(The Lack of) Horcrux-Hunting
Aug. 24th, 2011 05:36 pm![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
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deathtocapslockBack in my essay “The Keeper of the Keys,” I argued that Dumbledore didn’t start hunting Riddle’s Horcruxes until about 1995 because it took him until after Harry’s report of Tom’s boasts in the graveyard to realize that Tom had more Horcruxes than just Harry.
But there’s an even more fundamental problem. Why wasn’t Dumbledore hunting for Tom’s (presumably singular) Horcrux in, say, 1948? Or at least, after Tom’s return from the continent as “Lord Voldemort,” master of the Death Eaters?
I mean, you have a monster who likes to kill and who covets personal immortality—why wouldn’t he make a Horcrux? Or rather, why would Dumbledore assume that he had not?
What follows is, of course, pure speculation.
Tom Riddle made up a name for himself that indicated his interest in immortality (or more precisely, his fear of death) back when he was in his teens. At the same age, he showed a taste for grandiosity and an interest in wizarding legends. (He billed himself, after all, as the Heir of Slytherin when he killed Myrtle.)
Tom showed up wearing an ancient ring engraved with the symbol of the Deathly Hallows about the same time Morfinn Gaunt, admitted murderer of one Tom Riddle and his parents, complained of losing his family’s heirloom ring.
A Muggle killing by a previously-convicted Muggle-hexer (the last scion of a degenerate, impoverished family) would hardly rate front page coverage in the Prophet, and it’s wildly unlikely the tiny article reporting the sordid little crime would bother to list anything as insignificant as the Muggle victims’ names. And no one outside Hogwarts knew young Tom Marvolo Riddle’s name anyhow; he had no intention, ever, of becoming famous under that sobriquet.
But the victims’ names must surely have been mentioned at Morfinn’s trial and in his files. (Um, surely they must? Although Bob Ogden’s official paperwork, seventeen years earlier, referred to Morfin’s victim only as “said Muggle.” Maybe Muggles’ names are rarely recorded. When a this-universe human is arrested for cruelty to an animal, after all, the animal is not necessarily named—just the species given and offense against it noted.)
Was Albus Dumbledore already on the Wizengamot then? He’d already been asked at least once to stand for Minister of Magic, so I think he must have been. And how many other Hogwarts staff and students could say the same?
If he saw the names, Dumbledore might have guessed at once some version of what really happened.
He might, however, have misinterpreted young Tom’s motive.
One of the results of Tom’s crime spree was the theft of his uncle’s ring. Set with a black stone, not a gem, engraved with the symbol of the Deathly Hallows, and claimed by Gaunt family legend to date back to the Peverells.
Or if Albus didn’t learn at the time about Tom’s other crimes and just thought Tom came by his newest trophy through simple theft, Albus might still have misinterpreted Tom’s motive.
Remind me, what was it that Albus and Gellert were hell-bent on finding when THEY were sixteen?
Albus might have jumped to the conclusion that Tom sought to master death the same way he and Gellert had: by finding and uniting the Deathly Hallows. And have been smugly confident that even though Tom might possibly have gained one of them, he’d never attain at least one of the other two. Since Albus happened to know where it was, and to believe that young Tom could not defeat the Deathstick’s master (neither Gellert nor later, Albus). Tom’s inexplicable-to-other-teachers decision to go work at a mere shop (which happened to trade in antiquities and Dark objects) would then make perfect sense to Albus, and so would Tom’s sudden decision to decamp to the continent, where the Deathstick had last been seen…. But by then it wasn’t there any more.
If Albus had also had the overweening vanity to imagine that his attempt to purge Hogwarts of information about Horcruxes had actually prevented Tom from finding out about that means of trying to cheat death, he might have believed young Tom’s aspirations to immortality doomed to ultimate failure. (Tom was not, after all, of the spiritual purity even to think about creating a Philosopher’s Stone.) So Albus might not have worried much about them (while still worrying, perhaps, about Tom’s other known interests).
In which case, Albus probably went for years smugly thinking that the problem posed to the WW by the newest Dark Lord was fundamentally temporary. (Which would, of course, somewhat mitigate Albus’s culpability in allowing Tom to become Lord Voldemort.) And so on Halloween 1981, the discovery that Tom’s body had been destroyed without effecting Tom’s actual death must have come as a considerable shock to Albus.
No wonder Albus never even considered that Tom must have created at least one Horcrux before the Harrycrux. It was an overwhelming blow to Albus’s vanity to learn that Tom had made ANY.
But there’s an even more fundamental problem. Why wasn’t Dumbledore hunting for Tom’s (presumably singular) Horcrux in, say, 1948? Or at least, after Tom’s return from the continent as “Lord Voldemort,” master of the Death Eaters?
I mean, you have a monster who likes to kill and who covets personal immortality—why wouldn’t he make a Horcrux? Or rather, why would Dumbledore assume that he had not?
What follows is, of course, pure speculation.
Tom Riddle made up a name for himself that indicated his interest in immortality (or more precisely, his fear of death) back when he was in his teens. At the same age, he showed a taste for grandiosity and an interest in wizarding legends. (He billed himself, after all, as the Heir of Slytherin when he killed Myrtle.)
Tom showed up wearing an ancient ring engraved with the symbol of the Deathly Hallows about the same time Morfinn Gaunt, admitted murderer of one Tom Riddle and his parents, complained of losing his family’s heirloom ring.
A Muggle killing by a previously-convicted Muggle-hexer (the last scion of a degenerate, impoverished family) would hardly rate front page coverage in the Prophet, and it’s wildly unlikely the tiny article reporting the sordid little crime would bother to list anything as insignificant as the Muggle victims’ names. And no one outside Hogwarts knew young Tom Marvolo Riddle’s name anyhow; he had no intention, ever, of becoming famous under that sobriquet.
But the victims’ names must surely have been mentioned at Morfinn’s trial and in his files. (Um, surely they must? Although Bob Ogden’s official paperwork, seventeen years earlier, referred to Morfin’s victim only as “said Muggle.” Maybe Muggles’ names are rarely recorded. When a this-universe human is arrested for cruelty to an animal, after all, the animal is not necessarily named—just the species given and offense against it noted.)
Was Albus Dumbledore already on the Wizengamot then? He’d already been asked at least once to stand for Minister of Magic, so I think he must have been. And how many other Hogwarts staff and students could say the same?
If he saw the names, Dumbledore might have guessed at once some version of what really happened.
He might, however, have misinterpreted young Tom’s motive.
One of the results of Tom’s crime spree was the theft of his uncle’s ring. Set with a black stone, not a gem, engraved with the symbol of the Deathly Hallows, and claimed by Gaunt family legend to date back to the Peverells.
Or if Albus didn’t learn at the time about Tom’s other crimes and just thought Tom came by his newest trophy through simple theft, Albus might still have misinterpreted Tom’s motive.
Remind me, what was it that Albus and Gellert were hell-bent on finding when THEY were sixteen?
Albus might have jumped to the conclusion that Tom sought to master death the same way he and Gellert had: by finding and uniting the Deathly Hallows. And have been smugly confident that even though Tom might possibly have gained one of them, he’d never attain at least one of the other two. Since Albus happened to know where it was, and to believe that young Tom could not defeat the Deathstick’s master (neither Gellert nor later, Albus). Tom’s inexplicable-to-other-teachers decision to go work at a mere shop (which happened to trade in antiquities and Dark objects) would then make perfect sense to Albus, and so would Tom’s sudden decision to decamp to the continent, where the Deathstick had last been seen…. But by then it wasn’t there any more.
If Albus had also had the overweening vanity to imagine that his attempt to purge Hogwarts of information about Horcruxes had actually prevented Tom from finding out about that means of trying to cheat death, he might have believed young Tom’s aspirations to immortality doomed to ultimate failure. (Tom was not, after all, of the spiritual purity even to think about creating a Philosopher’s Stone.) So Albus might not have worried much about them (while still worrying, perhaps, about Tom’s other known interests).
In which case, Albus probably went for years smugly thinking that the problem posed to the WW by the newest Dark Lord was fundamentally temporary. (Which would, of course, somewhat mitigate Albus’s culpability in allowing Tom to become Lord Voldemort.) And so on Halloween 1981, the discovery that Tom’s body had been destroyed without effecting Tom’s actual death must have come as a considerable shock to Albus.
No wonder Albus never even considered that Tom must have created at least one Horcrux before the Harrycrux. It was an overwhelming blow to Albus’s vanity to learn that Tom had made ANY.
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no subject
Date: 2011-08-25 02:32 am (UTC)But even if he had an excuse not to seek Tom's Horcrux(es) back then, he didn't have an excuse not to ensure that Tom was prosecuted for the murders he committed under his original name. Albus dropped the Riddles case when Morfin died and similarly dropped the investigation of Mrs Smith's death.
As for Muggles' names not being recorded - still, wouldn't a case of killing 3 Muggles at once be of some personal interest to Dumbles? Wouldn't it ring a bell? Or perhaps such an association would cause him to stick his head deeper in the sand?
And no one outside Hogwarts knew young Tom Marvolo Riddle’s name anyhow; he had no intention, ever, of becoming famous under that sobriquet.
He still used that name until his disappearance. Hepzibah addressed him as Tom.
1945
Date: 2011-08-31 05:58 pm (UTC)I tentative accept Jodel's timing on Albus's beginning investigation into Tom's murder/thefts--that he did so only after the Smith family noticed two powerful antiques missing. By which point young Tom was long gone, and Albus probably earnestly hoped he would never resurface. (Does Wizarding Britain even have extradition treaties with all the rest of the world? Certainly one had the impression that the foreign equivalent of Aurors didn't seem to pursue Azkaban escapee, mass murderer Black with any zeal.)
And of course Tom Riddle never does resurface. Not under his own name.
That's what I meant about "no intention, ever, of becoming famous" under it--he used it until he was ready to vanish overseas and drop it, but (unlike Albus) he's not known to have published research under it while at school, he refuses Sluggy's and other teachers' introductions to those in power--only those who know him personally really know how powerful and intelligent he is. For all anyone else knows, he's just another Head Boy, there's one every year by definitiion, and my grandson is exaggerating when he raves about Tom's talents. Didn't even apply at the Ministry, did he? Couldn't be too ambitious, or knew he wasn't actually bright enough to get ahead there without another patron, better placed than Horace.
Good looking boy, too, maybe he was worried what he might have to do to work his way up. With no family connections to ease the way....
So yeah, Tom Riddle was fairly forgettable, for those who didn't actually know him.
Finally, regarding prosecuting Tom for murder... We only have Albus's word for it that he ever attempted to secure Morfin's release from Azkaban but that Morfin died while the bureaucracy was still deliberating. In fact, we have several options: Albus presented his evidence (Frank Bryce's eyewitness account of seeing young Tom that day plus Morfin's memories) and the Ministry considered it too inconclusive to re-open the case. Or the Ministry decided to re-open the case but dropped the idea when Morfin died. Which they would only do, surely, if they thought both the possibly-innocent wizard and the one who'd framed him were BOTH dead? Or at least firmly out of reach, in which case why make waves that can do nothing but splash mud on the Ministry? But then someone should have been watching in case Tom Riddle ever returned.
Or, of course, Albus collected his evidence but never shared it.
Re: 1945
Date: 2011-09-01 12:15 am (UTC)I recently realized how this came to be. Think about the Smith heirs' POV: Their dear aunt Hepzibah died, of mysterious poisoning. Her life-long loyal house-elf Hokey admits to the deed, though has no motive for doing this on purpose. The poisoning gets attributed to Hokey's senility. Hokey is disgraced and traumatized (what kind of house-elf is she to make such a mistake?) and has no prospects of finding a new master who would be willing to take her on after such performance.
Meanwhile Smiths search for the artifacts, repeatedly. They are nowhere to be found, and if Hokey can still say anything intelligible it is that she put them back in their normal location under the usual protections. So the Smiths may have hoped a Legilimens would be able to find out when Hokey saw those items last. How many of these are around? Not that many, at least, not in respectable society.
And of course the memory revealed Tom's visit 2 days before Hepzibah's death and his reaction when she showed him her trinkets. It also revealed that the locket was purchased by Burke from an impoverished pregnant woman. So Albus asked Burke and confirmed the story, confirmed the authenticity of the locket and added the detail that it was around Christmas-time. Between that story and whatever Albus already suspected about Tom's involvement with the chamber of secrets (which was attributed to the heir of Slytherin) Albus had reasons to check out both Slytherin's surviving descendants as well as Tom's wizarding ancestry (for which he had the clue of the name 'Marvolo'). Both lines of investigation lead to the Gaunts, Little Hangleton, and Morphin in his cell in Azkaban. I don't think Albus needed the entire 10 years of Tom's absence to figure all of this out (even if at the time he was very busy teaching Transfiguration or anything else).
Of course if Albus visited Little Hangleton at this time he'd have found whoever lived at that time in what once was the Riddle House, Frank Bryce tending the gardens, and the abandoned Gaunt Hovel.
Re: 1945
Date: 2011-09-01 06:12 am (UTC)Re: 1945
Date: 2011-09-01 02:15 am (UTC)I wonder what Professor Marchbanks thought of him. She must have met him for OWLs and NEWTs. OTOH, Tom already planned to change his name by OWLs time and had no plans for entering the Ministry (or St Mungo's staff or anywhere else where academic credentials matter). So maybe he didn't try too hard, just enough to enter those NEWTs classes that mattered to him. (Definitely DADA, Transfiguration, Charms and Potions, probably also Arithmancy. Definitely not Muggle Studies, probably not Divination.)
As for Albus: Even if he involved the Ministry and they decided there was no point in re-opening either case - with Morfin being dead, Hokey either dead or insane but not imprisoned and Tom being missing, presumably dead - when Tom returned he did not alert the Ministry that Tom is no longer missing but this newcomer calling himself Lord Voldemort. And there were those 'rumors' about this person, rumors involving a group calling itself The Death Eaters. I wonder what those entailed. Because there were many years yet until people like Molly and Arthur would feel they had to elope before it was too late and people like Minerva and Hagrid started referring to You-Know-Who.
Gaming the tests
Date: 2011-09-01 06:24 am (UTC)Top to top-tnree on every test, but not overwhelmingly over the other kids' performances, would give the impression of "deserves his teacher's accolades and obvious attention, but isn't that unusual"
"Not trying too hard" could mean getting an A, for some kids. Or it could mean getting an O, but without further breathless notes of "I've never in my life seen anyone do that with a wand!"
As to the rest of your comment, about Albus--YEAH.
no subject
Date: 2011-08-25 07:12 am (UTC)Vanity
Date: 2011-08-31 06:40 pm (UTC)Consider what Albus did when James and Severus conclusively demonstrated that Albus's precautions to isolate Lupin during "that time of the month" were inadequate: nothing. Albus really doesn't want to register when he's been fallible and someone else has outsmarted him.
Moreover, for as long as Albus thinks Tom is using the Stone as a Hallow, he'd expect Tom to keep it on him at all times.
Maybe Albus had gone scrabbling through the rubble at Godric's Hollow looking for it, and concluded that both Riddle's wand and the Stone had somehow been destroyed in the blast. Or that the Stone had somehow gone immaterial to stay with its true master (still alive, if immaterial). Or maybe Albus kept going back to the ruins of the Potter cottage to look periodically--if the Stone were impervious to magical revealing and summoning spells, he'd have to hand-sift the rubble. And he's usused to archeological procedures, and can't use them there without making it obvious to the rest of the WW that someone's looking for something.... So can he ever be quite, quite sure that it isn't there, somewhere? Or been taken by a jackdaw before he had time to search?
My current guess is that something in the battle between them at the Ministry alerted Albus that Tom was not currently holding the ring, and quite possibly that he had never used it as a Hallow. He saw, of course, that Tom wasn't openly wearing the ring--well, he could have seen that in Severus's memories before. Nothing to keep Tom from spelling it invisible, or wearing it on a chain around his neck. But maybe something in the behavior of either the Deathstick or that Veil.... maybe something should have happened if the Resurrection Stone or its user was so close....
Harry had always had the impression that the Deathstick's master could see right through that cloak, hadn't he? Maybe the holder of one Hallow has privileges over the others?
And if Albus subsequently realized that Tom also hadn't been wearing or carrying the thing way back at his DADA job interview, that would immediately send Albus's mind to contemplating that it might have been hidden long ago. In a hiding place associated with Tom's past.
Because it's, what, six weeks after that that Albus suddenly decided to hightail it over to that hovel to check.
Re: Vanity
Date: 2011-09-03 01:50 am (UTC)Both ways? Hierarchically? Or rock-paper-scissors style?
We see that Wand beats Cloak. But apparently did not help Albus with the Stone. In fact, I can imagine that if the owner of the Stone were to face the Master of the Elder Wand - situations where the Stone Master might be able to summon shades that would either tempt or threaten or otherwise manipulate the Wand Master to cede it. Maybe Albus was very lucky Tom had no idea what the stone in the ring was. I'm not sure about the outcome of Cloak vs Stone.
no subject
Date: 2013-09-19 03:32 pm (UTC)Rock,paper,scissors.
Stone, cloak, wand.
Scissors cuts paper. The Cloak is transparent to the Deathstick's master.
Rock smashes scissors. What happened when the Deathstick's master found the Resurrection Stone?
Paper wraps rock. Harry sees his dead parents, but they don't compel him. He had already planned to suicide; they didn't put the idea in his head. (They were quite convincing; but then the power of the cloak may have been broken or lessened by incorrect transmission of the artefact.)
So only the Cloak's master COULD safely master the Stone. And the Stone's master could easily overpower the Wand's. You're supposed to collect them in reverse order. Or, at least, so Albus would have come to believe. And if his plans had all worked, the Master of Cloak and Stone would (at worst) have faced the Master of the Wand. Assuming the Wand had had a Master at that time, not just a holder.
Which actually would be a mitigation of Albus's offence in practicing Necromancy upon Harry: if he believed Harry to be the Cloak's true master and the Cloak's powers intact, he might have thought Harry to be the one person who could safely use the Stone.
But if the Cloak's powers had been broken, no one would be safe. And he did give Harry that snitch "to be opened at the close," so he expected Harry to use it assist his suicide....
(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:Re: Vanity
Date: 2011-09-03 03:42 am (UTC)There was that mystery spell Albus sent at Tom, the spell that made a clanking noise when it hit Tom's shield. Did Albus expect Tom to respond differently if he had the stone on him? Was that spell intended to interact with the stone?
Eureka!
From:no subject
Date: 2011-08-25 04:36 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-08-25 09:37 pm (UTC)There are several wizarding families associated with Godric's Hollow. The Peverell-Potters were there for centuries. The Dumbledores moved there around 1891. There's Bathilda Bagshot. Muriel (Prewett? - or was she Molly's maternal relative?) grew up there, but now lives close to the Burrow. There was also Bowen Wright the inventor of the Snitch - though we don't know if anyone related to him lived there in the last 2 centuries.
It seems the Potters didn't advertise their ownership of the cloak, preferring to be able to use it quietly for assorted misdeeds. Was there a long line of Potter pranksters/bullies who used the cloak at school under Albus' nose?
Muriel is related to Molly's family which had two members in the Order v1.0 - was she or other members of her family involved in transmitting anti-Slytherin propaganda?
no subject
Date: 2011-08-26 01:08 am (UTC)If the Resurrection Stone tempts its possessors to suicide, and the Elder Wand to aggression and/or hubris, then maybe "encouraging" its wearers to use it for invisible mischief (or worse), which they're sure they'll get away with, is the Cloak's effect. Since apparently Youngest Brother Peverell lived in the thing for decades, maybe instead (or in addition) it slowly cuts wearers off from feeling connected to others - they feel separate, different, maybe special, and above a lot of others' concerns, drifting along invisibly interfering however they choose or more often just passively observing.
If that's the case, I wonder what Albus did with it during the 10 years he had it. It certainly can't have been good for someone who already had pretty strong tendencies in those directions already. And if he figured out what the Cloak's effect was, maybe we should be even more suspicious about why he gave it to Harry.
(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:HBP Harry's moral deterioration
From:Re: HBP Harry's moral deterioration
From:The effects of the last hallow
From:Re: The effects of the last hallow
From:Re: The effects of the last hallow
From:Re: The effects of the last hallow
From:Re: The effects of the last hallow
From:Re: The effects of the last hallow
From:Re: The effects of the last hallow
From:Re: The effects of the last hallow
From:Re: The effects of the last hallow
From:Re: The effects of the last hallow
From:(no subject)
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From:(no subject)
From:The Map
From:The twins' deterioration
From:Re: The twins' deterioration
From:The twin's start point of deterioration
From:If he figured out what the Cloak's effect was...
From:no subject
Date: 2011-08-26 03:23 pm (UTC)Actually Bowman Wright. Misremembered his name, sorry.
no subject
Date: 2011-08-25 11:22 pm (UTC)(no subject)
From:James and the Cloak?
Date: 2011-08-26 05:41 am (UTC)I know Albus said (of course I trust this implicitly) that he only examined he Potter heirloom cloak seriously around Harry's first birthday. And at that time, never before, suspected it might be in truth the Third Hallow.
But I seem to remember Truthful Albus telling us that his discovery that James had an Invisibilty Cloak made sense of how James had gotten away with some of his Hogwarts misbehavior.
And Albus also told Harry that James had used the Cloak primarily to filch food from the kitchens.
If these last two impressions are true, we know that Albus is lying. Because he can't simultaneously know what James is using the Cloak for and not know that James has it.
Which opens things up for your explanation.
Of course, my essay "The Corruption of the House System" posits that James was originally parroting normal pro-Gryffindor/anti-Slytherin bias, and that only later were such prejudices hardened.
But your speculations are fascinating.
Re: James and the Cloak?
Date: 2011-08-26 03:32 pm (UTC)I think the idea is supposed to be that there was strong circumstantial(?) evidence that James (or one of his close friends) must have been in some place but was not seen at some well monitored spot on the way there. Let's say, there was strong evidence that James and his friends were out by the Shrieking Shack (or forest or wherever) but the Fat Lady never saw them leave Gryffindor Tower. Which means Albus should have suspected some form of invisibility was available to them. But of course, they may have used other methods - maybe Polyjuiced themselves into other students.
BTW what's the deal with sneaking food from the kitchens? The twins mange it fine without an invisibility cloak. Anyway, one only needs to 'sneak' on the way to the kitchens and back, the elves volunteer the food willingly. And one only needs to sneak on the way to/from the kitchens if one goes there after curfew. During the daytime the trio goes there openly in GOF.
Re: James and the Cloak?
From:no subject
Date: 2011-08-26 05:36 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-08-28 06:31 pm (UTC)- In Tom's 7th year Albus realized Tom had the Resurrections Stone (and Gellert did not)'
- At the end of that year Albus defeated Gelelrt and won the wand
- He returned to Hogwarts to learn that Tom wanted to be a teacher - he discouraged Dippet from hiring him to keep Tom away from the Elder Wand
- When Severus turned his coat and reported Tom claimed to be immortal Albus thought Tom expected a trusted supporter to bring him back to life using the Resurrection Stone.
- Then Godric's Hollow happened and Albus realized Tom was unkillable - ie had a Horcrux.
That works, and...
Date: 2011-08-31 07:49 pm (UTC)And.... Albus continued to think Tom had "a" Horcrux. For some time.
Maybe until the moment he realized the ring was one too?
Becauee one we entertain the notion that Albus realized the Stone was in Tom's ring, he had a totally independent reason for searching the Gaunt hovel to steal one of Tom's prizes than Horcrux-hunting.
Re: That works, and...
From:But wait, there's more.... Horcrux detection spells?
From:no subject
Date: 2011-09-01 04:09 pm (UTC)Hmm. Maybe Albus thought Tom returned because he figured out where the wand was? And the first thing he does is make an appointment with Albus? And after that avoid Albus... Maybe Albus thought Tom was avoiding him because he didn't dare face the master of the Elder Wand again? And if it took all the way to their confrontation at the Ministry for Albus to realize Tom wasn't (yet) seeking Hallows or even aware that he had one of them in his own possession - I'm not sure how this goes, but there seems to be a connection somewhere.
no subject
Date: 2011-09-01 04:58 pm (UTC)