25 Things You Didn’t Know About Tom Riddle (Before He Was Voldemort)

Summary

Young Tom Riddle’s early life was a dark mystery that hinted at his descent into evil, starting with his twisted family history.
Before becoming Lord Voldemort, Tom Riddle assembled a group of Slytherin allies at Hogwarts, laying the groundwork for the Death Eaters.
Despite his charming facade, Tom Riddle engaged in dark acts such as torturing orphans and committing teenage serial murders.

One of the most impressive things about the Harry Potter villain Voldemort is how effortlessly he became one of the Big Bads of pop culture, but many fans still wonder why Tom Riddle turned evil in the first place. In a landscape dominated by imposing characters such as Darth Vader, Voldemort managed to hold his own among fans. It helped that he looked just as scary as he acted, with a reptilian face that advertised that his blood ran very cold. Over the course of the series, his villainous plan takes shape as he returns from near death to wreak absolute havoc on the Wizarding World once more.

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However, as much as the evil of Lord Voldemort is seen and felt throughout the story, his early life when he went by the name Tom Riddle is fascinating. The last name is appropriate, too, as his childhood and teenage years showed him to be a mysterious riddle that no one could fully unravel before it was too late. Throughout the eight Harry Potter movies, young Tom Riddle was shown only a handful of times, meaning there were many details and facts that the movies left out when exploring why Tom Riddle turned evil.

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25 The Death Eaters Weren’t The First Group Of Dark Wizards Formed By Voldemort

Voldemort’s First Group Of Followers Went By A Different Name

The Death Eaters were Voldemort’s loyal followers and personal army, and responsible for many of the atrocities of both the First and Second Wizarding War’s (though the Dark Lord definitely enjoyed committing unspeakable acts with his own hands too). While the exact timeline in terms of specific years has always been a little hazy with events that took place before the events of Harry Potter, it’s widely accepted that the group took on the Death Eaters name in 1970.

It’s not known why Voldemort chose to semi-disband and then rename the group, though it is known that many of the Knights went on to become Death Eaters.

However, it’s been confirmed by J.K. Rowling in interviews that the Death Eaters weren’t the first group of acolytes of Voldemort. Prior to the Death Eaters, Voldemort was at the head of a group he named the Knights of Walpurgis (Walpurgis being the name of a Christian Saint celebrated in previous centuries in Germany for ridding the country of pests, plagues, and — ironically — witches). It’s not known why Voldemort chose to semi-disband and then rename the group, though it is known that many of the Knights went on to become Death Eaters.

24 Voldemort Created The Spells To Summon The Dark Mark

The Magic Behind The Wizarding World’s Most Feared Symbol Was The Dark Lord’s Own Creation

The Dark Mark is one of the most well known, and widely feared, symbols in the Wizarding World. It’s the brand given to every single one of Voldemort’s Death Eaters, and would appear in the sky whenever they’d carry out an atrocity such as a massacre or an assassination. While it’s a given that the design was created by Voldemort himself, a lesser-known aspect of the Dark Mark is that the magic used in its various incarnations was also created by the Dark Lord.

How spells are created has always been an ambiguous part of the lore of Harry Potter. The only notable example is the sectumsempra curse, which was created by Severus Snape while still at Hogwarts (as revealed during Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince). However, the teenage Snape creating his own curse didn’t signify that creating spells was easy, it just proved that Snape was an incredibly gifted wizard.

It’s always seemed that creating spells from scratch is incredibly difficult. If it weren’t, many witches and wizards would simply rely on their own incantations rather than learning the same spells taught at Hogwarts. This is what makes this particular Voldemort fact so fascinating.

The magic that enables, for example, him to summon his Death Eaters through their Dark Mark tattoos is a spell he himself created, as is the spell used to launch the Dark Mark into the sky. While there’s plenty to prove just how capable a wizard Voldemort was, the fact he is also responsible for the magic that ties his Death Eaters together adds another layer to his legacy as an incredibly talented (albeit evil) wizard.

It’s insinutated by Hermione that one of the spells utilized in the creation of the Dark Mark was the Protean Charm.

23 Tom Riddle Applied To Be A Hogwarts Teacher (Multiple Times)

Voldemort Was Constantly Trying To Find A Way Back To Hogwarts

One of the key parallels between the lives of Harry Potter and Voldemort is just how significant Hogwarts was to them. For both, Hogwarts represented an escape from the torment that their lives in the Muggle world were. It’s not an understatement to say that Voldemort was obsessed with Hogwarts, and it’s one of the key reasons he chose it as the location for his final battle against the last remnants of resistance during the Second Wizarding War.

However, one fact not widely discussed in the books or movies is that Voldemort applied to be a Hogwarts professor at least twice during his adult life. This is why there’s a curse on the Defense Against the Dark Arts position. This was the post Tom Riddle first applied for, and after being rejected by then-headmaster Professor Dippet (on the advice of Albust Dumbledore), he ensured nobody would be able to hold the position again.

This was only the first time that Voldemort applied for the position, however. He later returned after over two decades to re-apply, confident that the curse would have created enough desparation for him to be hastily approved. However, Dumbledore was wise to Voldemort’s intentions to use Hogwarts as a recruiting ground, and so he was swiftly rejected once more. What Dumbledore may not have known was Voldemort’s other goal in taking up residence at Hogwarts as a professor – it was the perfect opportunity to hide one of his Horcruxes, the diadem of Rowena Ravenclaw.

22 Bellatrix LeStrange Was Personally Trained By Voldemort

Voldemort Groomed His Most Loyal Follower In Many Ways

Next to Voldemort himself, Bellatrix LeStrange is perhaps the most memorable (and sinister) antagonist in the Harry Potter franchise. Bellatrix is utterly devoted to the Dark Lord, and it was revealed during Harry Potter and the Cursed Child that the pair even had a romantic relationship, with Bellatrix giving birth to Voldemort’s daughter, Nagini. However, one aspect of their relationship that hasn’t been explored in much detail is just how Bellatrix became so enamored with the Dark Lord, nor why he seems to reciprocate many of these feelings (especially when he seems to see the rest of the Death Eaters as little more than disposable pawns).

It hasn’t been revealed exactly when Bellatrix and Voldemort first met, though it can be assumed that it was through Bellatrix’s husband, Rudolphus Strange (who was also a known Death Eater, and the pair were presumably still married when Bellatrix bore Voldemort’s child). One aspect that has been confirmed over the years is that Bellatrix’s impressive mastery of the Dark Arts stems from her being personally trained by Voldemort.

This may seem like a small detail, but it’s also one more aspect of their history that proves the Dark Lord treated Bellatrix differently from his other followers, and that she represents a peculiar deviation from his normally singularly-focused mindset. Voldemort was driven by his quest for power, to the point that everything else, including human relationships (perhaps, even, especially human relationships) fell to the wayside. Tom Riddle went to great lengths to dehumanize himself in many ways, so the fact he clearly took a specific interest in Bellatrix is something of a juxtaposition in his wider history.

21 Tom Riddle Took On The Name Voldemort While Still At Hogwarts

The Dark Lord Had Already Started Shedding His Human Identity As A Teen

It’s no secret that Tom Riddle came up with the name Voldemort while he was still at Hogwarts. It was one of the key reveals in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, the story that first introduced Tom Riddle and Voldemort’s identity before becoming the most feared Dark Wizard of all time. However, while it’s revealed through his diary that he created his new name based on the fact “Tom Marvolo Riddle” has the same letters as “I Am Lord Voldemort”, it’s not quite clear whether he’d already adopted the name outside his diaries.

Like many aspects of the Dark Lords life, more details of Tom Riddle becoming Voldemort have emerged through interviews and tie-in media. It’s now known that Tom Riddle had indeed started using the name Voldemort while still at Hogwarts. However, it was a name known only to his closest group of friends (although “friends” is a loose term — in reality, Riddle’s relationship with those in his social circle wasn’t too dissimilar from his relationship to the Death Eaters, and many of the Knights of Walpurgis were already acolytes of the Dark Lord before they knew he had intentions of seizing power).

Voldemort didn’t denounce his identity as Tom Riddle and take up his new name completely until he was an adult and had left Hogwarts. However, it is fascinating to know just how prolonged a transition it was. It shows that Voldemort’s journey started incredibly early on in his life, and that his desire to conquer death and become the most powerful dark wizard who ever lived wasn’t an idea that came ot him later in life.

20 Tom Riddle Was Born In 1926

Voldemort Was In His 70s By The End Of Harry Potter

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The Fantastic Beasts And Where To Find Them movies showed the Wizarding World in the 1920s. However, Newt Scamander’s adventures — even those that included Dumbledore — weren’t the most important events in the Harry Potter franchise during this decade. Voldemort, the chief antagonist and greatest Dark Wizard who ever lived, was born in 1926. The Harry Potter books and movies are vague when it comes to specific years, but Harry’s story begins in the early 1990s (something made more confusing by the presence of London landmarks like the Millennium Bridge appearing in the movies, despite the fact they didn’t exist yet).

The fact he was born in the late 1920s also creates some interesting thematic parallels.

The Battle of Hogwarts takes place in 1998, with Voldemort dying aged 71. The fact he was born in the late 1920s also creates some interesting thematic parallels. It’s clear that Voldemort and his ideology were inspired on a creative level by Adolph Hitler and the Nazi Party when J.K. Rowling was writing the Harry Potter books. While Voldemort had no interest in the Muggle world beyond wiping it out, he grew up in a Muggle orphanage during Hitler’s rise to power, and it’s entirely possible this had some influence on him when it came to his own ambitions.

19 He Made His First Horcrux Aged 16

Tom Riddle Had Already Split His Soul Before Leaving Hogwarts

A key way that Voldemort became so powerful was the creation of Horcruxes. He made 7 in total, though inadvertently created an 8th later in life when he tried to kill Harry Potter, since Harry became a Horcrux. Tom Riddle learned of Horcruxes in 1943 when he was in his sixth year at Hogwarts, discovering their potential both through his own research and by interrogating Professor Slughorn. Horcruxe’s are an incredibly dark and powerful magic, which makes the fact Voldemort managed to create his first at age 16 considerably impressive.

Creating his first Horcrux at such a young age is also a chilling revelation, since each one made split off a small part of his soul — which is a reason Voldermort’s appearance is so inhuman by the time he reaches adulthood. Tom Riddle’s first Horcrux was the diary seen in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, and his second — a ring — was also created while he was still a student. Given the implied effects creating a Horcrux has on the body and mind of a witch or wizard, it’s amazing nobody at Hogwarts noticed any changes in him.

18 He Opened The Chamber Of Secrets In His Fifth Year

Voldemort’s First Notorious Act Came Before His OWL’s Were Complete

The fifth year at Hogwarts seems to be a significant one for many of the important characters in Harry Potter. It’s the year that Harry first joined the Order of the Phoenix and established Dumbledore’s Army. It’s also the year that his father, James Potter, and his friends Sirius Black and Peter Pettigrew finally managed to become Animagi, so they could better understand their werewolf friend Remus Lupin. The 5th year was also an important one for Tom Riddle, as this is the year he opened the Chamber of Secrets.

Thankfully, Voldemort’s first truly dark act only managed to claim one victim — Myrtle Warren, who went on to become the Hogwarts ghost known as Moaning Myrtle.

Despite the fact that few beyond Harry, Dumbledore, and those that they told know Tom Riddle/Voldemort was behind it, the Chamber of Secrets being opened in the 1940s was one of the darkest and most significant events in the history of Hogwarts. While the students in his year should have been studying for their Ordinary Wizarding Level exams, they were instead terrified of the Basilisk roaming free at Hogwarts. Thankfully, Voldemort’s first truly dark act only managed to claim one victim — Myrtle Warren, who went on to become the Hogwarts ghost known as Moaning Myrtle.

17 He Discovered He Was A Parselmouth At A Young Age

Tom Riddle’s Story Mirrors Harry Potter’s In A Key Way

Their 5th year at Hogwarts being unintentionally significant isn’t the only parallel between Harry Potter and Tom Riddle’s lives. There are also some idiosyncrasies in their pre-Hogwarts lives too. They both grew up as orphans, for example, and both had a less-than-positive experience living in the Muggle world due to mistreatment at the hands of their caregivers. It’s widely known that Harry Potter is a Parselmouth — meaning he can talk to snakes — because of his encounter with Voldemort. However, another similarity is that both Harry and Tom Riddle discovered this skill before they learned they were wizards.

The scene where Harry learns he can speak to snakes is one of the funniest in Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, though it’s not until his second year that he learns this is actually quite a big deal in the Wizarding World, and not everyone can speak to snakes. When Dumbledore first encounters young Tom Riddle to inform him that he’s a Wizard, Riddle asks if that’s the reason he can speak to snakes. This both shows that, like Harry, speaking Parseltongue was one of the first magical abilities of Voldemort’s to manifest.

16 He Thought His Father Was A Wizard

Voldemort Always Misunderstood His Upbringing

Tom Riddle was always prejudiced and bigoted when it came to Muggles and their inferiority compared to witches and wizards. However, a less-known Voldemort fact is that he was also somewhat sexist in his teenage years too. When he first arrived at Hogwarts, Tom Riddle spent many years researching his heritage to learn who his parents were. A key fact is that he was utterly convinced his magical abilities came from his father.

Voldemort was, of course, disgusted when he learned that his mother had fallen in love with a Muggle (never mind the fact that this also meant he wasn’t a pure-blooded wizard).

It was only when he began digging into his past and realized that there was no Marvolo Riddle to ever attend Hogwarts that he realized his magical abilities were inherited from his mother. Voldemort was, of course, disgusted when he learned that his mother had fallen in love with a Muggle (never mind the fact that this also meant he wasn’t a pure-blooded wizard). While the presumption that his magical talents were paternally inherited was far from the worst of Voldemort’s crimes, it does say a lot about who he was as a person and how skewed his views on the world were.

15 Several Actors Played Tom Riddle

Ralph Fiennes Wasn’t Only One To Play The Dark Lord

Over the years, the Harry Potter movies provided several glimpses of what young Tom Riddle looked like. While the general details of his appearance remained the same, Voldemort has been played by no less than three young actors and two actors portraying his older form. One of those actors had a very special connection to the older Voldemort. The first onscreen glimpse of Tom Riddle was in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. In that movie, he was played by Christian Coulson, who was 23 at the time. The next real glimpse of the future evil wizard came in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.

That movie featured two actors inhabiting the role before Tom Riddle turned evil: the older Tom (the one who conned the secrets of the Horcruxes out of Professor Slughorn) was played by Frank Dillane, who was 16 at the time. The younger Tom seen in that movie was played by Hero Fiennes-Tiffin. This young man is the nephew of Voldemort actor Ralph Fiennes. The movie’s director, David Yates, insisted the casting was not based on family connection but based on the young actor looking like a miniature Ralph Fiennes.

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14 Tom Riddle Is Harry Potter’s Cousin

The Boy Who Lived Shares Blood With He Who Must Not Be Named

Over the course of the Harry Potter series, Harry and Voldemort develop into mortal enemies after Tom Riddle turns evil. To Voldemort, Harry emerges as the clearest threat to his attempts at worldwide domination. However, the great irony of this is that Tom Riddle and Harry Potter are actually related to each other. To be fair, it’s a pretty distant relation, but it’s all related to the story of the Deathly Hallows.

While Harry and Voldemort end up on a fatal crash course towards each other, the two are actually distant cousins.

That story told the tale of the Peverell family line, and the three brothers: Antioch, Cadmus, and Ignotus. Harry’s father, James, was related to the third brother, Ignotus (the one who gets the invisibility cloak), and Tom Riddle is related to the second brother, Cadmus (the one who gets the resurrection stone). Therefore, while Harry and Voldemort end up on a fatal crash course towards each other, the two are actually distant cousins.

13 He’s A Half-Blood

Voldemort’s Pure-Blood Philosophy Was Born From Self-Loathing

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When he assumed power as Voldemort and Tom Riddle turned evil, one of his biggest obsessions was the so-called “purity” of wizards. He hated “mudbloods” (wizards who did not come from magical parents) and “half-bloods” (those who had one magical parent and one non-magical parent). This is ironic, of course, because young Tom Riddle was a half-blood himself. When it comes to young Tom Riddle’s parents, his mother (Merope Gaunt) was a wizard who died very shortly after giving birth to Tom, while his father was a Muggle who had been under the spell of Merope’s love potion.

Tom Riddle was angry when he found out about his mixed heritage, and Voldemort basically denied it altogether. Later in life, he would present himself as a pure-blooded descendant of Salazar Slytherin and publicly railed against those without pure wizarding blood in their veins. All of this is darkly funny considering how many people would eventually flock to the “pure blood” banner being held high by Tom Riddle, a genuine half-blood.

12 Young Tom Riddle Was Known For Being Handsome

Voldemort Was The Polar Opposite Of His Hideous Visage In His Youth

When it comes to visualizing Tom Riddle, most fans end up thinking about how he looks as Lord Voldemort. There are a number of striking details of Voldemort’s body, including his snake-like appearance, pale skin, and noseless face. This makes it that much more surprising, then, that young Tom Riddle was not the monstrous entity his older self would become.

It’s also one of the ways that he was able to manipulate people, including young Ginny Weasley in the
Chamber of Secrets
.

Despite the questionable genetics of his family line, Tom Riddle ended up being tall and handsome, with dark hair and captivating dark eyes. These good looks are one of the ways that he both recruited people into what would become the Death Eaters and also pulled the wool over most of his teachers’ eyes. It’s also one of the ways that he was able to manipulate people, including young Ginny Weasley in the Chamber of Secrets.

11 His Mother Died Of A Broken Heart

Merope Gaunt Was A Tragic Figure

In a weird way, Voldemort has something in common with Luke Skywalker: both of them had a mother who died of a broken heart. In the case of young Tom Riddle’s mother, Merope Gaunt, she died after a long bout with depression that sapped both her will to live and her will to use magic. As mentioned previously, her entire relationship with Tom Riddle’s father was a sham.

She won his affection with a love potion and continued doping him with it during most of their marriage. When she stopped doping him, he left her and basically took all their money with him. Thus, she ended up poor and miserable and wasn’t even willing to use magic to save her life. Shortly after Tom Riddle was born, she dropped him off at an orphanage, gave the boy his name, and died an hour later.

10 Tom Riddle Worked As A Salesman

Voldemort’s First Job Was Selling Dark Artifacts

Voldemort would eventually go on to threaten the entire Wizarding World on multiple occasions. At any given point, it would have been fair to say that he was one of the most powerful people in the world, if not the absolute most powerful. However, everyone has to start somewhere, and before Tom Riddle turned evil, he was just another worker in the Wizarding World. When he was a teenager, Tom Riddle worked at the magical shop of Borgin and Burke’s.

This allowed him to locate certain powerful relics such as Helga Hufflepuff’s Cup and the Locket of Slytherin, which he would later transform into Horcruxes.

He was basically a sales assistant: one part salesman, one part clerk. He was actually pretty good at his job, helping his employers score some really rare magical artifacts. Of course, because he’s Tom Riddle, he had ulterior motives. This allowed him to locate certain powerful relics such as Helga Hufflepuff’s Cup and the Locket of Slytherin, which he would later transform into Horcruxes. It was a bad job, but it helped him set up his plan to start trying to take over the Wizarding World with these artifacts.

9 He Could Manipulate All Teachers, Except Dumbledore

The Animosity Between The Powerful Wizards Started When Voldemort Was A Student

The more audiences learn about Tom Riddle’s childhood, the more unusual it seems that no one in Hogwarts ever discovered his evil deeds. After all, he spent his formative years torturing orphans, murdering relatives, and organizing future murderers. So, how was a young Tom Riddle able to fool some of Hogwarts’ best teachers and staff? The simple answer is that, despite their fantastic magical powers, the Hogwarts staff were only human. To them, Tom Riddle was a poor child who excelled in all of his studies and made a positive impression on all of his teachers, even though it was all an act.

Riddle was secretly using this time to learn secrets and consolidate his power. Not surprisingly, the one person who always seemed to see through the act was Dumbledore. Dumbledore had seen the true Tom Riddle when they first met: the boy who tortured, stole, and completely abused his powers. As a result, Dumbledore never fully trusted him, and Tom never even tried to win Dumbledore’s trust. Dumbledore’s knowledge of Tom Riddle’s true nature, and humble origins, was one of many reasons that Riddle was so scared of Dumbledore later in life.

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8 He Was A Prefect At Hogwarts

Tom Riddle Had A Successful Academic Career

Yet another part of Tom Riddle’s surprising time at Hogwarts was that he ended up as a Prefect. In the world of Hogwarts, this is a very important student position: each house only has about six Prefects active at any given time. And these Prefects have additional privileges and responsibilities, basically serving as an extension of the professors’ authority. Fans don’t know a lot about Tom Riddle’s time as a prefect, although he seems to connect his service with his general appearance to all the teachers at the school, describing himself as a “model student” who was also “so brave.”

This was just a ruse that helped him manipulate his teachers and also earn the loyalty and respect of his peers.

As with everything else, though, this was just a ruse that helped him manipulate his teachers and also earn the loyalty and respect of his peers. It also gave him increased access to Hogwarts, which young Tom considered his true home, and his desire to continue learning the secrets hidden in its walls was one of the primary motivations in his repeated attempts to become a professor there.

7 He Was A Teacher’s Pet

Voldemort Wasn’t Above Turning On The Charm To Get What He Wanted

Later in life, it’s fair to say that Voldemort had problems with authority. After all, he waged war against authorities such as the Ministry of Magic and authority figures such as Dumbledore, and he wasn’t satisfied until he had himself and his cronies installed in relevant positions of power. All of this makes it that much more surprising that young Tom Riddle was a teacher’s pet during his time at Hogwarts.

Perhaps the best evidence of this is that he ended up as a close friend of Professor Slughorn, and he was invited to join the so-called “Slug Club” along with other impressive pupils that Slughorn thought would go on to make a major difference in the world. However, Tom Riddle did everything for a reason, and his primary reason for being so friendly with Slughorn was so that he could get forbidden secrets from the man. This included knowledge of how Horcruxes worked, which ended up being a key part of Riddle’s future plans as Lord Voldemort.

6 He Was A Kleptomaniac

Murder Wasn’t The Only Crime Young Voldemort Had A Penchant For

When it comes to Tom Riddle’s antisocial tendencies, Harry Potter fans tend to focus on the bigger ones like manipulation, torture, and murder. However, he had a weird habit that developed early in life and one that Dumbledore called him out on: he was a thief and a kleptomaniac. Tom Riddle was raised in an orphanage, and unfortunately, this was where he had to spend his summers when he was away from Hogwarts. One of the things he liked to do in his earlier orphanage years was to steal things from other orphans and then hide them in his cupboard.

He stole the Gaunt family insignia, and he would later kill Hepzibah Smith to steal both the Slytherin Locket and Hufflepuff Cup that he coveted

When Dumbledore first comes to visit Tom, he makes him return everything to the orphans and warns Tom that stealing is not tolerated at Hogwarts. Tom learned to be more sneaky, but he never really stopped his thieving ways. He stole the Gaunt family insignia, and he would later kill Hepzibah Smith to steal both the Slytherin Locket and Hufflepuff Cup that he coveted, objects that Voldemort would choose to be his Horcruxes.

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