The Great Harry Potter as Horcrux Debate

Will Harry Have to Make the Ultimate Sacrifice?

With the seventh and final Harry Potter book coming out in July, fans just can't seem to get enough of the speculation and spoilers that surrounds The Deathly Hollows. Harry Potter message boards are filled with fans claiming to have read leaked copies of the book (claims that hold as much validity as Geraldo's claims regarding Al Capone's vault), while other fans boast they that are certain they've figured out the ending based on clues that J.K. Rowling, the woman behind the boy wizard, has left in previous volumes.

Perhaps one of the most talked about speculations is one regarding Harry Potter and the Horcruxes of Voldemort. For those who don't remember or simply don't know, a Horcrux is an object, animate or inanimate, in which a dark wizard can store a part of his soul once he has successfully split it into "pieces." According to Dumbledore, Voldemort, the series villain and the wizard responsible for the deaths of Harry's parents, had successfully split his soul into several Horcruxes before attempting to kill Harry. As of book six, Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince, only two Horcruxes had been found with a supposed four remaining.

The two Horcruxes previously found have already been destroyed. One being Tom Riddle's diary which was destroyed in Harry Potter and The Chamber of Secrets and the other destroyed by Dumbledore in book 6, an act which left Dumbledore's hand blackened and useless. In the last book, Dumbledore surmised that there were four remaining Horcurxes and each would represent one significant event in Voldemort's life. The question that keeps being brought forth is this one: Could Harry be one of the remaining Horcruxes? Meaning that part of Voldemort's soul lie within him and that the only way Voldemort could be destroyed would be by Harry destroying himself. This theory has become a favorite of fans hoping for a valiant sacrificial death on the part of Harry and has been questioned by journalists and readers alike.