(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 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
Date: 2011-08-26 01:24 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-08-26 03:34 pm (UTC)HBP Harry's moral deterioration
From:Re: HBP Harry's moral deterioration
From:The effects of the last hallow
Date: 2011-08-26 05:24 am (UTC)No real consequences?
(The Invisible Man: invulnerable. He's not there to apprehend. And at the same time, his crimes aren't really real. Think of him being a voyeur: if no one can ever know, who cares? If there's no tangible loss or injury, nothing at all has happened. Nothing at all. He's outside the human social network. Removed.)
SSW, I've been trying for months now to determine if there were any negative effects from using the Third Hallow that were ever suggested or confirmed in canon.
And you nail it in a few words.
Re: The effects of the last hallow
Date: 2011-08-26 04:06 pm (UTC)Re: The effects of the last hallow
Date: 2011-08-26 05:35 pm (UTC)Re: The effects of the last hallow
Date: 2011-08-26 05:38 pm (UTC)Re: The effects of the last hallow
Date: 2011-08-27 05:17 am (UTC)Tom was wearing the ring when he cornered Horace about his new, bright idea.
Re: The effects of the last hallow
From:Re: The effects of the last hallow
Date: 2011-08-27 05:25 pm (UTC)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
Date: 2011-08-26 03:35 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-08-26 03:36 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-08-26 04:12 pm (UTC)The Twins do seem to get progressively worse throughout the series. At least in PS/SS, they help a scruffy mystery kid with his trunk, with no pranks or anything, before they have any idea who he is. I don't think we see any such nice gestures in later years. That could happen to anyone who got popular approval for the kinds of things they do, but in this series, I suspect the Map made things worse, if only because it helped them get away with more things and thus feel more clever and invincible. I think they acquired it in this year, too. (And Lupin did say the Map's makers would think it was funny to lure users out into dangerous situations - and we saw Harry suddenly start obeying it marionette-like to sneak out to Hogsmeade that first time (I can't remember the exact wording, but it was fishy) - so probably the Map at least encourages recklessness, which would then have its own consequences.)
The Map
Date: 2011-08-31 08:20 pm (UTC)I posted a link above to some real cool speculations by lunarmusic and swythyv about the effects of that Map.
The twins' deterioration
Date: 2011-08-31 08:56 pm (UTC)Re: The twins' deterioration
From:The twin's start point of deterioration
From:If he figured out what the Cloak's effect was...
Date: 2011-08-31 07:33 pm (UTC)BTW this might mean his protestations of undue regard for Harry might not be as empty as they had sounded. Harry is, after all, the one person he most has his attention on once he is rid of the Cloak.
(And his treatment of Severus upon Lily's death now has a further explanation. He probably had the thing in his pocket at the time. Especially if he'd just Portkeyed from Godric's Hollow.)
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
Date: 2011-08-26 06:23 am (UTC)Yes, but mum Dorea must have been a Slytherin. Would Albus have left James' choice to chance? If James had been a Mama's boy who knows where that cloak would have ended up. Better make sure he follows Dad's lead.
I once checked all what Albus tells harry about James. The one act of James that Albus praises is James' saving of Severus from Remus in the Shrieking Shack. Which saved Albus his job and position more than anything else. Even regarding the Potters' role in the war Albus doesn't say much besides the fact that they fit the terms of the prophecy, with no specific details. I don't think Albus was all that impressed with the Potters as individuals. So either he wanted James and Sirius as propaganda tools (hey, I have the support of some 'old' purebloods), or he wanted something they had (such as the cloak) or James forced Albus to take him and his friends on with the werewolf incident story.
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?
Date: 2011-08-26 04:20 pm (UTC)