i beleive the child is the horcruxs that had been destroyed, a flawed and painfull representation of a partial soul
of course once the horcruxs where destroyed they have to reunite somewhere, and what harry say was a representation of the impartial soul of voldemort, thats why when he told him about the remorse (youll remember erlier in the book when they say that the only way to recombine horcruxs is with remorse?) he was trying to get voldemort to maybe have one last chance at a, well, normal death i guess
but that "flayed child" is just the other peices of voldemorts fractured and damaged soul, and a representation of the everlasting pain he will be in in the afterlife
Quote (dragoncore @ Sun, Jul 29 2007, 03:24pm)
Quote (mitt @ Sun, Jul 29 2007, 02:56pm)
While I believe that harry did not die when riddle used the killing spell, I believe that the Elder wand didn't change masters not because of that reason, but of the same reason the elder wand wouldn't have gone to snape if snape had been the first to dumbledore.
Harry (like dumbledore) had accepted his fate, and so the wand wouldn't have been won in a duel - the power would have been broken if harry had died (which he did not).
I think the flayed child is the 6 parts (of 8) of riddle's soul - the parts of the soul that were in the destroyed horocruxes - the ring, the locket, the cup, the diary, the diadem, and harry himself.
The soul of riddle would not have "gone on" if there were still 2 parts on earth - in Nagini and in Riddle himself.
the only problem with your theory is that we don't know if the elder wand was working correct because no one was able to use it correctly after dumbledore died so we will never know on that part..
we do know the elder wand works, because harry uses it to repair his wand, when even hermione ( a very skilled witch) and the wand maker said it could not be done