Origin of Lord Voldemort – Harry Potter Explained!

Origin of Lord Voldemort – Explained!

My favorite villain of all times after the Joker from Batman is undoubtedly Lord Voldemort. Not only that but he is one of my favorite characters from the Harry Potter Series. I find him very fascinating and intriguing – hence the blog post entirely on him.

J.K. Rowling has created this character by incorporating some of the evilest qualities that the mankind had seen in the reality. She gives him a touch of Adolf Hitler, which can be noticed as the character is built over the series of novels.

So, let’s get started with the life story of one of the most well-portrayed villains of all time, starting right from his heritage to his death which spends over the course of 76 years (1922 – 1998).

He comes from the Gaunt family, who are the last living relatives of the Salazar Slytherin himself, one of the founders of the Hogwarts, who famously had the rare ability to speak to snakes. The family was cent percent pure blood over the course of their entire history.

Merope Gaunt, Voldemort’s Mother, was physically and mentally abused on regular basis by her father, Marvolo Gaunt and her brother, Morfin Gaunt. She was taught to be a squib because her magical abilities had not been revealed themselves. The family had a lot of gold but it was squandered several generations before Marvolo was born. All they owned was Salazar Slytherin’s Locket and a ring that was a Gaunt family heirloom, which was actually the resurrection stone one of the deathly hallows. 

Merope was taken by a rich and handsome Muggle boy named Tom Riddle who lived in the mansion up the way from their disgusting small house. 

Morfin shot a spell at him one day when she was admiring him while gardening. This, of course, broke the law of wizards not being allowed to use magic in front of Muggles – non-magic folks. A ministry agent came to see Morfin to give him information on his hearing because he had broken the law. Everything went south and it turned out that the ministry agent had to call for backup and there was a duel between Morfin and his father Marvolo and the ministry officials. Marvolo and Morfin of course lost, and Morfin was sentenced to three years in Azkaban, and Marvolo was sentenced to six months. 

Finally freeing Merope from her awful family. Without the constant abuse from her father and brother her magical abilities finally manifested and Merope fled from the house taking nothing but Slytherin’s locket. She started giving Tom Riddle, the boy she was taken by, a Love Potion and eventually they got married and Merope became pregnant with the person whose name should not be uttered aka Lord Voldemort.

Due to the fact that Voldemort was conceived under a love potion, he was never able to feel or express love in his life. Merope thought that since she and Tom had spent so much time together, that he might actually love her and if not that, he would at least stay for the baby. So, she stopped giving him the love potion the reason being, that she did not want to enslave the love of her life anymore. Unfortunately, she was wrong and Tom left her alone, pregnant with the baby. Her heartbreak made her never use magic again. Merope sold Slytherin’s locket to Borgin, the owner of Borgin and Burkes, which will be important later on. Merope became ill, and she goes to an orphanage, where she gave birth to Tom – (Voldemort) and died one hour later. Her last request being that the baby was named Tom for his father, Marvolo for her father, and with the surname of Riddle. Tom Marvolo Riddle was born on December 31st, 1926.

As a baby, he hardly cried, according to the Matron of the orphanage. As he got older, it was clear that he was the spitting image of his handsome Muggle father, who he was named after. He never had any family visitors, and he scared the other children at the orphanage. Although there was never any proof that he did so, he hung Billy’s bunny – a kid at the orphanage by the rafters after he had an argument with Billy the day before. When the kids from the orphanage were taken on a trip to the countryside, Tom and two other kids named Amy and Dennis went into a cave that they found. Amy and Dennis were never quite right afterward. The only information they ever got out of them as they went into a cave with Tom and Tom swore that they just went exploring. Although Tom did not know he possessed magical powers, his abilities with them were very developed for his age and he used them for his own gain and to bully other children.

Young Tom Riddle: “I can move things without touching them, I can make animals do what I want without training them, I can make bad things happen to people who are mean to me. I can make them hurt.”

Tom collected trophies by stealing things from the kids that he bullied, as sort of a reward for his acts of unkindness. When Tom was eleven he got a visitor from the School of Witchcraft and Wizardry – Hogwarts, named Albus Dumbledore – his first ever visit. He explains to Tom as to what he is and what Hogwarts is. Tom’s immediate reaction is, and I quote, “It is Magic what I can do? I knew I was different. I knew I was special.”  During this visit, we see for the first time the way he uses his charm to get what he wants. He demands to know where he can get a wand like Dumbledores. He goes from demanding to putting on his charm and changing his face in an instant to look sincere and says, “I am sorry sir, I meant please professor, could you show me?” Now some important qualities of Tom that are revealed here include the fact that he can speak Parseltongue – speaking to snakes or more specifically “Snake Language”. This was the gene acquired from his mother’s side of the family.

Young Tom Riddle, “I can speak to snakes too… they find me… Whisper things… Is that normal for someone like me?”

We see as a kid he is highly sufficient, secretive, and friendless. He preferred to operate on his own, traits that we will, of course, see later on when he gets older. We also see that he showed contempt for anything that tied him to other people or anything that made him ordinary he wished to be different, separate, and notorious. An example of this is how he felt about his name.

“You dislike the name ‘Tom’?” … “There are a lot of Toms”

Later on, we know he would drop his name and give himself a new one. After Dumbledore met Tom, his initial thoughts on the boy were this – “His ability to speak to serpents did not make me nearly as uneasy as his obvious instincts for cruelty, secrecy, and domination.” Tom came to Hogwarts and was placed in Slytherin almost the second the sorting hat hit his head. While at school Tom used his charm and never showed signs of outward arrogance or aggression that he had shown Dumbledore that day in the orphanage. According to Dumbledore, he drew the attention and sympathy of almost all the staff as soon as he arrived because he was an unusually talented and very good looking orphan. He seemed polite, quite, and thirsty for knowledge.

Professor Slughorn, “When I first met young Mr. Riddle, he was quiet, obedient, and brilliant boy committed to becoming a first rate wizard. If a monster existed, it was buried deep within.”

Tom was one of the top students of the school and became the Prefect in his fifth year. While at school tom was obsessed with his parentage and he searched for evidence that his father went to Hogwarts in every way he could think of, but did not find anything. He, of course, thought it was his father that was the wizard because of his mother… and I quote, “had succumbed to the shameful human weakness of death.”  This is showing the first sign that he despised death. When he couldn’t find anything on his father Tom Riddle, he assumed that his father was not a wizard. So that’s when he dropped his name, Tom Riddle and took on the name, Lord Voldemort.

Teenage Tom Riddle, “Surely you don’t think I was going to keep my filthy Muggle father’s name. No, I fashioned myself a new name, a name I knew wizards everywhere would one day fear to speak.”

Voldemort is loosely translated to “Flight from Death” which of course is his biggest fear in life… just another brilliant idea from the author J.K. Rowling. After he found no trace of his father in the magical world, he started to search for evidence of his mother’s side of the family and found Marvolo Gaunt, his grandfather whom he was named after. While at school he got a group of dedicated “friends” and when I say friends it just for one of the better words. As Dumbledore stated, “Lord Voldemort has never had a friend nor do I believe that he ever wanted one.” These friends would first become the first generation “Death Eaters” – Lord Voldemorts followers. These friends were rigidly controlled by Tom and they were never detected in open wrongdoings. Although in their seven years of Hogwarts marked a number of nasty incidents, they were never satisfactorily linked to.

After Tom finished his fifth year at Hogwarts, he went on summer holiday and took a visit to the old family Gaunt house where Merope grew up. He found his uncle Morfin there. Morfin was wearing the Gaunt family ring, and he tried to attack Voldemort thinking, he was Tom Riddle Senior the man his sister had run off with, and so Voldemort spoke in Parseltongue to him and Morfin realized he was not Tom Riddle Senior. Voldemort asked Morfin who he was referring to and Morfin told him about the Muggle family that lived in the mansion up the way and how Tom Riddle senior had abandoned his mother while pregnant with him.Voldemort stupefied Morfin, took his wand and went up to the Riddle Mansion. He found his father and his Muggle grandparents at the dinner table and killed them all with Morfin’s wand. He then returned to the Gaunt House, used extremely advanced magic especially for 16 years old, to modify Morfin’s memory, and make him think that he was the one who killed the Riddles and was proud of it. The, he stole the ring from his uncle placed Morfin’s wand back and un-stupefied him and left. When the ministry came to the Gaunt House, Morfin bragged that he had killed the Riddles. Which were exactly Lord Voldemort’s plan and the ministry saw that Morfin’s wand was the one that killed the family! They never did any more digging into it because it looked like a closed case. Morfin spent rest of his life in the Prisons of Azkaban. The only words he ever spoke for the rest of his life were, “He will kill me for losing the ring”.

During his sixth year, Voldemort starts to research “Horcruxes” a way to make himself immortal he goes to his favorite professor – Professor Slughorn and asks him how it works?

Prof. Slughorn, “The Horcrux is an object which a person has concealed a part of their soul and splits one soul and hides part of it in an object by doing so you are protected, should you be attacked and your body destroyed, part of your soul that was hidden still lives on. In other words, you cannot die.”

Teenage Tom Riddle, “And how does one split his soul, sir?”

Prof. Slughorn, “I think you already know the answer to that!”

Teenage Tom Riddle, “MURDER!”

Prof. Slughorn, “Yes, killing splits the soul apart. It is a violation of Nature.”

Voldemort then asks him whether it is possible to split the soul into seven pieces the most powerfully magic number. During the sixth year, he the Heir to Slytherin opened the Chamber of Secrets that led to the death of a Muggle-born girl named Myrtle. This is when he made his first Horcrux. He used Myrtle's death to split his soul for the first time and placed that part of the soul in his diary. Later when he finds out the school might close because of this, he gets scared and reacts by framing Hagrid – a half-giant for opening the Chamber and becomes a hero getting a special award for services to the school. During his remaining years of Hogwarts, it is unknown exactly when but Voldemort used the Death of his father Tom Riddle Senior to make the second Horcrux in the Gaunt Ring – he stole from Morfin. During his remaining year, she also talked to the Gray Lady – the Ghost of Ravenclaw, who also happened to be Rowena Ravenclaw’s daughter and uses his charm to get the information he wants out of her. The Gray Lady tells him about how she stole the diadem from her mother and hid it in a hollow tree in the forest in Albania.

Voldemort finished at Hogwarts with top grades in every exam he took and got many offers from professors to set up job interviews to work in the Ministry of Magic, but he refused them all. He instead approaches the then Head Master Professor Dippet, that he could remain at Hogwarts as a teacher to teach Defense Against the Dark Arts. Hogwarts was the first and the only place that he felt home and he wanted to stay because he had unlocked so many secrets, more than anybody had before him. He also thought it would be a useful recruiting ground to build himself an army. Dippet said that he was too young, but he should come back in a few years, and then he can teach. Voldemort then gets a job at a shop called Borgins and Burkes in Knockturn Alley, which has been mentioned earlier (the same shop where his mom sells the locket). 

This is a decision that many people thought was a waste of his many talents, while there his job was to use his charm to make people part with their treasures for sale and he was very gifted at it. One lady, he visited very often who was named Hepzibah Smith, used his charm to get on her good side by bringing her flowers, kissing her hand and just being overall handsome and mannerly making this hideous woman feel beautiful. She shows him two artifacts that she is most proud of which are two of the four Heirlooms of the four founders of Hogwarts- the Hufflepuff Cup. Which she inherited because she is a descendant of the Hufflepuff and the locket of Salazar Slytherin – which she had bought from Borgin. Borgin had acquired this from Voldemort’s mother when she sold it to him while she was pregnant. Voldemorts leaves and returns two days later, he takes the cup and the locket kills Hepzibah Smith and makes his Third Horcrux in Hufflepuff’s cup – once again we see how he takes trophies for his wrongdoings, just as he did when he was in an orphanage. He then modified the memory of Hepzibah’s house Elf to make her think that he accidentally poisoned her master and again it looked like a closed case. Hence, the Ministry never investigated it further until they realized that the cup and the locket were gone. By the time they realized this, however, Voldemort had resigned from his job at Borgin and Burkes and had vanished and would not return for ten years. During these ten years, he continued to find make and hide these Horcruxes.

To make the Locket Horcrux he kills the Muggle tramp. He then goes to the Albanian Forest where the Gray Lady had told him the Lost Diadem of Ravenclaw lay, he found it in the hollow tree, just as she said. He then killed an Albanian Peasant to make his Fifth Horcrux in the Diadem. He starts to find the hiding places for the five Horcruxes he has made so far. He gives the Diary to his loyal follower Lucius Malfoy with the instructions that one day he will send this to Hogwarts and the part of the soul of Voldemort that lives in it will open the Chamber of Secrets again. This Horcrux was a sort of a throwaway one for the Lord Voldemort used less as a safeguard but more as a weapon. He hid the Gaunt Ring in the Gaunt house where his mother, uncle, and grandfather had lived in the exact place that he had stolen it in the first place. He used magical enchantments to conceal it. He gave the Hufflepuff’s Cup to Bellatrix Lestrange – another one of his loyal followers and told her to put it in her highly secure vault at Gringotts Guarded by a Dragon. He hid the Locket in the cave that he visited while at the orphanage and made the kids Amy and Dennis never the same. To hide the fifth and the final Horcrux he had made so far – the Diadem, he finally comes out of hiding and uses his visit to Hogwarts to meet with Dumbledore to his advantage. He meets Dumbledore to discuss the job position that the Headmaster Dippet had promised him years ago. His appearance after ten years of vanishment is described as follows: He was no longer the handsome Tom Riddle, it was as though his features had been burned and blurred they were waxy and oddly distorted and the whites of his eyes now had a permanently bloody look and his face was as pale as the snow. Dumbledore refuses to give him a job position that he was promised and Voldemort puts a curse on the job making it impossible for one Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher to stay for more than one school year. He then goes to the Room of Requirement a secret room that opens and becomes whatever you need it to be. What he needed was a place to hide something and there are mountains and mountains of things that people have had to hide over the many years that the castle existed. Voldemort hides the Diadem in there thinking that nobody would be able to find it. Over the next fifteen years, Voldemort goes on to recruit giants, dementors, and more of his followers – death eaters; to become one of the most powerful wizards of all time. He had become the Magical Tyrant the world had ever seen, people were afraid to say his name and cower in fear at the mention of him.

Ollivander – the wand shop owner, “We do not speak his name.”

He killed hundreds of people and takes over the magical world, spreading fear and chaos all over. It seems as though nothing can stop him, not even Dumbledores Alliance – the Order of the Phoenix. That is until he is told of a prophecy by one of his death eaters Severus Snape.

The Prophecy states as follows: One with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord approaches … born to those who have thrice defied him, born as the seventh month dies … and the Dark Lord will mark him as his equal, but he will have power the Dark Lord knows not … and either must die at the hand of the other for neither can live while the other survives…

This prophecy he realizes matches the baby boy named Harry Potter he decides to take care of this problem and his only threat by finishing the one-year-old boy off. Voldemort not knowing that by doing this he would mark Harry Potter as his equal just as the prophecy said, thereby setting the prophecy in stone. Harry’s mother jumped in between Harry and Voldemort and died saving her son, this puts a protection on Harry through the power of Love – the power Dark Lords knows not. Hence, when Voldemort went to kill Harry the protection his mother had just given him by sacrificing herself made the killing curse – Avada Kevadra rebound and hit Voldemort. This should have killed him but did not because his soul still lived on in several of the Horcruxes he had already made. When the curse rebounded a part of Voldemort’s soul latched itself on to Harry making Harry the Horcrux Voldemort never meant to make. This marked Harry as his equal. Voldemort was barely alive, just a part of a soul clinging to any living organism it could find.

Rubeus Hagrid, “Some say he died, codswallop in my opinion. Nope, I reckon he is out there still. Too tired to carry on.”

The only power he still possessed was to latch on to others’ bodies. He fled to the Albanian Forest where he had found the lost Diadem and jumped from animal to animal, his preference being snakes. But it killed the animal quickly. After 10 years of this suffering, a man that worked at Hogwarts – Professor Quirrell came across Voldemort in the forest while researching and allowed Voldemort to latch on to him. He wore a turban to cover Voldemort’s Face on the back of his head and drank unicorn blood to keep his master alive. The eventual goal was to get the sorcerer’s stone (the philosopher’s stone) and drink its Elixir of life to get Voldemort back to its full strength once again. He was stopped by the boy who he had marked his equal ten years before. The protection Harry’s mother – Lily Potter gave him allowed him to kill Prof. Quirrell and forced Lord Voldemort to leave his body. Dark Lord then fled back to the Albanian Forest again. A few months later the Diary the first Horcrux he made was still in Lucius Malfoy’s possession until he put it in a cauldron of a girl named Ginny Weasley along other school books. Assuring that it will make its way to Hogwarts. This set in a stone, the plan that Voldemort had all along to reopen the Chamber of Secrets. The part of Voldemort’s soul who lived in the Diary possessed Ginny Weasley and made her open a Chamber. He then captured her and was using her to make himself permanently brought back to life. But was again stopped by Harry Potter who destroyed the Horcrux with a fang from the Basilisk the Monster known to the Chamber of Secrets; thereby destroying the first Horcrux. One year later, one of his followers Peter Pettigrew, otherwise known as the Wormtail found Voldemort in the Albanian Forest with the help of rats. Voldemort instructed Wormtail how to make a temporary body with the help of spells. Voldemort created himself. His snake Nagini and her snake Venom along with the Unicorn Blood gave him a very temporary and weak body but was enough to carry out the plans to get his permanent body. Wormtail then brought him a Ministry agent named – Bertha Jorkins, who Voldemort tortured to get information out of her and then killed her and used her death to make his final Horcrux in his Snake Nagini. In total, his soul was split into eight pieces.

1. Tom Marvolo Riddle
2. The Diary
3. The Ring
4. The Cup
5. The Locket
6. The Diadem
7. Harry Potter
8. Nagini the snake

Bertha tells him about the Triwizard Tournament, as he tortures her, that it is going to take place at Hogwarts and informed him about one of his most loyal followers who were in hiding and is still alive even though everyone else thinks him dead – Barty Crouch Junior. Voldemort reaches out to him and instructs him to disguise as Professor Madeye Moody, and he hoodwinked the tournament to force Harry to play in it and Crouch Junior makes sure that he wins. To win you must touch the cup first which Crouch Junior had turned into a portkey that when Harry touches it, it would lead him right to the Riddle Mansion. 

This is when Voldermort gets a full and permanent body with a concoction made from three ingredients: A bone from his father they took from his grave, flesh given by a servant which was Wormtail’s hand and finally blood of a foe. Voldemort wanted it to be Harry’s blood so that the magical protection his mother gave him wouldn’t work anymore because Harry’s blood would then be in his system as well, thus canceling out the protection. This aided Voldemort to easily touch Harry without getting hurt or dying. 

Voldemort’s new appearance was described as whiter than a skull, with wide, livid scarlet eyes and a nose that was flat as a snake’s with slits for nostrils. He tried to kill Harry but was stopped by the most recent victims of his killing curse including Harry’s parents coming out of his wand because of something called Priori Incantatem. Harry escapes and informs the Ministry that Dark Lord is back. But to Harry’s nightmare, no one believes him. Voldemort takes advantage of this ignorance from the Ministry to build an army again.

Finally, he reveals himself one year later and this is the start of the second wizarding war. Voldemort once again spreads chaos and fear and eventually takes over the Ministry of Magic he also takes over Hogwarts after the planned death of Albus Dumbledore reinstating Snape as the Headmaster, along with the carrows who are siblings those were also death eaters. Voldemort finds out through torturing the wand maker Ollivander that he and Harry’s wand are brothers because they share a tail feather from the same Phoenix, which is why he hasn’t been able to kill Harry. He decides to go after the most powerful wand in the world – the Elder Wand, one of the Deathly Hallows. He eventually finds out that it was last in Dumbledore’s possession and is buried with him now. He goes to Dumbledores grave and gets the elder wand and thinks he is even more unstoppable than he was before.

Somewhere around this time, he conceived a child with Bellatrix Lestrange and his daughter Delphine was born in the mid to late 1998, before the battle of Hogwarts. Voldemort finds out that the cup from the Lestranges vault is gone and he kills everyone in the room. He goes to check the other Horcruxes hiding spots including the Gaunt House where the ring was gone, and he assumes is destroyed, then the cave and the locket was gone too. There are only three Horcruxes left that he knows of, the Diadem, his Snake Nagini, and the cup. One of it isn’t safe as Harry already has the cup that he just stole. He decides that Nagini is never leaving his side again. He then gets a word that Harry is in Hogsmeade the village right next to Hogwarts. So, he takes his entire army to Hogwarts and the battle of Hogwarts takes place. During this battle, Hufflepuff cup is destroyed and the Diadem as well. There are only two Horcruxes left; Harry which he still does not know about and Nagini. After many hours of the battle, Voldemort tells his forces to retreat and asks that Harry meet him in the Forest to face his destiny. Harry obeys and comes to the Forest and Voldemort kills him. Thereby, killing the Horcrux he never knew he made inside Harry. Through some extreme measures, Harry comes back which Voldemort does not know as he shows Harry’s supposed dead body to his friends and family. Neville Longbottom one of Harry’s friends and ally steps forward and kills the snake with Godric Gryffindor’s sword, destroying the last Horcrux.

Finally, making Voldemort vulnerable to death. After Neville does this the fight begins again and in the Chaos, Harry gets up and faces Voldemort for their final confrontation, which finally leads to the death of Lord Voldemort otherwise known as Tom Riddle. He died on May 22nd, 1998. Because of the damage, he did to his soul by splitting into so many pieces he was unable to move on or to live as a ghost. His soul was forever in limbo. 

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~Jay Mehta

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