Quote:I actually used that concept in the Jack of Shadows snippet I wrote twenty-five-odd (very odd) years ago. The book had (this is canon) powerful mages who were unaware that they had souls, that those souls were separate from their bodies, and that every time they reincarnated, they were leaving their souls behind in an area anybody could get to. I simply provided a guy who'd figured that out and searched out the souls of likely enemies. "I assured Ruthven of that by handling his soul with something less than delicacy."
I reckon a piece of soul is going to be loads more effective than a strand of hair.
Although I never spelled it out in the snippet, I also felt that having an enemy mage's soul in your possession would give you what today I think we'd call a trap door into his operating system, so my (anti)hero could use his adversary's own power against him. Perhaps somebody who's computer-savvy needs to call that possible aspect of a horcrux to Harry's attention.
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Big Brother is watching you. And damn, you are so bloody BORING.