I guess I'd been assuming that the Horcruxes were sort of one-use deals -- survive a fatal curse, use up a Horcrux.

But then why would you bother having 7? He split his soul that many times purely for the purposes of misdirection? I thought it was so he could come back that many times. Which, granted, doesn't make a lot of sense either. He was just batshit crazy, wasn't he?

Well, seven is a magic number. He thought that would make him TOTALLY immortal. Yes, he was pretty crazy.

Sure, in the book Nagini's actually the ultimate Horcrux, but, well, Harry/Voldemort is so the ultimate Horcrux in another way...

Heh. Indeed. I think people put Harry Horcrux at the end of the list because he was unintentional and not part of The Six that Voldie made on purpose, but it was Neville Longbottom who destroyed the last thing that was keeping Voldemort from being vulnerable to death.

In fact, I'd been thinking that if they couldn't find all the Horcruxes they'd just have to kill him, find him, kill him again, repeat until he'd used them all up. Guess I wasn't very clear on it.

Emily, I think he made that many because he wanted to make it next to impossible for people to kill him.

There's also the possibility that after a few horcruxes, he lost enough humanity that ripping his soul into more fragments didn't really concern him. I don't think he had much use for his soul anyway, and as Dumbledore said "What Voldemort doesn't think important, he ignores completely" - I suspect that's a paraphrase.

He was so out of it, soul-wise, that he didn't even notice that he had stored some of his soul in Harry back in 1981. Talk about oblivious!

And in other bad taste HP theater...

After reading the 7 Potters chapter I said to Jilli - "Y'know, if I was Hermione, I'd totally be making an excuse for a bathroom break before leaving, and then check out the Potter schlong and its 'function'."

The fic writers could have a field day with that and potential repercussions when Harry & Hermione are stuck with each other in a tent for a couple of months.

I, for one, was not going for sequence of horcruxes destroyed, just making sure I got all of them by counting. Getting the sequence right is way beyone me.

I'd been assuming that the reason the Kedavra rebound didn't outright kill him was because of the Horcruxes. No?

Well, yes, but just by existing, not by getting used up in some way.

no mother's ever died trying to save her child before? Ever?

I can see it not coming up that often, that someone would hurl a killing curse at a child while it's mother was right there ready to fling herself in the way. It probably just wasn't a often public knowledge, because someone tries to kill you and you survive but your mother and the person who was trying to kill you don't (because they aren't all Horcruxed up), why explain to everyone what happened? And it just protected Harry from Voldemort, if the person attempting the killing wasn't all horcruxed up, him trying to kill you again wouldn't be an issue.

He split his soul that many times purely for the purposes of misdirection?

You could say that. Extra security, so when someone finds and destroys, say, the diary (as happened without anyone knowing what they were doing, exactly), he still had protection in place. Like if Davy Jones had been able to hide his heart in 6 different places, how much safer would he have been, right?

which is highly competitive and she must always be the best.

That sounds more like Slytherin than Gryffindor.

true, but Hermione only wants to be the best through her own merits. Remember when she didn't want to use the notes from the Half Blood Prince?

Remember when she didn't want to use the notes from the Half Blood Prince?

Yeah, Slytherin is more "by any means necessary".

Also, does Hermione really always need to be the best? I don't see competition as her motivating factor.