Don’t have it in front of me, but my sense was the timeline was more nuanced. First he made some Horcruxes. Then he invented the True Horcrux, and made some of those. Then he invented the True Horcrux Hiding Place, and made about a zillion of them. Quirrel found Horcrux v2 in Hiding Place v1.
Don’t have it in front of me, but my sense was the timeline was more nuanced. First he made some Horcruxes. Then he invented the True Horcrux, and made some of those. Then he invented the True Horcrux Hiding Place, and made about a zillion of them. Quirrel found Horcrux v2 in Hiding Place v1.
That seems to be the only thing that makes sense, but does the text say that anywhere?
It does not. It doesn’t quite not say it, either:
1) At 15, Voldemort creates his first Horcrux from Abagail Myrtle.
2) After he “grasp[s] the stupidity of ordinary people”, Voldemort decides to invent a better ritual.
3) He spends “years” refining it in his imagination.
4) Quirrel finds one of the Horcruxes which Voldemort had hidden in the “hopeless idiocy of [his] youth”
So, is “when he grasped the stupidity of ordinary people” + “years” < “youth”? It seems unlikely. But I do not think that it is quite ruled out.