Harry Potter fans torn over 'awful' ritual for creating Horcruxes

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows centres around Horcruxes, physical items that contain pieces of Voldemort’s soul that must be destroyed to defeat him - and now, we sort of understand how they’re created.

The Harry Potter books and films don’t really offer an explanation. They just say that a Horcrux is a piece of your own soul that you’ve removed and placed into something else, preventing you from ever truly dying.

While it'll likely be a long time till it gets that far, the Horcruxes will be crucial later into the life of the upcoming HBO series.

J.K Rowling has, of course, commented on the magical devices, neglecting to shed any more light on how they’re created in the first place but assuring fans that the method isn’t pleasant.

Fans have tried to decipher what this could mean and various headcanons have been shared on what the process could involve.

One Reddit thread suggested it could be some sort of cannibalism, but commenters had other ideas that reflected more wizard-y methods.

“Creating a Horcrux is thus basically a form of ritual suicide, which I think is appropriate for a ritual intended to make you immortal,” suggested one fan.

Another theorised it could involve “self mutilation”, because, “Why the hell are Riddle's original eyes inside the locket? He also is vastly different from the way he was as a kid: different skin, different eyes, different weird voice, obviously no nose etc.”

With the HBO show rebooting the Harry Potter story and potentially extending it depending on how many episodes there are, perhaps by the time Horcruxes become a plot point, we’ll get a scene that truly explains how they’re made.

We probably won’t, as if J.K Rowling reckons it’s too heinous to outright say, it’s probably best to be left to the imagination.