux. So I suppose it would be another theory for the Dumbledore is not dead thing. I'm not sure if someone else has put this theory forth and I have yet to check out the Dumbledoreisnotdead thing so this could have already put up.

For the sheer hell of it, people give me your opinions on this. I blame TheSamurai for this theory. It's all his fault.  

[Aci Dixinic]

Well, it would explain how he knows you can make a living thing your Horcrux. ninja

But listen to the way he talks about murder as the ultimate act of evil. The chocolate frog card says he defeated the dark wizard Grindelwald, not necessarily that he killed him. For all we know he might have been put in prison, or died by his own hand. I don't think Dumbledore would take advantage of someone's death like that, even that of a dark wizard.

And not only murder; the way he talks about death itself doesn't sound to me like a man trying to avoid it. "To the well organised mind, death is but the next great adventure". It sounds like he was rather looking foward to it.

Remember the way he talks about Voldemort and his Horcruxes too, how it makes him less than human. And he makes such a big deal about Harry's soul being untarnished and whole. That could be regret talking, butI doubt it. Dumbledore clearly puts a lot of store in life, but I don't think to the extent that he would try to avoid death.  

[Ex-Professor Remus Lupin]

I put this up for the sake of TheSamurai...he's not a part of this guild... sweatdrop It's just interesting.  

[[Ernie]]

Dumbledore didn't know about horcruxes before Harry got the memory from Slughorn. sweatdrop I can't find the stupid quote though. Ugh >.<;; *shall post it when she's not on a Halloween-induced high*  

[Aci Dixinic]

Ex-Professor Remus Lupin

I put this up for the sake of TheSamurai...he's not a part of this guild... sweatdrop It's just interesting.

Yeah, it is interesting. I had never thought of Fawkes that way before. To me he is just the ultimate pet. Somehow magically in touch with Dumbledore's feelings or whatever, and quite intelligent, but still just a pet.

I think it was incredibly careless of Voldemort to use Nagini. Even if she is, as her name suggests, one of the legendary Naga snakes, and possibly immortal. After all, if he was so desperate for a final Horcrux he could have used Frank Bryce's walking cane, or something like that. For all he knows being a Horcrux could kill Nagini, immortal or not, like it killed all the animals he possessed in the forest, and Quirrel.

So even if against all expectations Dumbledore did make a Horcrux, I doubt he'd be stupid enough to use Fawkes. Who could guarantee that he would not lose that part of his soul the very next Burning Day? Much cooler to use something like Gryffindor's sword (although he didn't have it at the time of Grindelwald's defeat) or the Sorting Hat, or - wait for it - the castle of Hogwarts itself.

What do you think Dumbledore would use as his Horcrux? Thoughts anyone?  

[ode[2]sokka]

[Ernie]

Dumbledore didn't know about horcruxes before Harry got the memory from Slughorn. sweatdrop I can't find the stupid quote though. Ugh >.<;; *shall post it when she's not on a Halloween-induced high*

He would have had to know, though, Ernie. Otherwise, why go after the ring?  

[Aci Dixinic]

I'm sure he said that e suspected, but he needed confirmation.  

[SweetMelissa]

I disbelieve that Dumbledore would make a horcrux. I don't think he would choose comprimising the integrity of his very being for a little "life insurance".  

[[Ernie]]

RegulusofSlytherin

He would have had to know, though, Ernie. Otherwise, why go after the ring?

He said he had a theory, but that was all. If he had really known, he wouldn't have needed Harry to get that memory from Slughorn.  

[i_heart_ron]

No.

Dumbledore is the reason that the Dark Arts are not taught at Hogwarts, and this is the Darkest magic. He is the reason that Hermione was unable to find anything useful in the library: The study of Horcruxes is "a banned subject at Hogwarts, you know...Dumbledore's particularly fierce about it..." (US hardcover p 499, elipses Jo's).

I don't think he killed Grindlewald, in any case.  

[flying_wings]

I WAS preparing a nice response before my computer went crazy evil

I think that Dumbledore knew about Horcruxes simply because we know that he's an advocate for Horcruxes being a banned subject in Hogwarts. Sort of hard to advocate the banning of a certain subject and not to know anything about the said subject. I think that he wanted the memory to see for a solid fact that Voldemort knows about and has Horcruxes.

I also think that it's been shoved into our faces that Dumbledore can do Dark Magic but chooses not to do so. In PS/SS McGonagall says that Dumbledore was too noble to use the powers Voldemort used. In CoS, Binns references to Dumbledore by saying that just because a wizard doesn't use Dark Magic doesn't necessarily mean they can't use Dark Magic. I'm just pointing out that Dumbledore could probably make a Horcrux, but I highly doubt it because of his character.

edit: I should probably mention Dumbledore was advocating the banning of Horcruxes around the 40's. Could someone remove the extra 'o' in Horcrux?  

[i_heart_ron]

definitely; I agree with everything you've said, flying_wings. The unexpurgated memory was also useful/essential, because while Dumbledore obviously knew (between the Diary and the summer prior to HBP) that Voldemort had Horcruxes, the Slughorn memory confirmed for him how many there are/would be.  

[Lisette333]

My only arguement is there's no way Dumbledore would take a life. There's no way he would rip his soul.  

[Aci Dixinic]

Lisette333

My only arguement is there's no way Dumbledore would take a life. There's no way he would rip his soul.

As seen above, I agree with that. However, for the sake of argument, and because this is a debate guild and no debates were ever started by everyone agreeing with each other:

How do we know that? Those assumptions are based on what we have seen of this man through Harry's eyes, 60 years after the "defeat" of Grindelwald. There are bound to have been aspects of Dumbledore's character that Harry didn't see, because he practically hero-worshipped him even when he was mad at him, and also because there are all sorts of things you can hide from everyone if you have enough power. Didn't some of the most notorious killers appear to others as pleasant, normal human beings? Wasn't Dumbledore the most powerful wizard in the world? I think it is safe to assume that any transgressions Albus Dumbledore committed in his lifetime would have easily been covered up with his power and connections. Grindelwald's killing may well have been one of those transgressions.

We can't dismiss out of hand the possibility that Dumbledore is capable of murder. We have in fact seen an example of his pleasant demeanor sliding to reveal a definite temper:

Quote:

Moody was thrown backwards onto the office floor. Harry, still staring at the place where Moody's face had been, saw Albus Dumbledore, Professor Snape and Professor McGonagall looking back at him out of the Foe-Glass. He looked around, and saw the three of them standing in the doorway, Dumbledore in front, his wand outstretched.
At that moment, Harry fully understood for the first time why people said Dumbledore was the only wizard Voldemort had ever feared. The look upon Dumbledore's face as he stared down at the unconscious form of Mad-Eye Moody was more terrible than Harry could ever have imagined. There was no benign smile upon Dumbledore's face, no twinkle in the eyes behind the spectacles. There was cold fury in every line of the ancient face; a sense of power radiated from Dumbledore as though he was giving off burning heat.
He stepped into the office, placed a foot underneath Moody's unconscious body and kicked him over onto his back, so that his face was visible.

GoF, UK Hardback, pg 589-590.
So we see here that he definitely has a temper.
It is possible that while he was younger he might have made mistakes because of that temper. Mistakes such as...murder. Grindelwald may have been to him what Voldemort is to Harry. It is possible that in the end, with Grindelwald at his mercy, he succumbed to temptation and exacted revenge.
The Chocolate Frog card said that he "defeated" the Dark Wizard Grindelwald in 1945. That is vague enough to encompass prison or execution. But if he was in prison I think that we would have heard about it, somehow, some mention in all the talk about Azkaban. And I doubt the Dementors were guarding the prison back then, so he would have easily gotten out of jail, and it would have been mentioned. "Defeat" easily covers "execution", whether after a trial or not.

(I would like to apologise to the memory of Albus Dumbledore for the views expressed in this post. I have some arguments already lined up to my own outrageous assertions, but I will wait to see if anyone else can come up with a counter first. I will give you a clue to my main argument: Hitler comitted suicide in 1945 wink )  

[i_heart_ron]

oooohhh! yeay outrageous assertions! I can hardly wait!

In any case, the mystery of soul-rippage. Back to the old murder vs. killing debates. (Although technically, those debates would also bring in the third leg "letting die/failure to prevent a death.") If your murder someone, your soul tears. But what about self-defense? What about "justifiable homicide"? What about "execution" vs "revenge"?

It's tricky....I would assert that in the Astronomy Tower, Dumbledore was more concerned with protecting the integrity of a student's soul than with saving his own life. Is he condemning the integrity of Harry's soul by setting him the task to kill Voldemort? Is the action responsible for soul-splitting the severing of a soul from a body? If Voldemort doesn't have an intact soul, will the effect on Harry be nil, even if he murders Voldemort in cold blood? Does destroying the Horcruxes count as a murder? Um, does this deserve its own thread?