thaliasthunder

[keepmycandleburning]

Voldemort is someone who is consistently invested in other people's love lives. This was a big aspect of how I characterized him in Keep My Candle Burning, and it's not one I see explored that much.

We first see this in the Chamber of Secrets when Tom Riddle reveals he's been talking via the diary to Ginny about her crush on Harry:

Of course he says it was boring, yet he was doing this, seemingly in-depth and often, for what, the entire school year? Also, I think it's highly possible that the diary helped write Ginny's singing Valentine, due to the use of 'the Dark Lord,' a term virtually only Voldemort supporters use:

In the graveyard, Voldemort gets his body back and almost immediately starts monologuing about his parents' romantic relationship. It's so understandable that he's really tried to put all this together, but it strikes me how he says Merope 'fell in love with' Tom Riddle Sr. Canonically, he probably got this paragraph of information from his father, who believed that Merope 'hoodwinked' him (HBP Ch 10), not that she fell in love with him. Did Voldemort make this up? Why?

And again here he then acts scornful of what he just willingly said, making an ironic/sarcastic (I think, though I took it literally in my fic) comment and then denying that they're even his family at all:

I think this trait of his is most noticeable in The Dark Lord Ascending, where he spends half the meeting talking about Lupin & Tonks's marriage and their hypothetical future pregnancy, and then says Professor Burbage wants them all to mate with Muggles and werewolves (side note, I love how he says 'us all' as if he's also going to do it HAHAHAHA). His mind immediately goes to bringing up someone's marriage to get his point across to Bellatrix:

Next, the locket goes mainly for humiliating Ron about his romantic life (or lack thereoff...) Horcrux pattern... being interested in its victims' love lives, and using them as a main point of manipulation:

And then finally the big one: the fact that Voldemort, canonically, has had not just one but multiple conversations with Snape about his feelings for Lily: Snape asking for Voldemort to spare her, and evidently saying something that led Voldemort to believed that Snape 'desired' her, and then a second conversation where they apparently both agreed that there are better romantic partners for Snape:

He then immediately proceeds to interpret Harry's statement "he loved her for nearly all of his life" to be about romantic love (which to be fair he already knew, but still, I think it's notable because I'm not sure that it's true):

For a character who really has such little time on-screen, this is definitely a repeated behavior we see from him. Voldemort is not averse to topics of romance or sex, which is a huge misconception about him. There is no evidence for that whatsoever—quite the contrary

[slitheringghost]

Voldemort Fic Recs

I meant to post this for hprecfest over four months ago, but uh... I didn't. More fic recs in Part 2 here and Part 3 here.

The Limits Of Perception by deslea (800 words, G)

Rec: A truly fantastic character study in few words.

He meets a different kind of falsehood at school. The Pure prize the collective. They put aside their individual interests and feelings, follow codes of honour designed to protect family and name. It is still lying, but at least it is lying for something better than one's own ends. This is a kind of hypocrisy that he can tolerate, he decides.

of all my demon spirits by slashmarks (Tom & Ginny, 1.7k, T)

Rec: Ginny writes to Tom after the events of CoS. Paints a detailed picture of Tom and Ginny's relationship, and it's a great character study of Tom in addition to Ginny.

But I think maybe you were lying when you said that I was boring and stupid after all. Do you remember when we talked about the last war and I didn’t understand how anybody could think muggles were animals, because even if I don’t really know any muggles we go into the village to get groceries and stuff all the time and Mrs. Hoof keeps sweets by the counter just to give them to kids like me? You teased me about being bought with candy, but then you said the Death Eaters had to decide muggles weren’t people in order to kill them, and that really most people do that all of the time, like with house elves and stuff. You said that it was because most people are hypocrites and can’t face their real choices, but I think maybe it’s something you do, too, Tom. Maybe I had to be a boring and stupid little girl because you were about to kill me.

a shade amidst the shadowy dead by slashmarks (Tom & Cassiopeia Black, 2.4k, T)

Rec: THE Voldemort backstory of all time - Bellatrix's great-aunt Cassiopeia Black, a lesbian Dark Lord with a Muggle lover, and Tom Riddle and Bellatrix's mutual teacher and Mother Figure (TM) who they're both grieving when they meet. AKA Bellamort's very own Bathilda Bagshot.

Circling around to the potions shelving, she stopped halfway, a small twitch of a half-smile disturbing her serene face. Tom had fallen asleep with his face in a book in the armchair between bookshelves. In a moment he would wake, hearing her move. He would politely pretend he had lost track of time, and she would politely pretend to believe him. Of course, she knew perfectly well he was sleeping in the lab all the time for the summer, and she knew why. The school-leaving age in muggle Britain was fourteen, and Tom had therefore been expected to leave the orphanage two years ago.

The Shack at the End of the Lane by Asenora (Tom & Merope, 4k, G)

Rec: Voldemort’s victims meet Merope in the afterlife. A wonderful concept.

One day, a second bedroom materialised in the shack. It had white-washed walls and a black-and-white tiled floor, and contained no furniture other than a rickety iron bedstead, a wardrobe, and a hard wooden chair. She opened the wardrobe, and found nothing in it except an empty shoebox. 'This place needs some cheer,' she thought, and was unsurprised when a set of paint pots appeared in front of her.

the serpent's tale has come undone by slashmarks (Bellatrix/Voldemort, 6.2k, E)

Rec: Fantastic Voldemort POV in a Bellamort getting together fic. Slashmarks' ability to write both Voldemort's hunger for connection and intimacy and his cruelty is so impressive.

Orion Black's idiocy would be his prize, in this case. He understood what he was seeing when he looked into Bellatrix Black's cool gray eyes and the mind beyond them. He would gratefully use what Orion Black had discarded or overlooked as essentially worthless; or at least, not worthy of his attention and maintenance. He knew that pureblood men were often idiots about women, but sometimes the boundless capacity for it in otherwise intelligent ones surprised him. - Moreover... He had wanted family as a student, he remembered that; something to replace the loss that had occurred at and before his birth, someone to claim him, someone who would defend his interests and give him something to defend. He had the Death Eaters as the closest possible thing now. The demands marriage would have made on him would not be... tenable.

endless nights took on my whole life by slashmarks (Bellatrix/Voldemort, Voldemort & Rodolphus, Bellatrix & Rodolphus, Sirius & Bellatrix, 12.4k, M)

Rec: My absolute favorite Tom Riddle POV. A HILARIOUS Voldemort and Rodolphus dynamic in addition to a wonderful Bellamort.

Bellatrix was a new experience for Tom, as something of a kindred spirit. Abraxas might be the closest thing Tom would admit to a brother, but he had no real patience for magical theory or interest in it beyond utilitarian concerns, and Reinhard was simply too nice a person, deep down, a condition even the Lestranges had never cured him of. Bellatrix, though, was capable of sharing everything for the first time: she could keep up with him intellectually, she was as fascinated by magic as him, and any squeamish bone had long ago been extracted. Best of all, she shared Tom Riddle's fervent loathing for every aspect of magical Britain's society and his desire to personally torture to death most of the Wizengamot, which Tom had always known better than to fully express even to Abraxas.

The Edge of Reality by deslea (Bellatrix/Voldemort, 4k, E)

Rec: Fascinating exploration of the Death Eater cult and initiation.

To ensure their continued loyalty, they must be given a new family and future, better than the one they have agreed to cast away. When this is achieved, in his experience, they will do virtually anything in his service. Their loyalty to old laws and values and connections is either severed, or so conditional as to be irrelevant. It is a delicate exercise, carried out with an intricate blend of Legilimency and plain old-fashioned manipulation. It is magic at its finest.

'The son and heir of nothing in particular by @artemisia-black (2.6k, M)

Rec: Beautifully written, and I love Tom's musings on London in this fic.

But unlike the damp which pervaded the orphanage in the depths of winter, this scent did not evoke desperation and destitution. It did not remind him of scratchy government-issued pinafores and the flavourless soups that the matron insisted warded off the flu.  No, this damp smelled different. It smelled of ancient, untapped magic. But most importantly, it smelled like home.

The Velveteen Rabbit by Asenora (Tom & Mrs. Cole, Tom & Merope, 3k, G)

Rec: A unique take on Mrs. Cole and Tom's relationship, and a heartbreaking young Tom.

It’s just about pride - when he’s hurt, when one of the bigger lads punches him in the face, he won’t give anyone the satisfaction of knowing. He just watches, his face completely unmoving, staring whoever's attacked him down until they're the one that's frightened, and then whirling off triumphantly, with his chin in the air. But, if you know where to look, you can find him a wee while later curled up in a corner of the orphanage where nobody usually goes, running his fingers over his black eye or bruised jaw like he could cure the injury by magic, muttering words of comfort to himself, telling himself he’s all he needs, and he’ll be alright, and he will always, always manage to survive.

My True Family: Voldemort and Family Connections by slashmarks (Meta, 3k)

Rec: Cheating ‘cause this isn’t a fic, but a must-read essay that challenges the idea of an inhuman Voldemort who can’t love.

Voldemort immediately knows how to lure Harry to the Department of Mysteries when curiosity isn't enough: a threat to Sirius Black will be enough, and it is. Sirius is not only Harry's only remaining magical family, but he represents a hope Tom Riddle once shared, and once was equally disappointed in: a magical guardian who would take either boy away from the muggle world and status as a friendless orphan.

In Place And Blood. by Lanna Michaels (Tom & Merope, 2.3k, G)

Rec: Tom raised by Merope still becomes Voldemort and this time his motivation is solely revenge on purebloods for his mother.

That night, for the first time, he shares a room with six other boys, five of them purebloods, and he wants to murder them where they sleep. He doesn't know how to do it, but he has ideas. They all deserve it. They deserve it for what they did to his mother. Purebloods had left his mother friendless, a disgrace, had thrown her out and left her to die and her son with her. Tom is going to make sure they live to regret it. Tom is going to make every one of them regret it.

if the sea were sand alone by Anonymous (Tom & Dumbledore, 12.8k, G)

Rec: A gorgeous and heartbreaking what-could-have-been for the Dumbledore and Tom relationship, the starting point being Slughorn comes to the orphanage to introduce the magical world to Tom instead of Dumbledore.

"I wanted to kill them," he said. "They left me there. All those years, and my father, and my grandparents, they left me there. The last thing my mother said to him was, 'What about the baby?' and the last thing he said to her--" He cut himself off. There was so much pain etched into his face that Albus shuffled off the bed, and, standing over him, pulled his head to his chest like he was still a small child. He had felt abandoned, once. It was a wound that had never truly healed, and it had taken him years to realize the extent of the damage.

More fic recs are in Part 2 of rec list here and Part 3 here.

[bekkandaa]

thank you for your analysis of him!! it's very interesting. especially the part where you mentioned him being a romantic because he's objectively perceived as a cold, cruel, emotionally unavailable person (which he was) but he clearly found grandiose motivations and purposes to justify his crimes. how self-aware do you think he was? and if he was made aware of the outcome of his quest for power, would he do it nonetheless? realistically what would it take for him to have a moral crisis or question his values? was he aromantic and repulsed by human connection by nature or did he actively suppress whatever humanity was left...or maybe just try to be perceived as not needing it? sorry for asking so many questions. i could spend hours attempting to unravel tom's psyche.

thanks in advance

Hello Anon! Thank you for your questions. I want to address the first few in a different post, because I have a few different answers I want to discuss and don't want this post to run on forever. Is Tom Riddle Aromantic?

Before we delve into the intricacies of Tom Riddle's capacity for Romantic love, it is important for me to mention that we'll be disregarding the plot point of his inability to love due to his parents' love potion thing. Instead, our focus will be purely on his psyche and the effect that has on his ability to love. ( Because that's what this blog is for, and the whole love potion thing is silly in my humble opinion)

To address whether Riddle's beliefs and upbringing contribute to an aromantic disposition, I think we first have to consider his own capacity for romantic love. I'll be discussing his capacity for romantic love through the fact of his narcissism, a topic I've explored before here.

Riddle's psychology can largely be understood through the lens of pathological narcissism. While all humans present a public façade, for a pathological narcissist, the gap between this façade and their concealed self is particularly stark. Riddle's charm was a strategic tool to attract admirers who could feed his sense of self. This façade protects the false self from exposure, maintaining his grandiose self-image and fuelling his delusions.

Emotional intimacy is typically outside a narcissist's comfort zone as they are disconnected from their true feelings, driven instead by the need to uphold their grandiose persona. Narcissists often idealise their partners' admirable qualities, using them as a mirror for their own grandiosity. In this context, love becomes a means to an end—a way to support their self-image, making romantic love a form of supply for a narcissist.

Narcissists possess many qualities such as social confidence, likability, and charm, which are optimal for initiating relationships. However, these are coupled with traits like low empathy, a tendency to use others to maintain their false self-image, and overall self-centeredness, which are destructive to functional relationships. A narcissist's partner is usually objectified, unable to retain their own autonomy within the relationship. If the partner shatters the narcissist's illusion, they may become the target of contempt for disrupting the narcissist's grandiose perception they created of their partner. Essentially, the goal of such a relationship is the complete obliteration of the partner's autonomy.

Despite these challenges, it is important to recognise that narcissists can and do love, although their love sometimes differs from a healthy, unconditional relationship. Following this logic, Riddle is capable of romantic love, but it would most likely be an unhealthy relationship where his partner is more objectified than valued as a person.

Having established Riddle's capacity for love, we return to the question of his potential aromanticism. Possible reasons include:

Repulsion by human connection by nature Active suppression of any remaining humanity Intentional portrayal of himself as above human needs

While I do not believe Riddle was innately repulsed by human connection from birth, he likely developed this repulsion through his upbringing. His identity and beliefs were deeply intertwined with his blood status. Discovering his ancestry to Salazar Slytherin inflated his ego and sense of self, fuelling his delusions about an "idealised parent image." However, learning about his Muggle father shattered these notions, inducing an identity crisis and internal conflict. This conflict manifested in his actions, such as punishing his father and changing his name.

Rejection by the family he sought further shattered his grandiose self-image, deepening his mental breakdown. This rejection likely made him feel repulsed by the human connection he sought, leading him to view himself as above such needs. Despite his heritage being a construct to fuel his false-self, the search for a parent and creation of an "idealised parent image" is common among children lacking parental figures. This behaviour signifies Riddle's inherent humanity and need for connection, which he suppressed following the shattering of his idealised image.

According to Freud, human behaviour is more influenced by the unconscious mind rather than the conscious one. The unconscious mind, filled with painful memories, tries to protect the conscious mind by hiding them, influences attitudes, behaviours, and character. For Riddle, the painful memories of his corrupted heritage resurfaced, despite his unconscious mind's attempts to hide them. He then attempted to eradicate his past self, exemplified by his transformation into Lord Voldemort and his agenda concerning blood status.

This brings us to the final point: in eradicating his past, Riddle attempted to portray himself as devoid of human needs through his new persona, Lord Voldemort. ( in all honesty he done the opposite by doing that, just really announced his fear of his own humanity and his disgust of it.)

These points, stemming from his past, suggest that Riddle is most likely aromantic. While he is capable of love, albeit in an unhealthy way, he sees himself above the need for it and suppresses any potential need under the guise of repulsion due to the rejection he faced. TLDR : Tom Riddle is in fact Aromantic, and that was more or less caused by him getting his feelings hurt and choosing to suppress / act like he does not need humanity at all. Just going back to Anon at the beginning talking about how Riddle was a romantic, (which he was, it's a universal fact at this point) I do think it's hilarious how he chose the most 'teenage girl' items for his horcruxes. Diary boy really wanted to go all out and I can respect it.

[oflights]

i have been laughing about this to myself all day

[saintsenara]

Riddle’s extremely fearful and aggressive reaction to Dumbledore when he thinks he’s a doctor (and the fact that he assumes this at all and believes he is being lied to) has some pretty dark implications (which of course no one follows up on). Do you have thoughts?

thank you very much for the ask, anon!

and yes - this has occurred to me too... which means that my thoughts come with a trigger warning for the sexual abuse of a child, and are under the cut.

the relevant scene in canon is, of course, this:

“I am Professor Dumbledore.” “Professor?” repeated Riddle. He looked wary. “Is that like doctor? What are you here for? Did she get you in to have a look at me?”  He was pointing at the door through which Mrs. Cole had just left. “No, no,” said Dumbledore, smiling.  “I don’t believe you,” said Riddle. “She wants me looked at, doesn’t she? Tell the truth!”  He spoke the last three words with a ringing force that was almost shocking. It was a command, and it sounded as though he had given it many times before. His eyes had widened and he was glaring at Dumbledore, who made no response except to continue smiling pleasantly. After a few seconds Riddle stopped glaring, though he looked, if anything, warier still. “Who are you?” “I have told you. My name is Professor Dumbledore and I work at a school called Hogwarts. I have come to offer you a place at my school - your new school, if you would like to come.”  Riddle’s reaction to this was most surprising. He leapt from the bed and backed away from Dumbledore, looking furious.  “You can’t kid me! The asylum, that’s where you’re from, isn’t it? ‘Professor,’ yes, of course - well, I’m not going, see? That old cat’s the one who should be in the asylum. I never did anything to little Amy Benson or Dennis Bishop, and you can ask them, they’ll tell you!”

the surface-level reading of this scene - which is clearly what the text wants us to go for - is that riddle thinks he's about to be institutionalised for being "mad" - and, specifically, that he thinks that what dumbledore has been told is his "madness" is actually his magic.

[he is also clearly meant to be read as panicking a little bit that he's fucked around torturing his fellow children and is now about to find out...]

that riddle accepts he's a wizard so easily - and that he is so reassured by dumbledore agreeing that he's not mad - is something the text wants us to read as sinister. him immediately describing himself as "special" is set up as a precursor to the adult voldemort's delusions of grandeur - which the entire arc of the series, ending in his death as an ordinary man, is designed to undermine.

but i've always disliked this reading. the eleven-year-old riddle - a magical child raised around non-magical people - is objectively correct to describe his powers as "special" [in that they make him identifiably different from the crowd] within the context in which he lives. the word choice is nowhere near as deep as dumbledore decides - he's clearly known since he was very young that he's a wizard, but he didn't have the precise language to describe this fundamental part of himself until dumbledore offered it; prior to that, "special" is a perfectly reasonable alternative term.

and, in always knowing that he's a wizard, he also knows that he doesn't have a mental illness - but he must also know that this is something it's near impossible for him to prove.

in the real world, if i spoke to a patient who told me:

“I can make things move without touching them. I can make animals do what I want them to do, without training them. I can make bad things happen to people who annoy me. I can make them hurt if I want to.”

then i would be correct to describe them as experiencing psychosis. and i might - depending on their other symptoms - have reasonable cause to admit them [voluntarily or not] for psychiatric treatment.

riddle is - of course - demonstrably not psychotic. but it's not unreasonable that mrs cole would assume he is - the world she lives in, as a muggle [even if she's a religious one], is one in which people do not possess the ability to move objects or control animals with their minds, and if one of her charges is convinced that he can, then she's justified in seeking medical intervention.

[that psychiatric treatment in the 1930s can be described without exaggeration as inhumane is another matter...]

which is to say, i think we can easily suppose that mrs cole has - prior to dumbledore's arrival - succeeded in having riddle "looked at", and that the idea that he's mentally ill and should be committed to an asylum has been mentioned before. i think most of us would be instinctively [and angrily] wary of doctors if this happened to us, regardless of how nice the doctors in question were.

and maybe that's all there is to it.

and maybe it isn't...

in the doylist text, the eleven-year-old riddle's personality is the way it is because he's the villain of the series. where harry is preternaturally capable, even as a child, of all the things the series defines as admirable - above all, enduring difficulty without complaint - riddle is preternaturally incapable of them. he's meant to come across as unambiguously sinister - and the fact that the text repeatedly emphasises that he has control over his unpleasant traits invites us to view him as someone who is acting with full agency. that he lives in an orphanage is a trope which the text uses, like a campy horror film might, predominately to underscore how creepy he is - and the text, in keeping with its general lack of interest in states and their institutions, never really prompts us to interrogate the impact of his childhood upon the course his life takes.

[this is despite the fact that voldemort's reliving of the night he killed the potters in deathly hallows is an incredibly accurate depiction of ptsd...]

but it's also the case that the eleven-year-old riddle's behaviour and personality fits a pattern we might expect to see in a child who is being abused, sexually or otherwise:

he's aggressive, he has a hair-trigger temper, and he becomes distressed even by behaviour - such as dumbledore speaking mildly and calmly - which would not ordinarily be expected to provoke such a reaction.

his broader emotional state is fractious. his mood changes sharply, he seems to feel emotions very profoundly, he struggles to control his emotional response to things, he's extremely easily irritated, he's attention-seeking - and he particularly seeks negative attention, and he's very highly-strung. his admission in deathly hallows that he feels calm before he kills - or before he otherwise eradicates a threat or a problem - comes with the flip-side that he's someone who appears, when things aren't going well or he finds himself in a situation which he can't control, to become quite anxious. which is a trauma response.

he's extremely isolated. the text presents the fact that he has no friends as a deliberate choice - "lord voldemort has never had a friend, nor do i believe that he has ever wanted one" - and his relationship with everyone else he ever meets, including his fellow orphans, is defined by the text as exclusively involving him controlling, manipulating, and punishing them. or: he is always the more powerful person in the pairing. but this need for control can be read as self-protective just as easily as it can be read as sinister. there are hints in canon that riddle is not just some malevolent force in the orphanage preying on mild-mannered innocents. for example, billy stubbs, the owner of the rabbit he kills, is targeted by riddle as revenge: “Billy Stubbs’s rabbit... well, Tom said he didn’t do it and I don’t see how he could have done, but even so, it didn’t hang itself from the rafters, did it? [...] But I’m jiggered if I know how he got up there to do it. All I know is he and Billy had argued the day before." on the rare occasions billy turns up in fics, he's usually - i find - written very like neville - sweet and guileless and a bit pathetic. but the alternative reading - especially when we take into account that riddle attacks the rabbit rather than billy himself - is that billy is someone he would be afraid to physically confront. indeed, it's striking that voldemort - at all stages of his life - is described as being quite physically fragile. not only is he very thin, but he's always cold and his heartbeat is described several times in canon as irregular. i think this is supposed to be a comment on the physical changes he undergoes the more horcruxes he makes - although the idea that the soul would affect the heart doesn't actually align with how the series understands the soul to relate to the body - but it can also be interpreted perfectly legitimately as something he was experiencing prior to splitting his soul. i am committed to the headcanon that riddle was quite a sickly child - and that this is one of the things which drives his fear of death - and i'm also committed to the idea that his obsession with magic is because the enormity of his magical power makes up for his physical lack. he can defeat - and humiliate and frighten and remove the threat of - billy or dennis [or even an adult man?] with magic. without it, if they were to physically overpower him, then he wouldn't be able to throw them off.

he is extremely nervous about being alone in a room with dumbledore - someone he doesn't know, and who he assumes is connected to a profession [and, maybe, who knows any other doctors he's been previously made to see...] of which he is frightened.

he doesn't trust or confide in anyone - which, as a child, means particularly that he doesn't trust or confide in adults in positions of responsibility. he's clearly uneasy with the idea of finding himself in the subordinate position in an adult-child relationship when dumbledore offers to take him shopping for school supplies - potentially because he's worried that dumbledore will try and dictate or restrict what he's allowed to buy unless he behaves in a certain way... and i am always very struck that dumbledore says in half-blood prince: "He was very guarded with me; he felt, I am sure, that in the thrill of discovering his true identity he had told me a little too much. He was careful never to reveal as much again." this is presented in the text as evidence that dumbledore is the only person of whom voldemort is afraid - by which the text means that voldemort acknowledges that dumbledore knows that an ordinary man, mortal and unimpressive, lurks behind the mask of unassailable power he has created for himself; and which the text thinks is a good thing. but we can also read it as a self-protective act on riddle's part. in his excitement, he offers dumbledore information [that he is known to be a liar, that he is in trouble a lot, that mrs cole dislikes him and is disinclined to believe anything he says] which would give dumbledore - or anyone in a similar position of power and presumed respectability - cover to abuse him, safe in the knowledge that he would be unlikely to be believed if he reported it.

he doesn't appear to feel safe in the orphanage and he's frequently absent from it - by his own admission, he spends a huge amount of time wandering around london on his own, which may even involve him staying away for several days at a time. nobody appears to notice or care about this.

he's very independent - which the text again presents as evidence of his deliberate self-isolation and rejection of the bonds of love and friendship - and his independence is unusual for a child his age [i.e. that he is capable of doing all his own shopping for school].

his knowledge of violence - i.e. how he designs the trip to the cave to be maximally psychologically devastating for dennis and amy and devoid of repercussions for himself - is also more advanced and methodical than would be expected in a child of his age. again, the text uses this to emphasise how inextricable the child-voldemort is from his adult self - and also, to some extent, to underscore the intellectual brilliance [his magic is also more advanced than is normal for a child] which his narrative archetype [the exceptional villain who is defeated by the everyman hero] requires. but we can also read it as evidence of his own victimisation. a common sign that a child is being sexually abused is that they display a knowledge of sexual behaviour which is more advanced than is reasonable for a child of their age - for example, knowing in detail how a sex act is performed, or fluently using sexual slang which they have no chance of knowing either from age-appropriate settings like school-based sex education or conversations with a parent or trusted adult, or from the sort of enthusiastic hoarding of rude words and phrases all children enjoy as they grow up. riddle's precise, clinical knowledge of how to manipulate, frighten, torture, and control can be seen as something similar. if he can - at eleven or younger - methodically break down another child until they're "never quite right" again, then this is because he's learned how to from someone.

he keeps secrets. and he also goes out of his way to extract them. his grooming of ginny in chamber of secrets - he manipulates her into confiding things she wants to keep to herself, promises he won't tell anyone, and then uses the threat that he will to get her to do his bidding - is an absolutely textbook example of how abusers use the idea of secrecy to control their victims. it doesn't make his abuse of ginny any less inexcusable if we assume he learns this from being on the other side of things.

dumbledore understands his little cache of objects as trophies he's taken from victims - and the text takes the view that dumbledore is correct in this assessment. that hoarding trophies is something widely associated with serial killers means that this is yet another thing which underlines how creepy - and how like his adult self - the child-voldemort is. but it's also the case that the adult - and teenage - voldemort places a lot of emphasis on gift-giving as part of his control over other people. the two most obvious examples in canon are wormtail being given his shiny hand as a reward for helping voldemort get his body back, and slughorn being buttered up with crystallised pineapple before voldemort asks him about horcruxes. the text thinks this is sinister - and one of the reasons it does this is because gift-giving is a grooming tactic. the text also clearly thinks this isn't behaviour voldemort has learned from the other side. and yet a common sign that a child is being abused is if they have possessions it doesn't make sense for them to own [i.e. a child from a low-income background who is suddenly decked in designer clothes] and which they can't or won't explain how they came by. riddle's cache isn't luxurious - although he's so poor that a yoyo or a mouth organ probably is a luxury to him - but there's also nothing in canon which precludes the objects being presents, rather than stolen goods. if the spell dumbledore uses to make the box rattle is caused by a statement which is both relatively ambiguous and dependent on dumbledore's subjective personal morality - is there anything in this room he's acquired through nefarious means? - then the spell would still work as it does in canon if riddle was an abuse victim given the objects as "rewards". dumbledore's tendency to locate right and wrong in the individual and dumbledore's belief that good people should steadfastly endure misery means he can be written entirely canon-coherently as someone who would think a victim who appeared to collude in their own abuse - such as a victim who "offered" a sexual act because their abuser promised them something if they did - was behaving consensually, manipulatively, and nefariously. and it's worth noting that when riddle doesn't know what dumbledore has done to make the box rattle, he is "unnerved". when he realises dumbledore thinks he's stolen the objects - and that he has no interest in forcing him to admit this aloud - he is "unabashed". perhaps because he's just received proof that an experience he doesn't want to talk about is still secret...

on the other hand, the objects could indeed be stolen - because petty criminality and anti-social behaviour, especially in pre-teen children, is also a sign of abuse.

he can be extremely obsequious - when dumbledore tells him to watch how he speaks he becomes "unrecognisably polite", he ruthlessly flatters slughorn, and he is cringingly deferential to hepzibah smith. the text understands this as evidence that his apparent charm is only superficial - another trait associated in the popular imagination with serial killers [and it's striking that so much about the young voldemort - handsome, charming, seemingly quiet and polite, true evil lurking underneath the mask - is exactly like the pop-culture persona which has been created for ted bundy...]. voldemort himself agrees that his charm is performative in chamber of secrets: “If I say it myself, Harry, I’ve always been able to charm the people I needed. So Ginny poured out her soul to me, and her soul happened to be exactly what I wanted." but his obsequiousness is also a fawn response - a way of minimising a threat by attempting to please the person issuing it. he becomes "unrecognisably polite" - after all - in response to this: Dumbledore raised his eyebrows. “If, as I take it, you are accepting your place at Hogwarts - ” “Of course I am!” “Then you will address me as ‘Professor’ or ‘sir.’ ”  Riddle’s expression hardened for the most fleeting moment before he said, in an unrecognisably polite voice, “I’m sorry, sir. I meant - please, Professor, could you show me - ?”  riddle could reasonably interpret what dumbledore says here as a threat to prevent him attending hogwarts - even though dumbledore evidently doesn't mean it in this way - and he switches to being fawning because this is something he really doesn't want to happen...

do i think that any of this is what the text was actually going for? no. and nor do i think that reading riddle as a victim of abuse excuses the violence which the adult voldemort goes on to perpetuate.

but i think it is a reading of his characterisation which is both canon-plausible and interesting - a strange, sickly child with a reputation for cruelty and dishonesty being abused by the respectable doctor who is constantly called in to treat his coughs and wheezes, who buys him little presents and charms him into telling him secrets, who then [to paraphrase the teenage voldemort] feeds him a few secrets of his own, safe in the knowledge that nobody will ever believe him if he tries to get help.

and i also think this a reading which is sincerely important.

a significant contributor to the prevalence of child abuse - no matter what exact form this abuse takes - is that we are culturally conditioned to imagine that both the abuser and the victim will look and behave in a certain way if the abuse is "real".

and this means, all too often, that we take child abuse more seriously when the victim is "sympathetic" - when they're from a stable home, and their family are respectable, and they do well in school, and they're polite and sweet, and they look innocent, and they behave perfectly appropriately for their age, and nobody would ever dare to say that they come across as older than they are, and they're white, and they don't have a history of lying, and they don't have a history of attention-seeking, and they don't have a criminal record, and they're not abusive themselves, and there's absolutely no way of suggesting that they colluded in their abuse, and the perpetrator was someone who looks like a child abuser.

someone who is creepy, low-status, ugly, unpopular. someone who everyone can tell is socially abnormal, someone who nobody would ever intentionally permit to be around their children. not someone who is charming, well-respected, attractive, rich, popular, trustworthy. not someone who has a loving family and a happy home. not someone we might be friends with.

but many perpetrators of child abuse are these second group of people. and many victims of child abuse are "unsympathetic", when their social positions and reputations are compared to their abusers' own.

they lie. they steal. they're attention-seeking. they're vindictive. they have trouble distinguishing between imagination and reality. they're violent. they're bullies. they hurt animals. they abuse other children. they take drugs. they're mentally-ill. they come from broken homes. they're in the care of the state. they're dirty. they're poor. they're odd. they're behind at school and badly-behaved in the classroom. they do things which allow their abuse to be dismissed as something they brought upon themselves - they speak or dress in certain ways, they pose provocatively in pictures and post them on the internet, they are known to be sexually active outside of the context of their abuse, they lie about being over the age of consent, they engage in sexual behaviour with an adult abuser in a way which appears [even though it isn't, and there's never a circumstance in which it will be] to be consensual or for their own personal gain, they are flattered by the attention they receive from someone who is important or attractive grooming them, they have complicated - and not always wholly negative - feelings towards their abusers.

and they are still - unequivocally - victims, and what happens to them is still - unequivocally - abuse.

tom riddle is an unsympathetic victim - not only of any potential abuse, but also of the horrors of his life which are explicit on the canon page: that he is raised in an orphanage; that he is grieving; that he knows nothing about his family; that he is thought to be mad.

the absence of any institutional response to his childhood experiences - dumbledore, by his own admission, discloses nothing about riddle to his fellow teachers - is a flaw repeated again and again in the worldbuilding of the harry potter series.

hogwarts - and the wizarding [and muggle] state more broadly - doesn't intervene in any case of neglect or abuse, from harry to snape to voldemort's own parents. the series' individualistic morality means that we aren't supposed to interrogate these collective failings. and the series' black-and-white view of good and evil - and its general belief that violence is fine if the person it happens to "deserves" it - means that it has no interest in examining the ways that poverty, isolation, and neglect are risk factors; that straightforwardly unpleasant people can still be victims; that victims can go on to become perpetrators without their victimhood ceasing to matter; and that the abuse of children usually takes place not in silence and secrecy, concealed in ways which make it fine for adults not to notice it and not to intervene, but in plain sight.

this is knowledge it never hurts to refresh. thinking about lord voldemort's childhood might be an usual way of doing so... but it is an effective one nonetheless...

[hollowed-theory-hall]

Hello!! So, I saw an argument about Harry's uhm looks? I guess. A lot of people basically headcanon him as someone buff. I digress, I'm part of the uhm more realistic? group. Harry's been starved and abused his entire life. I doubt he'll gain the weight and the height everyone else wants him to have. Years later. maybe. But in 6th year? While on the run? 3 years after the war? Doubt. do you think he would be able to get super tall and buff? Also, do you think its possible he used the same methods the dursleys used to punish himself?

I mean, anyone can headcanon whatever they want, but, I'll try to explain via quotes, what Harry's height and muscle situation is likely to be. I believe the reasons some headcanon him as buff and tall are:

Harry had pinned Mundungus against the wall of the pub by the throat. Holding him fast with one hand, he pulled out his wand.

(HBP)

He lifts Mundungus by his throat with one hand easily, and he practices Quidditch like 3 times a week at least. This implies that Harry has some muscle on him.

And he's mentioned to be James' height when he's 17:

James was exactly the same height as Harry.

(DH)

Which was supposedly tall, according to both, Harry:

tall and untidy-haired like Harry, the smoky, shadowy form of James Potter

(GoF)

And Voldemort:

the tall black-haired man in his glasses

(DH)

Now, let's put Harry's height in the context of other character heights. Particularly of interest are characters taller than him, to get an image of how tall is "tall." And some shorter characters to help figure out his exact height.

Sirius, Ron, Voldemort, and Dumbledore are all taller than Harry and exceptionally tall in general. They are each likely to be over 6 feet tall, making Harry likely less than 6' (183 cm). Supporting this is this quote:

Once the painful transformation was complete he was more than six feet tall, and from what he could tell from his well-muscled arms, powerfully built.

(DH)

This means Harry is less than 6' and isn't super buff. But, I want to get to his specific height, because I have a lot to say about character heights.

Like, Dumbledore is probably the tallest character who isn't a half-giant because he's towering over everyone except Hagrid and Maxime. In book 6, he's literally taller than all the inferi in the cave:

Dumbledore was on his feet again, pale as any of the surrounding Inferi, but taller than any too,

(HBP)

And Abeforth (who's as tall as Dumbledore) is taller than Ron, who's one of the other tallest characters in the books:

Ron looked slightly sick. Aberforth stood up, tall as Albus, and suddenly terrible in his anger and the intensity of his pain.

(DH)

Making the Dumbledores really tall. My estimate is around a whooping 6'5 (195 cm).

Sirius is mentioned to be taller than Snape, and the tallest Marauder:

said Sirius, standing up. He was rather taller than Snape

(OotP)

To Sirius’s right stood Pettigrew, more than a head shorter

(DH)

A head, in height, should be around one foot (30.48 cm). As the average height of a man in England in 1998 was around 5'8 (174.4 cm), this would make Sirius around 6'2 (188 cm), therefore taller than average, and Pettigrew around 5'2 (157 cm), shorter than the average, but still both at a reasonable height.

Ron is almost as tall as the twins at 11:

“Shut up,” said Ron again. He was almost as tall as the twins already and his nose was still pink where his mother had rubbed it.

(PS)

And, just, really tall in general:

He stepped forward. Not as tall as Ron, he had to crane his neck to read the yellowish label affixed to the shelf right beneath the dusty glass ball.

(OotP)

So I estimate Ron at around 6'3 (190 cm).

Voldemort who grew up on war rations is still described very consistently as tall, regardless of childhood malnourishment:

He was his handsome father in miniature, tall for eleven years old, dark-haired, and pale

(HBP)

tall, pale, dark-haired, and handsome — the teenage Voldemort.

(HBP)

Taller than Bellatrix (who's taller than Harry). Voldemort is also considerably taller than Pettigrew, as he has to bend to reach Pettigrew's arm when both are standing:

Voldemort bent down and pulled out Wormtail’s left arm; he forced the sleeve of Wormtail’s robes up past his elbow

(GoF)

I usually place Voldemort at around the same height as Ron, so 6'3 (190 cm).

Fred and George, though, are mentioned to be shorter and stockier, more similar to Molly's build:

Charlie was built like the twins, shorter and stockier than Percy and Ron, who were both long and lanky.

(GoF)

but are mentioned to shrink to become Harry in book 7:

Hermione and Mundungus were shooting upward; Ron, Fred, and George were shrinking

(DH)

I actually place the twins around 6' (183 cm) so they could be taller than Harry, but shorter than Ron. The twins are likely taller than Charlie.

Bellatrix, as a woman, should also be shorter on average, but considering how tall Sirius is mentioned to be, it appears the Blacks are just considerably taller than the average, even the women:

a tall dark woman with heavy-lidded eyes, who had stood at her trial and proclaimed her continuing allegiance to Lord Voldemort

(OotP)

She was taller than he was, her long black hair rippling down her back, her heavily lidded eyes disdainful as they rested upon him;

(DH)

So I place her at around 6' (183 cm) as well, as an exceptionally tall lady.

So where does this place Harry?

During the first 4 books, Harry is short and small for his age. When he's 13, he and Hermione are bit shorter than Pettigrew:

He was a very short man, hardly taller than Harry and Hermione.

(PoA)

(Ron, noticeably, is taller than Pettigrew at 13)

So, so Harry at 13 was around 5'1 (155 cm). And so was Hermione.

Then in between books 4 and 5 puberty kicks in and probably causes a slight growth spurt that makes him more attractive to girls around him:

Parvati Patil and Lavender Brown, the last two of whom gave Harry airy, overly friendly greetings that made him quite sure they had stopped talking about him a split second before. He had more important things to worry about, however:

(OotP)

And then he has another, larger growth spurt between books 5 and 6:

“You’re like Ron,” she [Molly] sighed, looking him up and down. “Both of you look as though you’ve had Stretching Jinxes put on you. I swear Ron’s grown four inches since I last bought him school robes.

(HBP)

“And it doesn’t hurt that you’ve grown about a foot over the summer either,” Hermione finished, ignoring Ron. “I’m tall,” said Ron inconsequentially. [Ron is objectively correct]

(HBP)

Post book 6 growth spurt, we know Harry is below 6' (183 cm) but close enough to 6' to be above the average of 5'8 (174.4 cm) and be considered "tall", and grow "about a foot" after said growth spurt.

I personally place his height at 5'11 (180 cm), to make all of the above make sense.

And while he is physically fit, he is likely very thin from years of malnourishment. So, he likely has some muscle on him, but he's very lean with little to no fat during his Hogwarts years (he'd likely gain more weight as an adult living peacefully with regular meals). So, Harry in the books isn't what I'd call buff, but he has some muscle and can definitely throw a punch. As he grows older post-canon, I think he could get buff if he set his mind to it.

(I actually have notes about the height of a bunch of other characters. Hermione is shorter than Harry and Ron, but noticeably taller than Ginny (5'2 or 157 cm) and probably around 5'4 (162 cm) by book 7. Draco is said to be slightly taller than Harry "Harry did not dare look directly at Draco, but saw him obliquely; a figure slightly taller than he was" - DH, placing Draco at around 6' (183 cm))

For your other question, no, I don't think Harry self-harms, definitely not in any way related to the Dursleys, but that's a different post because I went off about heights.

[iamnmbr3]

i think it's so interesting that the people who voldemort really seems to enjoy having power over and who he goes out of his way to hurt and degrade and ruin are not muggles, but rather purebloods.

yes he certainly looks down on muggles. but unlike lucius, for example, we don't see him going out of his way to kill or torture them for sport. he does, however, seem to actively enjoy tormenting and degrading his pureblood followers - especially those of old and powerful families.

as someone of no known magical surname from an orphanage riddle would've been looked down on by these people once upon a time. and given the squalor that the gaunts lived in even if he showed up with the surname gaunt he probably wouldn't have gotten much more respect from the likes of the Blacks or the Malfoys.

i think he really relishes having these same people totally in his power now and being able to hurt and humiliate them on a whim.

[fanfictionroxs]

Lily Evans has abandonment issues thanks to Petunia and Severus. Petunia is the major contributor as that's her big sister who should have been her eternal confidant and best friend, but who has been abandoning her in increments their entire lives. Petunia, whose love remains conditional and prejudiced, who loathes Lily's very being, her jealousy turning to spite and bigotry because if she cannot have magic then it is wrong, immoral, unnatural... and so is her sister by extension. And Lily, who has only ever wanted two people in her life, watches one of them abandon her for no fault of her own. And then there's Sev, and I know I said Petunia was the major contributor to Lily's abandonment issues, but Sev was her hope. He was the hope Lily carried that she was worthy of love, that she deserved better despite her own sister's screams of freak! Sev was the one who assured her of this every time she cried about Tuney, Sev understood her, Sev would never choose anyone other than Lily, right? Wrong! Sev chooses Voldemort and abandons Lily for a side that wants her own eradicated, expecting Lily to remain content with him treating her unlike 'other' muggleborns. She's the 'special' one from the group of filth he despises, she's the one who 'deserves' to live, she's expected to fall in line and watch her own people burn while the bigots rejoice. At the end of fifth year, it may have been Lily that walked away, but it was Sev who stole her hope the second he called her mudblood. For in the 'mudblood!' resounds the 'freak!', Tuney and Sev's voices blending as one, attacking Lily's very essence, destroying her hope and faith. So, Lily takes the abandonment issues and vows to take down Voldemort and kill every damn death eater that dares cross her path on the battlefield. She will have no other friends, her trust gone up in flames, her Gryffindor courage extinguished in the face of her fear of being abandoned once more. And she carries that fear and nurtures it against James, so fearful yet resigned of him leaving her (he never will and he will spend their lifetime proving it to her). Lily nurtures that fear far more than she ever gets to nurture Harry, the one love she hopes will never leave her. And yet, it is her who leaves him because there's no other way to save Harry. But her magic stays, her love stays, Lily stays. The girl who got abandoned stays for her baby boy. The girl Lily Evans, the freak, the dirty blood envoking old powerful magic, her blood taking down Voldemort in life and in death for her own creation, her baby Harry. Lily stays.

[blorger]

So, picture this:

Here I am, sat in an internet-less room, twiddling my thumbs and waiting for time to crawl ever so slowly by. For lack of a better alternative, I start flipping through the pages of Chamber of Secrets and I notice A Thing.

"My, how peculiar" I say to myself, fully intending to let The Thing be, but alas; time moves slowly, boredom persists and, not unlike the tell-tale heart, The Thing calls to me.

"Come," it beckons, "notice me further". "Compile some data" it begs, "that's surely the most productive way to pass the time"; like a moth to a flame, I am caught.

This, dear reader, is how I found myself tallying all the different ways the word "mudblood" is used in canon. So gird your loins and let me introduce you to

The Mudblood Chronicles, or what's in a name?

part 1: methodology

Since the purpose of this exercise is to analyse the use of the term "mudblood" as a slur, I'm not going to count the times in which the word is not being used with malicious intent. Throughout the books this happens on several occasions, those being:

during the course of the narration (it happens once in the context of "everyone present knew mudblood was a very offensive term")

when Harry uses the term, since it only happens when he either recalls someone else saying it (one time with Draco and once with Snape) or he's forbidding Kreacher from using it (twice).

when Ron uses it; it happens once to explain the slur's meaning and once (in conjunction with Ginny) to demand Kreacher stop using the term.

when someone is quoting themselves. Draco quotes himself to Dumbledore once ("you care about me saying mudblood when I'm about to kill you?"; incidentally, it's also the last time he ever utters the word)

I am counting instances in which a muggleborn character uses the term to refer to themselves, since it happens in the context of reclaiming the insult and I am interested in who the author chooses to highlight thusly.

part 2: the results/ WHEN

The word "mudblood" and its plural "mudbloods" are used as an insult a total of 62 times in the Harry Potter books. Here we can see the book by book breakdown:

Unsurprisingly, The book where "mudblood" is used the most ( a total of 34 times) is Deathly Hallows since it takes place during a war about muggleborns. Chamber of Secrets, where the term is introduced, follows with 10 mentions, after which is Order of the Phoenix (7 mentions), followed by Goblet of Fire (6 mentions) and Half-Blood prince (5 mentions). The term "mudblood" is not used in either Philosopher's Stone or Prisoner of Azkaban.

part 3: the results/ WHO

So who is our biggest culprit?

Draco Malfoy is our uncontested lead, having both the advantage of appearing in all books and of orbiting around our narrator. Both Bellatrix and Kreacher make a good showing, with Bellatrix's 6 times being especially notable since they all occur during the course of Deathly Hallows.

Let's break this down further, shall we?

Despite introducing us to the term, Draco appears to scale back his usage of the slur as he ages.

Before partaking in this experiment, I was under the vague impression that, in the wizarding world, "mudblood" is seen as a childish insult. I can now see why: in times of peace (i.e. before Voldemort's resurrection), Draco is the only person in Harry's day-to-day life saying it and he himself peters off in the usage of "mudblood" as things get more serious. To Draco, it appears, "mudblood" IS a childish insult, and we'll see further proof of this at a later date.

part 4: the results/ HOW

Let us now look at how the term is used:

Unsurprisingly, the person "mudblood" is hurled most often at is Hermione. As a main character, she is the most visible muggleborn in the narrative and, if that wasn't enough, she is more often than not the only muggleborn present, even when it doesn't make much sense (Hermione is the only known muggleborn member of the order of the phoenix, an organization whose supposed aim is the fight for muggleborn rights.)

There are no known instances of the word "mudblood" being used to refer to any other muggleborn student during Harry's time at Hogwarts. Lily Evans is the only other school-aged character who gets the dubious honor of being a "mudblood".

Let's break this down further and look at who people are referring to when they say "mudblood":

*= Walburga's portrait never directly addresses Hermione, she only alludes to the presence of various filth (muggleborns, blood traitors, werewolves..) in her home. That said, Hermione is the only muggleborn we ever see in Grimmauld Place so it must stand to reason that Walburga is referring to her, just like she's indirectly referring to Remus Lupin when she mentions werewolves.

**= Both Hermione and Lily use the term mudblood to refer to themselves in an attempt to reclaim the slur, they both do it twice.

***= Our only "other" is mr Ted Tonks, who Bellatrix only mentions in order to disavow when Voldemort talks about the birth of Teddy Lupin.

Interestingly, the only people who ever refer to Lily Evans as "mudblood" to her face are Severus Snape (one instance recounted three separate times) and Lily Evans herself. Voldemort uses the insult when talking about her with Harry long after her death.

Of further note, our only written "mudblood" comes by courtesy of a ministry pamphlet Harry finds in Diagon Alley, heavily implied to have been written by one ms Dolores Umbridge.

part 5: a brief interlude/ Draco's language

Draco refers to Hermione as “Granger” 13 times and, while their interactions often consist of him talking about her blood status, he uses "mudblood" instead of her name only 4 times. Furthemore, there are 4 additional times where he uses both mudblood and Granger (as in "that mudblood Granger").

The very first time Draco mentions Hermione in the books occurs during this exchange with Lucius:

I find this interesting because, even in private, his first instinct is to use her given name. It's only after he is scolded by Lucius* that we get our first "mudblood", in a scene where he is once again feeling threatened by her.

*= Guess who never utters the word "mudblood"? Lucius. Even Narcissa does once (in DH, when she recognises Hermione at the manor)

part 6: conclusion

I am not a linguistics expert, I cannot tell wether JKR uses the slur she made up in a way that mimics real world slurs. What I can do with the data I compiled is try to track various characters' attitudes towards muggleborns in the books by looking at what they call them.

People whose views remain unchanged (Voldemort, Kreacher, Walburga) remain consistent with their usage of "mudblood"; Draco, who grows up as the books progress, scales back. Snape only ever uses the word once, in the past, and the incident is retold multiple times to signify its importance.

As the situation in the wizarding world worsens, more people feel emboldened to use an otherwise taboo term, as seen by how most one-off utterances of "mudblood" take place in book 7, during wartime.

Finally, I would like to note that we only ever hear two muggleborns' (Lily and Hermione) opinions on "mudblood" as a slur, the rest of the time it's mostly purebloods (and the occasional half-blood) telling us how to feel about the insult; I find that very interesting.

There. Now all this useless information is out of my brain and into the aether, where other nerds can ponder on its significance while this nerd here sleeps the sleep of the truly righteous.

xoxo

[casasupernovas]

i know legilimency according to snape is not simply mind reading but im gonna say it is, and i wanna talk about it.

we know snape can use this. he uses it on harry when he lies to his face about sectumsepra. i think pottermore also confirms he can do it. there's also a throwaway line from the very first book when harry says he feels like snape can read people's minds.

according to the wikia, snape used it when harry was trying to fight him during the 'flight of the prince' which is why he was able to deflect his spells so easily which is so. damn. COOL.

but remember when i said that when snape is talking to voldemort before he dies, his face is described as a death mask? like he already knows he's going to die? what if he could read voldemort's thoughts?

i feel like voldemort is good enough to deter this.

however.

throughout the entire conversation...snape's eyes are constantly said to be flickering towards nagini the whole time.

[fandoomrants]

Critically thinking about HP and the whole deal of parallels between Harry and Voldemort, and lots of people writing about Slytherin Harry, I present you the opposite - Gryffindor Voldemort.

Hear me out. Yes, he is the definition of a Slytherin but I believe that the whole housing system is a bit blurred and everyone has traits from all houses. Also, we know that you can more or less ask the Sorting hat to put you somewhere.

So I think Voldemort in Gryffindor would have been the biggest plot twist ever.

Just that. Nothing else different. Him, still being the heir of Slytherin, parseltongue, and all that. We know that what house you are doesn't depend on your ancestors but it makes sense that these things considered, he would be a Slytherin, no?

It would have been especially impactful around the events in Chamber of Secrets but also in the altogether narrative. However, what's more, it would have been best if it was revealed much later, and put Harry in existential crisis.

The whole idea of Slytherins presented as 'bad guys' from the beginning and the whole Gryffindor vs Slytherin is a bit flat. Yes, we do know of Slytherins that weren't 'bad' and Gryffindors that weren't noble and good, but picture that:

Everyone believing Voldemort to be a Slytherin. Everyone convinced that the things he did are true Slytherin traits, and it all leading to this. And suddenly, it turns out that's not the case, actually.

I can picture how Dumbledore would have been vague about it and not confirmed but also not corrected the overall belief.

So maybe Harry learns about Voldemort's true house in Half-Blood Prince, from Slughorn, when he learns about the Horcruxes.

It would be much more haunting and making him question their connection. It would also be yet another proof that the house is not a label for who you are as a person.

And it puts a whole new nuance to the whole battle of 'good vs evil'.

[keepmycandleburning]

An addition to my post about how Voldemort is really invested in other people's love lives: Voldemort has no respect for people's privacy or bodily autonomy, and likes to insert himself into people's space and force people to have a more intimate relationship with him than they desire.

He uses this as a form of punishment, knowing it makes people uncomfortable, and also as a form of entertainment because he finds their discomfort amusing.

He lived on the back of Quirrell's head for almost a YEAR as a punishment after Quirrell failed to steal the Stone from Gringotts. A YEAR. IMAGINE WHAT HE SAW. Quirrell could not have done ANYTHING without Lord Voldemort seeing it and hearing it. I mean he was there when he was using the toilet, masturbating, etc etc. And imagine if Voldemort could also feel all of Quirrell's bodily sensations.

Voldemort forced Wormtail to care for him like a helpless baby, again for almost a YEAR, hand-feeding him and picking him up and God only knows what else, when they could have easily done the resurrection ritual really at any point in time—even if he truly wanted nobody but Harry, Barty Jr. could have brought him from Hogwarts.

Voldemort is clearly amusing himself with the situations at this time, making multiple jokes in just the couple scenes he's in:

'Care for my bodily needs for me,' is such an insane punishment to give Wormtail (definitely a punishment, for being a traitor which Voldemort hates and maybe other reasons) and I do wonder if he also did this to the Malfoys in DH, like forcing them to make him food and watch him eat and so on. It's just so weird to imagine that because he seems so inhuman but I mean, he does it in GoF so...

He also has Wormtail approach him and dress him by hand when he comes out of the cauldron naked instead of just bending down and picking up the robes himself:

He makes interestingly similar comments in the GoF baby era and at Malfoy Manor in The Dark Lord Ascending:

Asking his servants a question he knows damn well the answer to is 'it makes me uncomfortable to have this level of proximity with you,' and forcing them to falsely claim they have no problem with it and they actually want it.

He appears to have literally moved into Lucius's house with him, or at the very least is using it as a professional base. I almost always see people interpreting it as that Voldemort lived at Malfoy Manor, which I don't necessarily think has to be true, but I think it's a fine interpretation, and I enjoy it.

With both Wormtail and the Malfoys, Voldemort forces them to witness him in a domestic setting, forces them to claim they want it, and makes them aware that he knows that they hate it, which he knows is terrifying.

While he's at Malfoy Manor, he inserts himself into their family business (as discussed in linked post), commenting on a marriage in the family, speculating on what children the couple is going to have and what relationship the children will have with the Malfoys. We can see he's clearly using this to amuse both himself and the group of Death Eaters, as he makes multiple jokes (implying Bellatrix may be happier about her family member marrying a werewolf than she is about Voldemort's presence, asking Draco if he is going to babysit the cubs) and allows the DEs to laugh.

He also turns Bellatrix's complimentary but not overly inappropriate comment into what I think is unquestionably a sexual innuendo, and then immediately intentionally embarrasses her and induces a group of almost all men to laugh at her:

Regarding Bellatrix, there's often a misconception of viewing Voldemort as someone who would not stoop to a certain level of bodily intimacy or give up his own privacy—but he shares an entire body with Quirrell, he willingly gives up all of his autonomy/privacy with Wormtail, he even rises out of the cauldron fully nude (could have been done privately, I mean the Riddle House is right there, just carry the blood up the hill) and forces Wormtail to again interact with his naked body (and his real one now, not just the baby one) to dress him. So yeah he very much would, and he does, over and over. Voldemort gets bottle-fed and probably diaper-changed for 11 months but noooo he'd never have sex. Be serious. Voldemort takes every physical intimacy he's offered and much more.

Also just want to note that Voldemort is prone to discussing people's personal lives also in situations where it is wanted. For example, Barty Jr. reveals at the end of GoF that they clearly had some personal conversations about Barty's relationship with his father where Voldemort also offered information about himself. Voldemort definitely seems to know Bellatrix personally, and I would very much guess they've had personal conversations. And also the conversations with Snape about Lily (see last post too)—when Snape comes to him about sparing her, they have a thorough enough conversation that Voldemort believes Snape just 'desired her' and then they follow up later about how there are better women for Snape. He likes other people's business!

Overall, I very often read Voldemort as doing things for a major purpose of entertaining himself. He seems to find amusement in many different situations he's in and make jokes to himself and others. His tendency to overstep boundaries of bodies and personal space—both intentionally and by necessity—is one of these things.

[slitheringghost]

Voldemort and Manipulation of Power Structures

I wanted to explore one of the most fascinating parts of Voldemort's character, which is his immense consciousness of the power hierarchy and structures of magical society and his ability to manipulate them, as well as his consciousness of his own place in those power structures, and how he often plays on those weaknesses.

There are many ways in which he demonstrates this - i.e. he tells Quirrell “There is no good and evil, there is only power" and seems to follow that regarding his own beliefs; he sees himself in followers similarly disenfranchised as him (Harry, Snape, Ginny, Bellatrix, etc.), and we see him use this with them as a combination of genuine identification and manipulation; and we especially see this hyperawareness of the pureblood power structures that killed Merope in the locket protections (see my meta Slytherin Locket Cave: The Life and Death of Merope Gaunt and this addendum) and how that ties into his consciousness of the legal system and who is vulnerable and disposable to it.

In this meta I’ll explore some more of those instances.

1. Chamber of Secrets

His interactions regarding the Chamber attacks are particularly telling:

“It was my word against Hagrid’s, Harry. Well, you can imagine how it looked to old Armando Dippet. On the one hand, Tom Riddle, poor but brilliant, parentless but so brave, school prefect, model student.. on the other hand, big, blundering Hagrid, in trouble every other week, trying to raise werewolf cubs under his bed, sneaking off to the Forbidden Forest to wrestle trolls

Well, how it looks... is that Armando Dippet, until Tom Riddle specifically clarified to him otherwise, was assuming Tom was Muggleborn, while there was a monster petrifying and hospitalizing Muggleborns for months and ended up killing one, and then told him he'd be safer at his orphanage. This is also something Tom plays on to Harry:

“My dear boy, you must see how foolish it would be of me to allow you to remain at the castle when term ends. Particularly in light of the recent tragedy... the death of that poor little girl.... You will be safer by far at your orphanage. As a matter of fact, the Ministry of Magic is even now talking about closing the school. We are no nearer locating the — er — source of all this unpleasantness...." “Lucky that I recorded my memories in some more lasting way than ink. But I always knew that there would be those who would not want this diary read.” [...] “I mean that this diary holds memories of terrible things. Things that were covered up.” [...] “Of course I know about the Chamber of Secrets. In my day, they told us it was a legend, that it did not exist. But this was a lie. In my fifth year, the Chamber was opened and the monster attacked several students, finally killing one. I caught the person who’d opened the Chamber and he was expelled. But the headmaster, Professor Dippet, ashamed that such a thing had happened at Hogwarts, forbade me to tell the truth. A story was given out that the girl had died in a freak accident. They gave me a nice, shiny, engraved trophy for my trouble and warned me to keep my mouth shut. But I knew it could happen again.”

Tom correctly points out Dippet’s embarrassment about the attacks and attempt to cover them up. Dumbledore says that “Dippet was very fond of Voldemort and convinced of his honesty”, yet that didn’t stop Dippet from initially seeing Tom’s life as disposable as other Muggleborns, and it’s clear Tom realized this fact.

2. Half-Blood Prince

There’s Tom joking about being the “half blood heir of Slytherin” with his friends, enjoying the irony of playing on his background:

“I don’t know that politics would suit me, sir,” he said when the laughter had died away. “I don’t have the right kind of background, for one thing.” A couple of the boys around him smirked at each other. Harry was sure they were enjoying a private joke, undoubtedly about what they knew, or suspected, regarding their gang leader’s famous ancestor.

And then the way he flirts with and manipulates Hepzibah Smith is particularly interesting to me, especially combined with his framing of Hokey and using Kreacher for the locket:

“Hurry up, Hokey!” said Hepzibah imperiously. “He said he’d come at four, it’s only a couple of minutes to and he’s never been late yet!” “Now then,” said Hepzibah happily, “where’s Hokey? Oh yes, there you are — take that away now, Hokey.” The elf obediently took the boxed cup, and Hepzibah turned her attention to the much flatter box in her lap.

“Now, now, not so fast, or I’ll think you’re only here for my trinkets!” pouted Hepzibah. “I am ordered here because of them,” said Voldemort quietly. “I am only a poor assistant, madam, who must do as he is told. Mr. Burke wishes me to inquire —”

Just like he recognizes the parallel between Merope’s treatment and a house elf/slavery, you can tell he’s noticing the same parallel with himself - and he’s playing into it.

Of course, plenty of his politeness with Hepzibah is necessity, but in the above quote he’s milking his “weakness” and playing the obedient servant - because he knows that power dynamic between them is what Hepzibah Smith is attracted to (and that she enjoys fussing over him as the “poor assistant” - i.e. Hepzibah feeding him with the cakes and telling him he’s overworked, etc.).

Then there’s his framing of his uncle - while the majority of the specifics of Morfin’s confession is revenge for his mother, you can tell Tom’s enjoying the irony of framing Morfin and getting him sent to Azkaban for killing Muggles as a fuck you to his pureblood relatives in general:

“And so what? Morfin gave a Muggle a bit of what was coming to him — what about it, then?” “Morfin has broken Wizarding law,” said Ogden sternly. “Morfin has broken Wizarding law.’” Gaunt imitated Ogden’s voice, making it pompous and singsong. Morfin cackled again. “He taught a filthy Muggle a lesson, that’s illegal now, is it?” [...] “Summons! Summons? Who do you think you are, summoning my son anywhere?” “I’m Head of the Magical Law Enforcement Squad,” said Ogden. “And you think we’re scum, do you?” screamed Gaunt, advancing on Ogden now, with a dirty yellow-nailed finger pointing at his chest. “Scum who’ll come running when the Ministry tells ’em to? Do you know who you’re talking to, you filthy little Mudblood, do you?”

“The Ministry, on the other hand, knew at once that this was a wizard’s murder. They also knew that a convicted Muggle-hater lived across the valley from the Riddle house, a Muggle-hater who had already been imprisoned once for attacking one of the murdered people. “So the Ministry called upon Morfin. They did not need to question him, to use Veritaserum or Legilimency. He admitted to the murder on the spot, giving details only the murderer could know. He was proud, he said, to have killed the Muggles, had been awaiting his chance all these years. He handed over his wand, which was proved at once to have been used to “kill the Riddles. And he permitted himself to be led off to Azkaban without a fight.

Of course this doesn't stop him being a total hypocrite and looking down on Muggles himself, just like his awareness of house-elf oppression and ability to use it doesn’t stop him from completely underestimating Kreacher.

Because one of the biggest ways Voldemort’s arrogance manifests is his belief in his ability to manipulate these power structures, how he sees himself as an outsider in magical society who is always chessmaster-ing it, his certainty that everyone else but him are simply too imprisoned by those oppressive structures to resist against and fight back against them - that he’s the only one that can truly rise above them.

[bookwormangie]

I recently saw a post on tiktok about Neville as a potentially great chosen one if he had been picked, and I wanted to share my thoughts and rant a little because I don’t have much else to talk about, lol.

I believe ppl are missing a crucial point here. If Voldemort had targeted Neville instead of Harry, things would have played out very differently. Neville most likely wouldn’t have survived at all and wouldn’t have become "the Boy Who Lived."

Firstly, let’s discuss Snape. His role in Harry’s survival is massive. Snape’s love for Lily led him to ask Voldemort to spare her, and he then went to Dumbledore to beg for her protection. The Potters went into hiding, and Dumbledore cast the fidelius charm. Unfortunately, they were eventually betrayed by Peter. Since Snape wouldn’t have done this for the Longbottoms, they wouldn’t have gone into hiding (unless Dumbledore had been tipped off by someone else). This would have made it easier for Voldemort to find them.

Secondly, the protection Harry received from his mother’s sacrifice was unique. Lily’s choice to sacrifice herself for Harry created a magical protection that caused Voldemort’s curse to rebound, leading to his temporary downfall. This was possible because Voldemort gave her the choice to step aside. Alice and Frank, though loving and brave, wouldn’t have had the same opportunity to step aside for Neville. Snape wouldn’t have asked Voldemort to spare them, so Voldemort wouldn’t have given them a chance to step aside. As a result, Neville wouldn’t have received the same sacrificial protection, and Voldemort would have succeeded in killing him.

In short, if Voldemort had targeted Neville, the lack of Snape’s intervention and the absence of the Fidelius Charm and sacrificial protection would likely have led to the Longbottoms' deaths. Neville wouldn’t have become the boy who lived, and the wizarding world’s history would have been completely different.

I personally speculate that if Voldemort had succeeded in killing Neville, he might have then turned his attention to Harry to prevent the prophecy from coming true. Given Voldemort’s nature, he would likely have sought to eliminate any remaining threat. Snape would've intervened (assuming he was aware), potentially resulting in a scenario similar to the one we know. This would mean Harry could still become the chosen one and “the Boy Who Lived,” despite the different circumstances. It’s an intriguing thought—how fate might realign even when the paths change.

This has probably been discussed before, but I just needed to yap a little. It’s been a while since I posted!

[expectopatronum18]

I feel like Narcissa Malfoy is rather overhyped(when she isn't being forgotten completely) as a character. She is the perfect example of 'the aristocratic wife' until the real world hits her in the face (and even then it takes a while).

Coz in the books she doesn't do shit. We have no indication that she has any sort of job(not that she'd need one). You could say she raised Draco but I don't count that because she did such a bad job at it; Draco turned out to be a spoilt, entitled bully (tho ofc Lucius equally shares the blame for this). She was pretty, came from money and a respectable family, and had no real valuable contribution of her own (unlike bellatrix who had the first 2 things too but was voldemort's right hand DE). Lucius has a constant presence in the books, we see different ways in which he subtly exercises his power and influence (ranging from donations to cozy up to fudge to threatening the other board governors that he'll curse their families if the don't remove dumbledore from the position of headmaster), plus his whole arc from one of voldemort's most trusted DEs (he was entrusted with a horcrux) to the pathetic situation we see him in in DH. Narcissa, however, has nothing of this sort. She's briefly introduced during the Qudditch world cup, not mentioned at all in book 5, and is an absolute dumbass in book 6.

Ik tht last one is controversial, but i was with bellatrix the whole time, coming to snape was fucking stupid. I get tht she thought he was on their side, especially considering he was with the DEs during the first war too, but y tf would u trust a double agent? Him convincingly answering all of bellatrix's questions means nothing, its obvious that he'll hv similarly tailored answers for dumbledore. I get that she was terrified and desperate, but it always struck me as odd that she never volunteered to take her 16 y/o son's place to get the task done (or at least we don't get any mention of this, and at any rate i don't think voldy wud hv oblidged considering this was punishment for lucius's failures), or if she already knew that this wasn't a viable option, she doesn't even try to help him out herself. Instead she runs straight to snape and weeps on his floor. This is so unlike, say, lily, who stood in btw her baby boy and voldemort. Mind u, the whole thing worked out only because dumbledore put on the ring and was going to die in a yr, she got lucky( imo this is lyk remus getting lucky with keeping sirius being an animagus as a secret coz he didn't turn out to be a mass murderer after all). U couldn't even say she was using snape too because she's clearly too distraught in tht scene to be doing any kind of manipulation. It all falls on the shoulder of her 16 y/o son to keep his family safe from voldemort.

She doesn't do anything throughout book 7 until the very end, where she lies to voldemort just to know if her son's alive or not, which inadvertently leads to voldemort being defeated by harry. This is only thing of substance she does in the entire series(and likewise i ll give her the credit, it was ballsy asf). As much as i appreciate her for what she did in the end, i think the fact that it took her roughly 40 years to do something of value is heavily ignored.

[saintsenara]

Are you a Voldemort (“more”) or Voldemort (hard “t”) girl?

thank you very much for the ask, anon!

i'm a hard t girly without deviation, and i have two reasons as for why.

the first is that - as i've expanded on a little here - there's no way that a child from tom riddle's background would ever have formally encountered the french language and its phonetic conventions, and there's no way this would have been remedied at hogwarts, since the school doesn't [appear to] teach modern languages.

but riddle could have taught himself [some] french from books, meaning he'd be able to read the language, but not necessarily speak - and certainly not correctly pronounce - it. that is, he wouldn't realise the "t" in "mort" should be silent, and would pronounce his new name according to english phonetics.

this is a very neat distillation of who voldemort is. someone who would seek out the linguistic knowledge which many of his pureblood peers - who would very probably have been taught french as children by their governesses - had by virtue of their births to create the french-inspired moniker he uses to demonstrate his blood-supremacist importance, but who is restrained by his childhood and his class background from getting it completely right.

poor thing...

except the second reason - which is my preferred explanation - is that the hard t pronunciation is both deliberate and correct on voldemort's part, because we aren't supposed to think of "voldemort" as a french name at all.

there seems to be a fanon tendency to assume that many of the pureblood families we meet in canon have close, recent ties to france - that is, that they have french cousins or second cousins, own property in france, and speak french fluently as a native or heritage language.

and i do understand why this is, since many of the pureblood surnames we meet in canon - malfoy and lestrange being the most obvious examples - appear at first glance to be french.

but here we have something that i suspect gets lost in translation for readers outside of britain and ireland - which is why the fanon of purebloods having recent french heritage has developed - which is that these names are not [contemporary] french.

they are anglo-norman.

this is term which stems from the linguistic development which took place after england was invaded in 1066 by william the conqueror, a nobleman from normandy in northwestern france, who overthrew the reigning king - harold godwinson - and took the throne for himself.

harold and his people were speakers of old english - a germanic language, from the same language family from which dutch would emerge - while william spoke old norman - a romance language, from the same language family from which modern french and other langues d'oïl dialects would emerge.

the crashing together of two peoples, speaking languages from different linguistic families, resulted in the strange mongrel language anglo-norman, which gave way to middle english, and then to contemporary english - and it's the direct cause of why english has such a broad vocabulary, with subtle distinctions between words with ostensibly similar meanings like "deer" and "venison", "sheep" and "mutton", "kingly" and "royal", "ghost" and "spirit", "hopelessness" and "despair", "woods" and "forest", and "thoughtful" and "pensive", where other romance languages [french included] do not.

[a point which borges made far better than i do.]

to secure his position on the throne, william elevated his fellow norman conquerors to aristocratic status alongside - and often above - the existing anglo-saxon nobility.

these parvenu families had names which persist in britain today - baskerville, beaumont, clare, courtenay, d'arcy, de vere, devereux, gascoigne, harcout, lacey, latimer, lucy, mandeville, percy, purfoy, sinclair, vincent, and so on - including among families which continue to hold aristocratic titles, and among families who are not titled but who are nonetheless rich and socially prominent.

[the common joke that the royal family are, by the standards of the aristocracy, nouveau riche upstarts is because they have a germanic name - saxe-coburg-gotha - rather than an anglo-norman one.]

and within the world of harry potter, many of the pureblood [or recently pureblood] families we meet in canon have anglo-norman names which were historically aristocratic or gentry - avery, burke, crouch, fortescue, gaunt, lestrange, montague, sayre, travers, and so on. malfoy is a name jkr invented, but it conforms to the same principles - since, it should be noted, it's a play on an existing anglo-norman noble surname, purfoy [which means "pure faith" where malfoy means "bad faith"].

so names like malfoy are intended by the text to communicate that the people holding them are from old, posh, and very probably wealthy families - but from families which are nonetheless supposed to be understood as historically and culturally british.

[although not necessarily english - burke is a name widely found in ireland, for example, due to ireland's own anglo-norman colonisation.]

and one reason why these names are understood as british is linguistic - they're not pronounced in english the way they would be in french, not because they're being pronounced wrongly, but because they're part of languages which have evolved separately over the course of a millennium.

[the best examples? beauchamp - pronounced "bee-cham" - and mainwaring - pronounced "manner-ring".]

we say "malfoy", rather than "malfoi", and "lestrange" rather than "l'étrange" for this reason. and so we would - if we want to think of it as an anglo-norman, rather than a french, word - say "voldemort" rather than "voldemore".

the canonical voldemort is, without a doubt, a sincere blood- and magic-supremacist. he genuinely believes that the malfoys and lestranges are superior to those with muggle blood [even if he doesn't consider himself to fall under that category], and that this should give them social importance and power over the muggleborn and mixed-blood underclasses.

but what he isn't is someone who is deferential to the wizarding world's established class system, which assigns social importance and power on the basis of name, financial status, and adherence to social custom - since, of course, he is directly disadvantaged by this because he's born "tom riddle" and he grew up in an orphanage, no matter the antiquity of his maternal line and the immensity of his magical talent.

blood purity and magical power is certainly a significant part of this class system. but we can draw out of the text that its significance is clearly not expressed in the way voldemort thinks it should be.

we see throughout the latter half of the canon series that voldemort loathes the death eaters - such as anglo-norman legend lucius malfoy - who pretended not to have served him post-1981. and we also know that what he particularly dislikes is the idea that these death eaters disavowed him in order to continue enjoying the comfortable lives the established class system afforded them, rather than committing to his clearly more radical vision for how power relations should work in the wizarding world by refusing to disavow him:

"Lucius, my slippery friend," he whispered, halting before him. "I am told that you have not renounced the old ways, though to the world you present a respectable face. You are still ready to take the lead in a spot of Muggle-torture, I believe? Yet you never tried to find me, Lucius... Your exploits at the Quidditch World Cup were fun, I daresay... but might not your energies have been better directed toward finding and aiding your master?"

a huge amount of voldemort's relationship with the death eaters is based in his distaste for the esteem in which they hold the established class system. but, above and beyond this, it's based in the pleasure he gains from mocking them for this esteem.

he squats in their houses, refusing to follow the social conventions expected of guests by commandeering their domestic space as he sees fit. he insults his hosts when in company. he emasculates the male head of the families he has insinuated his way into by behaving like he's the person in charge of the household. he fucks at least one of their wives. he regards their children as his to do with as he wishes. he has no interest in manners or deportment or "correct" self-presentation and behaviour.

he makes them call him - a half-blood orphan who could never hope to outrank them in the system they revere - "my lord", and bow to him, and kiss the hems of his robes, and debase themselves for his favour.

we know that - as a teenager - voldemort spent a huge amount of time researching wizarding genealogy. without a doubt, the etymology of wizarding names would have been mentioned by the books and documents he used to do this.

and so it stands to reason that - in becoming lord voldemort - tom riddle deliberately assumed a name he intended to be understood as having the same anglo-norman flavour as those of his pureblood servants. whether he knew how voldemort would be pronounced in modern french or not is irrelevant - even if the hard t comes from a poor boy's ignorance of french phonetics, it doesn't diminish the actual purpose of the name in the slightest...

because what calling himself lord voldemort signifies is his contempt for - and his mockery of - the death eaters. it takes something they're so proud of - that their names indicate antiquity and nobility; that they are conferred social importance on the basis of their names alone - and shows that he considers both of these things singularly unimpressive.

why - it croons - would someone like lucius be so proud of bearing the malfoy name that he'd lie to the wizengamot and pretend he never prostrated himself at lord voldemort's feet just so the family reputation didn't have to take a hit?

why would he bother? when lord voldemort can invent a name which alludes to exactly the same linguistic principles whenever he likes and have it afforded infinitely more respect [so much respect that people literally fear to speak it!] than any of his servants' names ever have been or ever will be.

a diva!