what happened that first year after tom's hogwarts graduation?
tom had the ambition and drive to do more, but he wound up tolling away at a dead-end job.
he likely kept in touch with his housemates who supported his ideas, but they don't have to work for what they have, they don't have to work to survive like tom does.
as children who come from generational wealth, they would always see him as lesser for being poor. that power imbalance doesn't go away just because they think he's clever. he was their leader, slytherin's heir, but he was also their classmate, and at the end of the day, only human.
the others have more to lose than tom does. it was fun and games to talk of torturing muggleborns and making plans to rule the world, but outside of the bubble of hogwarts, those fantasies remain just that: fantasies.
i wouldn't be surprised if their plans to take over the world fell apart much in the way that rebellious teenage plans often do.
tom held court in hogwarts for so long, as a model student, as a leader, as head boy. outside in the 'real' world, he reverts to having none of that control or power. he is returned into obscurity and poverty.
he becomes obsessed with finding slytherin's locket, likely clinging to the idea that this one item that will give his life meaning again. just as he found the chamber, he will find the locket, and everything will be right again.
all those long, long years spent working in a shop, and he's still just a boy desperately searching for something to justify his status as someone special, someone worthy.
when he returns fully to society as lord voldemort, it is definitely a return with a vengeance. he does not call upon his old school friends who abandoned his dreams in favour of the status quo; he seeks out their children instead.
these younger hopefuls are easier to radicalize. they have never met tom riddle. they haven't seen him at his worst, kicked out of a muggle orphanage with nowhere to go, slaving away in a shop to earn a living. they only know lord voldemort, immortal and all-powerful.
Tom was a loser in both worlds only by becoming a cult leader could he gain power.
as much as i love to dunk on tom for being a loser, this isn't true.
if tom truly had no upward mobility in the wizarding world, then it wouldn't have been so surprising to everyone that he went to work at borgin's. he could have gone a more legitimate route, but he chose not to. the closest he ever got to legitimacy was when he asked for the DADA position.
harry's story parallels tom's for a reason. both of them abandon the muggle world in favour of magical, which is the purpose of a fantasy story! the power tom does or doesn't have in the muggle world doesn't matter, the basis of the series is that the magical world is superior for everyone, including harry.
the main intention of comparing harry to tom is to contrast their choices. harry chooses love, chooses to embrace death, etc. the implication is tom could have had everything that harry has, but only if he'd chosen that path too.
the real problem is that the power that tom wants -- absolute, totalitarian -- it isn't power that polite society grants. a cult wasn't the only way for tom to gain power, but it was, however, the only way for him to seize power the way he wanted, with the goals that he had.
the part that actually makes him a loser (affectionate) is that none of this was ever going to satisfy him. all this endless greed for power is exactly that -- endless. he will never find true fulfilment in this path. he will never be truly happy. the void inside of him that demands constant reassurance of his self image via exertion of control over others is destined for misery. left unchecked, he would ruin himself, find himself ultimately alone, surrounded by broken toys that only repeat what he's told them to say.
Hi hello a question about Harry (we love Harry!!!)
What do you think about Harry’s trauma from the Dursleys and its ramifications on his life (like, if canon was actually written in an in-depth way 😒) ?
I’m curious about what you think in general and in relations to Harry/Tom, bc personally i feel that a lot of the time Harry is made to be impossibly well-adjusted for a person who spend his childhood in a cupboard (my personal 2 cents as someone who has personal experience with stuff like that, is that’s he’d probably have some kind of mood disorder and just struggle way way more)
WE LOVE HARRY! 🥰 also sorry this took me a million years to answer...
tom and harry have similar childhoods, but harry's experience with love and family while growing up is very different from tom's.
a recurring theme in the books is how sacrifice is an ultimate act of love. from the moment harry is introduced to magic, he is told that his parents died to protect him from voldemort because they loved him. overall, the narrative paints with this brush of james and lily's love as a halo that feels intended to "make up" for the trauma of harry's orphanhood.
("wow harry aren't you so lucky that you parents loved you enough to die for you? how special and magical! as a bonus, it means your hands can burn professor quirrell to death. #thepoweroflove")
conversely, we know that tom spent a long, long time searching for his family. it was something he really wanted -- at least, until actually he found them. we're told that his father did not accept magic, and by extension, we can assume the riddles would not accept tom either. in tom's perspective, merope is similarly a 'victim' of riddle snr's actions. she was made weak by her love for him. suffice to say that unlike harry, tom never receives any reassurance of love and self-worth from either of his parents.
still, i would argue that tom understands love quite perfectly... he just resents it. in the absence of love, what tom has always wanted to prove is that he is above needing it, hence his obsession with mocking it and anyone who stands by it. witnessing the grief of his enemies allows him to feel superior, and he relishes in that.
but back to harry --
when harry is pushed around by vernon and petunia, he works very hard to not engage. (grey rock method.) this behaviour continues somewhat with snape. basically, harry has learned to pick his battles, and he recognizes that nine times out of ten, antagonizing authority figures doesn't get him anywhere good.
(of course, this leads to an entirely different issue where harry's trust in the adults in his life to pull through for him is constantly eroded, but i digress.)
the most volatile reactions we see from harry is in ootp, where voldemort frequently exposes harry to his own unrestrained emotions. as a result of the bleedover, harry struggles a lot more with holding his temper around umbridge (not that we blame him). he's moodier and lashes out at people more often. (his crashout at the end of ootp being left out of the films is such a let down. let that boy crashout!!)
as harry is the pov character of the story, from his perspective, everything he does makes sense and seems reasonable. to others, i think harry comes off differently. he's not that friendly and he mostly keeps to himself. for most of the books, only ron and hermione are allowed to sit at his lunch table... cause let's be honest, when other people approach him, it's usually not for good reasons.
(when writing a version of harry raised by james and lily, i do imagine harry to be more extroverted, more confident in himself. i also think we do see facets of this harry in canon when he's happy. most notably when he plays quidditch, which is a sport he enjoys and feels he's earned his accolades in!)
i would definitely be interested in seeing more realism in how harry is affected by his childhood and the awful things that happen to him -- i imagine it would be similar to what we see him go through in ootp.
all this to say i do think the books treat harry's mental health as an afterthought. this is partially because of the way the story is written, but -- and i recognize that this is not representative of all abuse victims -- i do feel the way harry has adjusted is also because of who he is at his core. his resilience is one of his strengths, he wouldn't be the same without that.
Hiiiiiii!!! I love your version of Tom so much. I'm trying to write something myself, and I have to ask how you balance his impulsiveness with his cunning. He's such a little loser to me, but I can't ignore that he's smart. Do you have any tips?
THIS IS SUCH A FUN ASK 🎀 i love his little loser self.
to preface this, i really love writing humour/crack this way, so this advice doesn't apply at 100% if you want write something more serious. the concepts are there though!
in deciding how tom reacts to something, i like to ask: what does he want as the outcome? the important thing is that it doesn't matter how reasonable or realistic of a desire it is -- in fact, the wilder it is, the better!
I am looking for what tom wants right this moment, immediately. this is the impulsiveness, where he locks in on a decision without thinking it through because he can't help himself.
here's the fun part: no matter how STUPID or RIDICULOUS his immediate desire is, he WILL concoct a grand plan for it, and he must follow through NO MATTER WHAT. to do otherwise is completely unthinkable. he's decided that this is what will happen, and now it has to happen.
so now you have to get creative. you have to craft a reasonable, logical plan to get tom what he wants (even if he's meant to fail in the end). the cleverness of the plan is offset by the ridiculousness of the desired outcome, so it no longer matters if the plan is actually clever, it just has to be clever in the context of the outcome.
all this to say, this is how you end up with a plan that takes AN ENTIRE SCHOOL YEAR TO ROLL OUT, where you send your best guy undercover to non-consensually volunteer harry potter for an international tournament, manipulate him into the finals, and teleport him to a graveyard for your super special revival ceremony.
(then you call up all your friends to humblebrag about yourself before getting pwned by the same kid who killed you the first time.)
voldemort really wanted a cool graveyard scene with harry fresh off the high of winning this famous tournament so that he could crush him like a bug in front of all his friends.
instead of idk, getting barty to kidnap him from hogsmeade?
so yeah. this was a clever plan that sounds utterly stupid when you explain it.
i do give barty crouch jr the credit for managing to come up with a working plan that gives voldemort what he wants. lesser wizards quiver in the face of barty's excellent planning skills. that guy gets shit done whether it makes any fucking sense or not!
tl;dr tom always wants something dumb and unreasonable. you still have to come up with a clever way for him to get it, but because it's a dumb unreasonable thing, you get to have more fun than if he was plotting something without the stick up his ass.
Tom has the mindset of a Muggle dictator... Tom Riddle was shaped by the poverty and hunger of Muggle life... In book 7, he uses Muggle methods to destroy Muggles.Dumbledore couldn't figure out Riddle for so long because Riddle was shaped by the trauma of rejection.
i had written out a lot and then tumblr mobile ate my draft so i'm a bit peeved. i also i spent so long on this one i had so many tangents... i cut down my response a little, and will save some for another post on another day.
first of all, i'm not sure what you're referring to with "Muggle methods to destroy Muggles". you'd have to cite some examples for me to understand your meaning better.
now it's important to point out that the books never deeply explore the impact of 1920s-1940s muggle or magical history on present day canon. we don't have canon content or context to comment on much.
sometimes fanon likes to portray young tom as a frightened boy hiding in a bomb shelter, plotting to murder his way into never dying because war is terrifying... here i will note that gellert grindelwald isn't even given any narrative importance until book 7 despite being initially mentioned in book 1. even canon history doesn't mean much in canon.
but we can decide to explore the possibility of it...
most of tom's childhood experience is heavily connected to his relationship with dumbledore, both through dumbledore's direct influence, and the fact that his story is told exclusively by dumbledore to harry.
in book 6's recounting of tom's past, one could argue that dumbledore is either deliberately omitting or subconsciously dismissing the influence of major historical events due to his complicated personal connection to that period of time. regardless, it's biased.
dumbledore regrets his past, and so his view of tom is partially shaped by his own trauma. his life post-grindelwald has been spent desperately avoiding power, mostly as a form of penance for his past transgressions.
for someone who claims love to be the most powerful, enduring force, dumbledore is heavily estranged from it. he spends his childhood trying to distance himself from his father's reputation and the shameful secret of his sister.
"You know how my poor father sought revenge, and paid the price, died in Azkaban. You know how my mother gave up her own life to care for Ariana."
to dumbledore, the threads of duty and sacrifice are entwined with love. he protects harry just his parents protected his sister, often by making decisions on harry's behalf and enduring whatever cost to ensure that harry remains as sheltered as possible.
"Do you see, Harry? Do you see the flaw in my brilliant plan now? I had fallen in to the trap I had foreseen, that I had told myself I could avoid, that I must avoid. [...] I cared about you too much," said Dumbledore simply. "I cared more for your happiness than your knowing the truth, more for your peace of mind than my plan, more for your life than the lives that might be lost if the plan failed. In other words, I acted exactly as Voldemort expects we fools who love to act."
dumbledore holds harry at arm's length while simultaneously claiming to care deeply for him. he believes that this is in harry's best interests, just as he believed in leaving harry with the dursleys. harry nearly dies as a result of dumbledore's decision, but that is not the only consequence of the battle at the ministry.
sirius' death is an interesting parallel to what happened to ariana. they were both trapped, they both died after trying to intervene in a dangerous situation. like aberforth, harry is left to mourn and move on, but unlike aberforth, harry receives an apology -- dumbledore admits culpability in the tragedy.
it is implied that aberforth never knew the painful depth of his brother's guilt and regret until harry tells him about the events of the horcrux cave. dumbledore chose to let aberforth hate him and blame him rather than reconcile, and this, too, is a misguided form of protection.
now with this context, we fast forward to when dumbledore visits wool's. tom is giving red flags galore, but he is also clearly just... a troubled child.
"I returned to Hogwarts intending to keep an eye upon him, something I should have done in any case, given that he was alone and friendless, but which, already, I felt I ought to do for others' sake as much as his."
dumbledore cites tom's cruelty as a factor in his mistrust, but let us not forget that dumbledore was "alone"*, "friendless"*, and much older than eleven years old when he sided with grindelwald on the subjugation of muggles.
(*true to how dumbledore felt at the time, having been denied his opportunity to travel abroad. much like tom, his talents are being "wasted" post-graduation...)
"I had proven, as a very young man, that power was my weakness and temptation. I was safer at Hogwarts. I think I was a good teacher."
dumbledore thinks highly of his own self-awareness, which makes it all the more interesting when tom returns to britain and requests the DADA position... only to be denied.
it can be assumed that by that time, tom has done far worse things than simply plan to take over the world, but nevertheless, dumbledore's treatment of tom seems rather hypocritical.
"By the end of his first year, [Dumbledore] would never again be known as the son of a Muggle-hater, but as nothing more or less than the most brilliant student ever seen at the school."
sound familiar? i don't believe dumbledore sees grindelwald in tom. that would credit dumbledore with the ability to truly understand those around him.
as we've seen, it isn't only tom that he misunderstands:
there is aberforth. there is sirius. and harry, who was not trusted with the necessity of his own death until the penultimate moment, who in the end extends more empathy to voldemort than dumbledore ever managed.
a great deal of effort is spent on researching voldemort's pursuit of immortality and covering the timeline of his horcrux creation. of course, dumbledore is more than capable of the clever detective work required to piece voldemort's checkered past together.
yet is it not telling that he never expands more on what is arguably the very foundation of tom riddle's character by posing the basic question: why does voldemort fear death so much?
(this is the question that fanon often attempts to answer with the inclusion of world war ii, which sometimes -- sorry! -- feels like a cheap cop out lol. it's not that we aren't allowed to have cheap cop outs in fanfiction, but if we're discussing a true interpretation of his canon character, i would rather explore the depth of that, and not reduce his fears to a product of his environment being "war scary". but my beef with fanon being shallow is another fight for another day...)
much in the way voldemort dismisses love, dumbledore dismisses this fear of death. for dumbledore, i believe death truly was a relief. through self-sacrifice, dumbledore seeks and achieves the absolution he so desperately craves. as his parents gave their lives for his sister, dumbledore gives his life for the greater good.
a common thread between harry and tom is that they are both orphans, but dumbledore is also orphaned after graduation.
"I resented it, Harry. I was gifted, I was brilliant. I wanted to escape. I wanted to shine. I wanted glory. Do not misunderstand me. I loved them... but I was selfish... So that, when my mother died, and I was left the responsibility of a damaged sister and a wayward brother, I returned to my village in anger and bitterness."
all this to say, dumbledore's perspective is heavily filtered through this self-righteous belief system built on sacrifice, through his high regard of his own cleverness, through his conviction of love as the ultimate saviour.
dumbledore loved his family, and that love is what saved him. it is his grief that pulls him away from grindelwald. it is his guilt that pushes him to dedicate his life to education instead of politics. dumbledore punishes himself over and over for his past. he believes this suffering is what proves his remorse, proves his love. we hear this belief echoed whenever james and lily are brought up around harry.
tom has no experience with family or love. he lives in an orphanage. he has no one to care for or protect but himself, and nothing we see in his past suggests that he ever had the cause or opportunity to connect with anyone else in that way -- certainly not when he meets dumbledore for the first time!
no loving family stands in the way of tom riddle becoming voldemort.
this is why dumbledore fails to truly see tom. he sees someone who lacks both care and capacity for meaningful emotion, someone who would enslave muggles and muggleborns without a shred of remorse.
when dumbledore sees tom, he sees that someone as a version of himself. he sees voldemort.
Do you think Harry is, canonically speaking, more of a physical type, or is that just a misconception within the fandom simply because he likes Quidditch?
harry's instincts are survival instincts, so i feel his behaviours in regards to physicality are similarly derived. the books do spend a LOT of time on quidditch, and quidditch is one thing harry genuinely loves and cares about, so this is an additional factor for sure.
due to unfortunate plot circumstances, harry is often compelled to be running around, thrown into the thick of things. it's a bit of self-imposed responsibility, and as a result, i think harry isn't really capable of leading the peaceful life he claims to want (not without therapy anyway).
how harry treats draco vs snape vs voldemort is different. his level of restraint is important. harry weighs violent actions more carefully, and this moderation is what makes his exceptions (and him!) more deadly.
he doesn't mean to use sectumsempra on draco. his definition of "enemy" is vastly different from teenaged snape's, who i don't doubt wished to cast such a thing at the marauders. in dh, harry casts a stunner at an imperiused stan shunpike. even in stressful situations, harry doesn't use more force than is necessary. when he does go above and beyond, it is a cognizant decision to harm, to cause pain. when harry casts the cruciatus at bellatrix, although he is furious and grief-stricken, it is with full intent and recognition of the spell's power. when he fights, he fights deliberately.
all this to say that i wouldn't necessarily class harry as a physical type. truthfully, he's a resourceful type. he thinks on his feet and adjusts quickly to unfamiliar situations. if harry didn't have magic, he would be using his fists because that's what he would have to do. since he does have magic, he's aware of how he wields it, and uses it to maximum advantage.
i do love a buff harry and the multitudes that represents -- harry who is well fed, who has the time and resources to devote to himself, who takes pride and care in his role as a protector. harry with an intimidating physical presence would be yet another advantage he can press, another tool in his arsenal to be applied -- but still, only when necessary.
Do you think Harry was oblivious and totally manipulated by Dumbledore? I really think he knew Dumbledore’s intentions, but that wouldn’t stop him from pursuing his goal, because above all, he had the courage to go on even if a decision might cost him his life
i wouldn't place the blame of that on dumbledore's doorstep. dumbledore is only a small part of the greater picture.
the books push the idea that sacrificing yourself for someone is the ultimate proof of love. harry's parents died for him, and harry, too, is expected to die for those he cares for. the narrative itself is grooming him for it.
cedric dies. sirius dies. dumbledore dies. harry's grief and guilt intensifies with each loss. he is growing into his own, but at the same time he feels powerless to change his circumstances. the people who love him keep dying, and harry is the only one who can stop that from happening by defeating voldemort.
the shift here is important. harry goes from seeing himself as someone who is loved and protected, to seeing himself as someone who loves and therefore protects others.
dumbledore knows this. he knows that harry is the one who must stop voldemort. he knows harry is willing to die for those he loves. the end result seems like a foregone conclusion, but what dumbledore ultimately wanted to ensure was that harry made the choice of his own free will.
not because someone told him to, and not because he felt pressured into it. harry had to choose, because otherwise the story wouldn't have ended the way that it did.
“You won’t be killing anyone else tonight,” said Harry as they circled, and stared into each other’s eyes, green into red. “You won’t be able to kill any of them ever again. Don’t you get it? I was ready to die to stop you from hurting these people—”
“But you did not!”
“—I meant to, and that’s what did it. I’ve done what my mother did. They’re protected from you. Haven’t you noticed how none of the spells you put on them are binding? You can’t torture them. You can’t touch them. You don’t learn from your mistakes, Riddle, do you?”
love, sacrifice, and courage -- these are the ideals that the narrative rewards, and this is why harry chooses to walk into the forest alone, prepared to meet the end.
How intelligent is Voldemort? do you think he is a genius?
voldemort is smart in the way that hermione is smart. he is great at school, with excellent grades that imply a mastery of magic and a strong ability to retain information.
he is skilled in manipulation, but i attribute this more to his acting ability than his people skills. (he doesn't fully understand how people work. he knows how to act to get the results he wants, which doesn't necessitate understanding.) schoolboy tom riddle is an act. a well-constructed act, but an act nonetheless. while at hogwarts, he's essentially LARPing his way through all seven years.
harry admits to admiring the way tom wheedles information out of slughorn, but it's not altogether that impressive to pull that from a professor who already worships the floor that tom walks on... pretty privilege is real and its name is tom riddle.
in my opinion, voldemort doesn't actually push the boundaries of magic as far as he claims -- at least not in ways that are demonstrated as fact in canon. (sorry, but creating a horcrux is 'been there done that' by the who's who of evil wizards, no matter how many horcruxes voldemort has, it's hardly groundbreaking. he's following wikihow steps on horcrux creation.)
the most innovative bit of magic that we see voldemort use is the taboo. the taboo works on anyone, anywhere, and destroys all surrounding protective spells. this actually kills me because in the context of canon it's extremely impressive, but we don't even get confirmation that it was voldemort's brainchild!
two other inventions of his, or at the least, inventions that are attributed to him, are the dark mark (magic tattoo) and morsmorde (magic sky graffiti). the latter isn't super impressive because it's just a fancy light show, but it adds to his general aesthetic, so i will give him points for that. the tattoo is an interesting piece of work that i feel wasn't done justice in the films, design wise. but it's worth noting as a clever enough idea that hermione copies it later.
all this to say i think voldemort is very clever, but he squanders his talents on pointless things like antique treasure hunts and soul self-destruction. he also self-aggrandizes a lot which doesn't convince me he's actually as superior as he claims to be. if anything, he suffers from gifted kid burnout... he has this peaked in high-school vibe going for him even though he makes a comeback later on.
