defeating a horcrux...

[thetruemastermind]

here's a question that i have not quite been able to figure out by myself, so hopefully you all can help me... :)

Harry had become a 7th horcrux to voldemort, without either of their knowledge when voldemort tried killing him as a baby.... and, in order to defeat voldemort, all of his horcruxes had to be destroyed with him.

but, as Harry and dumbledore and the rest of the gang found out, their are only a few ways of destroying a horcrux properly, and a killing curse was never mentioned as one of them.

how come then, voldemort was able to destroy his own horcrux in harry (that he did not even know existed) by hitting it with a killing curse???

was it because the curse was extended from the elder wand? but even still that doesnt seem logical because it was still voldemort issuing the spell and not the wands rightful inherited owner, harry...

anyways, if a simply killing curse could destroy a horcrux in a living being.... why did neville have to randomly pull the sword of gryffindor out of the sorting hat to kill Nagini... he could have just used a killing curse and spared us the dramatics and the mystery of how the sword got their when it was supposed to be with the goblin in the first place...

[TheKingsDaddy]

I believe that Harry was not a horcrux in the sense that all the other horcruxes were. The others most likely had very strong enchantments and curses placed on them by voldemort. And the way to destroy a horcrux is to destroy the physical object that encases it. By using the killing curse on Harry that is what voldemort did.

[thetruemastermind]

hmm. that is very true, i never thought of it in that sense... but does that mean that there was those types of echantments on nagini? because if not the snake could have been killed with a simple killing curse as well, seeing on how that would destroy the object that encased the horcrux..

[TheWalrus90]

Well, when Harry that was able (I think, never proved) to perform a killing curse to Nagini, the snake was very protected, and Neville didn´t use it because Voldemort took his wand and also because he never was very good with spells, do you really believe Neville to be capable of performing a killing curse??? Nevertheless, I am shure that if someone killed Nagini with a killing curse the Horcrux inside her would have been destroyed.