Lord Voldemort

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Lord Voldemort (born December 31, 1926) is the fictional arch-villain of the Harry Potter series. He is an evil wizard bent on securing unmatched power and achieving immortality through the practice of Dark Magic. He is so feared by magical people that most refer to him as "You-Know-Who" or "He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named" rather than say his name out loud. His followers, the Death Eaters, do not use his name either, but instead refer to him as "the Dark Lord". Voldemort is considered one of the most powerful wizards alive. It has been said that the only wizard he fears is Albus Dumbledore, headmaster of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

Voldemort's name can be translated as "flight of death" or "theft of death" in French (vol de mort).

Early history

Lord Voldemort was born Tom Marvolo Riddle on New Year's Eve 1926 to Tom Riddle Sr. and Merope Riddle, née Gaunt. Through his mother, he was the last descendant of Salazar Slytherin.

Riddle was abandoned by his father Thomas Riddle, and his mother died shortly after his birth, so he was raised in an orphanage. When he turned eleven, Albus Dumbledore invited him to study at Hogwarts. Even as a child, he had developed some control over his abilities, a sign of his immense potential as a wizard. By the time that Dumbledore met him, he could move things with his mind, make animals do his bidding, talk to snakes, cause people pain, and, in his own words, "make bad things happen to people who annoy[ed him]". However, he also displayed cruelty, a disregard for others, a tendency to abuse his magical abilities, and a lack of moral judgement. Within a few short years of arriving at Hogwarts, Riddle began using a new name; a name he knew witches and wizards would one day fear to speak - Lord Voldemort.

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While a student at Hogwarts, Riddle was generally successful in concealing his motives and was a talented student. He was a gifted and exceptional student, making prefect and eventually Head Boy, though Dumbledore never forgot what Riddle confessed to him, thus never fully trusted him. He quickly gathered a group of followers amongst whom he began using the name "Lord Voldemort"--an anagram of his full name, Tom Marvolo Riddle, is "I am Lord Voldemort." After leaving Hogwarts, Riddle chose to abandon his original name and use his adopted name openly. While Riddle was at Hogwarts, he surrounded himself with a group of fellow Slytherin students whom he referred to as friends, but for whom he felt little or no compassion. Many of these people became Death Eaters, including Avery and Rodolphus Lestrange. During Riddle's fifth year at Hogwarts, he opened the Chamber of Secrets and killed Myrtle, a Muggle-born student. Only Professor Dumbledore even suspected him ^[HP2], as Riddle had exercised his considerable charm over most of the other staff including Potions master Horace Slughorn ^[HP6] and framed a third year student, Rubeus Hagrid.

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After completing his education, Voldemort sought to become a teacher at Hogwarts. Dumbledore speculates that this was in order to obtain an object belonging to Godric Gryffindor or Rowena Ravenclaw. He was turned down by then-headmaster Dippet on account of his youth. Instead, he temporarily took a job at Borgin and Burkes, but left upon acquiring, by theft and murder, Salazar Slytherin's locket and a goblet bearing the Hufflepuff badger, probably to use as Horcruxes. He then disappeared and was not seen again for many years. Ten years later, he returned to Hogwarts to ask for the position of Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher, but was turned down again by Dumbledore because he had proven untrustworthy. At this time, it is noted, Voldemort was appearing much less human, and asked to be called by his assumed title rather than "Tom Riddle", which Dumbledore did not do. Voldemort was again turned away from the position. Enraged, he placed a hex on the Defence Against the Dark Arts job, and since then, no teacher has ever been able to keep the job longer than a year.

Rise to power

Little more is known about Riddle until he rose to power as Lord Voldemort in the 1970s. Grindelwald was vanquished while Riddle was 18 so it is possible that the two met beforehand. There have only been hints at the full horror of his attempt at control. It would seem that when Voldemort first appeared, he started his campaign with the idea of "purifying" the Wizarding race by purging Muggle-born people (notably despite, or perhaps partly because of, his own 'half-blood' heritage), which appealed to the old Wizarding families. It was during this time that he briefly resurfaced to contact Dumbledore, now the Hogwarts Headmaster, asking again to teach Defence Against the Dark Arts at Hogwarts. At some time he "showed his true colours", which apparently caused him to lose the support of some of the old families. It is still unclear what Voldemort's exact aims were. The British Ministry of Magic – led largely by Barty Crouch Sr. – worked against Voldemort, along with the Order of the Phoenix, led by Dumbledore. Dumbledore is said to be the only wizard whom Voldemort ever feared, and Hogwarts was one of the few safe places during that dangerous time when Lord Voldemort ruled.

During this period, there were high levels of suspicion and fear in the wizarding world. People felt they could never be sure who was on Voldemort's side and who wasn't. Voldemort and his followers used curses which could cause excruciating pain or instant death, or allow the spellcaster to control another person. This third curse, the Imperius Curse, was the subject of controversy, as many who supported Voldemort later claimed that his followers had been using this curse on them. Some of these people were later set free, but there is conclusive evidence that at least one, Lucius Malfoy, was acting of his own free will.

Voldemort had his own group of trusted aides: the Death Eaters, over whom he maintained control by continuous, and often brutal, punishment. The Death Eaters would employ the Dark Mark, a green skull with a snake emerging from its mouth as their symbol, conjured by the incantation Morsmordre. This would be used to terrorize people – by its appearance above a house where the Death Eaters had committed a murder, for instance. The same symbol was tattooed on the arm of each Death Eater by Voldemort himself. The Dark Mark tattoo served as a means to summon his followers before him; when he pressed his finger against any Death Eater's mark, the others' marks would all change color to let them know that he wished to meet with them.

Despite the efforts of the Ministry and Dumbledore, Voldemort appeared to be on the verge of victory, having infiltrated many of their organizations with his spies. The British wizarding community remained under siege and was being torn apart by widespread suspicion.

Then, in early 1980, Sybill Trelawney, great-great-granddaughter of a famous and gifted seer, Cassandra Trelawney, entered a trance in the presence of Dumbledore and uttered a prophecy:

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

Two boys were later found to fit the description of the prophecy: Neville Longbottom and Harry Potter. Severus Snape overheard the prophecy as Trelawney was making it and informed Voldemort; however, he only reported the first few lines, missing out key details about the subject of the prophecy being marked 'as his equal'. Voldemort believed Harry the most likely of the two to be a risk to him, even though Neville was a pure-blood (and thus, according to Voldemort's creed, the better wizard) and went to kill the child. In doing so, he "mark[ed] him as equal" and confirmed that Harry was the one to whom the prophecy referred.

In Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, Dumbledore reveals further truths relating to this prophecy. He tells Harry that by attempting to kill him, Voldemort, besides giving Harry his scar, began the chain of events that would eventually lead to fulfilment of the prophecy. This theme of inevitable fulfilment of prophecy initiated by those who seek to prevent it is a common motif in ancient myth, particularly in ancient Greek tragedy and most famously in the story of Oedipus. It can also be seen as a "what if" prophecy such as the one in Macbeth. Would Voldemort have lost his powers if he didn't go to kill Harry?

His downfall

On October 31st, 1981, Voldemort arrived at the home of James and Lily Potter, prominent members of the Order of the Phoenix who had thrice defied him (as stated as a condition of the prophecy), in Godric's Hollow. James Potter was killed in the confrontation, and Lily sacrificed her own life to save her son. This act of love granted Harry an unexplained charm of protection, which foiled Voldemort's attempt to use Avada Kedavra, the killing curse, on the baby.

The one-year-old Harry became the first and only known survivor of the Avada Kedavra curse, with only a scar in the shape of a lightning bolt on his forehead. The spell somehow backfired on Voldemort, reducing him to a barely-alive shell of his former self. He was only able to survive because he had previously split his soul into pieces, five of which were imbued into objects known as Horcruxes, enabling Voldemort to defy death as long as these objects were intact. Voldemort fled, and virtually disappeared for over a decade.

The protective charm bestowed on Harry by his mother's loving sacrifice afforded him a lingering protection against direct attacks by Voldemort. This charm was kept active as long as he had a home among Lily's blood relatives and only until he came of age (at seventeen). For this reason, Albus Dumbledore took the rescued baby Harry and left him in the indifferent and even neglectful care of his aunt and uncle, the Muggles Vernon and Petunia Dursley.

The news of Voldemort's downfall spread fast through the wizarding community. Without his personal power to back them up, many of his supporters defected or gave themselves up. A few attempted to find him, but were unsuccessful. Overnight, Harry became a celebrity, popularly called "The Boy Who Lived." Many Death Eaters were captured and sent to Azkaban prison.

The years of exile

Voldemort led a shadow of life in a forest, where even continued existence was a struggle for him. His only remaining power was the ability to occupy the bodies of others, and he frequently possessed snakes. Animal bodies made it difficult for him to perform magic, a crucial obstacle to regaining his strength and restoring his physical form.

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Then, in the early 1990s, Professor Quirinus Quirrell, teacher of Defence Against the Dark Arts at Hogwarts, encountered Voldemort in the forests of Transylvania during his travels. Whether tempted by promises of power or overcome by trickery, Quirrell submitted to the Dark Lord's service and allowed Voldemort to possess him. He travelled to London and attempted, with the help of his new master, to steal the Philosopher's Stone (called the Sorcerer's Stone in the American version of the book), which would have allowed Voldemort to regain his former power and to become immortal. Finding that the stone had been moved from Gringotts to Hogwarts, Voldemort/Quirrell set about finding ways to break through the many layers of security now around the Philosopher's Stone. Voldemort's plans were, however, thwarted by Harry, now a first-year student at Hogwarts, and Voldemort was forced to flee his host's body, as Harry's touch reduced his host's body to ashes.

Voldemort returned to hiding, angry that his Death Eaters had forsaken him, ashamed that he had been defeated by an 11-year-old boy, and afraid that he would not be able to find another wizard to possess. He remained in hiding for two years in Albania. In this interim, Death Eater Lucius Malfoy managed to send one of Voldemort's horcruxes – the diary kept by the young Tom Riddle – into Hogwarts by passing it secretly into the possession of student Ginny Weasley. By means of this sinister diary, the memory of Riddle managed to manipulate Ginny into opening the Chamber of Secrets once again, nearly killing a number of students. Riddle then tried to drain Ginny's life-force to allow himself to regain physical form outside the book. Harry, however, defeated him once again. It is not known what would have happened had Ginny been destroyed by this past version of Tom Riddle, but author J. K. Rowling has noted it would strengthen the present-day Voldemort.

Luckily for Voldemort, a series of incidents forced Peter Pettigrew, who had betrayed Harry's parents to Voldemort, to leave hiding and to go in search of Voldemort. While seeking his one-time master, he kidnapped Bertha Jorkins, from whom Voldemort learned enough to formulate a plan to create a primitive body for himself, rudimentary but still corporeal, allowing him to perform magic. He then used an ancient ritual of Dark Magic to recreate the body he had before his curse rebounded at the beginning of the first book. Harry's blood formed a part of this process of rebirth, preventing the effect which caused Voldemort to almost die when he first tried to kill Harry. Many Harry Potter fans suspect that this will eventually prove to be Voldemort's undoing; when Harry was telling Dumbledore about how Voldemort had removed the charm over Harry, Dumbledore had in his eyes a look of triumph, seeming to know something no one else does. After being reborn, Voldemort summoned the Death Eaters back to him, and attempted to kill Harry — but Harry escaped the Dark Lord yet again (see below).

The Second War

At first, the British Ministry of Magic refused to believe that Lord Voldemort had risen again. The Minister for Magic (Minister of Magic in American Editions), Cornelius Fudge, began a process of discrediting Harry, who had witnessed Voldemort's resurrection, and Albus Dumbledore, Harry's chief supporter. Dumbledore was accused of being senile, and was removed from several important posts. Harry, on the other hand, was characterized as an attention-seeking liar, or psychologically unstable. Meanwhile, Lucius Malfoy, having returned to Voldemort's service, sought to gain influence within the Ministry, encouraging Fudge to believe that the real threat to his authority came from a powerful Dumbledore, not a resurgent Voldemort.

In opposition to Voldemort, Dumbledore reformed the Order of the Phoenix, and set it up in Sirius Black's family home at Number 12, Grimmauld Place, London. He also sent envoys to the giants and other non-human magical beings whom Voldemort might try to lure to his side.

Meanwhile, Voldemort was waiting and plotting carefully. Only a handful of wizards – the Death Eaters and the members of the Order of the Phoenix – knew or believed he was back, allowing him a free hand in his schemes. He managed to coerce the giants, Dementors and werewolves to support him.

After engineering a plot to secure the break-out of some of the Death Eaters from Azkaban, Voldemort embarked on a scheme to kill Harry and retrieve the record of Trelawney's prophecy regarding Harry and Voldemort, stored in the Ministry's Department of Mysteries. His plot failed, and the only copy of the prophecy was destroyed. All but one of the Death Eaters sent to retrieve it fell into the hands of the Order of the Phoenix after a running battle inside the Ministry building.

However, during the skirmish, Sirius Black fell through a strange archway in the Department, and vanished. This doorway was supposedly created so that the Ministry could study death. Overcome with anger and grief, Harry chased down the Death Eater Bellatrix Lestrange, Sirius's cousin and the woman responsible for his death. They fought, but Lestrange was saved by the appearance of Voldemort himself. Harry was in turn saved from Voldemort's wand by the timely arrival of Professor Dumbledore.

There followed a wizarding duel between Dumbledore and Voldemort, until finally Voldemort vanished, taking Lestrange with him. He was seen by the Minister for Magic, however, who finally accepted that Voldemort was back. This led to a return of the earlier fear and suspicion among the wizarding community, which was fueled by Voldemort's continuing attacks and schemes as he regained strength.

Voldemort's next step was to engineer an attack on his most formidable enemy, Dumbledore himself. This was achieved by the machinations of Draco Malfoy, a student at Hogwarts and the son of Death Eater Lucius Malfoy, who had been arrested and sent to Azkaban following the battle inside the Ministry of Magic, and his wife Narcissa. Draco managed to arrange an access point into Hogwarts for the Death Eaters by means of two enchanted cabinets, the use of which bypassed the extensive enchantments placed around the school to prevent unauthorized access. While Dumbledore, accompanied by Harry, went on a mission to recover and destroy one of Voldemort's Horcruxes, the Death Eaters overran Hogwarts. On their return, Dumbledore and Harry joined the fight but Dumbledore, weakened from the effects of the potion he had to drink to retrieve the the Horcrux, met his death on the school battlements at the hands of none other than Professor Severus Snape. Snape was acting to complete the mission assigned by Voldemort to a hesitating young Draco, due to the Unbreakable Vow he made to Draco's mother. With "the only one he ever feared" dead, Voldemort's greatest enemy (bar Harry) is no more, and the scales of the battle have now tipped, it seems, in favour of the Dark Lord.

Characteristics

Voldemort is described as having very pale skin, no nose at all with snake-like slits for nostrils, red eyes and cat-like slits for pupils, a skeletally thin body, and long, thin hands with unnaturally long fingers. In the first HP movie, he did have red eyes, but a normal nose. There is no proof in the books that he is bald. Rather that idea has been brought about by the movies and his characterization in the Harry Potter fandom. Earlier in life, Voldemort was a handsome man with black hair, before his appearance began to transform from his experiments in the Dark Arts. There is a slight resemblance, possibly significant, to Harry Potter. The transformation into his monstrous state was caused in most part by the division of his soul by advanced dark magic so that he could create Horcruxes.

Voldemort's attempts to gain immortality through the Horcruxes are similar to that used by the mythical creatures known as liches, though the liches' phylacteries require neither the user to "split" his/her soul, nor does it require a portion of said practicioner's soul to remain in his/her body.

One of Voldemort's defining characteristics are his classist "pure-blood" tendencies. Voldemort looks down upon Muggles, a hatred which seems to have originated in part from his father's abandonment of his mother. He hates non-pure-bloods, despite the fact that he is one himself. While prior to his conflict with Harry Potter it is believed that his hatred for non pure-bloods was the driving force behind his violence, the books suggest that his attention has since been diverted to focusing purely on the death of Harry himself, sidelining this blood hatred.

In many ways, Voldemort matches the classic profile of antisocial personality disorder.

Voldemort is portrayed even from childhood as unsatisfied with what he sees as "normal" life. He wanted to be "special" and "better" and was in fact capable of consciously controlling his wand-less magic at a very young age. He came to hate his own name, partly because it links him to a father whom he hated, and also because "Tom" is a fairly common English name and did not grant Riddle the uniqueness he craved. For this reason, he adopted a pseudonym based on an anagram of his given name.

As Darth Vader is "more machine than man," Voldemort appears to be "more magic than man." When first describing him to Harry, Hagrid noted that Voldemort might no longer be human enough to die:

"Some say he died. Codswallop in my opinion. Dunno if he had enough human left in him to die."

Rubeus Hagrid to Harry, in Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone

Voldemort is also a Parselmouth: a wizard who can speak the language of snakes, Parseltongue. This is an ability he inherited from his ancestor, Salazar Slytherin, of whom he is the last living descendant, and which he unwittingly passed to Harry when he tried to kill him.

Voldemort has been called the world's greatest Legilimens and Occlumens, meaning he can 'read' minds (though Snape claims that this is a basic misconception as the mind cannot be read like a book) and he can also shield his own mind from the penetration of others.

Voldemort, in his arrogance, has also displayed a tendency to forget seemingly minor and insignificant details, which has led to his undoing on several occasions. In Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone he states that he had forgotten the ancient magic which protected Harry, after his mother had died to save him; in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets he forgets that the tears of the phoenix have healing powers. The Harry Potter Lexicon suggests that the glint in Dumbledore's eye in the Goblet of Fire when Harry tells him that Voldemort has some of his blood in him refers to Dumbledore's knowledge that this is something else Voldemort has forgotten about.

Voldemort's magic wand was made from yew, a wood associated with immortality and which produces a poisonous sap, is thirteen and a half inches long,has the feather of a phoenix at its core, and in the movie, what appears to be a bone handle. The wand's manufacturer, Mr Ollivander, got this feather from Dumbledore's pet phoenix, Fawkes. Unusually enough, Fawkes gave one more feather to be used in a wand: this wand belongs to Harry Potter. Because the two wands have a core coming from the same source, they cannot work properly when used against each other. If they are nevertheless forced to battle, what will happen is Priori Incantatem or the "reverse spell effect," where each wand will try to force the other to regurgitate shadows of the spells it has cast in reverse chronological order. All of this played an important part in Harry Potter's escape from Voldemort at the end of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.

After much speculation JK Rowling revealed that Voldemort's greatest fear is "ignominious death", and that his boggart would be his own corpse. What Voldemort desires most is to be all-powerful and eternal – which is what he would see if he were ever to look in the Mirror of Erised. Dumbledore also stated in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince that Voldemort secretly fears both corpses and darkness, though, "it is the unknown we fear when we look upon death and darkness, nothing more," (Chapter 26).

Dumbledore may have deduced this characteristic during his duel with Voldemort at the end of Order of the Phoenix, during which the two exchanged a series of taunts:

VOLDEMORT: You do not seek to kill me, Dumbledore? Above such brutality, are you?"

DUMBLEDORE: We both know that there are other ways of destroying a man, Tom. Merely taking your life would not satisfy me, I admit –

VOLDEMORT: There is nothing worse than death, Dumbledore!

DUMBLEDORE: You are quite wrong.

Skills

Voldemort is possibly the current most powerful wizard in the world. As Tom Riddle he was the best student in the school. He is a Parselmouth and the greatest legilimens and occlumens in the world. He is one of the few people who knows about Horcruxes, let alone have them and is the greatest dark wizard ever.

Voldemort in the films

In Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone he is merely a face on the back of Quirrell's head. This was achieved by computer generated imagery voiced by Richard Bremmer. In that film, he was also shown in a flashback sequence when he arrived at the home of James and Lily Potter to kill them. In this scene Voldemort is played by Ian Hart, the actor who played Quirrell in the same film.

In Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, Voldemort appears as a memory of his younger self, Hogwarts student Tom Riddle, who is played by Christian Coulson.

Voldemort does not appear in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban.

In Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, which is the first time Voldemort is seen in his actual physical form, he is played by Ralph Fiennes. The assumption that this casting will be preserved in the filming of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix has been supported by an interview with Fiennes.

Characters seem less touchy about hearing Voldemort's name in the films than in the books.

Pronunciation

Voldemort's name means "flight from death" or "theft of death" in French, and J.K. Rowling personally uses a French pronunciation for his name, i.e. Vol-de-mor (with a silent t). However, the movies use an English pronunciation and the t is pronounced, e.g. Vol-de-mort. Since J.K. Rowling has final creative control over the movies, it can be inferred that these different pronunciations are not significant. The fact that in the movies people didn't really have a reaction to Voldemort's name angers many fans.

Voldemort's family tree

                      Salazar Slytherin
                              |
                              |
                              .
                              .
                              .
                              |
                              |
                        Marvolo Gaunt
                              |
                       +------+-----------+
                       |                  |
Tom Riddle Sr. + Merope Gaunt        Morfin Gaunt
               |
       Tom Marvolo Riddle
        (Lord Voldemort)

| Title=Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone
| Authorlink=J. K. Rowling
| First=J.K. | Last=Rowling
| Year=1997
| ID=UK ISBN 0747532699/US ISBN 0590353403
}}

| Title=Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
| Authorlink=J. K. Rowling
| First=J.K.|Last=Rowling
| Year=1998
| ID=UK ISBN 0747538492/US ISBN 0439064864
}}

| Title=Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
| Authorlink=J. K. Rowling
| First=J.K. | Last=Rowling
| Year=1999
| ID=UK ISBN 0747542155/US ISBN 0439136350
}}

| Title=Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
| Authorlink=J. K. Rowling
| First=J.K. | Last=Rowling
| Year=2000
| ID=UK ISBN 074754624X/US ISBN 0439139597
}}

| Title=Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
| Authorlink=J. K. Rowling
| First=J.K. | Last=Rowling
| Year=2003
| ID=UK ISBN 0747551006/US ISBN 043935806X
}}

| Title=Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
| Authorlink=J. K. Rowling
| First=J.K. | Last=Rowling
| Year=2005
| ID=UK ISBN 0747581088/US ISBN 0439784549
}}

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