Hi everyone! I'm trying out a new way of analyzing speech in the HP series. In my previous installments (Said Snape & Said Malfoy), I used a method breaking descriptors down by part of speech, so as to better reflect the exact phrasings and constructions used in the series. However, I have been thinking about changing this up going forward, by combining all descriptors across parts of speech and breaking them out semantically. That's what I did here—please let me know what you think!
Riddle/Voldemort's speech is described as:
About a fifth of the time when Voldemort’s (or Riddle’s) speech is described, it is to denote the softness of his volume (e.g. “quietly”, “softly”, or “whispering”). The second most common descriptor conveys an icy tone: e.g. “cold” or “cool”, followed by a high pitch: e.g. “high”, “high-pitched”, or “shrill”. Coming close behind words denoting pitch are words denoting a strong, negative, anger-based emotion: e.g. “furious”, “shouting”, “shrieking”, “screeching”.
Although not the most common descriptor for Voldemort/Riddle’s speech, it is notable that he is the character in the series whose speech is most often described with snake-like, sibilant hissing— fitting for the notorious Parselmouth.
If we break down the prevalence of these descriptors by Voldemort’s timeline, some interesting patterns emerge:
As a child, Riddle is most likely to speak in a politely controlled fashion, demonstrating an understanding of power hierarchies (he’s speaking to adults) and a desire to manage perceptions. This suggests a wary and mistrustful view of authority figures.
Looking across Riddle’s childhood, teen, and young adult years together, we see that his speech is most often characterized as soft (e.g. quiet, soft, whispered) followed by controlled (e.g. calm, careful, pleasant, measured) and impatient (e.g. quick, sharp, sudden, interrupting). The somewhat contradictory set of vocal descriptions in his youth (impatient vs controlled/polite) illustrates a tension present in young Riddle; although he’s ambitious, thirsty for knowledge, and strives for distinction, he remains highly conscious of how he is perceived. Riddle very rarely displays vocal indicators of aggression or anger, instead learning to use his charisma to get what he wants, as Dumbledore says the following about Riddle’s skill in this regard:
“He showed no sign of outward arrogance or aggression at all… He seemed polite, quiet, and thirsty for knowledge. Nearly all were most favorably impressed by him.”
Teenage Tom Riddle, preserved as a horcrux, confirms that he used his charm to manipulate starting from a young age:
“If I say it myself, Harry, I’ve always been able to charm the people I needed.”
His high tone becomes a key feature of his voice in his teen years and above, and the most negative descriptors used for his tone (e.g. “dreadful”, “dangerous”, “malicious”, “cruel”, “inhuman”, “merciless”, etc.) don’t appear until Riddle himself becomes inhuman and creates his first horcrux, the diary.
Another notable feature of Voldemort’s vocalizations is his amused tone. Voldemort’s laugh and amused tone only emerge in Riddle’s teen years; it seems Riddle may not have had much reason to laugh in the orphanage. But Riddle/Voldemort as a teen and above relishes wielding his power, and often laughs as he faces others’ distress. He has a dark, sinister sense of humor and delights in irony (when he recognizes it). Riddle/Voldemort’s humor is not simply performative; he indulges in it even while alone with his victims, and clearly finds himself hilarious.
As the years go on and Riddle remakes himself into Lord Voldemort, he loses the need to impress or charm authority figures and emerges as one himself. For example, when Voldemort returns to Hogwarts to request the DADA position, Voldemort no longer bothers to strike a polite or pleasant tone in an attempt to persuade, instead speaking softly and contemptuously. Compared to Riddle, Lord Voldemort is more likely than ever to speak softly, with descriptors denoting his youthful impatience and politeness all but disappearing and “cold” and “high” becoming ever more prominent.
After Voldemort’s initial defeat, when Voldemort exists as a spirit and in his rudimentary baby form, the most common description of his voice is “cold” or “cool”. There is also a lack of contemptuous descriptors of speech in Voldemort’s non-corporeal form; perhaps he is too weakened, too dependent to engage in his usual sneering and jeering.
Upon his regeneration in Goblet of Fire, Voldemort’s anger is close to the surface and emerges more often in his vocal indicators; Voldemort has been severely disappointed by his followers, and doesn’t hold back. Voldemort’s angry vocalizations peak in Deathly Hallows, as Voldemort embarks upon attempt after attempt to kill Harry Potter, and fails.
Misc. notes: There is a notable similarity in the vocal descriptions of Voldemort, Lucius Malfoy, and Severus Snape, as all three men have a tendency to speak softly/quietly and coolly/coldly/icily. @saintsenara (x) and @sideprince (x) have suggested Snape’s quiet, cold intimidation was learned from Voldemort, and it’s very likely Voldemort, as the most significant influence on these men’s lives for a time, served as a model for one or both of them.
There are some interesting differences, however. Lucius is somewhat more likely to speak contemptuously (sneering, jeering, drawling), and Snape is more likely to speak impatiently (sharply, curtly, barking, interrupting). Another distinction between the three is the tendency to express positive emotions vocally, or to laugh. Lucius, though his tone may hold delight, rarely laughs. Snape never expresses any delight vocally, and never laughs. Snape has the most varied descriptors of the three (almost 2x as many as Voldemort, and about 2.5x Malfoy’s), which makes sense given his relative presence in the story, as well as his more complicated characterization.
*This is by no means meant to be the definitive, exhaustive analysis of Voldemort’s speech. This was completed doing simple searches for dialogue with “Voldemort” and “Riddle” and Harry’s dreams/visions, so it’s entirely possible that I’ve missed a couple instances.
I love this analysis! A few things I want to pull out:
After Voldemort’s initial defeat… the most common description of his voice is “cold” or “cool”. There is also a lack of contemptuous descriptors of speech in Voldemort’s non-corporeal form
The OP brings up exhaustion and weakness, but I’ll also put forward that this is the least-human Voldemort ever becomes: barely embodied, subsisting off of temporary residences in snakes or in a homunculus form, and existing as a spirit in between, the coolness/coldness of his speech may also be directing our attention towards just how far he’s fallen from his humanity. Voldemort is often a highly emotional man. Look at the many emotions present in his speech! We get anger, amusement, impatience, contempt, and control (an intentional holding-back of emotion). A cool remoteness is an interesting choice which can be read as disconnection from human feeling because he lacks a human form.
He has a dark, sinister sense of humor and delights in irony (when he recognizes it). Riddle/Voldemort’s humor is not simply performative; he indulges in it even while alone with his victims, and clearly finds himself hilarious.
I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again: Voldemort is funny. He has a sense of humor. For me, in writing, finding those moments of amusement and figuring out when he would express it—often, at inappropriate times!—is a key part of making him feel like himself in a scene. It’s a very distinctive part of his personality, relative to the generic villain role that he plays.
This post has made me think more about describing his tone as soft, and I’ll be ruminating on that one for a while. I think it helps underscore that his manipulations are really quite understated, even when loaded with malice. There’s a quality to his pre-Voldemort life that is not quite gentle, but which is rather less abrasive than he becomes later in life, and I often think can get lost in light of those later descriptions focusing on his anger and hostility.
my favorite flavor of tomarrymort is a silver fox Voldemort becoming a pseudo mentor / father figure to an extremely unwilling and morally conflicted Harry Potter. Basically Voldemort just wants to turn Harry into a mini dark lord. Harry is not buying it.
like yes he’s a dilf but he’s also completely bonkers.
Harry decides he’s going to end it in the produce aisle.
He’s standing in front of the peaches when Tom’s text comes through, turning one over in his hand, testing the weight, the give beneath his thumb. It’s slightly warm, blushed pink and gold and soft in a temptingly fragile way.
Running late. Client meeting with Lucius going long.
Harry reads it and wants to feel surprise, but he doesn’t. Wishes he didn’t even know who Tom was talking about.
There is only one Lucius in Tom’s world—the charismatic blond in a tailored suit, cufflinks that probably cost more than Harry’s rent, family money propping him up every step of his life.
Harry locks his phone and slides it into his pocket.
The peach is still in his hand. He presses his thumb into it slowly, watching the skin dimple and in his mind, it changes. It’s not fruit anymore but his own heart, slick and red and heavy in his palm. Pulled from his chest under fluorescent lights while strangers blithely walk past him, the wheels of their trolleys tracking blood through the aisles of Waitrose.
How hard would you have to squeeze to crush a human heart?
Harry tightens his fingers experimentally. The peach yields easily, it’s soft flesh bruising under the pressure. A heart would be stronger than that, but sometimes it doesn’t feel like it. Anything can weaken over time if enough pressure is applied; a hundred tiny bruises building into something more permanent.
He imagines Tom’s hand instead of his own—his long fingers, that assured grip. Would it take much? A gradual tightening, the way Tom pushes his boundaries, cancels plans, shifts and changes Harry in a dozen imperceptible ways until he’s not sure if he doesn’t actually want something, or if Tom doesn’t want him to want it.
Or would it take something more sudden, decisive? Walking into a room and finding Tom pushed up against a wall, that hated blonde hair busy in his expensive slacks. Harry imagines it sometimes while lying awake at night, to hurt himself, trying to goad himself into doing something, anything. He imagines Tom’s eyes closed, head tilted back against the wall, a flush high on his cheeks and lips kiss bruised and wet.
Would Harry do something then?
The question settles somewhere low and uncomfortable—he isn’t sure, and that’s the worst part.
He tells himself he isn’t jealous. He tells himself Lucius Malfoy is just a colleague. Just a man with immaculate hair and a talent for making other people feel unworthy. Just a name in a text that pops up at 2am in the darkness, or at 6am while Tom is in the shower, or during dinner when Tom ducks out of the room to take his call.
Are you sure it was nothing?
Harry sets the bruised peach back carefully and chooses another. He pays for his groceries and walks home, the cold air nice on his flushed skin. It feels as though it’s been winter forever, although it’s only mid-February.
There is one memory he clings to, back from when they’d first started dating and had gone down to the ocean for the day, birds wheeling overhead, the wind salty and crisp. Harry hadn’t cared about anything, day turning into night while he was busy learning everything about Tom Riddle, the enigmatic man so different from everything Harry knew. The world had been right where he wanted it.
Now they live in a flat that Harry can’t afford alone, in a posh building close to Tom’s office. Before this, he’d lived on his own above a cafe in a second-floor flat that had always smelled reassuringly like coffee and baked goods. He’d sit in the window and look out onto the street and people watch, before going to bed early and reading a book, or writing, or chatting with friends. Now, it feels like he does is wait for Tom to come home, trapped in this steel and glass box in the sky. It makes him feel like dying inside.
It isn’t obvious, that’s the problem. Tom does everything subtly and calmly; everything has a reasonable explanation that leaves Harry wrong-footed and apologizing. He doesn’t hide his phone, doesn’t pretend to be anywhere but at work. But there’s been a subtle shift lately, Harry doesn’t need proof to feel it.
He’d laughed at himself the first time he noticed it. He’d downplayed it as a transition in their relationship, some friction because of the time Tom needed to spend working, the issues Harry had been having in writing his new book, and his editor’s disappointment in his progress. It was normal stuff, adult life stuff.
Harry exits the lift and stops, looking down the long corridor to where their unit is at the end.
He pictures it clearly: going in, putting away the groceries, waiting the hour or two for Tom to come home, and telling him in a calm voice: "This isn’t working." No dramatic confrontation, no asking to see Tom’s phone, no bringing up past incidents that Tom had explained away. He doesn’t have to be vulnerable.
In his mind, he lifts his imagined heart again.
He just feels its weight. Feels how much it would hurt to keep handing it over, wondering how hard Tom might squeeze one day, and whether Harry would simply stand there and allow it.
He imagines ending things, but he knows that’s not how it would go.
He’d suddenly be the only one with a problem. Tom would get close to him, soft hand brushing his hair from his face, eyes concerned. He’d ask Harry if he was getting enough sleep, if he had been taking care of himself, and tell him that this was paranoia. He’d insist that he was faithful, that he loved Harry. He'd tell him not to ruin their Valentine's Day. He’d be gentle but relentless until Harry acquiesced and backed down, agreeing that they were in love, agreeing that he’d stay after all. And then Tom would fuck him in their big bed and hold him until he fell asleep.
It would be easy to give in. He’d been doing it for years now.
Harry squeezes his eyes shut and imagines something new. He imagines packing a bag. Folding his favourite clothes with deliberate care, the album of family photos at the bottom, a couple small trinkets and nothing more. Leaving the key on the counter and walking back down this hall to the elevator.
There’s a bus station three streets over. A ticket agent who wouldn’t ask questions. He could be on one within the hour, well before he expected Tom home from his meeting with Lucius.
He could be headed anywhere that didn’t require him to change the heart of himself to suit someone else’s desires, some little town, maybe on the coast, where he wouldn’t have to measure himself against powerful men who had never doubted their place in a room. Somewhere warm and easy where peaches could just be peaches and not metaphorical hearts.
Harry stands there with a grocery bag cutting into his fingers, the phantom weight of his own heart still in his hand, and tries to decide.
A ficlet for @known-concepts
Inspired by Love/Paranoia by Tame Impala
From the A Very Anatomically Correct Very Musical Valentines fest
My apologies for writing something sad for Valentine's 😞
my wonderful visionary of a friend told me tom and dumbledore should have the same dynamic as mymelo and kuromi in onegai my melody with tom's diary just being his grudgebook about dumbledore...
Ugly little sketch to pass some time. Scarcrux watching baby Harry pulling the weeds. He's trying to convince Harry not to do it. Gardening is beneath him (them), but Harry is happy to spend some time out of his cupboard with Scarcrux, under the sun.
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