Whatever happened to Head Boy Riddle?
Sep. 1st, 2011 05:04 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sunnyskywalkerI've been bad about updating my journal. I could say I've been busy, but when aren't I? So I'm trying to be better about it, which in this case means realizing that hey, I wrote something about Harry Potter a while back which is just sitting on my hard drive because I forgot to do anything with it, and I can post that!
“Very few people know that Lord Voldemort was once called Tom Riddle.”
- Chamber of Secrets
“I have not been able to find many memories of Riddle at Hogwarts… Few who knew him then are prepared to talk about him; they are too terrified.”
- The Half-Blood Prince
Why would anyone be afraid to talk about Tom Riddle at Hogwarts, if most of them didn’t know he grew up to be Voldemort? Even if people were afraid of him in school, no one has seen Tom Riddle for decades.
Well, what do his non-followers know about Tom Riddle? He disappeared mysteriously and was never heard from again – and moreover, he disappeared right after Hepzibah Smith was “accidentally” poisoned, supposedly by her house-elf. Harry, Dumbledore, and the readers have the benefit of hindsight (and of Tom’s creepiness in the orphanage), and so see the logical conclusion as “Tom killed her, stole her stuff, and fled.” But what would seem most plausible to people who knew Tom at the time, if he was at least moderately well-regarded, as he supposedly was (at least by the teachers)?
Maybe people concluded that if there was foul play involved, Tom was a victim. If anyone made the connection and didn't discount Hepzibah's death as a coincidental tragic accident, then not only did someone kill Hepzibah, steal her treasures, and frame her house-elf, but they then disposed of the talented young Tom Riddle and took who-knows-what artifacts from the shop too. Maybe they thought that Tom was kidnapped and tortured for information on the shop’s inventory before being quietly killed and Vanished.
Or maybe they wondered whether the unknown perpetrator(s) saw killing Tom as their main goal. Surely some wizard murderers have figured out how to disguise their real targets and stage their murders as simple robberies gone wrong, so the average wizard on the street might wonder whether that was the case here. Someone killed Tom (and Hepzibah, who perhaps knew too much about what happened to him). They might even think this retroactively explained why Tom took a relatively low-profile job at a shop instead of going into the Ministry for that brilliant career everyone knew he would have: he knew someone was after him, and didn’t want to put an even bigger target on his back.
But why would anyone want to kill Tom? Well, he was known to be a powerful, charismatic wizard who was sure to become even more powerful in the future, right? Someone wanted him out of the way so they could carry out their plans unopposed. And whoever took out Tom, the brightest wizard of his age, would have to be powerful as well, especially if they had first scared him badly enough to turn down a guaranteed quick climb up the Ministry ranks. So everyone might assume that the murderer must be pretty scary, the more so for being so mysterious – and no doubt this person wouldn’t want anyone to go poking around into Tom’s disappearance, or they would have claimed credit for it. Better just to keep quiet about him altogether if you know what’s good for you, don’t you think? If you don’t remember much about him, no one will think you’re trying to solve the mystery of his disappearance, and maybe that mysterious perpetrator won’t come after them. So they are so very sorry, Dumbledore, but they just don’t remember much, and please make sure you convey that should anyone ask (since the askers could be the perpetrator’s minions, or Imperiused puppets).
This brings us to the question of whodunnit. For a while, there were probably many theories. But as they gradually became aware of this “Lord Voldemort” person, whose rise was marked by mysterious disappearances (all those Inferi must be people who disappeared and whose bodies were obviously never recovered, and there were quite a few of them), in retrospect, Tom may have looked like one of Voldemort’s earliest victims. Tom was widely known to be brilliant and powerful, and most people probably he would have been a great protector of wizarding Britain if he’d lived. So Voldemort quietly took him out to clear his way to power.
This raises another question, though: if they didn’t think Voldemort was Tom, who did they think he was? The very fact that they don’t know Voldemort’s origins is probably scary. But logically, who might have a reason to be (a) apparently unknown in England and (b) frightened of Dumbledore? Perhaps someone trained by Gellert Grindelwald, lately defeated by Dumbledore? If Voldemort were some foreign wizard trained by Grindelwald, he could quite plausibly seem scary (who knows what he learned during Grindelwald’s reign of terror) while still having cause to be wary of the man who defeated his master. And it would help account for why no one in Britain seemed to be able to find anything about Voldemort’s origins (assuming they investigated, which wizards don’t seem to do much) – whatever evidence (documents and people) there was could easily have been destroyed during Grindelwald’s war.
Even Ollivander might not have known. A lot of us have assumed that because Ollivander recognizes Voldemort’s wand, he knows that Voldemort was Tom Riddle. But it isn’t like wands never change hands. How do we know that one of the “terrible, but great” things Ollivander attributes to Voldemort isn’t killing the brilliant and powerful Tom, stealing his wand, and covering up the crime so effectively that it has never even been proven that Tom is dead? And if anyone else suspects that the unknown murderer was Voldemort before he came more into the open, quietly taking out possible future threats to his plans and leaving the wizarding world without what surely would have been one of their most powerful guardians, it’s no wonder no one wants anything to do with the whole subject.
Now, one group which could have suspected Tom might not have been an innocent victim after all were the victims of those “nasty” incidents at Hogwarts which couldn’t be tied to Tom. But if you’ve already been Tom’s victim, and couldn’t even prove it when it he was at school and (relatively) monitored, wouldn’t you expect to be even more vulnerable now that he had successfully committed murder and vanished without being blamed and could be anywhere? Maybe watching you? They’d probably keep their mouths shut too. Unless one reason nothing could be tied to Tom was that he modified the victims’ memories, which we know he had the skills to do.
In that case, the only people besides Slughorn and Dumbledore (and maybe Ollivander) who knew Tom became Voldemort were Tom’s original followers from school, and of course they weren’t talking. Even if they were caught and interrogated for information on Voldemort, they might be able to get around revealing his original name even if magically bound to answer direct questions, with some very careful wording. Using Obi-Wan logic, they could claim that yes, they were pretty sure Tom Riddle was dead (since he had ceased to be Tom and was now Voldemort), yes, Voldemort did it, and no, they didn’t know much about the origins of Voldemort – since not only would they not know much about his travels during which he truly “became” Voldemort, but they only have sketchy information on Tom’s origins too, so either way they’re covered. We don’t know that any of his original followers were ever interrogated, but if they were, it could actually have strengthened the wizarding public’s convictions that Tom was dead and Voldemort was Not From Around Here.
“Very few people know that Lord Voldemort was once called Tom Riddle.”
- Chamber of Secrets
“I have not been able to find many memories of Riddle at Hogwarts… Few who knew him then are prepared to talk about him; they are too terrified.”
- The Half-Blood Prince
Why would anyone be afraid to talk about Tom Riddle at Hogwarts, if most of them didn’t know he grew up to be Voldemort? Even if people were afraid of him in school, no one has seen Tom Riddle for decades.
Well, what do his non-followers know about Tom Riddle? He disappeared mysteriously and was never heard from again – and moreover, he disappeared right after Hepzibah Smith was “accidentally” poisoned, supposedly by her house-elf. Harry, Dumbledore, and the readers have the benefit of hindsight (and of Tom’s creepiness in the orphanage), and so see the logical conclusion as “Tom killed her, stole her stuff, and fled.” But what would seem most plausible to people who knew Tom at the time, if he was at least moderately well-regarded, as he supposedly was (at least by the teachers)?
Maybe people concluded that if there was foul play involved, Tom was a victim. If anyone made the connection and didn't discount Hepzibah's death as a coincidental tragic accident, then not only did someone kill Hepzibah, steal her treasures, and frame her house-elf, but they then disposed of the talented young Tom Riddle and took who-knows-what artifacts from the shop too. Maybe they thought that Tom was kidnapped and tortured for information on the shop’s inventory before being quietly killed and Vanished.
Or maybe they wondered whether the unknown perpetrator(s) saw killing Tom as their main goal. Surely some wizard murderers have figured out how to disguise their real targets and stage their murders as simple robberies gone wrong, so the average wizard on the street might wonder whether that was the case here. Someone killed Tom (and Hepzibah, who perhaps knew too much about what happened to him). They might even think this retroactively explained why Tom took a relatively low-profile job at a shop instead of going into the Ministry for that brilliant career everyone knew he would have: he knew someone was after him, and didn’t want to put an even bigger target on his back.
But why would anyone want to kill Tom? Well, he was known to be a powerful, charismatic wizard who was sure to become even more powerful in the future, right? Someone wanted him out of the way so they could carry out their plans unopposed. And whoever took out Tom, the brightest wizard of his age, would have to be powerful as well, especially if they had first scared him badly enough to turn down a guaranteed quick climb up the Ministry ranks. So everyone might assume that the murderer must be pretty scary, the more so for being so mysterious – and no doubt this person wouldn’t want anyone to go poking around into Tom’s disappearance, or they would have claimed credit for it. Better just to keep quiet about him altogether if you know what’s good for you, don’t you think? If you don’t remember much about him, no one will think you’re trying to solve the mystery of his disappearance, and maybe that mysterious perpetrator won’t come after them. So they are so very sorry, Dumbledore, but they just don’t remember much, and please make sure you convey that should anyone ask (since the askers could be the perpetrator’s minions, or Imperiused puppets).
This brings us to the question of whodunnit. For a while, there were probably many theories. But as they gradually became aware of this “Lord Voldemort” person, whose rise was marked by mysterious disappearances (all those Inferi must be people who disappeared and whose bodies were obviously never recovered, and there were quite a few of them), in retrospect, Tom may have looked like one of Voldemort’s earliest victims. Tom was widely known to be brilliant and powerful, and most people probably he would have been a great protector of wizarding Britain if he’d lived. So Voldemort quietly took him out to clear his way to power.
This raises another question, though: if they didn’t think Voldemort was Tom, who did they think he was? The very fact that they don’t know Voldemort’s origins is probably scary. But logically, who might have a reason to be (a) apparently unknown in England and (b) frightened of Dumbledore? Perhaps someone trained by Gellert Grindelwald, lately defeated by Dumbledore? If Voldemort were some foreign wizard trained by Grindelwald, he could quite plausibly seem scary (who knows what he learned during Grindelwald’s reign of terror) while still having cause to be wary of the man who defeated his master. And it would help account for why no one in Britain seemed to be able to find anything about Voldemort’s origins (assuming they investigated, which wizards don’t seem to do much) – whatever evidence (documents and people) there was could easily have been destroyed during Grindelwald’s war.
Even Ollivander might not have known. A lot of us have assumed that because Ollivander recognizes Voldemort’s wand, he knows that Voldemort was Tom Riddle. But it isn’t like wands never change hands. How do we know that one of the “terrible, but great” things Ollivander attributes to Voldemort isn’t killing the brilliant and powerful Tom, stealing his wand, and covering up the crime so effectively that it has never even been proven that Tom is dead? And if anyone else suspects that the unknown murderer was Voldemort before he came more into the open, quietly taking out possible future threats to his plans and leaving the wizarding world without what surely would have been one of their most powerful guardians, it’s no wonder no one wants anything to do with the whole subject.
Now, one group which could have suspected Tom might not have been an innocent victim after all were the victims of those “nasty” incidents at Hogwarts which couldn’t be tied to Tom. But if you’ve already been Tom’s victim, and couldn’t even prove it when it he was at school and (relatively) monitored, wouldn’t you expect to be even more vulnerable now that he had successfully committed murder and vanished without being blamed and could be anywhere? Maybe watching you? They’d probably keep their mouths shut too. Unless one reason nothing could be tied to Tom was that he modified the victims’ memories, which we know he had the skills to do.
In that case, the only people besides Slughorn and Dumbledore (and maybe Ollivander) who knew Tom became Voldemort were Tom’s original followers from school, and of course they weren’t talking. Even if they were caught and interrogated for information on Voldemort, they might be able to get around revealing his original name even if magically bound to answer direct questions, with some very careful wording. Using Obi-Wan logic, they could claim that yes, they were pretty sure Tom Riddle was dead (since he had ceased to be Tom and was now Voldemort), yes, Voldemort did it, and no, they didn’t know much about the origins of Voldemort – since not only would they not know much about his travels during which he truly “became” Voldemort, but they only have sketchy information on Tom’s origins too, so either way they’re covered. We don’t know that any of his original followers were ever interrogated, but if they were, it could actually have strengthened the wizarding public’s convictions that Tom was dead and Voldemort was Not From Around Here.
(no subject)
Date: 2011-09-06 01:13 am (UTC)Hm, good question about Dobby. He knew Tom was Voldemort by the end of CoS, but when did he find out? Ages ago, five minutes ago? I still can't figure out what his whole game was...
(no subject)
Date: 2011-09-10 03:31 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-09-10 03:34 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-09-10 07:53 pm (UTC)