Rumors about Voldemort / "terrible, yes, but great"

[oryx_leucoryx]

When Tom Riddle returns from a ten year absence and meets Albus Dumbledore the latter says, "Rumors of your doings have reached your old school, Tom. I should be sorry to believe half of them."

Tom dismisses the rumors as malicious lies of the envious, and describes his own activities as "I have experimented; I have pushed the boundaries of magic further, perhaps, than they have ever been pushed -"

He also mentions that there was an old argument between him and Albus about the merit of love vs Tom's kind of magic.

Years later, July 31st 1991 Ollivander says of Tom: "After all, He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named did great things - terrible, yes, but great."

Now we do know of some rather unusual, maybe original, things Tom did, such as making multiple Horcruxes. And he may have pushed the boundaries of that particular art all the way to the end. But we know Albus did not know about that at the time of the interview and I doubt Ollivander knew (though he may have figured there was one Horcrux somewhere - if he knew more than the general public about the events of Godric's Hollow). So what were those rumors Albus heard? And what was so great (though terrible)?

There is nothing unique or original in casting Unforgivables. These spells were known for centuries.

Feats of Legilimency and Possession? (I doubt Ollivander was thinking of those, since Tom at least does them wandlessly.)

Inferi were not invented by Tom, though he may have made more of them than previous Dark Lords. (Of course we have no idea what he did with them before he assigned them with guarding the island in the cave by the sea.) I tend to think the inferi in the cave were made over the years between Tom's return to Britain and his trip to the cave with Kreacher.

The only things shown in the books that might fit are the various curses he put on his Horcruxes and some of their hiding places - if he released into circulation objects with development stage versions of those curses.

Any ideas?

Comments

[sharaz-jek.livejournal.com]

But what was he trying to do on the continent?

Pre-HBP I'd have suggested he learned how not to die and nebulous Dark Lord stuff. Post-HBP, wherein we learn that Voldemort learned all he needed at school and that his missing years were a complete waste of time, I've got nothing. I can't see why it was necessary to give Tom his Dark sabbatical in the final scheme, rather than simply giving him an attempt to rise to power through the traditional paths in the WW.

[oryx_leucoryx]

Maybe he just needed to stay away long enough for his face to become unrecognizable.

[snapes-witch.livejournal.com]

Wouldn't that infer that his change of appearance was deliberate rather than an accidental side effect of making horcruxes . . . that hadn't occurred to me.

[oryx_leucoryx]

Maybe he realized the initial changes and experimented with what magic would have similar effects on his appearance. After all, if he was going for a name change and didn't want to be recognized as Riddle he couldn't just stick around with his original looks.