SPOILER ALERT ONCE MORE!!! Potions, potions, potions. As I speculated before (see A Bloody Better Theory About How Lily Potter Saved Harry), clues from the first six books suggest that Harry’s scar is a horcrux Voldemort unintentionally created (which is why the Dark Lord failed to kill Harry — a horcrux can’t be destroyed by a simple curse, even an unforgiveble one — why Harry speaks parseltongue, almost got sorted into Slytherin, and had a psychic link to Voldemort and fellow living horcrux, the snake Nagini). But it wasn’t accidental that Harry’s life was saved. No, his brainy potions-whiz mother, Lily, created that horcrux by forcing Voldemort to kill her. She must have figured out the secrets of creating — and perhaps destroying — them, and my hunch is those secrets involved potions. I’m betting she marked Harry’s forehead with some potion, tagging it as horcrux location, and sealed the deal with her murder, which split Voldemort’s soul.

Interesting that when Dumbledore destroys a horcrux, he suffers a blackened, withered hand. Clearly, if Harry is to destroy his horcrux scar, he has to do better than that, or he’ll die in the process.

Yes, but Harry already destroyed one horcrux successfully — the diary of Tom Riddle, the young Voldemort. How? By using a basilisk tooth … a tooth that bit Harry … to stab the book, which was carried by Fawkes the phoenix after it had shed tears to heal Harry’s wound and save his life. Notice the makings of a potion there: Fang / snake venom, blood and tears. (See the end of Chamber of Secrets.)

Maybe Dumbledore failed to realize the need for tears — the kind of key ingredient that would have represented that “ancient magic,” love, if Lily shed them for her son.

But this seems to confuse creating a horcrux with destroying one. Or does it? Could the two go hand in hand? At the end of Goblet of Fire, remember how Voldemort recounts what kept him alive “while awaiting the essentials ingredients for true rebirth.” What kept him alive? “A potion concocted from unicorn blood, and the snake venom Nagini provided.” Blood and venom … interesting. What helped him live, helped destroy his horcrux.

Then Voldemort talks of “the potion that revived me tonight” and lists its three ingredients: “Flesh given by a servant” — meaning Peter Pettigrew / Wormtail — “My father’s bone” and “the blood of a foe.”

Flesh, bone, and blood. Not exactly the same — but could this be a clue? 

The basilisk tooth Harry used — teeth are like bone. It probably had some of Harry’s flesh. as well as his blood. But this path seems less logical, less elegant than the blood, venom, tears idea.

In Half-Blood Prince, Slughorn talks of Gringalott’s Third Law, which says that counteracting a potion requires an antidote for each ingredient plus one extra. So let’s analyze: Is there a way the horcrux killing potion of blood-venom-tears is the opposite of life-restoring flesh-blood-bone? Could a mother’s tears be the opposite of father’s bone? Is bone / venom of an unwilling servant (the basilisk) the opposite of flesh of a willing servant? That leaves Harry’s blood vs. Harry’s blood … and the analysis breaks down.

On the creating the horcrux side, how might blood, bone, flesh, venom and/or tears be combined? Could Harry’s father have made a contribution of flesh or bone as well?  

Must be something I’m missing. Some parallel has got to exist, or some magic logic,  so all the clues make sense together. Or at least, that’s my theory about what we’ll find out in Deathly Hallows.

By the way, one more prediction: Many have speculated that Peter Pettigrew / Wormtail will help Harry somehow, repaying the Boy Who Lived for sparing the rat/man’s life. Who might know better about these potion secrets? Pettigrew knew Harry’s parents … and he helped Voldemort make his back-to-life elixir. Maybe the rat will help save the day by being a rat on Voldemort.