Lord Voldemort
Lord Voldemort is a fictional character, the arch-villain in the Harry Potter books. He is so feared by magical people that most refer to him as "You-Know-Who" or "He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named" rather than saying his name out loud. He is also referred to as the "Dark Lord", although generally only by his followers.It is possible to break the name Voldemort into the French phrase "vol de mort" which has multiple translations. The most commonly cited is "flight of death", but other meanings include "flight from death" and "theft of a dead body." Voldemort's followers are called Death Eaters, and they are hiding from the Ministry of Magic. His ultimate goal is to achieve immortality through the practice of dark magic.
Warning: Wikipedia contains spoilers
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2 His Era 3 His Downfall 4 The Dark Years 5 The Second War 6 Characteristics 7 Voldemort's Real Name 8 External Links |
Early History
Voldemort was born Tom Marvolo Riddle (in the English version of the book; see below for more details about other editions). His father(a Muggle) turned his mother out of his home when he realised that she was a witch. She died soon after giving birth to Tom, but not before naming Tom after his father and Marvolo after his grandfather. In Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (which takes place in the school year 1992-1993), during a flashback 50 years (to 1942), his age is given as sixteen. Therefore, he was born in or around 1926.
Tom attended the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, where he was a member of Slytherin house. Riddle beganing looking for the fabled Chamber of Secrets and finally found it in his fifth year. He opened the Chamber, and the basilisk inside killed a student (whose ghost still haunts the toilet where she died, and is known by the students as Moaning Myrtle). He could control the giant snake, being a parslemouth. Hogwarts was almost closed. Being an orphan, and having nowhere to go to, Tom did not want the school to be closed down. Therefore he framed Hagrid, and succeeded. He won an award for this. It wasn't until fifty years later that Harry Potter discovered that it was actually Tom himself who had released the monster from the Chamber. So that the monster could be released later on, however, he created a memory of himself and put it into his diary.
After leaving school, he returned to his home village, and murdered his father and grandparents. The only person to spot him was Frank Bryce, the gardener. Frank was suspected, as he was the only one who had keys to the house, and the door hadn't been forced and nobody else had seen Riddle. However, the police couldn't find anything wrong with the bodies, so without evidence of there having been an murders, he got off, though the village countinued to suspect him. Frank countinued to work as the gardener.
His Era
We know nothing more about Tom Riddle until he became the Dark Lord Voldemort, killing thousands and threatening to tear the world of wizards asunder. The full horror of his attempt at control has only been hinted at. The Ministry of Magic - led largely by Barty Crouch - worked against Voldemort, along with the Order of the Phoenix, led by Albus Dumbledore, the principal of Hogwarts. Dumbledore was the Professor of Transfiguration when Tom Riddle attended school, and he is believed to be the only person who Voldemort ever feared.
Voldemort had his own group of trusted aides: the Death Eaters, over whom he maintained control by continuous - and often brutal - punishment.
In early 1980, Sybill Trelawney, great-great-grand-daughter of a famous psychic, entered a trance in the presence of Dumbledore and uttered a prophecy:
- The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord approaches ... born to those who thrice defied him, born as the seventh month dies ... and the Dark Lord will mark him as his equal, but he will have power the Dark Lord knows not ... and either must die at the hand of the other for neither can live while the other survives ... the one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord will be born as the seventh month dies ...
His Downfall
On October 31, 1981, Voldemort arrived at the home of James and Lily Potter, prominent members of the Order of the Phoenix, in Godric's Hollow. He killed James Potter and then tried to kill Harry. His mother tried to stop Voldemort but was killed herself. Finally, he used Avada Kedavra, the killing curse, on Harry Potter - a curse with no known counter-curse, no way of stopping it, and no known survivor.
But one-year-old Harry survived, with only a scar in the shape of a lightning bolt on his forehead. The spell somehow backfired on Voldemort, reducing him to a barely-alive shell of his former self. He ran out into the night, and wasn't heard from again for ten years.
Then, in the early 1990s, Voldemort found Hogwarts Defence Against the Dark Arts Professor Quirrell passing through the forest. He took Voldemort to London and attempted with his help of Voldemort to steal the Philosopher's Stone. His plans were thwarted by Harry Potter, as recounted in Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone.
Voldemort returned to his hiding place, afraid that his Death Eaters had forsaken him, and that he wouldn't be able to find a wizard to possess. He spent the next two years in hiding. In this interim, Death Eater Lucius Malfoy attempted to send the memory of Voldemort (stored in his diary) into Hogwarts, by giving it to a young girl named Ginny Weasley. This memory avatar of Voldemort managed to manipulate Ginny into opening the Chamber of Secrets, nearly killing a number of students, and then tried to drain her life-force to allow him to come into being outside the book. This memory's plans were once again stopped by Harry, as recounted in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets.
Luckily for Voldemort, a set of incidents detailed in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban forced Peter Pettigrew to leave hiding and to go in search of Voldemort. While searching for him, he kidnapped Bertha Jorkins, from whose mind Voldemort learned enough to formulate the plan he executed in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. In the course of this plan, Voldemort first created a primitive body for himself, extremely rudimentary but still large to allow him to perform magic by himself. He then managed to recreate the body he had before his curse rebounded at the beginning of the first book. Harry's blood formed a part of this process of rebirth; many Harry Potter fans suspect that this will prove to be Voldemort's undoing. After being reborn, Voldemort summoned the Death Eaters back to him, and attempted to kill Harry - but he escaped the Dark Lord yet again.
In opposition to Voldemort, Dumbledore reformed the Order of the Phoenix, and set it up in Sirius Black's old home - Number 12, Grimmauld Place, London. He also sent envoys to the giants and other non-human magical creatures who Voldemort might lure onto his side.
Meanwhile, Voldemort was waiting in the sidelines and plotting carefully. Only a handful of wizards (the members of the Order) believed he was back, allowing him a free hand in his schemes. He managed to coerce the giants to support him, and some believe that he has managed to bring at least some of the Dementors into his fold.
Towards the latter half of the book - after engineering a plot to bring some of his best Death Eaters back out of Azkaban - Voldemort embarks on a scheme to kill Harry, as well as retrieve a Prophecy, stored in the Ministry's Department of Mysteries, regarding Harry and Voldemort (already shown above). The prophecy is destroyed in the attempt, and Harry escapes again, although his godfather, Sirius Black, dies. Many of Voldemort's Death Eaters are trapped by Dumbledore in the attempt. Finally, Voldemort himself turns up at the Ministry and tries to kill Harry, but Dumbledore appears and duels with him. The duel ends with Voldemort being sent packing, though with all faculties intact. He is also seen by the Minister of Magic, who finally acknowledges that Dumbledore is right about Voldemort's return, and begins preparations to fight him once more.
He is also a Parseltongue - a wizard who can talk to snakes. This is an ability he has inherited from his ancestor, Salazar Slytherin.
Voldemort also has an unfortunate tendancy to forget details which have lead to his undoing. In Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone he states that he had forgotten the ancient magic which protected Harry from him, his mother giving her life; in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets he forgets that the tears of the phoenix have healing power. The Harry Potter Lexicon suggests that the glint in Dumbledore's eye in the Goblet of Fire when Harry tells him that Voldemort has some of his blood in him is another of his memory-slips.
Many of these characteristics are shared by Harry, possibly as a result of the failed curse which gave him his scar. This was how Harry got the ability to speak Parseltongue.
Voldemort is described as being having chalk-white skin, cat-like slits for eyes, and hands like spiders.
The Dark Years
Voldemort settled in a forest, where even existance was a continuous, on-going stuggle. His only remaining ability was the ability to possess the bodies of others, and he frequently possessed snakes. Animal bodies didn't allow him to perform magic, however.The Second War
At first, the Ministry of Magic refused to believe that Lord Voldemort had risen again. The Minister of Magic, Cornelius Fudge, began a process of defaming Dumbledore and Harry (the only non-Death Eater witness to the ceremony). Dumbledore was accused of being old, and was removed from several important posts. Through heavy donations, Lucius Malfoy also gained large influence within the Ministry.Characteristics
One of Voldemort's defining characteristics is his racist tendencies. He looks down upon non-human magical creatures (such as house-elves), and especially despises Muggles - a hatred which apparently began with his muggle father's treatment of his mother.Voldemort's Real Name
Voldemort's real name is Tom Marvolo Riddle; in the second book he explains that Voldemort is derived from an anagram of his name:
In translated versions of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, Voldemort's true name is changed to accommodate the anagram:
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External Links
