I am a big Harry Potter fan, it formed a chunk of my childhood and as I grew, the series grew with me. Now that I’ve read all the books, watched all the movies, played games, got sorted myself ( Ravenclaw!) I explored the many questions that HP and JKR did not address in the books specifically and here are my own possible answers to it. The set of questions here are from the blog Toujours Pur
This is for Harry Potter fans only, I revere the books, the movies are blah really coz if you haven’t read the books and claim to be a potterfan just by watching movies, the whole potterverse does not consider you a fan.
This post is long and hence may be spilt..
So here goes.
- What was Tom’s ultimate goal after achieving immortality and killing Harry Potter?
Tom wanted to be all powerful and eternal and rule the wizard world forever. HP was the one block to his goal.
2. Does Voldemort believe any of the pure blood talk he proclaims, or is it just a way to manipulate the decadent and rich to fight for him as pawns in his bid for immortality? And, for that matter, are the other wizards around him equally afraid of dying, and similarly concerned with gaining immortality? What is the reasoning behind the name ‘Death Eaters’?
Voldemort does believe in blood purity. But we have to understand that he does not consider himself a half blood. He is the direct descendent of Salazar Slytherin and once he killed his muggle side of the family, he believed that he purged himself of his muggle roots, he fashioned his new name. Other wizards around him are simply the rich craving shared power or the weak wanting Voldy’s protection. They are afraid of death but that is not as great a fear to them as it is to Voldy. The death eaters were originally named Knights of Walpurgis and then called death eaters because voldemort wants to defeat death and they are the ones that help him.
3. Why would Bellatrix believe the Longbottoms knew Voldemort’s whereabouts?
Bellatrix was in love with Voldemort and was furious about him having been made to disappear by what she considers as Order of Phoenix’s original members. ( Longbottoms and Potters were). Also Neville was the other child that propechy held true to as well. Hence maybe these combined, made her think they knew Voldemort’s whereabouts.
4. Why did Voldemort use Narcissa to verify Harry’s death?
This is not very clear but I believe she may have been standing closest to the Harry. Voldemort was afraid and disgusted with death and he considered himself too important to check and verify himself when he had servants around.
5. How did Peter’s double agency come about, as well as the exact moment of his betrayal? Was he there at Godric’s Hollow that night (if not, who else was?) and did he immediately retrieve Voldemort’s wand after the explosion (if not, how did he get it before the graveyard scene in GoF)?
Peter was a coward, he believed that Voldemort would be all powerful and saw to save his own life than be with the order. Once Sirius suggested the potters make him the secret keeper, he realised that he could be in Voldy’s good books by offering them to him. He was not there at Godric’s Hollow, Voldemort went alone. Once Voldemort became a shadow of his self, in book 4 he made peter return by transforming to a rat and get him his wand.
7. What exactly did Voldemort do in 1970, the year that has been calculated to have been the point when his ‘reign of terror’ officially began and people became too terrified to even say his name?
This is not clearly explained but Voldemort and his death eaters would cast the dark mark and kill people regularly, They would also use crucio to torture and imperius to control people
8.What did Voldemort assume happened to Regulus, and what did he tell the Death Eaters?
Voldemort assumed regulus failed to get his locket and was killed by inferi. He did not realise that Regulus took Kreacher with him and he underestimated the power of kreacher and his boat was enchanted to hold one human.. and nothing about elves so Kreacher actually brought back the locket whereas Voldy didn’t realise it.
9. Did Voldemort and Bellatrix have any kind of sexual/consummated relationship, or was it always just her lusting after him? What was her relationship with Rodolphus like?
No Voldemort was incapable of any kind of love and he only lusted for power. Bellatrix loved Voldemort but Voldemort never lover her back and her devotion to him was just one sided so they did not have any sexual relationship. Bellatrix married Rodolphus because he was a pure blood and that was what was expected of her. But they did not have a functional relationship as a couple.
10.How exactly did Bellatrix join the Death Eaters, and how did Voldemort personally teach her the Dark Arts?
When Voldemort was rising to power, he was using the pureblood mantra that Salazar Slytherin used even though he was himself a halfblood, he wanted muggleborns to be purged. The blacks supported this because they also believed in the philosophy. It might be then that Bellatrix was enchanted towards voldemort and joined him. She began to love and worship him and Voldemort took this devotion for servitude and taught her dark arts.
11. What did Voldemort look like throughout the First War, and immediately before his fall? Wouldn’t he have looked essentially as he did when he requested the DADA post from Albus (i.e. with hair and a nose) since by that point he had already created all Horcruxes up until Harry? And if so, why did Fudge and the rest of the wizarding world immediately recognize him and never comment on his new appearance?
Before he attacked Harry as a baby, Voldemort looked somewhere in between what he looked when he requested DADA and what he looked when he came out of the graveyard. This is because Voldemort’s features continuously changed when he was actively practicing dark arts. The only time he did not have an appearance was from the time he attacked Harry and after the triwizard tournament. The only difference after he renewed his body was his eyes were completely slit like and his nose was gone otherwise he could be recognized.
12. Did Bellatrix and Lucius (or any other Pureblood Death Eaters) realize Voldemort’s half-blood status? If so, at what point and how did they feel about it?
I doubt they did, when he rallied against muggleborns and for pureblood, he was pretty influential and powerful. They may have assumed him to be one and dared not ask him his blood status.
13. What did Bellatrix, Lucius, and Snape each know or suspect about the Dark Lord’s Horcruxes/quest for immortality? (“I, who have gone farther than anybody down the path to immortality”…How did they take this?)
I doubt all of them did know the horcruxes. Regulus actually was the only one who figured it out else Lucius wouldn’t have passed the diary to Ginny just to discredit her dad and dumbledore knowing it was a piece of voldemort’s soul. Snape may have known because his true loyalty was not with Voldemort but with Dumbledore who may have told him when his hand was cursed.
14. As the series is arguably about choices, did Tom Riddle ever have a ‘choice’ to not be evil, or was he essentially—as is implied—a psychopath from birth?
He was not a psychopath from birth. Tom Riddle was a wizard and he never cried as a baby which maybe unusual among muggle babies but common among wizard babies. But growing up in a muggle orphanage he had never known love and as he grew older and discovered that he had some powers that no other children around him had, he started using them to manipulate others. He consciously may not have had a choice because the lack of love combined with magic abilities made him a psychopath
15.What exactly happened to Amy Benson and Dennis Bishop in the cave?
We can make a guess that Tom used his magic to manipulate and control some animal. He may have spoken in parseltongue to a snake in front of them and made it do things and told them that he could set it on them if he wished. We can only guess.
Part 2 to follow