Lord Voldemort

Tom Marvolo Riddle

Alias: Lord Voldemort, He Who Must Not Be Named, You-Know-Who, the Dark Lord, Tom, Lord Thingy, and Riddle.
Age: 70. Born December 31, 1926.
House: Slytherin.

Special Abilities: Possibly the greatest Dark Wizard of all time, Voldemort is extremely powerful, using his power to commit atrocities. Additionally, Lord Voldemort is a skilled Legilimens and Occlumens. He can also speak Parseltongue.

Distinguishing Characteristics: Lord Voldemort is tall, thin, and snake-like with unnaturally white skin, wide scarlet eyes and slits for nostrils. His hands are long and thin, like large pale spiders, and his pupils are cat-like slits.

Heritage: Half-blood. Descendant of Salazar Slytherin.

Family: The son of a Muggle father and witch mother, Lord Voldemort is the last direct descendent of Salazar Slytherin. His father, Tom Riddle Sr., was a rich, snobby Muggle who lived in the village of Little Hangleton. His mother, Merope Gaunt, was a poor, downtrodden witch who lived in a rundown cottage that bordered the Riddle property. Merope was in love with Tom Riddle but was far out of his league. It is likely she used a love potion to entice Tom to run away with her. Eventually, the potion either wore off or she stopped using it. Tom left Merope when he learned she was as witch, abandoning her and their unborn child. With no one left to turn to, Merope went to a Muggle orphanage where she gave birth to her son and died shortly thereafter.

First Mention: Philosopher's Stone / Sorcerer's Stone, chapter one.

General: Tom Marvolo Riddle was born on New Year's Eve, 1926, in a Muggle Orphanage in London. His mother, Merope Gaunt, was a desperate witch who had been abandoned by everyone by the time she struggled up the orphanage steps. Informing the orphanage's matron that her son was to be named Tom after his father and Marvolo after her father, Merope died within an hour of her son's birth, leaving him to be raised in the orphanage.

Tom entered Hogwarts in September of 1938. He was sorted into Slytherin, which is of little surprise as he was Slytherin's last remaining descendent. At Hogwarts, Tom proved himself a great pretender. He successfully hid the seedier parts of his personality from those in authority, charming his professors with his upstanding, clean-cut image. Tom was a bright student; according to Dumbledore, Tom was probably the most brilliant student Hogwarts had ever seen. He excelled in his classes, becoming a prefect and, eventually, Head boy. In addition, Tom received an award for Special Services to the school in his fifth year. Ironically, this award was received for framing another student, Rubeus Hagrid, for opening the Chamber of Secrets. In actuality, it was Tom himself who had opened the Chamber, releasing the Basilisk within to terrorize the Muggle-borns who attended the school, one of whom was ultimately killed by the giant serpent.

It took Tom five years to learn about and open the Chamber of Secrets, which was originally built by Salazar Slytherin. In that time, Tom somehow discovered that he was the heir of Slytherin. Like Slytherin, he could speak Parseltongue and, doing so, control the mighty beast locked within the Chamber. Tom only closed the Chamber when the death of a Muggle-born made the Hogwarts governors consider closing the school. With nowhere but the orphanage to return home to, Tom decided to cease the Basilisk's attacks and bide his time - fully planning to reopen the Chamber and finish Slytherin's work, ridding Hogwarts of all Muggle-born students.

During the summer of 1942, he went to the Gaunt cottage looking for his mother's family, but instead learned some very disturbing news about his heritage. At the decrepit, filth-ridden cottage, Tom found only his mother's brother, Morfin. Morfin told Tom that Marvolo, Tom's grandfather, was dead. Tom also learned that his father, the man for whom he was named, was not a wizard as he had hoped; Tom's father was a Muggle. Like Marvolo and Morfin, Tom hated Muggles and all things relating to them, especially Muggle-born witches and wizards. In his anger, Tom killed not only his father, but his Muggle grandparents as well. He then modified Morfin's memory. Morfin freely confessed to the Riddle murders and spent his remaining days in Azkaban. Tom returned to Hogwarts with the black-stoned ring he had taken from Morfin, a ring that had once belonged to Slytherin himself. Tom chose to ignore his Muggle heritage, instead reveling in his status as the Heir of Slytherin, and he created a new name for his followers to call him: Lord Voldemort.

Voldemort graduated at the top of his year in 1945, with the admiration of all his professors (with the exception of Dumbledore). He had any number of job options to choose from, but instead chose to take a position at Borgin and Burkes, a shop specializing in Dark Artifacts located in Knockturn Alley. Ironically, Borgin and Burkes was the same shop Voldemort's mother had gone to nearly eighteen years beforehand. Pregnant and desperate for money, she had sold her only possession of value; the heavy golden locket that was once the property of Salazar Slytherin.

At Borgin and Burkes, it was Voldemort's job to convince witches and wizards to part with their magical artifacts. A charming and handsome young man, this was not hard for Voldemort to do. One of his recurrent clients was an old woman named Hepzibah Smith. In Smith's home, Voldemort came face to face with the same necklace his mother had sold while pregnant with him, Slytherin's locket. Just as he had killed his father and grandparents, Voldemort killed Smith, this time modifying the memory of her house-elf, Hokey. Hokey took the blame for the murder, and Voldemort took Slytherin's locket (and a cup that had belonged to Helga Hufflepuff) and disappeared.

Several years later Voldemort returned to Hogwarts. He returned to ask then-headmaster Dumbledore for a teaching position, the position of Defense Against the Dark Arts. Dumbledore, ever distrustful of Voldemort, declined his request. Voldemort left Hogwarts without the position, and since then Hogwarts has been unable to keep a DADA professor for longer than one school year.

It was many years later that Lord Voldemort returned to public view, calling himself openly by his assumed name and ready, in his mind, to make himself the king of the wizards and to bring about the glorious vision of Salazar Slytherin - a world where purebloods ruled and lesser witches and wizards were crushed underfoot. He gathered himself an army of supporters, called them his Death Eaters, and set about trying to gain control. By this point, Voldemort had delved so deeply into the Dark Arts, and had gone through so many radical transformations in his attempts to achieve immortality, that few recognized him as the bright, handsome boy who had once so excelled at Hogwarts.

Lord Voldemort, with his faithful band of Death Eaters at his side, began his rise to power in the 1970s. It was a dark time in the Wizarding World. Some joined him willingly, some out of fear or coercion, and those who stood against him usually wound up dead. Nevertheless, a group of witches and wizards called the Order of the Phoenix (OotP) rose against him and the first war began. The OotP was comprised of members such as Dumbledore, Lily and James Potter, Frank and Alice Longbottom, Sirius Black, Remus Lupin and Peter Pettigrew, among others. They fought diligently, but were horribly outnumbered and were slowly being killed off. Voldemort was at the height of his power in the late 1970s and very early 1980s; the Magical Community lived in a state of constant terror. Voldemort and the Death Eaters conjured such fear among the populace that many witches and wizards were afraid even to speak his name, instead calling him He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named or You-know-who.

While others fought against him, it was Voldemort himself who brought about his downfall. He heard part of a prophecy made by Sybill Trelawney in 1979, which stated:

THE ONE WITH THE POWER TO VANQUISH THE DARK LORD APPROACHES...BORN TO THOSE WHO HAVE THRICE DEFIED HIM, BORN AS THE SEVENTH MONTH DIES...
(OotP, p 841)

It is likely this is all of the prophecy Voldemort was aware of because he made it his mission to locate and destroy this child before the child could grow up and pose a threat to him. Although the child could have been one of two boys, Voldemort decided to kill Harry Potter. Acting on the information of Peter Pettigrew, his spy within the Order, Voldemort moved quickly to kill the boy while he was still a baby. On October 31st, 1981, Voldemort went to Godric's Hollow and found the Potters' house. He killed James Potter and then, when Lily refused to step aside and give Voldemort a clear path to her son, he killed her as well. What happened next is well-known. Voldemort turned his wand on Harry. Remarkably, Harry, though only a year old, was not destroyed. Instead, Voldemort's Avada Kedavra curse rebounded on him, ripping his soul from his body and all but killing him. His powers gone and body destroyed, Voldemort fled.

The spirit that was Voldemort hid in the forests of Albania for ten years, surviving by inhabiting the bodies of small animals and snakes. In 1991, Professor Quirrell stumbled across Voldemort in his hiding place, and was easily convinced into helping the Dark Lord. Voldemort and Quirrell devised a plan to steal the Sorcerer's Stone from Hogwarts, thus restoring Voldemort to a proper body and granting him immortal life. Voldemort, who eventually possessed Quirrell's body, was thwarted in his quest by an eleven-year-old Harry Potter in June of 1992. When the attempt failed, he returned to his hiding place in the forest in Albania.

While Voldemort was in hiding, one of his followers was trying to continue his work. Lucius Malfoy (a Death Eater) slipped Voldemort's old diary into the hands of an unsuspecting Ginny Weasley at the beginning of the 1992-1993 school year. This diary was a Horcrux, containing a piece of Voldemort's sixteen-year-old soul. As Ginny poured her thoughts into the diary, the piece of Voldemort's soul within the diary grew stronger. Eventually, it possessed Ginny, causing her to open the Chamber of Secrets and set the Basilisk loose on the students. In due time, the piece of Voldemort inside the diary was so strong it was able to come out of the diary, growing ever stronger as Ginny grew weaker and weaker. Had Ginny died, Voldemort would have fully rematerialized from the diary and begun a second reign of terror. Unfortunately for Voldemort, he was yet again thwarted by Harry. In June of 1993, the Basilisk, the diary, and the piece of soul it contained were all destroyed.

During the summer of 1994, Voldemort at last received the help he so desperately needed. When Peter Pettigrew was forced out of hiding and found he had nowhere else to turn, he finally went searching for his former master. He followed rumors that lead him to Albania and Voldemort. On his way there, Pettigrew came into contact with a witch from the Ministry of Magic named Bertha Jorkins. Pettigrew found his master and gave Bertha to him. She proved to be quite useful, and Voldemort was able to learn a great deal from her. He discovered that one of his faithful Death Eaters, Barty Crouch Jr., had managed to escape from Azkaban and was eager to re-enter the Dark Lord's service. Using a spell of Voldemort's own design, Pettigrew was able to restore Voldemort to a rudimentary body that would keep him safe and alive until he could be fully restored. The two then set off to find Crouch and devise a plan to bring Voldemort back to power.

The two found Crouch, and with his help, Voldemort was indeed restored to both his body and to power on June 24, 1995. Using a complicated piece of Dark Magic that required as its main ingredients the bone of the father, the blood of the enemy, and the flesh of the servant, Voldemort rose and called his Death Eaters to him. United again under the Dark Mark, many returned to him. Having regrouped his remaining loyal followers, Lord Voldemort's second assault on the wizarding world began.

Although Harry witnessed Voldemort's returned and escaped to alert the wizarding world to it, the Ministry of Magic refused to believe Harry's story and launched a year-long smear campaign to ruin Harry's credibility. In that year, while the Ministry was busy vilifying Harry and labeling Dumbledore as a senile troublemaker, Voldemort was able to gather his followers to him and begin making plans for his next move. His first order of business was to hear the remainder of the Prophecy he was made aware of some sixteen years previous. He also sent envoys to the giants, persuaded the dementors to join him, and started recreating his army of creatures that all fear, the Inferi.

Voldemort lured Harry to the Department of Mysteries under false pretenses in June of 1996 with the purpose of getting the Prophecy from him. A battle ensued, in which Harry, his friends, and the Order fought against Voldemort's Death Eaters. Voldemort appeared at the last minute, just in time to do battle with Dumbledore. Voldemort eventually fled from the Ministry of Magic, but the wizarding world had been successfully alerted to his return, and the Ministry could no longer deny his existence. The second war against Voldemort had begun.

The following school year (1996-1997) showed a great increase in Death Eater activity. Deaths and disappearances were common and most of the Magical Community was again living in a state of constant fear. During this year, Harry and Dumbledore did all they could to learn as much about Voldemort's past as possible. What they learned was that Voldemort had managed to survive his rebounded Avada Kedavra curse because he had made six Horcruxes. A Horcrux is an object in which a person stores a fragment of his or her soul. To do this takes an extreme act of Dark Magic: the murder of another human being. One Horcrux is considered very evil, but Voldemort went far beyond that. To ensure his immortality, Voldemort split his soul not into two, but into seven. He made six Horcruxes.

Two of the Horcruxes were discovered and destroyed. The first was the diary that had possessed Ginny during the 1992-1993 school year. The second was the black-stoned ring that had once belonged to Slytherin. Dumbledore destroyed this ring during the summer of 1996, at the cost of his right hand. With Dumbledore's death, on the orders of Voldemort but at the hands of Severus Snape at the end of the 1996-1997 school year, it is up to Harry to discover the remaining four Horcruxes. One is Slytherin's heavy golden locket which may or may not have already been destroyed. It was hidden by Voldemort in a cave, but retrieved by someone with the initials of "R.A.B." The other three Horcruxes are unknown, though it is likely Hufflepuff's cup is one, his pet snake Nagini is another, and an item belonging to either Rowena Ravenclaw or Godric Gryffindor makes up the final item.