Voldemort's Past

[geoffbannister123 at btinternet.com]

--- In HPFGU-OTChatter at yahoogroups.com, "lizzie_snape" <lizzy1933 at ...> wrote: 
> --- In HPFGU-OTChatter at yahoogroups.com, "nerona" <nerona12@> wrote:

Nerona:
> > I was wondering if Voldemort knew about his past, I mean about his
> > mom and dad, and how his mom gave love potion to Tom Riddle and made
> > him run away with her, do you think it would have changed anything?
> > For me I doubt it, but as I read the book over and over I wonder why
> > JKR never put Harry in a position to tell him this, especially at
> > the end.  What do you think?

> > Nerona

Lizzie:
> I can't think of any reason why he wouldn't know.

Geoff:
I don't think he knew everything. His mother brought him to the 
orphanage as Harry saw in Dumbledpre's Pensieve:

'"That's right." said Mrs. Cole, helping herself to more gin. "I remember 
it clear as anything, because I'd just started here myself. New Year's Eve 
and bitter cold, snowing, you know. Nasty night. And this girl, not much 
older than I was at the time, came staggering up the front steps. Well, 
she wasn't the first. We took her in and she had the baby within the hour. 
And she was dead in another hour."

..."Did she anything before she died? asked Dumbledore. "About the boy's 
father, for instance?"...

..."I remember, she said to me, 'I hope he looks like his papa,'...
...and then she told me he was to be Tom, for his father and Marvolo, for 
her father...

...and she said that the boy's surname was to be Riddle. And she died soon 
after that without another word. Well, we named him just as she'd said, it 
seemed so important to the poor girl, but no Tom nor Marvolo nor any kind 
of Riddle ever came looking for him, nor any family at all, so he stayed in 
the orphanage and hr's been here ever since."'
(HBP "The Secret Riddle" from pp.249/50 UK edition)

I think that shows that he knew of his parents but nothing of the 
circumstances surrounding his birth or the reasons for this mother ending 
up in the way she did.

It is obvious also from other pieces of canon that he did not know of the 
love potion incident and held his father responsible. One, which is too long 
to quote here as the story of the murder of the Mr. and Mrs. Riddle Senior 
and their grown up son Tom at the house in Little Hangleton fifty years 
prior to the killing of old Frank, the caretaker, who had, at that time, been 
the prime suspect.
(GOF "The Riddle House" pp. 7-10 UK edition)

Then, there is just one other piece of evidence:
'"Voldemort," said Riddle softly, "is my past, present and future, Harry Potter..."

He pulled Harry's wand from his pocket and began to trace it through the air, 
writing three shimmering words:
TOM MARVOLO RIDDLE

Then, he waved the wand once and the letters of his name re-arranged 
themselves:
I AM LORD VOLDEMORT

"You see?" he whispered. "It was a name I was already using at Hogwarts, 
to my most intimate friends only, of course. You think I was going to use 
my filthy father's name for ever?...

...I, keep the name of a foul, common Muggle, who abandoned me even 
before I was born just because he found out his wife was a witch?"'
(COS "The Heir of Slytherin" p.231 UK edition)

This all suggests that he learned of his birth and the death of his mother 
and managed to trace his father to exact revenge in his later years at 
Hogwarts. When the police were investigating the Riddle murders, a 
"teenage boy, a stranger, dark-haired and pale" had been seen in the 
vicinity. The implication is that he blamed his father as he indicated to 
Harry in the Chamber without the knowledge that his father had been 
tricked.

Had he found this out, maybe, just maybe, things would have changed 
but my feeling is that all the years without love, brooding over his origins
and becoming a bully and abuser would have too deep a hold on his 
emotions.

I don't think telling him entered Harry's mind in those moments when 
he was more concerned in holding Voldemort at bay rather than holding 
up a hand and saying "Er, just a moment, old bean, do you realise you've 
got it all wrong? Care to stop and sort this out over a hot chocolate?"
:-)