Horcrux

"A Horcrux is an object in which a person has concealed part of his soul."


"So...?"


"Have I told you how often you sound to me so terribly naive? So ill-fitted in that look of a smart somebody? What gives your parents right to raise a child that would look all the parts of an intelligent, sustaining human being but inside be as empty as a shell?"


"What did they think they were doing? Why did they have to do it? Why didn't they strange me as an infant? I know it already. You told me all about myself last week. To continue? Some sense, please?"


"Conceal part of your soul to protect yourself. Wouldn't you want to protect yourself against your greatest fear? But no, wait, really. I said it last week? Encore tonight? I feel more ... inventive!"


"It was a double tonight. Hence, the dramatic 'inventive'! Seeing this Horcrux idea of yours as utterly original and spontaneous then, the greatest fear, may I take a shot in the dark, is death? And you want to kill me to split your soul? Am I correct, sir?"


"Tchah. Tchah, you numbskulled stain on the otherwise charming handkerchief your family makes. I know what that Horcrux is."


"Well then?"


"In your, might I say imbecility..."


"Well?"


"Well, might I say imbecility?"


"Oh of course. Go on. You may say imbecility."


"Stupiditude. In your humble stupiditude, you fail to recognize your fears correctly. You aren't really afraid of death. No. Death is all around, everywhere at once. Every day. If you were afraid of death, you would be, well, dead of it already. We all know death. It's coming for each one of us. So it's not really fear for it you have. No?

It's hurtling towards us as I speak. Are you scared? Right now? Are you? Its coming, right now it is."


"So it's not death. What is it? Tell me again this new fact about myself. What am I most afraid of, mahareeshee?"


"Love. Losing it, having it, holding it in your grip, flying with it, lying with it, killing it, saving it, nurturing it every waking moment, burning in it. Even ignoring it in a small party.

You can live with anything, if you can live with knowing that death is always coming for you. But you can't live with such responsibility.

What you, what we, want is the glorious idea of love holding us in it's arms, caring for us all the time, enlightening us. You want love to hold your life. So much easier to let it go, watch it tease from afar, only urging that we accept it and it will come back. But you won't. It's not a gift, you see. You have to keep it. You have to hold it. Every single day, you have to wake it up and give it a bath. Feed it, nurture it. Grow it. You can't do that!

So ... Horcrux."


"To save me from my fear of love?"


"Don't be so daft! You aren't afraid of love! Listen to me! You're afraid ... the responsibility. Because when they grow up, those beings, they coil around you. Supported on you, they grow and they entwine. Taking your energy to survive, your strength to stand and rise. That is what scares you."


"So ... Horcrux?"


"Yes. You have it after all, some of that delightful family gene. So, Horcrux. If you keep your love whole and together, it stands to fall and be destroyed together. All of it, at once, in one swift stroke.

So, Horcrux. You split your love, concealing it in a Horcrux to protect it. The more the parts, the greater the protection. And you will stay alive."


"How do you store your love in an object? Not that it wouldn't be cool! Easier to safekeep than to risk losing, eh?"


"Have I told you lately, how every day in every way you surprise me with your, might I say, idiotine?"


"Not that again! You have, you have. Back to the topic? Where's the bad part still? Horcrux equal to Bad Thing. Right?"


"Right you are, Russian child-prodigy. You see, if you split your love, you lose your colour. You lose the variety of juices that make your skin glow that way and your hair shine in the golden sun. Things like that.

You will live, but as a spectre. Or a spectator. To life. Be less human than the rest of them."


"So ... how do you make a Horcrux? What does it look like?"


"Horcruxes are people. Your friends. Your unending search for endless lovers. You split it into them, just so its never enough for a single person. But not too less to be noticed. No one gets enough. Everyone gets some."


"How do you do it then? The splitting? Isn't it an act of violation, against nature? How do you do it? By committing an act of evil - the supreme act of evil?"


"Your superbly subtle sarcasm leaves me, once again, in awe of your family tree. Mere mortals they could not be. But, yes. By an act of evil - the supreme act of evil. You split love by killing yourself. 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 in another person. A new person."


"By killing yourself? Isn't that just, dead then?"


"Not kill as in death. Disregard death, my stupid child. Wipe it off your slate. You kill yourself when you cut a loved one out. Lower someone in your life from their deserved position. Make them common-place again.

Live in the pain and the misery for a while. And when the love comes choking out of you, you spill it on some one else. Let them have this regurgitated love. To hold and to love back. Let them have it. Better than you.

You will stand then, over time, lost to the glow and all that shining sun. Not able to recognize the signs on even another person. Not understanding the reason for that stupid smile. Over time, you will find, Horcruxes have a mind of their own. They will not come to you whenever needed. And just like the fictional ones, these too can be destroyed by another, intent upon destroying, finally, you.

So you will stand, thin unbreakable strings clamping you. Occasionally one will pull, then the other. All at once, not too much, not too strong. But just a little. Not enough. But not too less either. Pulling you here, pushing you there. Making a fool out of you and your mind.

Your torn soul will wonder what causes this mischief, and why is all the rum gone.

You, my fluff-brained buffoon, will forget what you have done. Where did you hide the parts? How do you make them whole again? Where are they now and why don't they love you anymore?"


"And life will become a struggle against a million chains, pulling and pushing at random, enslaving the man and bending his back. Eh?"


"Right you are. You really get me sometimes."


"So, isn't it better to not have any chains in the first place? Stand clean? Not have anything to do with the love and the split-up? Or with ties and with a half-million half-baked loves?

You're saying it's best to abstain from it all? Not bad. It makes sense."


"It doesn't make sense. You have to have it. In wholeness. You have to."


"Why? Why take the stupid risk of tearing it off and leaving shreds here, there and everywhere? And on everyone. Why the chance, when everyone seems to fail?"


"Because of the colours. Because of the glow. The golden sun. All that stuff."