I've been reading all these fascinating analyses about Voldemort and gender that keep circulating, and some of them are genuinely compelling, I love the creativity. The interpretations of him as femme coded or exploring his relationship with traditional masculinity are interesting from a transformative fandom perspective, and some of the meta is genuinely brilliant.
That being said, I think a lot of people are operating under this incredibly reductive, contemporary American working-class definition of masculinity that equates "masculine" with loud, physically aggressive, overtly brutish behaviour, and that's not how aristocratic masculinity has ever functioned, which gets us into some fascinating territory about classism and how different socioeconomic strata perform gender entirely differently.
The Slytherins, and Voldemort by extension, are explicitly emulating upper-class, aristocratic sensibilities. In those circles, the jock-adjacent, chest-thumping, aggressively physical masculinity is actually coded as vulgar, uncivilised, and lower-class. That sort of overt physical aggression would be seen as gauche, even pathetic. There's this whole classist framework where "refined" masculinity is performatively restrained, intellectually sophisticated, and economically secure enough not to resort to physical displays.
What commands respect in those circles is restraint, composure, and the ability to dominate through poise and intellect, not brute strength. A gentleman doesn't roar or brawl or puff out his chest to prove his masculinity, that's considered beneath him, literally déclassé. Think Caesar, Augustus, medieval monarchs. The most formidable men in classical literature embody this controlled, calculated masculinity. They don't raise their voices because everyone already understands the consequences of defiance. Physical violence is something you had others do for you, which is its own form of power projection. It's insidious precisely because it appears "civilized" while being structurally far more violent than any street fight.
Voldemort is written as masculine in the way a dark emperor is masculine. Silent, calculating, absolutely assured of his superiority. He speaks softly and rooms fall silent. He gestures and death follows. He doesn't need theatrical displays of dominance because his mere presence bends others to his will. There's nothing more masculine-coded in the classes that have historically wielded power than that level of control.
The classism here is crucial because when we code aristocratic restraint as "effeminate," we're inadvertently reproducing this false binary where working-class masculinity gets positioned as more "authentically" masculine than upper-class masculinity, but both are expressions of patriarchal power, they just operate through different mechanisms based on available resources.
Also, power is expressed through magic in the Wizarding World. Nobody's throwing punches lol. In a society where you can kill with a word or gesture, measuring masculinity by physical aggression is completely nonsensical. Voldemort's magical prowess is infinitely more formidable than any amount of posturing. The man literally split his soul to achieve immortality, which is the the most aggressively masculine thing imaginable, just expressed through magical rather than physical dominance.
Speaking of soul splitting, a big part of his arc is rooted in toxic masculinity taken to its extreme. His relentless quest for power, his inability to process emotional vulnerability, his complete rejection of anything that might be perceived as weakness. These are textbook examples of how patriarchal conditioning destroys men. He literally fragments his soul rather than confront his own emotional reality. That's masculine socialization so severe it becomes pathological. The way he handles his abandonment issues, his shame about his Muggle heritage, his terror of mortality. He doesn't process these emotions but weaponizes them. Instead of grieving or seeking connection, he transforms pain into domination, vulnerability into violence.
His level of emotional avoidance and the compulsive need to convert every feeling into power and control is really peak toxic masculinity, as is his obsession with immortality, being the most powerful, his need to have others literally unable to speak his name. That's not someone rejecting masculine ideals but someone who's internalized them so completely he's willing to destroy his own humanity to achieve them. He's basically what happens when masculine conditioning around emotional suppression and power accumulation gets taken to its absolute breaking point.
There's also this persistent misreading of young Tom Riddle's charm and sophistication as somehow feminine-coded, which is absolutely baffling. The dude was performing gentlemanly masculinity to perfection. Cultivated, articulate, magnetically charismatic in that distinctly genteel way. That whole "suave, seductive, manipulative" persona isn't femme coded but literally the playbook of every male aristocrat, politician, and cult leader throughout history.
Plus, there's something deeply troubling about how "effeminate" gets deployed in these analyses. Are we saying that anything that isn't overtly aggressive and traditionally masculine must be feminine? That's its own form of gender essentialism. We'll see a character who speaks eloquently, dresses well, and doesn't resort to physical violence, and immediately code that as less masculine, when historically, that's been the masculinity of the ruling class. It's worth interrogating why we've internalized the idea that "real" masculinity has to be working-class masculinity, especially when that framework often erases how different communities and cultures construct gender entirely differently.
Given JKR’s views on gender and her rather conventional approach to gender roles throughout the series, she would never intentionally write her ultimate villain as anything other than unambiguously masculine. For someone with her investment in traditional gender binaries, coding the most terrifying figure in her universe as feminine would fundamentally undermine his menace bbecause in her worldview, feminine-coded traits simply don't carry the same weight of existential threat. Voldemort's horror stems partly from his embodiment of patriarchal power taken to its most monstrous extreme, and Rowling's own biases would prevent her from subverting that in ways that might complicate her readers' ability to recognize him as the ultimate threat. The terror he inspires is inextricably linked to his masculine-coded dominance, control, and violence. Remove that framework, and you lose much of what makes him frightening within the moral universe she's constructed.
Moreover, Rowling constructs Voldemort and Harry as representing two archetypal forms of masculinity: the noble knight versus the tyrannical god-king. Harry embodies the "good" masculine ideal of the protective, self-sacrificing, brave knight, while Voldemort represents masculinity's darkest potential when untethered from empathy or moral restraint. This isn't a subversion of masculine archetypes but a a reinforcement of them, positioning both hero and villain firmly within traditional masculine frameworks while simply coding one as virtuous and the other as monstrous. Rowling's moral universe depends on this binary remaining intact and legible to her audience.
Peter's character is made up of two allegories for transitioning: 1. changing sides in the First Wizarding War, and 2. living as a rat instead of a person
Changing sides in the war is a metaphor for transitioning because he fundamentally changed who he was from his original identity to the exact opposite, but kept his new identity a secret even from his friends specifically in order to fool and harm them. This is just like how JKR believes trans women try to fool and harm cis women with their identities.
Peter's initial betrayal/transition ended in the ultimate effect of giving a man (Voldemort) access to a cis woman's (Lily's) private room (sound familiar?) which was framed as the ultimate evil by JKR. Here, Voldemort plays the role of JKR's trans woman when he forces his way into a cis woman's private space (Lily's bedroom) specifically to harm a cis woman (Lily) and a child (Harry). This scene ends with the cis woman brutally murdering the trans woman, which the narrative frames as very positive and the readers are supposed to agree with.
Notice how Peter then eventually also betrayed Voldemort, which is an allegory for detransitioning. JKR believes trans people's "true selves" are their original selves/assigned gender, and that everyone is always going to detransition. Peter ended up on the same side he started because JKR believes trans women are always still men deep down.
Peter living as a "Rat" is a metaphor for living as a "woman" after he transitioned. Notice how the narrative frames it as if Peter was never "truly" a rat, just a person pretending to be a rat (like how JKR believes trans women are not truly women just men pretending to be women).
Peter was never given the opportunity to tell the reader whether he was a rat or a human, the text decides for us that his "real" identity is always human no matter how long he lives as a rat and passes as a rat. The choice of a rat to represent a trans person shows how JKR believes trans people to be animals/inhuman. And also a rat represents sneakiness and dishonesty so that's obvious.
When Peter talks about being a rat in the Shrieking Shack in PoA, he is met with disgust and revulsion from Ron. We're supposed to read this as Ron being rightfully disgusted and distrusting of a person he just found out was trans.
Peter lived as a rat for 13 years (a notoriously evil number), concealing his "true" identity (which was seen negatively by the text because JKR is saying that Trans people's "true" identities are evil) in order to sleep in Ron's bed. This is meant to be read as a child molester allegory because JKR believes all trans women are child molesters.
Other evidence
Peter was barely taller than 13 year old Harry because he's not being a man properly (not a "Real man") according to JKR's bigoted and cisheterosexist worldviews. What other reason does JKR have for specifying how short Peter was?
He was also shown to be balding at a very young age as another reference to not being "man enough" for JKR.
He was ugly.
Since wands are used as a phallic symbol in the series, we can further see Peter doesn't have a penis anymore because in GoF he uses Voldemort's wand rather than one of his own.
Peter cut off his own finger, which is an allegory for gender reassignment surgery/vaginoplasty. Peter not having a finger anymore is a metaphor for a trans woman not having a penis.
He later cuts off his own hand, just furthering and cementing the reference to bottom surgery.
Peter then gets a human-made bodypart in place of his "biological" hand, a silver hand made by Voldemort. This is just like how trans people will get human-made bodyparts installed after they get their other ones removed. Of course JKR makes it the evil villain (Voldemort) who plays the role of the evil doctor who provides gender-affirming care. JKR believes gender-affirming surgeries are evil. And notice how Peter was coerced by Voldemort into getting the surgery when he really didn't want to deep down, which is very telling.
As we know, Peter's silver hand (his vagina) eventually killed him. And he died by suicide, which feels in very bad taste given the symbolism JKR is working with here, but knowing her that was probably intentional.
Wait, do you think Tom Riddle made himself ugly on purpose so he didn't look like his dad? That never occurred to me. I always just assumed it was a side effect of all the weird shit he was doing and he didn't care much as long as he became more powerful. So many time travel fix-it fics I've read have him horrified in particular that he is hideous in the future.
I think Tom Riddle has a deeply ambivalent relationship with his own extraordinary beauty.
Like, okay. He has the same name as his (muggle) father, and looks exactly like his (muggle) father. Apart from being a muggle, the most important thing about Tom Riddle Sr. is that he's very, very pretty. It's why Merope targets him. So right away, the books make Tom Riddle's looks... kind of a negative.
We also know that Tom sheds his "filthy muggle father's name" at the first possible opportunity. But those looks... he needs those looks, at least for now.
I think that Orphanage!Tom is a good snapshot of what he looks like in his natural, comfortable resting state:
"He scares the other children.”
“You mean he is a bully?” asked Dumbledore. (...)
“There have been incidents. . . . Nasty things . . . 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?”
Tom enjoys feeling powerful. He's going to take what he wants (ie young Tom's trinket collection) and everyone around him is just going to let him... because they're scared of him. Also he's kind of a sadist.
The problem is, Tom's NOT powerful at Hogwarts, at least not at first. He can't scare people into doing things for him anymore, and so he needs another strategy.
So, Hogwarts!Tom becomes a CHARMER. He charms Ginny and his school mates. He hits the "sir" incredibly hard when talking to his professors. We're told that "Dippet was very fond of Voldemort and convinced of his honesty." He plays Slughorn like a violin:
“But you obviously know all about [horcruxes], sir? I mean, a wizard like you — sorry, I mean, if you can’t tell me, obviously — I just knew if anyone could tell me, you could — so I just thought I’d ask —”
It was very well done, thought Harry, the hesitancy, the casual tone, the careful flattery, none of it overdone.
Tom also does things like - pay attention to Slughorn's food preferences, so he can get him the perfect gift (candied pineapple.)
And well. That ability to charm people is related to his looks. They're brought up almost every time he is: Tom is the "clever, handsome boy," an "unusually talented and good-looking orphan, he naturally drew attention and sympathy from the staff." The link between his beauty and his power becomes text (rather than subtext) during the Hepzibah Smith segment:
Harry thought he saw a red gleam in [Tom's] dark eyes. His greedy expression was curiously mirrored on Hepzibah’s face, except that her tiny eyes were fixed upon Voldemort’s handsome features.
It's pretty clear what's going on. Tom wants Hepzibah's magical trinkets, and Hepzibah... wants Tom. (and she wants him because he's beautiful.) We get an unusually detailed description of him here:
He was plainly dressed in a black suit; his hair was a little longer than it had been at school and his cheeks were hollowed, but all of this suited him; he looked more handsome than ever.
Hepzibah's attraction is framed as "greed." It's negative, almost threatening, she's looking at Tom like she wants to eat him. The section goes out of it's way to frame Hepzibah as unappealing and unattractive... but her "naughty boy" Tom is still kissing "Miss Hepzibah's" hand, and bringing her flowers. Then she casually pinches his cheek.
Tom is getting nothing out of this soft-seduction. He actually seems to be working very hard not to take up space. He "murmurs," or else speaks "quietly." (He's described as speaking "quietly" four times, and it's not a long scene.) He "picks" his way through the room, "smiled mechanically," and the narrative voice makes a point to say that when he reaches for the locket after his eyes flash red, he did it "without invitation this time," - implying that he is accustomed to asking for permission, positioning himself as less powerful than the person he's talking to.
He honestly seems very happy to just drop the pretense... and publicly be the scary bastard he always was underneath. Tom walks into Dumbledore's office to ask for a job, and is incredibly direct. At this point, he's halfway to full snakiness, and not as pretty as he once was:
"His features were not (...) as snakelike, the eyes were not yet scarlet, the face not yet masklike, and yet he was no longer handsome Tom Riddle. It was as though his features had been burned and blurred; they were waxy and oddly distorted, and the whites of the eyes now had a permanently bloody look, though the pupils were not yet the slits that Harry knew they would become."
But he also seems much more powerful, much more confident, much more comfortable in his skin. Now when he smiles it's a "taut leer, an evil thing, more threatening than a look of rage." He "sneers," he stands above Dumbledore and gives him a hard time, and in general seems very proud of himself.
“You call it ‘greatness,’ what you have been doing, do you?” asked Dumbledore delicately.
“Certainly,” said Voldemort, and his eyes seemed to burn red. “I have experimented; I have pushed the boundaries of magic further, perhaps, than they have ever been pushed —”
We also have a moment with full-snake Risen Voldemort, and his response to his own new body is completely positive:
He held up his hands and flexed the fingers, his expression rapt and exultant.
Tom then goes on to have a WONDERFUL time until things go south - monologuing, torturing Peter, casting spells on Harry to force him to bow...
So my take on this is that Tom likes and even prefers his Snakey body. It means he no longer has to play the subservient charmer (he CAN'T.) It is physical proof of his own brilliance, his own power, his own experimentation. He no longer looks like his muggle father, he has shed the muggle (unexceptional) side of himself completely. It's probably also a body that needs less food, less sleep, feels less pain etc. I'm basing this off Ralph Fiennes' decision not to wear shoes as Voldemort, but it fits with his MO: he wants to be MORE than human, he wants to shed his weaknesses and achieve some kind of immortality and transhumanism.
Now the question is - was his Snakey appearance an accidental/unavoidable side effect of the "dangerous magical transformations" that left him "barely recognizable" - or was Voldemort actively seeking out something that would change how he looked? Honestly, I could see that going either way. But I'm inclined to think that he *did* at least sign off on this appearance... just because all those Snakey!Tom transformation beats are about being in control. That is what he's doing here, showing off just how much control he has over his body, and his world.
This anon wasn’t from me: https://www.tumblr.com/inthemoodforblastt/808638247870840832/tom-riddle-seems-so-gay-to-me-i-dont-know-why?source=share
But I’m kind of curious — what do you think Tom Riddle’s sexual orientation was/is? Because, if I’m being honest, I sort of agree with the anon. His apparent lack of (sexual) desire for anyone is striking. Even when someone like Bellatrix Lestrange, who is canonically portrayed as beautiful and obsessively devoted, repeatedly throws herself at him, Voldemort never shows any physical or emotional response that could be read as attraction or reciprocation of any kind.
Not to mention the distance he keeps people on, both emotionally but also physically; he never lets anybody touch him and when Bella tries to help him up after he fainted at the end of DH (lol), he tells her very roughly that he doesn’t need help. Ofcourse that could be due to him seeing himself as untouchable or something. Or perhaps he's just asexual? Idk, I have rambled enough, I wanna hear your thoughts.
Also (this is totally off topic), but are you British by any chance....(I noticed the 'love' at the end of the 1st sentece to the anon)?🤗
I don’t see it as a matter of sexuality at all. I see it as Voldemort / Tom Riddle being an excessively narcissistic person who genuinely believes he stands above everyone else. He has monumental mummy issues, and frankly, the worst thing that can happen to a man is having unresolved mummy issues. Men with daddy issues might turn into chronic whiners, but men with mummy issues? They can turn into something far darker.
I don’t know if there are studies on this, but anecdotally, it never fails. The man who feels abandoned by his mother, or who believes his mother was a monster, or who has deep unresolved resentment toward her, often ends up becoming something extreme. If you ever meet a man with “issues,” pray they’re about his father. A man with daddy issues may have an inferiority complex, may try to gaslight you, manipulate you, constantly seek validation because he never felt good enough for his father. In the end, he’s often just a forty-year-old man stuck in the mindset of a twelve-year-old boy. But the man with mummy issues? That’s another story. You look at certain historical figures and think, well, of course you turned out like that. If a man starts telling you that his mother was the worst person alive, run. Run eight hundred kilometres in the opposite direction. If you know a man has severe unresolved issues with his mother, consider that a red flag of the highest order.
Leaving that aside, I don’t think his refusal to let people help him or touch him is a sign of asexuality. I think it’s about the character’s worldview: he sees everyone as inferior, as rubbish compared to himself. He may single out a few individuals—not as equals, because he doesn’t believe anyone is his equal—but as being above the general masses. For example, Harry, since Harry is, after all, one of his Horcruxes. And Dumbledore, who is essentially the embodiment of his true daddy issue. He projects that unresolved need for validation onto Dumbledore and spends his life resentful because Dumbledore never gave him the recognition he craved.
As for Tom Riddle/Voldemort’s sexuality, I honestly don’t think about him in sexual terms. Not because I see him as canonically asexual, but because within the timeline of the story, he’s completely consumed by his own grandiosity and his obsessive quest for power and immortality. By the time we meet him in the main events of the series, he’s basically a seventy-year-old dark wizard whose brain has been entirely devoured by his own agenda. I don’t think he’s preoccupied with sex or romantic relationships at all.
If you ask about a younger version of him—before dying and coming back in a quasi-Luciferian resurrection arc—could he have had sexual impulses? Of course. Would they have been directed toward men or women? I have no strong opinion. Probably toward whoever fed his ego most effectively. I don’t see any reason to assume strict heterosexuality or homosexuality. Personally, unless canon firmly states otherwise, I tend to default to bisexuality as a possibility for unconfirmed characters, unless their coding very clearly leans heavily hetero or distinctly queer.
But overall, it’s not something I dwell on. What interests me most about him is that so much of what he does stems from a colossal tantrum rooted in maternal abandonment. And, if I’m being dramatic about it, he does rather reinforce my tongue-in-cheek theory that unresolved mummy issues in powerful men can become a danger to society.
By the way, no, I’m not British. I’m Spanish, it’s just that in Spain we learn British English and British expressions. I also spent a year in London, and when I’ve travelled around Europe, most people speak British English and use British expressions as well, because that’s the English we’re taught here.
That said, I do sometimes use quite USA expressions too, because of the end most TV series and films
The Founders as Myth and the Characterization of Voldemort
ok so as a fandom we should be willing to admit that story we get in canon about the foundation of hogwarts makes like no sense historically right? like how the fuck was this modern school existing in tenth century Scotland (scotland of all places). that does not track with any basic historical knowledge how the fuck was a nineteenth century boarding school randomly invented in the tenth century without massively changing the history of British education. It is much more likely that the institution of Hogwarts grew over time and its original form was nothing like the modern form. so in order to resolve this dilemma we should be able to admit that the founders are at least somewhat mythologized. the only one we have any evidence really existed was Rowena ravenclaw, and like the grey lady could be lying. And Rowena Ravenclaw existing...doesn't actually imply the others did. It makes more sense that they would be either not even real people or historical figures given anachronistic significance (your classic random medieval king suddenly the founder of a nation in the nineteenth century).
So where does this leave us? With a much more plausible idea of the founders as the foundational myth of modern wizarding Britain. Yay fun with historiography!!!
Except. Oh. Wait. Isn't there a character who would be massively impacted by this headcanon. Oh. Yeah. The main villain of the series, a man notably obsessed with his own self-mythology...see the Dark Mark and the whole title of Lord Voldemort, an identity specifically constructed to be all that Tom Riddle was not.
I think it's really interesting to think about Voldemort's characterization in light of the idea of Salazar Slytherin as a historiographical myth. Whether or not Voldemort knew his imagined ancestor it's very intriguing, but I think Voldemort knew. He's smart and inquisitive and interested in making himself into a figure of myth. Voldemort isn't descended from Salazar Slytherin. He deliberately played into the myth of Slytherin to create his self image and power.
This raises the further questions of the artifact horcruxes. Did Voldemort think they were real? I personally believe the locket and cup had no powers but were made up artifacts for made up founders, family heirlooms of the Smith and who-even-knows families given a founder association for prestige, and the diadem was a real artifact made by a real scholar named Rowena Ravenclaw (with a more period accurate name this is the modernization lol) that was later associated with Hogwarts. If you interpret Voldemort as buying into the mythology, he could easily have believed the artifacts had more power than they actually did (which is pretty funny and IC of him lol, mr. I don't actually know how the elder wand works). But if Voldemort knew Slytherin was made up, did he choose the artifacts to keep playing up the myth by disappearing these famous items, like the cup of Hufflepuff? Did at some point he lose track of whether he was faking it?
I don't have the answer to every question about how treating Salazar Slytherin as a myth impacts Voldemort's characterization, but I think it's a really interesting example of how worldbuilding can make characters more nuanced and I think this idea should be talked about more!
you agree that bellatrix is canonically the one who most touched voldemort's emotions? the ship sucks for me, but I'm starting to see sense in some arguments. so much so that her death seems to have been a cry of anguish from him. I mean, I don't believe they're equals or anything like some try to force others to believe...
Look, I’ve never denied that Voldemort valued her as one of his loyal subjects, just like he once valued Barty. I mean, Voldemort always showed a certain deference to his most devoted followers, the kind whose entire lives revolved around him. I guess that’s precisely why he saw Lucius as a nobody: Lucius had a family he cared about, and his loyalty was conditional. Voldemort couldn’t stand that. To him, Lucius was just a useful idiot, nothing more.
But let’s be real, measuring people’s worth by how emotionally dependent they are, how much their entire existence centers around serving a narcissistic psychopath with a God complex… it’s pathetic. This isn’t about him having a “soft spot”; it’s about him valuing whoever fed his ego most and made him feel like the center of the universe. And honestly? Exhausting. Men like that are exhausting. Men with unresolved trauma from mummy and daddy not loving them enough. When men are failed by their parents, they try to take over the world. When women are failed by literally all of society? We keep going, we don’t whine, because someone’s got to keep the world running.
Sorry, I got carried away. Anyway, I don’t think Bellatrix was more “special” than Barty. I think they were on the exact same level: their lives were the cause, and the man leading it who, let’s not forget, was bald. And the bald guy only cared about how devotedly they worshipped his baldness. The more obsessed, the better. That’s not love or emotional attachment, it’s just him jerking off to his inflated self-image.
If Voldemort ever loved anyone, it was himself. If he ever genuinely cared about someone, it was probably Nagini, his pet. Because, let’s be honest, psychopaths often do feel something for their animals. And if he was ever fixated or unhealthily obsessed with someone else, it was with Harry. Like… sir, let go of the boy’s arm. Please.
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.
Unweaving Canon Lily Evans: Parallels to Voldemort
To illuminate what JKR was doing with this dynamic, alongside several other dynamics across the text, and how she wove in Lily as Voldemort's symbolic sister the same way Voldemort and Harry are "brothers", see my metas “And Cain Repented Not Of What He Had Done”: Harry Potter As Retelling of Cain and Abel, and Lily and Harry as Voldemort’s Mirror of Erised.
*Note: not necessarily accepting the narrative's (or Dumbledore's) exact judgments in all these quotes (i.e. reactions to very different childhoods, etc.; but working with the general concept of them as foils and choosing different paths, which is relevant wrt Lily’s experience of violence at and post Hogwarts during the war). Further fic recs, and notes on characterization are at the end. Much of this is to be elaborated in future metas, so excuse some of the loose threads here.
1. Muggleborn
Harry turned to the back cover of the book and saw the printed name of a variety store on Vauxhall Road, London.
"He must’ve been Muggle-born," said Harry thoughtfully. "To have bought a diary from Vauxhall Road..."
“You live in a Muggle orphanage during the holidays, I believe?” said Dippet curiously.
“Yes, sir,” said Riddle, reddening slightly.
“You are Muggle-born?”
“Half-blood, sir,” said Riddle. “Muggle father, witch mother.”
"No one knows why you lost your powers when you attacked me," said Harry abruptly. "I don’t know myself. But I know why you couldn’t kill me. Because my mother died to save me. My common Muggle-born mother," he added, shaking with suppressed rage. "She stopped you killing me." (CoS)
-
“I am here, as I told you in my letter, to discuss Tom Riddle and arrangements for his future,” said Dumbledore.
“Are you family?” asked Mrs. Cole.
“No, I am a teacher,” said Dumbledore. “I have come to offer Tom a place at my school.” (HBP)
“And will it really come by owl?” Lily whispered.
“Normally,” said Snape. “But you’re Muggle-born, so someone from the school will have to come and explain to your parents.”
“Does it make a difference, being Muggle-born?” (DH)
-
“There he showed his contempt for anything that tied him to other people, anything that made him ordinary. Even then, he wished to be different, separate, notorious. He shed his name, as you know, within a few short years of that conversation and created the mask of ‘Lord Voldemort’ behind which he has been hidden for so long." (HBP)
“I can’t pretend anymore. You’ve chosen your way, I’ve chosen mine.”
“No — listen, I didn’t mean —”
“— to call me Mudblood? But you call everyone of my birth Mudblood, Severus. Why should I be any different?”
He struggled on the verge of speech, but with a contemptuous look she turned and climbed back through the portrait hole... (DH)
2. Magic
2.1 Controlling wandless magic before they knew about magic
“It’s... it’s magic, what I can do?”
“What is it that you can do?”
“All sorts,” breathed Riddle. A flush of excitement was rising up his neck into his hollow cheeks; he looked fevered. “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.”
His legs were trembling. He stumbled forward and sat down on the bed again, staring at his hands, his head bowed as though in prayer.
“I knew I was different,” he whispered to his own quivering fingers. “I knew I was special. Always, I knew there was something.”
“Well, you were quite right,” said Dumbledore, who was no longer smiling, but watching Riddle intently. “You are a wizard.”
Riddle lifted his head. His face was transfigured: There was a wild happiness upon it [...]
“His powers, as you heard, were surprisingly well-developed for such a young wizard and — most interestingly and ominously of all — he had already discovered that he had some measure of control over them, and begun to use them consciously. And as you saw, they were not the random experiments typical of young wizards: He was already using magic against other people, to frighten, to punish, to control.” (HBP)
-
“But I’m fine,” said Lily, still giggling. “Tuney, look at this. Watch what I can do.”
[...] Lily had picked up a fallen flower from the bush behind which Snape lurked. Petunia advanced, evidently torn between curiosity and disapproval. Lily waited until Petunia was near enough to have a clear view, then held out her palm. The flower sat there, opening and closing its petals, like some bizarre, many-lipped oyster.
“Stop it!” shrieked Petunia.
“It’s not hurting you,” said Lily, but she closed her hand on the blossom and threw it back to the ground.
“It’s not right,” said Petunia, but her eyes had followed the flower’s flight to the ground and lingered upon it.
“You’ve got loads of magic,” said Snape. “I saw that. All the time I was watching you..." (DH)
2.2 Unsupported flight
Voldemort was flying like smoke on the wind, without broomstick or thestral to hold him, his snakelike face gleaming out of the blackness
— He was gliding around the high walls of the black fortress —
No, he was Harry, tied up and wandless, in grave danger —
— looking up, up to the topmost window, the highest tower —
He was Harry, and they were discussing his fate in low voices —
— Time to fly...
[...] — and he rose into the night, flying straight up to the window at the very top of the tower —
[...] — as he forced himself through the slit of a window like a snake and landed, lightly as vapor, inside the cell-like room —
A metal heart was banging outside his chest, and now he was flying, flying with triumph in his heart, without need of broomstick or thestral (DH)
-
There was undisguised greed in his thin face as he watched the younger of the two girls swinging higher and higher than her sister.
“Lily, don’t do it!” shrieked the elder of the two.
But the girl had let go of the swing at the very height of its arc and flown into the air, quite literally flown, launched herself skyward with a great shout of laughter, and instead of crumpling on the playground asphalt, she soared like a trapeze artist through the air, staying up far too long, landing far too lightly.
“Mummy told you not to!”
Petunia stopped her swing by dragging the heels of her sandals on the ground, making a crunching, grinding sound, then leapt up, hands on hips.
“Mummy said you weren’t allowed, Lily!” (DH)
(Given he calls himself "flight from death" at 15, I assume Tom could do something similar to Lily as a child, and his flight in DH the fully trained version; possibly Snape's is the same innate ability but showed up a few years later than Lily's that they trained together, or some learned variation with a spell/ritual.)
2.3 Potential Legilimency
Riddle had frozen, his face expressionless, but his eyes were flickering back and forth between each of Dumbledore’s, as though trying to catch one of them lying. (HBP)
“Did you make that happen?”
“No.” He looked both defiant and scared.
“You did!” She was backing away from him. “You did! You hurt her!”
“No — no I didn’t!”
But the lie did not convince Lily: After one last burning look, she ran from the little thicket, off after her sister, and Snape looked miserable and confused... (DH)
“Prove it,” said Riddle at once, in the same commanding tone he had used when he had said, “Tell the truth.”
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.’” (HBP)
“Maybe once I’m there — no, listen, Tuney! Maybe once I’m there, I’ll be able to go to Professor Dumbledore and persuade him to change his mind!” (DH)
(the word “persuade” often used to refer to force via Legilimency) Mirrors the language around Dumbledore - who I assume is Legilimizing Snape in this scene, as he'd hardly trust a DE’s word without it, and makes a very specific accusation to manipulate Snape without Snape bringing it up (possibly Snape's opening up his mind on purpose). Similarly, Lily - said to be looking up at the canopy - brings up Snape's home life, then changes the subject when he starts to get agitated to something that makes him happy (talking about magic) that they've already talked about (despite this as only the 2nd/3rd time she's speaking to him), so she could be feeling bits of Snape's emotions throughout that scene, hence reacting so strongly when he drops the branch.
“How are things at your house?” Lily asked.
A little crease appeared between his eyes.
“Fine,” he said.
“They’re not arguing anymore?”
“Oh yes, they’re arguing,” said Snape. He picked up a fistful of leaves and began tearing them apart, apparently unaware of what he was doing. “But it won’t be that long and I’ll be gone.”
“Doesn’t your dad like magic?”
“He doesn’t like anything, much,” said Snape.
“Severus?”
A little smile twisted Snape’s mouth when she said his name. “Yeah?”
“Tell me about the dementors again.” (DH)
“Well, Severus? What message does Lord Voldemort have for me?”
“No — no message — I’m here on my own account!”
Snape was wringing his hands: He looked a little mad, with his straggling black hair flying around him.
“I — I come with a warning — no, a request — please —”
[...] “If she means so much to you,” said Dumbledore, “surely Lord Voldemort will spare her? Could you not ask for mercy for the mother, in exchange for the son?”
“I have — I have asked him —”
“You disgust me,” said Dumbledore, and Harry had never heard so much contempt in his voice. Snape seemed to shrink a little. “You do not care, then, about the deaths of her husband and child? They can die, as long as you have what you want?”
Snape said nothing, but merely looked up at Dumbledore. (DH)
2.4 Disillusionment/Invisibility
It would not do for Snape, or indeed anyone else, to see where he was going. But there were no lights in the castle windows, and he could conceal himself… and in a second he had cast upon himself a Disillusionment Charm that hid him even from his own eyes. And he walked on, around the edge of the lake, taking in the outlines of the beloved castle, his first kingdom, his birthright…
And here it was, beside the lake, reflected in the dark waters.
(Lily implied as having the same ability to be explained in another post)
2.5 Conquering death
Note: I use the interpretation that Lily had a plan and did Dark magic/blood magic to save Harry and defeat Voldemort.
“No one knows how he survived that attack by You-Know-Who. I mean to say, he was only a baby when it happened. He should have been blasted into smithereens. Only a really powerful Dark wizard could have survived a curse like that [...] That’s probably why You-Know-Who wanted to kill him in the first place. Didn’t want another Dark Lord competing with him." (CoS)
“I miscalculated, my friends, I admit it. My curse was deflected by the woman’s foolish sacrifice, and it rebounded upon myself. Aaah... pain beyond pain, my friends; nothing could have prepared me for it.” (GoF)
“I, who have gone further than anybody along the path that leads to immortality. You know my goal — to conquer death. And now, I was tested, and it appeared that one or more of my experiments had worked... for I had not been killed, though the curse should have done it.” (GoF)
“Certainly,” said Voldemort, and his eyes seemed to burn red. “I have experimented; I have pushed the boundaries of magic further, perhaps, than they have ever been pushed —” (HBP)
Lily creates blood wards to protect her sister // the only other time we (explicitly) see a blood ward is outside Voldemort's Cave protections, protecting his mother's locket
4 examples of sacrificial magic, 3 Voldemort's, 1 Lily's - in CoS Tom is killing Ginny to gain a body; in GoF the "flesh blood and bone" rebody potion; and obviously horcruxes; Lily's sacrificial magic). Lily does sacrificial blood magic using a parent's sacrifice; LV does sacrificial blood magic using a parent's sacrifice (father's bone, blood of the enemy, etc). Twice when Lily's sacrificial magic comes up between Harry and LV, Voldemort's in the process of doing his own sacrificial ritual and also in the midst of a "rebirth" (in CoS and GoF)
"This is old magic, I should have remembered it, I was foolish to overlook it" // LV's own to counter her magic - "I knew that to achieve this - it is an old piece of Dark Magic, the potion that revived me tonight - I would need three powerful ingredients."
The only time "magical traces" are (explicitly) mentioned are LV seeing the traces of Lily's protective magic on Harry // and Dumbledore seeing the traces of LV's magic in the Gaunt house and the locket Cave (symbolic Gaunt shack), both horcruxes related to his family and to Merope
"His mother left upon him the traces of her sacrifice..." (GoF)
"I stumbled across the ring hidden in the ruin of the Gaunts’ house [...] He hid it, protected by many powerful enchantments, in the shack where his ancestors had once lived (Morfin having been carted off to Azkaban, of course), never guessing that I might one day take the trouble to visit the ruin, or that I might be keeping an eye open for traces of magical concealment." (HBP)
"How did you know that was there?" Harry asked in astonishment.
"Magic always leaves traces," said Dumbledore, as the boat hit the bank with a gentle bump, "sometimes very distinctive traces. I taught Tom Riddle. I know his style." (HBP)
LV invents a concentrated dementor potion to symbolize Merope's murder in the Gaunt home and Dumbledore takes 13 sips in that cave (12 of the Drink of Despair, 1 of Inferi water) // when LV gets close to the house where he murdered Lily, it has the effect of a concentrated dementor on him and Lily vanquishes him for ~13 years (13 1/2 inches is also LV's wand length) - Lily described like a dementor in the memory of the Potters' deaths (to be elaborated in future metas)
"So Ginny poured out her soul to me, and her soul happened to be exactly what I wanted.... I grew stronger and stronger on a diet of her deepest fears, her darkest secrets. I grew powerful, more powerful than little Miss Weasley. Powerful enough to start feeding Miss Weasley a few of my secrets, to start pouring a little of my soul into her..." (CoS)
“If it can, the dementor will feed on you long enough to reduce you to something like itself... soulless and evil.” (PoA)
LV (more or less) kills Dumbledore who he can't beat in a duel with a curse that strengths with time // Lily kills LV who she can't beat in a duel without a wand and with obscure magic
And she came… first her head, then her body… a young woman with long hair, the smoky, shadowy form of Lily Potter blossomed from the end of Voldemort’s wand, fell to the ground, and straightened like her husband. (GoF)
Out of the locket’s two windows, out of the eyes, there bloomed, like two grotesque bubbles, the heads of Harry and Hermione, weirdly distorted. Ron yelled in shock and backed away as the figures blossomed out of the locket, first chests, then waists, then legs, until they stood in the locket, side by side like trees with a common root (DH)
Likewise, the shades out of the Resurrection are implied to be Lily's soul, creating those versions of James, Sirius, and Remus, the way the locket creates Riddle-Harry and Riddle-Hermione.
Lily's protective magic burns LV in front of the Mirror of Erised // Merope's locket horcrux with Riddle's eyes through mirrors burns Harry, the Dark Mark's burn (elaborated below)
2.6 Dark Arts, DADA, Potions, inventing spells and potions (extrapolated for Lily via Snape)
3. Childhood memories
Both show immense joy and wonder at magic, Snape and Dumbledore play similar roles: acknowledge them as unusually magically powerful, explain the laws of the wizarding world to two Muggleborns pushing boundaries before either even knew any existed (Snape, who ignores many of those laws himself, coming from a different angle than Dumbledore). Also note that we are meant to question Lily being too pure to end up in Azkaban - because she's implied to have ended up there, in a way, in a state similar to LV's imprisonment in Albania (to be elaborated).
“At Hogwarts,” Dumbledore went on, “we teach you not only to use magic, but to control it. You have — inadvertently, I am sure — been using your powers in a way that is neither taught nor tolerated at our school. You are not the first, nor will you be the last, to allow your magic to run away with you. But you should know that Hogwarts can expel students, and the Ministry of Magic — yes, there is a Ministry — will punish lawbreakers still more severely. All new wizards must accept that, in entering our world, they abide by our laws.” (HBP)
“...and the Ministry can punish you if you do magic outside school, you get letters.”
“But I have done magic outside school!”
“We’re all right. We haven’t got wands yet. They let you off when you’re a kid and you can’t help it. But once you’re eleven,” he nodded importantly, “and they start training you, then you’ve got to go careful.”
[...] “Tell me about the dementors again.”
“What d’you want to know about them for?”
“If I use magic outside school —”
“They wouldn’t give you to the dementors for that! Dementors are for people who do really bad stuff. They guard the wizard prison, Azkaban. You’re not going to end up in Azkaban, you’re too —” (DH)
-
Riddle stared from the wardrobe to Dumbledore; then, his expression greedy, he pointed at the wand. “Where can I get one of them?” (HBP)
Lily had picked up a fallen twig and twirled it in the air, and Harry knew that she was imagining sparks trailing from it. (DH)
-
"I’m not mad!"
"I know that you are not mad. Hogwarts is not a school for mad people. It is a school of magic."
There was silence. Riddle had frozen, his face expressionless, but his eyes were flickering back and forth between each of Dumbledore’s, as though trying to catch one of them lying.
"Magic?" he repeated in a whisper.
"That’s right," said Dumbledore. (HBP)
Then she dropped the twig, leaned in toward the boy, and said, "It is real, isn’t it? It’s not a joke? Petunia says you’re lying to me. Petunia says there isn’t a Hogwarts. It is real, isn’t it?"
"It’s real for us," said Snape. "Not for her. But we’ll get the letter, you and me."
"Really?" whispered Lily.
"Definitely," said Snape, and even with his poorly cut hair and his odd clothes, he struck an oddly impressive figure sprawled in front of her, brimful of confidence in his destiny.
"And will it really come by owl?" Lily whispered. (DH)
3.1 Alienation from the Muggle world/family
(to highly different degrees, but outsiders shows up as connection even in dynamics where the specifics are very different - Tom using Ginny's alienation from her brothers, Dumbledore and Doge, etc)
“I don’t — want — to — go!” said Petunia, and she dragged her hand back out of her sister’s grasp. “You think I want to go to some stupid castle and learn to be a — a —” [...] “— you think I want to be a — a freak?”
Lily’s eyes filled with tears as Petunia succeeded in tugging her hand away.
“I’m not a freak,” said Lily. “That’s a horrible thing to say.”
“That’s where you’re going,” said Petunia with relish. “A special school for freaks. You and that Snape boy... weirdos, that’s what you two are. It’s good you’re being separated from normal people. It’s for our safety.” (DH)
“He was a funny baby too. He hardly ever cried, you know. And then, when he got a little older, he was... odd.”
[…] “He’s definitely got a place at your school, you say?” “Definitely,” said Dumbledore.
“And nothing I say can change that?”
“Nothing,” said Dumbledore.
“You’ll be taking him away, whatever?”
[...] “I don’t think many people will be sorry to see the back of him.” (HBP)
4. Brilliant students
Prefects, Head Boy/Girl, Slughorn's favorites, charming, charismatic, good-looking, well-liked but with few close friends
"Brilliant," he said softly. "Of course, he was probably the most brilliant student Hogwarts has ever seen [...] Very few people know that Lord Voldemort was once called Tom Riddle. I taught him myself, fifty years ago, at Hogwarts [...] Hardly anyone connected Lord Voldemort with the clever, handsome boy who was once Head Boy here." (CoS)
"You shouldn’t have favorites as a teacher, of course, but she was one of mine. Your mother," Slughorn added, in answer to Harry’s questioning look. "Lily Evans. One of the brightest I ever taught. Vivacious, you know. Charming girl." (HBP)
Riddle laughed, a high, cold laugh that didn’t suit him. It made the hairs stand up on the back of Harry’s neck. "If I say it myself, Harry, I’ve always been able to charm the people I needed." (CoS)
-
"Your mother was Muggle-born, of course. Couldn’t believe it when I found out. Thought she must have been pure-blood, she was so good." (HBP)
“I don’t know that politics would suit me, sir [...] 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.
“Nonsense,” said Slughorn briskly, “couldn’t be plainer you come from decent Wizarding stock, abilities like yours. No, you’ll go far, Tom, I’ve never been wrong about a student yet.” (HBP)
-
"I forgot," lied Harry, Felix Felicis leading him on. "You liked her, didn’t you?"
"Liked her?" said Slughorn, his eyes brimming with tears once more. "I don’t imagine anyone who met her wouldn’t have liked her... Very brave... Very funny... It was the most horrible thing..." (HBP)
"As an unusually talented and very good-looking orphan, he naturally drew attention and sympathy from the staff almost from the moment of his arrival. He seemed polite, quiet, and thirsty for knowledge. Nearly all were most favorably impressed by him." (HBP)
Lily as Ideal of a Gryffindor with a Slytherin streak (like Harry) vs. Tom as Ideal of a Slytherin
Then Professor McGonagall said, "Evans, Lily!"
He watched his mother walk forward on trembling legs and sit down upon the rickety stool. Professor McGonagall dropped the Sorting Hat onto her head, and barely a second after it had touched the dark red hair, the hat cried, “Gryffindor!” (DH)
“Well, the start of the school year arrived and with it came Tom Riddle, a quiet boy in his secondhand robes, who lined up with the other first years to be sorted. He was placed in Slytherin House almost the moment that the Sorting Hat touched his head." (HBP)
"I used to tell her she ought to have been in my House. Very cheeky answers I used to get back too."
[...] "I was Head of Slytherin," said Slughorn. "Oh, now," he went on quickly [...] "don’t go holding that against me! You’ll be Gryffindor like her, I suppose? Yes, it usually goes in families."
“You’d better be in Slytherin,” said Snape, encouraged that she had brightened a little.
5. They Even Look Something Alike
Just as this is pointed out for Voldemort and Harry, and Voldemort and Snape, in DH it's Voldemort and Lily that look alike and are revealed as reflections - and Lily as Voldemort's symbolic sister the same way Voldemort and Harry are "brothers".
5.3 The Same Eyes
And all of a sudden, for the very first time in his life, Harry fully appreciated that Aunt Petunia was his mother’s sister. He could not have said why this hit him so very powerfully at this moment. All he knew was that he was not the only person in the room who had an inkling of what Lord Voldemort being back might mean. Aunt Petunia had never in her life looked at him like that before. Her large, pale eyes (so unlike her sister’s) were not narrowed in dislike or anger: They were wide and fearful.
The barman grunted. Harry approached him, looking up into the face, trying to see past the long, stringy, wire-gray hair and beard. He wore spectacles. Behind the dirty lenses, the eyes were a piercing, brilliant blue.
“It’s your eye I’ve been seeing in the mirror.”
Dumbledore’s long silver hair and beard, the piercingly blue eyes behind half-moon spectacles, the crooked nose: Everything was as he had remembered it. And yet...
Dumbledore was wearing his familiar, kindly smile, but as he peered over the top of his half-moon spectacles, he gave the impression, even in newsprint, of X-raying Harry
He met Aberforth’s gaze, which was so strikingly like his brother’s: The bright blue eyes gave the same impression that they were X-raying the object of their scrutiny, and Harry thought that Aberforth knew what he was thinking [...]
The burn of Lily and LV's eyes through the mirrors is repeated in the description of their eyes, and additionally both Snape and Lily's gaze described like LV's:
Voldemort’s expression did not change. The red eyes seemed to burn in the firelight. Slowly he drew the Elder Wand between his long fingers.
But the lie did not convince Lily: After one last burning look, she ran from the little thicket (The Prince's Tale, DH)
His red eyes fastened upon Snape’s black ones with such intensity that some of the watchers looked away, apparently fearful that they themselves would be scorched by the ferocity of the gaze. (Dark Lord Ascending, DH)
“I’m just trying to show you they’re not as wonderful as everyone seems to think they are.”
The intensity of his gaze made her blush. (The Prince's Tale, DH)
Likewise in OoTP, Voldemort (when Harry is in his head) and Snape described as having slits for eyes (Other Death Eaters - Lucius and Bellatrix - described similarly via their hoods - "her mad eyes staring through the slits in her hood" etc); then in DH, it's only Voldemort, Nagini (symbolic Merope), Harry, and Lily described with slits for eyes - Harry in the Malfoy Manor mirror, face blurred like LV’s in HBP, unrecognizable as himself and Draco unable to look at him (it's significant that Hermione's the one to make him look like LV - see this post); the same mirror LV’s in front of with slits for eyes tormenting his DEs, and Draco and Snape (parallel to Lily and LV and the Mirror of Erised in PS); Lily while looking at Snape in his memories:
Was this why Dumbledore would no longer meet Harry’s eyes? Did he expect to see Voldemort staring out of them, afraid, perhaps, that their vivid green might turn suddenly to scarlet, with catlike slits for pupils? (OoTP)
“He was possessing the snake at the time and so you dreamed you were inside it too...”
“And Vol — he — realized I was there?”
“It seems so,” said Snape coolly.
“How do you know?” said Harry urgently. “Is this just Professor Dumbledore guessing, or — ?”
“I told you,” said Snape, rigid in his chair, his eyes slits, “to call me ‘sir.’” (OoTP)
A cracked, age-spotted mirror hung on the wall in the shadows. Harry moved toward it. His reflection grew larger and clearer in the darkness... A face whiter than a skull... red eyes with slits for pupils (OoTP)
Harry let out a hastily stifled gasp. Voldemort had entered the room. His features were not those Harry had seen emerge from the great stone cauldron almost two years ago: They were not as snakelike, the eyes were not yet scarlet, the face not yet masklike, and yet he was no longer handsome Tom Riddle. It was as though his features had been burned and blurred; they were waxy and oddly distorted, andthe whites of the eyes now had a permanently bloody look, though the pupils were not yet the slits that Harry knew they would become. He was wearing a long black cloak, and his face was as pale as the snow glistening on his shoulders. (HBP)
[...] his face shone through the gloom, hairless, snakelike, with slits for nostrils and gleaming red eyes whose pupils were vertical. He was so pale that he seemed to emit a pearly glow.
The huge snake [...] rose, seemingly endlessly, and came to rest across Voldemort’s shoulders […] its eyes, with their vertical slits for pupils, unblinking. (Dark Lord Ascending, DH)
Harry clutched at his excruciatingly painful face, which felt unrecognizable beneath his fingers, tight, swollen, and puffy as though he had suffered some violent allergic reaction. His eyes had been reduced to slits through which he could barely see; his glasses fell off as he was bundled out of the tent
Harry was facing a mirror over the fireplace, a great gilded thing in an intricately scrolled frame.Through the slits of his eyes he saw his own reflection for the first time since leaving Grimmauld Place. His face was huge, shiny, and pink, every feature distorted by Hermione’s jinx. His black hair reached his shoulders and there was a dark shadow around his jaw. Had he not known that it was he who stood there, he would have wondered who was wearing his glasses [...] yet he still avoided eye contact with Draco as the latter approached. “Well, Draco?” said Lucius Malfoy [...] “Is it? Is it Harry Potter?” (Malfoy Manor, DH)
Lily’s bright green eyes were slits. Snape backtracked at once. (The Prince's Tale, DH)
5.1 Halloween, 1981
In the scene where he goes to murder the Potters - LV and Lily both enter through a door ("identical movements"; the Veil described as an "ancient doorway" - because sin is crouching at their door), both sneaking up on the enemy they're about to kill, and while Harry and James are described as "black-haired", LV and Lily have their faces covered ("matching hairstyles"; and because I show not your face but your heart's desire), and identical laughs - because the laugh that for six books were told was LV laughing as he killed Lily wasn’t him laughing, it was Lily laughing. (Explanation/closer analysis of this scene to come.)
“Nice costume, mister!” He saw the small boy’s smile falter as he ran near enough to see beneath the hood of the cloak, saw the fear cloud his painted face: Then the child turned and ran away
And he made less noise than the dead leaves slithering along the pavement as he drew level with the dark hedge, and stared over it
A door opened and the mother entered, saying words he could not hear, her long dark-red hair falling over her face. Now the father scooped up the son and handed him to the mother.
The gate creaked a little as he pushed it open, but James Potter did not hear. His white hand pulled out the wand beneath his cloak and pointed it at the door, which burst open.
He was over the threshold as James came sprinting into the hall.
5.2 The Mirrors
“How did you get this?” Harry asked, walking across to Sirius’s mirror, the twin of the one he had broken nearly two years before.
-
Behind both of the glass windows within blinked a living eye, dark and handsome as Tom Riddle’s eyes had been before he turned them scarlet and slit-pupiled. (DH)
A woman standing right behind his reflection was smiling at him and waving. He reached out a hand and felt the air behind him. If she was really there, he’d touch her, their reflections were so close together, but he felt only air — she and the others existed only in the mirror.
She was a very pretty woman.She had dark red hair and her eyes — her eyes are just like mine, Harry thought, edging a little closer to the glass. Bright green — exactly the same shape, but then he noticed that she was crying; smiling, but crying at the same time. (PS)
-
Then a voice hissed from out of the Horcrux.
“I have seen your heart, and it is mine.”
[...] “I have seen your dreams, Ronald Weasley, and I have seen your fears. All you desire is possible, but all that you dread is also possible...”
[...] “Least loved, always, by the mother who craved a daughter... Least loved, now, by the girl who prefers your friend... Second best, always, eternally overshadowed...” (DH)
“It shows us nothing more or less than the deepest, most desperate desire of our hearts. You, who have never known your family, see them standing around you. Ronald Weasley, who has always been overshadowed by his brothers, sees himself standing alone, the best of all of them. However, this mirror will give us neither knowledge or truth. Men have wasted away before it, entranced by what they have seen, or been driven mad, not knowing if what it shows is real or even possible." (PS)
-
“Ron!” he shouted, but the Riddle-Harry was now speaking with Voldemort’s voice and Ron was gazing, mesmerized, into its face.
[...] “Presumption!” echoed the Riddle-Hermione, who was more beautiful and yet more terrible than the real Hermione: She swayed, cackling, before Ron, who looked horrified yet transfixed. (DH)
He tore his eyes away from his mother’s face, whispered, “I’ll come back,” and hurried from the room. (PS)
Lily's bright green eyes look at Harry from the Mirror of Erised; LV meets Harry in front of that mirror (there was a face, the most terrible face Harry had ever seen. It was chalk white with glaring red eyes and slits for nostrils, like a snake // The evil face was now smiling); LV describes Harry's parents' deaths and especially Lily's death/sacrifice; then Lily's protective magic burns LV in front of the Mirror of Erised when he tries to touch Harry.
Riddle's dark eyes that gleam red look through the mirrors in Merope's locket, the dark twin of the Mirror of Erised (the connection also implied in it being Tom’s mother's locket and the only horcrux to have a mirror; and Ron coming with Harry to the Mirror of Erised and destroying the locket); Merope's locket horcrux burns Harry - right after he and LV see the full memory of Lily vanquishing him, after trying to kill him.
I show not your face but your heart's desire // The locket showing distorted faces of Ron's "family" - not their real faces but his heart's fears
Voldemort screamed “SEIZE HIM!” and the next second, Harry felt Quirrell’s hand close on his wrist [...] and to his surprise, Quirrell let go of him [...] he looked around wildly to see where Quirrell had gone, and saw him hunched in pain, looking at his fingers — they were blistering before his eyes
[...] “Master, I cannot hold him — my hands — my hands!”
And Quirrell, though pinning Harry to the ground with his knees, let go of his neck and stared, bewildered, at his own palms — Harry could see they looked burned, raw, red, and shiny.
“Then kill him, fool, and be done!” screeched Voldemort.
Quirrell raised his hand to perform a deadly curse, but Harry, by instinct, reached up and grabbed Quirrell’s face —
[...] Quirrell rolled off him, his face blistering, too, and then Harry knew: Quirrell couldn’t touch his bare skin, not without suffering terrible pain [...]
-
“I couldn’t get the Horcrux off you [...] It was stuck, stuck to your chest. You’ve got a mark; I’m sorry, I had to use a Severing Charm to get it away. The snake bit you too [...]"
He pulled the sweaty T-shirt he was wearing away from himself and looked down. There was a scarlet oval over his heart where the locket had burned him. He could also see the half-healed puncture marks to his forearm.
the figures [....] swaying over Ron and the real Harry, who had snatched his fingers away from the locket as it burned, suddenly, white-hot.
[...] while the contents of the locket rattled like a trapped cockroach. It would have been easy to pity it, except that the cut around Harry’s neck still burned. (DH)
Harry's curse scar likewise described as burning and scorching - all echo the Dark Mark's burn: "Every Death Eater had the sign burned into him by the Dark Lord [...] When he touched the Mark of any Death Eater, we were to [...] Apparate, instantly, at his side [...] We both felt the Mark burn.”
Not taking the Love thing or Lily as inherently pure literally but - the prophecy says LV would "mark him as an equal"; Dumbledore says "love as powerful as your mother’s for you leaves its own mark. Not a scar, no visible sign [...] It was agony to touch a person marked by something so good" aka Lily marked Harry as her equal (evidently it left some sign, per LV seeing traces)
6. Personality traits
6.1 Curiosity, Cunning, Manipulation
Skilled at using people's weaknesses against them:
Slughorn pulled himself out of his armchair and carried his empty glass over to his desk as the boys filed out. Voldemort, however, stayed behind. Harry could tell he had dawdled deliberately, wanting to be last in the room with Slughorn. (HBP)
Lily glanced toward her parents, who were looking around the platform with an air of wholehearted enjoyment, drinking in the scene. Then she looked back at her sister, and her voice was low and fierce. (DH)
“You didn’t think it was such a freak’s school when you wrote to the headmaster and begged him to take you.”
Petunia turned scarlet.
“Beg? I didn’t beg!”
“I saw his reply. It was very kind.” (DH)
She dropped her voice. “And you’re being really ungrateful. I heard what happened the other night. You went sneaking down that tunnel by the Whomping Willow, and James Potter saved you from whatever’s down there —” (DH)
Lily blinked. “Fine,” she said coolly. “I won’t bother in future. And I’d wash your pants if I were you, Snivellus.” (OoTP)
"Messing up your hair because you think it looks cool to look like you’ve just got off your broomstick, showing off with that stupid Snitch, walking down corridors and hexing anyone who annoys you just because you can — I’m surprised your broomstick can get off the ground with that fat head on it." (OOTP)
- The text draws a very deliberate parallel between her, Tom Riddle, and Harry (and to an extent Dumbledore) regarding their cunning and manipulation in HBP - i.e. Slughorn calls Lily charming, charismatic, says that he used to tell her she ought to have been in Slytherin, which means she has Slytherin traits (cunning, ambition, resourcefulness, a disregard for rules) and which sounds like the kind of thing he'd say specifically when she was displaying those traits - akin to when Slughorn tells Tom Riddle that he'd "like to know where he gets his information", that he's "more knowledgeable than half the staff" and has an "uncanny ability to know things he shouldn't".
- Lily calls Snape an affectionate nickname ("Sev") three times. Lily addresses people by name a lot, it's a part of her speech patterns; but it could also be read as having a slight manipulative edge to it - the way Harry and Dumbledore use "Lily Evans" to manipulate Slughorn and Snape, and LV uses names to simulate intimacy (especially given Lily uses Snivellus later, and if Lily's using Legilimency on Snape in this scene - "Severus?" A little smile twisted Snape’s mouth when she said his name - she'd be extra aware of it).
- Not super difficult to fake given Lily could do magic at Snape's house, but the Dursleys not knowing Harry can't do magic at home implies that Lily hid the Underage Magic rule and kept up a lie to likely all three of her family members for a while; like Harry threatening Dudley ("it was only their terror that he might turn them all into dung beetles that stopped them from locking him in the cupboard [...] Harry had enjoyed muttering nonsense words under his breath and watching Dudley tearing out of the room as fast as his fat legs would carry him.")
- Sneaks into Petunia's room with Snape to read her mail - she has the same curiosity and penchant for solving mysteries and sneaking that others have (i.e. parallels Harry reading Filch's mail in CoS). Her knowing about the Prank, dynamic with Slughorn and Bathilda Bagshot (gets the same "best kept secret" info out of her that Rita Skeeter gets using Veritaserum) may also imply this trait.
Rulebreaking and Bravery
“Yes, I speak it,” said Riddle. He moved forward into the room, allowing the door to swing shut behind him. Harry could not help but feel a resentful admiration for Voldemort’s complete lack of fear. His face merely expressed disgust and, perhaps, disappointment.
“It’s obvious, isn’t it?” Snape could no longer contain himself, but had jumped out from behind the bushes. Petunia shrieked and ran backward toward the swings, but Lily, though clearly startled, remained where she was. Snape seemed to regret his appearance. A dull flush of color mounted the sallow cheeks as he looked at Lily.
“What’s obvious?” asked Lily.
“Of course, if you would rather not come to the school, nobody will force you —”
“I’d like to see them try,” sneered Riddle. (HBP)
“Let me? Let me?”
Lily’s bright green eyes were slits. Snape backtracked at once. (DH)
- "Lily, don't do it!" "Mummy told you not to!" "Mummy said you weren't allowed, Lily!" "But I'm fine" She only obeys when Petunia appears genuinely freaked out ("Stop it!" Petunia shrieked / "It's not hurting you").
- Lily laughs and takes a selfie while James runs after Harry; thinks it's hilarious when Harry breaks Petunia's vase; goes on "little excursions" under the Cloak while in hiding; goes "I'm not sure he'd be pleased if he knew!" wrt Bathilda spilling Dumbledore's secret then proceeds to gossip to Sirius about it.
