(The Lack of) Horcrux-Hunting
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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: 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
Date: 2013-09-21 03:06 am (UTC)Yes, unless the Stone Shades would have decided on their own to attack the Wand's Master (with the assumption that the Master of the EW is exceptionally vulnerable to the Stone).
no subject
Date: 2013-09-22 04:24 pm (UTC)The Master of the Elder Wand is immune to the cloak - can see through it. The Master of the cloak is immune to the power of the Resurrection Stone - Harry only suicided because he already chose to prior to activating the Stone. So the Master of the Stone should be immune to the Elder Wand. Does that mean Harry would have been able to beat the Master of the EW in a fair duel? Or he would have been able to resist bragging about the Wand if he hadn't lost the Stone in the forest?
Did Harry become the Master of the EW when he took Draco's wand? Or when Tom attempted to use the EW against him in the forest and the Wand recognized Harry as its master? Did the Wand do anything Harry would have disapproved of from the moment Tom took it until the forest? Because if only the latter is true then Harry never was the Master of all three Hallows at once.