Harry Potter 06 - Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

information, the crucial memory you have succeeded in procuring for us, we are closer to the secret of finishing Lord Voldemort than anyone has ever been before. You heard him, Harry: “Wouldn’t it be better, make you stronger, to have your soul in more pieces … isn’t seven the most powerfully magical number …” Isn’t seven the most powerfully magical number . Yes, I think the idea of a seven-part soul would greatly appeal to Lord Voldemort.’
    ‘He made seven Horcruxes?’ said Harry, horror-struck, while several of the portraits on the walls made similar noises of shock and outrage. ‘But they could be anywhere in the world – hidden – buried or invisible –’
    ‘I am glad to see you appreciate the magnitude of the problem,’ said Dumbledore calmly. ‘But firstly, no, Harry, not seven Horcruxes: six. The seventh part of his soul, however maimed, resides inside his regenerated body. That was the part of him that lived a spectral existence for so many years during his exile; without that, he has no self at all. That seventh piece of soul will be the last that anybody wishing to kill Voldemort must attack – the piece that lives in his body.’
    ‘But the six Horcruxes, then,’ said Harry, a little desperately, ‘how are we supposed to find them?’
    ‘You are forgetting … you have already destroyed one of them. And I have destroyed another.’
    ‘You have?’ said Harry eagerly.
    ‘Yes indeed,’ said Dumbledore, and he raised his blackened, burned-looking hand. ‘The ring, Harry. Marvolo’s ring. And a terrible curse there was upon it too. Had it not been – forgive me the lack of seemly modesty – for my own prodigious skill, and for Professor Snape’s timely action when I returned to Hogwarts, desperately injured, I might not have lived to tell the tale. However, a withered hand does not seem an unreasonable exchange for a seventh of Voldemort’s soul. The ring is no longer a Horcrux.’
    ‘But how did you find it?’
    ‘Well, as you now know, I have made it my business for many years to discover as much as I can about Voldemort’s past life. I have travelled widely, visiting those places he once knew. I stumbled across the ring hidden in the ruin of the Gaunts’ house. It seems that once Voldemort had succeeded in sealing a piece of his soul inside it, he did not want to wear it any more. He hid it, protected by many powerful enchantments, in the shack where his ancestors had once lived (Morfin having been carted off to Azkaban, of course), never guessing that I might one day take the trouble to visit the ruin, or that I might be keeping an eye open for traces of magical concealment.
    ‘However, we should not congratulate ourselves too heartily. You destroyed the diary and I the ring, but if we are right in our theory of a seven-part soul, four Horcruxes remain.’
    ‘And they could be anything?’ said Harry. ‘They could be old tin cans, or, I dunno, empty potion bottles …?’
    ‘You are thinking of Portkeys, Harry, which must be ordinary objects, easy to overlook. But Lord Voldemort use tin cans or old potion bottles to guard his own precious soul? You are forgetting what I have shown you. Lord Voldemort liked to collect trophies, and he preferred objects with a powerful magical history. His pride, his belief in his own superiority, his determination to carve for himself a startling place in magical history; these things suggest to me that Voldemort would have chosen his Horcruxes with some care, favouring objects worthy of the honour.’
    ‘The diary wasn’t that special.’
    ‘The diary, as you have said yourself, was proof that he was the heir of Slytherin; I am sure that Voldemort considered it of stupendous importance.’
    ‘So, the other Horcruxes?’ said Harry. ‘Do you think you know what they are, sir?’
    ‘I can only guess,’ said Dumbledore. ‘For the reasons I have already given, I believe that Lord Voldemort would prefer objects that, in themselves, have a certain grandeur. I have therefore trawled back through Voldemort’s past to see if I can find evidence that such artefacts have disappeared around him.’
    ‘The locket!’ said Harry loudly. ‘Hufflepuff ’s cup!’
    ‘Yes,’ said Dumbledore, smiling, ‘I would be prepared to bet – perhaps not my other hand – but a couple of fingers, that they became Horcruxes three and four. The remaining two, assuming again that he created a total of six, are more of a problem, but I will