Lord Voldemort

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Lord Voldemort (born December 31, 1926) is a Dark wizard bent on controlling the magical world 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 saying his name out loud. He is also referred to as the "Dark Lord", although generally only by his followers, the Death Eaters. His name means Flight of death in French (vol de mort). (This could also be translated as "Theft of Death.")

Early history

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

Main article: Tom Marvolo Riddle

Lord Voldemort was born Tom Marvolo Riddle (in the English version of the book; see below for information on other editions) on New Year's Eve 1926 to father Tom Riddle Sr. and mother Merope (née Gaunt) Riddle. Through his mother, he was one of the last descendants of Salazar Slytherin.

Tom Riddle was abandoned by his father, and his mother died shortly after his birth, so he was raised in a Muggle orphanage. He was discovered by Albus Dumbledore, who 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. However, he also showed signs of his future personality, including cruelty, a disregard for others, a tendency to abuse his magical abilities, and a lack of moral judgement.

While a student at Hogwarts, Riddle was generally successful in concealing his motives and was a talented student. He began using the name Lord Voldemort among some of his followers, and would later go on to abandon his real name and use his adopted name openly.

After completing his education, Voldemort sought to gain employment as a teacher at Hogwarts (under Dumbledore's speculation, to find an object belonging to Godric Gryffindor or Rowena Ravenclaw). He was turned down by the headmaster Professor Dippet before him on account of his Young age. He was also turned down later by Dumbledore because he had proven untrustworthy. Instead, he temporarily took a job with Borgin and Burkes, but quit upon acquiring (by theft and murder) 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.

His rise to power

Little more is known about Tom Riddle until he rose to power as Lord Voldemort in the 1970s. The full horror of his attempt at control has only been hinted at. It would seem when Voldemort first appeared, he started his campaign with the idea of "purifying" the Wizarding race of Muggle-borns, which appealed to Most of the old Wizarding families. He briefly resurfaced to contact Dumbledore, requesting to teach Defence Against the Dark Arts at Hogwarts. He was turned down yet again. At some time he "showed his true colours", which apparently caused him to lose the support of some of the old families. The Ministry of Magic — led largely by Barty Crouch — worked against Voldemort, along with the Order of the Phoenix, led by Albus Dumbledore, then headmaster of Hogwarts. Dumbledore is said to be the only person who Voldemort ever feared, and Hogwarts was one of the few safe places during that dangerous time.

During this time, the wizarding world was embroiled with suspicion and fear. One 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, instant death, or allow a person to control another person. This third curse was the subject of much controversy, as many of the people who worked for Voldemort later claimed that his followers had been using this curse on them. Some of these people were later set free, and at least one (Lucius Malfoy) has been confirmed to have been 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 (morsmordre) with a snake coming out of its mouth, as their symbol. This would be used to terrorise people – by causing it to appear above a house where they had killed people, for instance.

Despite the efforts of the Ministry and Dumbledore, Voldemort appeared to be winning, having infiltrated many of their organisations with his spies. The wizarding community was in shock and fear, and mutual suspicion was tearing it apart.

Then, in early 1980, Sybill Trelawney, great-great-grand-daughter of a famous and gifted seer, (Cassandra Trelawney), entered a trance in the presence of Dumbledore, in the Hogs Head 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 fit the description within the prophecy: Neville Longbottom and Harry Potter. A Death Eater named Severus Snape overheard the prophecy being recited and informed Voldemort; however he only managed to hear the first few lines, thus missing out the part about "marking as equal" because he was caught by the bartender and thrown out. Voldemort believed Harry Potter 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 so went to kill the child, thus "marking him as equal" and confirming that Harry was the one referred to in the prophecy. It is unknown what would have happened if he had selected Neville Longbottom instead.

In Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, Albus Dumbledore reveals further truths relating to the prophecy. He tells Harry that by attempting to kill Harry, and giving him his scar in the process, Voldemort began the chain of events that would eventually lead to fulfilment of the prophecy (much as in Oedipus Rex).

His downfall

On October 31, 1981, Voldemort arrived at the home of James and Lily Potter, prominent members of the Order of the Phoenix, in Godric's Hollow. Voldemort killed James in a duel, and then went upstairs to kill Harry. Voldemort did not plan on killing Lily Potter, and would have allowed her to live if she had been willing to move out of the way. But Lily refused to step aside, so Voldemort killed her. The curse Voldemort used in these murders was Avada Kedavra a curse with no known counter-curse, no way of stopping it, and no known survivor.

Having killed the boy's parents, Voldemort attempted to kill Harry using the same curse. However, due to the unprecedented effect of Lily's sacrifice, the spell glanced off of Harry (leaving him with a lighting-bolt-shaped scar) and hit Voldemort instead. Voldemort did not die, due to the measures he had taken to protect himself from dying (particularly the creation of Horcruxes). However, the strike of the curse tore Voldemort's soul and self from his body, and he became a vaporous disembodied spirit. Being unable to use a wand, he was nearly helpless. Knowing that Aurors were bound to be searching for him and his followers, he fled to a deep forest in Albania, where he was to remain for over a decade.

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, the baby Harry Potter became a celebrity for being "The Boy Who Lived." Many Death Eaters were captured and sent to Azkaban prison.

The Dark Years

Voldemort settled in a forest, where even existence was a continuous struggle for him. His only remaining power was the ability to possess the bodies of others, and he frequently possessed snakes. Animal bodies made it hard for him to do any actual magic, crucial to regaining his body and strength.

Then, before or in 1991, Voldemort found Hogwarts' Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher, Professor Quirrel, passing through the forest. Seduced by thoughts of power and glory, Quirrel agreed to serve Voldemort. He took Voldemort to London and attempted with the help of Voldemort to steal the Philosopher's Stone, which would have allowed Voldemort to not only regain his former power, but to become immensely long-living. His plans were thwarted by Harry Potter, as recounted in Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone.

Voldemort returned to his hiding place, angry that his Death Eaters had forsaken him, and afraid that he would not be able to find another wizard to possess. He spent the next two years in hiding. In this interim, Death Eater Lucius Malfoy attempted to send the memory (and, unbeknownst to Malfoy, part of the soul) of Voldemort stored in his diary into Hogwarts, by giving it to Ginny Weasley. This horcrux of Voldemort 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 out of her to allow himself to come into being outside the book. The plans of Riddle's memory (and piece of soul) were once again stopped by Harry, as recounted in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. It is not known what would have happened had Ginny died, but J. K. Rowling has noted it would strengthen the present-day Voldemort.

Luckily for Voldemort, a series of incidents detailed in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban forced Peter Pettigrew, who had betrayed Harry's parents to Voldemort, to leave hiding and to go in search of Voldemort. While searching for his one-time master, he kidnapped Bertha Jorkins, from whose mind Voldemort learned enough to formulate the plan he executed in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. In the course of this plan, Voldemort first created a primitive body for himself, extremely rudimentary but still enough to allow him to perform magic by himself. 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, as the blood which now courses through Voldemort is Harry's own. 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 Characteristics).

The second war

At first, the Ministry of Magic refused to believe that Lord Voldemort had risen again. The Minister of Magic, Cornelius Fudge, began a process of defaming Dumbledore and Harry (the only non-Death Eater witness to the ceremony). Dumbledore was accused of being senile, and was removed from several important posts. Harry, on the other hand, was accused of making the whole thing up for attention. Meanwhile, Lucius Malfoy managed to gain large influence within the Ministry through heavy donations.

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

Meanwhile, Voldemort was waiting and plotting carefully. Only a handful of wizards (the members of the Order and his own Death Eaters) 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.

Towards the latter half of the book — after engineering a plot to spring some of the Death Eaters from Azkaban — Voldemort embarked on a scheme to kill Harry and retrieve the record of the 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 he sent to execute his plan fell into the hands of the Order of the Phoenix.

Just as the Order appeared to be winning, however, Sirius Black fell into a strange doorway in the Department of Mysteries, and apparently died. This doorway was supposedly created so that the Ministry could study death. Overcome with anger and grief, Harry chased down Bellatrix Lestrange, the Death Eater responsible for Sirius's death. In his rage, Harry used the Cruciatus Curse (a spell of the most intense physical pain) on her, but it only lasted a split-second, as Harry was not very familiar with it (as it is one of the three Unforgiveable Curses). Lestrange was saved by Lord Voldemort, however, who appeared and tried to kill Harry, who in turn was saved by Albus Dumbledore.

This led to a wizarding duel, in which Voldemort and Dumbledore battled each other, until finally Voldemort vanished, taking Lestrange with him. He was seen by the Minister of Magic, however, who finally accepted that Voldemort was back. At the end of the book, the Ministry of Magic is preparing to take him on once again. 3 years Lord Voldemort died when his killing curse, aimed at Harry Potter, backfired because he was using the Elder wand against its true master.

Characteristics

Voldemort is described as having chalk-white skin, no hair, cat-like red slits for eyes, and long, thin hands with unnaturally long fingers. Earlier in life Voldemort was a handsome man with black hair, before his appearance began to transform from his experiments with dark magic. In fact, he did not look dissimilar to Harry Potter. The transformation into this monstrous state was caused in most part by the division of his soul so that he could create Horcruxes.

One of Voldemort's defining characteristics are his classist "pure-blood" tendencies. He looks down upon Muggles (non-magical humans) — a hatred which seems to have begun with his muggle father's bad treatment of his mother. He hates non-pure-bloods, despite the fact he is one himself.

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

Voldemort does not want to be just an ordinary person. He wanted to be someone special. In fact, he was capable of consciously controlling his wandless magic at a very young age. That explains why he hated his name; other than the fact that it links him to his father who never wanted him, the name "Tom" is a common name and was not "special" to him. That was why he gave himself another name, one which others would fear in the future, Lord Voldemort.

Voldemort bears a certain physical resemblance to Ian McDiarmid's Emperor Palpatine from the Star Wars films although — 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 Potter, in the first novel)

Voldemort is also a Parselmouth: a wizard who can talk to snakes in their own language, 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 also has a tendency to forget seemingly minor 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 from him, after his mother had died to protect 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 reveals another of Voldemort's memory-slips.

Many of these characteristics are shared by Harry, probably as a result of the failed curse which gave him his scar.

Voldemort's wand is made from yew wood (a wood associated with immortality and that gives poisonous sap), is thirteen and a half inches long, and has the feather of a phoenix at its core. The feather is from Albus Dumbledore's pet phoenix, Fawkes. Unusually enough, Fawkes gave one more feather to be used in a wand; this wand belonging 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, and it might also be significant in the final book of the series.

Voldemort in the films

In The Philosopher's Stone he is merely a face on the back of Quirrel's head. This was achieved in the film as a computer generated image voiced by Richard Bremmer. In that film, he was also shown in a flashback sequence when he arrives 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 The Chamber of Secrets, Voldemort appears as a memory of his younger self, Hogwarts student Tom Riddle (who is played in the second film by Christian Coulson).

Voldemort does not appear in The Prisoner of Azkaban, and so does not appear in the third film.

In The Goblet of Fire, which is the first time Voldemort will be seen in his full glory, he will be played by Ralph Fiennes. The assumption is that this casting will be preserved when The Order of the Phoenix is filmed but no information is currently available.

It is generally assumed that Christian Coulson will play Voldemort/Tom Riddle once more in the many flashback sequences of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince when the film version is released in 2008 or 2009.

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

Pronounciation

Voldemort's name means Flight of Death or Theft of Death in French, and J.K. Rowling personally uses French grammar to pronounce his name, e.g. Vol-de-MOR (the t is silent). However, the movies use English grammar and the t is pronounced, e.g. Vol-de-MORT. Since J.K. Rowling has final creative control over the movies, she must not see different pronunciations as an important issue.

Voldemort's family tree

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

JKR made a deliberate typo saying that Voldemort was the last remaining ANCESTOR of Salazar Slytherin. This should have said DESCENDANT.

Voldemort's name

Voldemort's real name is Tom Marvolo Riddle (appropriate since his name is indeed a riddle); in the second book he explains that Lord Voldemort is derived from an anagram of his name:

TOM MARVOLO RIDDLE → I AM LORD VOLDEMORT

As many other names in the Harry Potter novels, "Voldemort" seems to have French origins. Indeed, "Vol de mort" means (rather appropriately) either "Flight of death" or "Theft of death" (as the word "vol" has two meanings in French). The word "de" can also translate into English "from", leading to the meaning "Flight from Death". Given Voldemort's fear and attempts to escape death, this meaning is also appropriate.

In translated versions of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, Voldemort's true name is changed to accommodate the anagram. In the Polish edition however, the translator Andrzej Polkowski, decided not to change anything, presumably because of the difficulties in translating the anagram into a meaningful sentence. In the Portuguese edition (contrary to the Brazilian one) the name was similarly left untouched.

See also

• Death Eater

References

• Madam Scoop's: J.K. Rowling on Lord Voldemort
• Harry Potter Lexicon: Lord Voldemort: Quick Facts
• Harry Potter Lexicon: Timeline 1926 - 1945
• Lev Grossman, "J.K. Rowling Hogwarts and All". TIME Magazine, July 25, 2005, Vol. 166, No. 4
• Translated names in the Harry Potter World