Harry Potter, the Seventh Horcrux: How He Was Made and Lived

The last Horcrux was never hidden. It went to class. It played Quidditch. It slept seven years in a Hogwarts tower. The last piece of Voldemort's soul lived inside Harry Potter, and the only one who never knew was Voldemort.

The Night at Godric's Hollow

On October 31, 1981, Voldemort killed James and Lily Potter and aimed at their one-year-old son. The curse rebounded. Voldemort's body was destroyed, and his soul, already broken by so many Horcruxes, became unstable.

A piece broke off and clung to the only living thing left in that room: the baby. Dumbledore explains it in the last chapters of Deathly Hallows (chs. 33 and 35). Voldemort made a Horcrux by accident and never found out.

That's why the numbers didn't add up. In Half-Blood Prince (ch. 23), Dumbledore calculates that Voldemort meant to split his soul into seven: six Horcruxes and the piece that stayed in his body. Harry was the piece that wasn't in the plan.

What Suddenly Makes Sense

Rereading the saga knowing this changes a lot:

Parseltongue. In Chamber of Secrets (ch. 18), Dumbledore tells Harry that Voldemort transferred some of his powers to him that night. He had no idea how right he was.
The scar. It hurt when Voldemort was near or furious. It wasn't a wound with a memory. It was a window.
The visions. In Order of the Phoenix, Harry sees what Voldemort sees, and he's terrified of becoming like him. His fear had a basis.

What Dumbledore Knew

Dumbledore had suspected it for years. In Snape's memory (Deathly Hallows, ch. 33), Harry hears the conversation he was never meant to hear: for Voldemort to be able to die, Harry has to die first, and he has to die at Voldemort's hands.

Snape explodes. He accuses Dumbledore of protecting the boy all those years only so he could die at the right moment, like a pig raised for slaughter. It's one of the harshest reproaches anyone makes to Dumbledore in the whole saga, and it comes from the man everyone thought was his traitor.

The Road to the Forest

Harry leaves the memory knowing he has to die. He tells no one. He asks Neville to kill the snake if he can, and leaves (Deathly Hallows, ch. 34).

On the way he opens the Snitch. "I open at the close." Inside is the Resurrection Stone. He turns it three times and James, Lily, Sirius and Lupin appear. They aren't ghosts. They're something fainter, warmer. They walk with him to the clearing where Voldemort waits.

Harry drops the stone, puts away the wand and doesn't defend himself.

Why He Didn't Die

Voldemort casts the killing curse and Harry falls. What dies is the piece of Voldemort that lived in him.

And Harry? In the King's Cross scene (ch. 35), Dumbledore explains what Voldemort did without thinking in Goblet of Fire: to regain his body, he used Harry's blood. That blood carried the protection Lily left when she died for her son. Voldemort put it inside his own body. As long as he lived, that protection kept Harry tied to life.

Voldemort wanted Harry's blood to be stronger, and he took in himself the one thing that could defeat him.

The End

Harry comes back, plays dead and Hagrid carries him back to the castle. After Neville kills Nagini, Voldemort has nothing left. He's mortal.

The last duel is in the Great Hall, in front of everyone (ch. 36). Voldemort casts the killing curse. Harry casts Expelliarmus, the same spell everyone criticized him for overusing. The Elder Wand refuses to kill its true master, who is Harry. The curse rebounds and Voldemort falls, dead like any man.

Book vs. Movie

Voldemort's body. In the book he falls to the ground and stays there, an ordinary corpse. In the movie he disintegrates into ashes.
The duel. The movie turns it into a chase across the whole castle, just Harry against Voldemort. In the book it's in the Great Hall, surrounded by people, with Harry explaining to Voldemort everything he never understood.
The Elder Wand. In the book, Harry decides to return it to Dumbledore's tomb. In the movie he snaps it in two and throws it into the void.

What Almost Nobody Notices

Voldemort split his soul seven times so he wouldn't die, and died in the most ordinary way possible. Harry accepted dying, walked alone toward death, and came back.

The man most afraid of death was the one who died. The one who accepted it lived.

Where It Fits in the Series

The Horcruxes are over. It all began with a cheap notebook in Tom Riddle's Diary: Voldemort's First Horcrux Explained and passed through a ring, a locket, a cup, a diadem and a snake, until it reached the boy who lived. If you want to revisit the previous one, it's Nagini, the Horcrux That Breathed: Origin and Death of the Snake.

Now that you know the whole story: which house would the Sorting Hat put you in? Take the house quiz.

Frequently Asked Questions

Did Harry know he was a Horcrux?

Not until the end. He finds out in Deathly Hallows, when he watches Snape's memories.

Why did Harry survive the killing curse in the forest?

Because the curse destroyed the piece of Voldemort's soul that lived in him, and Lily's protection, which Voldemort had carried in his own blood since Goblet of Fire, kept Harry alive.