Voldy's mum

[blpurdom]

No: HPFGUIDX 37388

--- In HPforGrownups at y..., Dave Hardenbrook <DaveH47 at m...> wrote:
> Is there anyone besides me who wants to know more about this 
elusive
> figure who died in childbirth but apparently held out long enough 
to
> name her son after the bum who deserted her?
> 
> We keep trying to draw Ginny-Lily parallels, but is it possible 
> that the deceased person who is most Ginny-like is actually Mrs. 
> Riddle? It seems to me like she likely got taken advantage of and 
> manipulated by Tom Riddle senior much as TR Jr. did Ginny.  

The only real similarities between Ginny Weasley and Lily Evans are 
a) hair color; b) being in Gryffindor; and c) having a thing for 
dark-haired boys (named Potter, in a couple of cases).  Ginny has 
grown up in a large and loving wizarding family, whereas Lily Evans 
didn't find out she was a witch until she received her Hogwarts 
letter, at which time the animosities between her and Petunia seemed 
to have increased exponentially (I don't believe Petunia resented 
her solely for being a witch--I'm guessing she already didn't get on 
with Lily before that).

Similarities between Ginny and Voldemort's mother include: coming 
from old wizarding families (it is through his mother that Tom M. 
Riddle is descended from Salazar Slytherin); and falling under 
the "spell" of a Riddle.  That's it.  We just don't know enough 
about Tom's mum to say much about her.

> And she must have been still in a state of being duped when she 
> bestowed the b--t--d's name on her son.  (I can just hear her on 
> her deathbed moaning, "I still love him!")  

You've obviously never given birth. <g>  Having just had a baby and 
(presumably) losing enough blood to die (or possibly having an 
infection), she was probably out cold.  No woman proclaims much love 
for the man who got her pregnant while she's giving birth.  Trust 
me.  (My husband is lucky I didn't break his hand when I was 
squeezing it during contractions.)

> And was she a Slytherin?  (I say, "Not necessarily.")

As the last remaining heir to Slytherin, I have no doubt this is the 
house she was in.  Where else?  After all, once she had set her 
sights on Tom Riddle, even though he was a Muggle, she would 
probably have had absolutely no compunctions about using magic to 
get him.  So even though I include her being under a 
Riddle's "spell" in the above list, I would guess it was actually 
the other way around.  After all, she kept from him that she was a 
witch until after they were married (of course, so did Seamus 
Finnigan's mother--perhaps this is fairly common in the wizarding 
world with these cross-cultural matches).  She wasn't exactly being 
honest and above board.  Just because she's female doesn't mean she 
wasn't Slytherin's heir(ess) in every sense of the word.  The only 
non-Slytherin thing about her seems to have been falling for a 
Muggle, and we can't always choose what our hearts will do.  
(Although I'm willing to guess that it was a matter of having 
a "thing" that she wanted--the Riddles were wealthy, after all.)

> And why was Tom raised in a Muggle orphanage?  Is it at all 
> possible that Mrs. R was "living as a Muggle" (perhaps to evade 
> Grindelwald) much as we're now being told James and Lily were?

Back to the pregnancy/labor thing.  Plenty of times women go into 
labor when and where they least expect it.  She may have been in a 
Muggle town, walking down a street, when her water broke (there's no 
turning back when this happens--it's more definitive than merely 
having contractions, which may be false labor).  One probably 
shouldn't Apparate while in labor, and it's also possible that a 
witch isn't able to focus adequately to do any other kind of magic 
when in this condition, either.  Thus, she could have been taken off 
to the nearest hospital or birthing ward (this was the late 
twenties, so she probably would have been taken to a "lying-in" 
hospital, as they were called in the states at the time--I don't 
know what they were called in England).  She may have been put under 
using ether after informing the matron of the name(s) she preferred 
for girl and boy babies.  It's possible that she was never conscious 
to see her child.  Thus, all the hospital staff would know after she 
died in childbirth was the name she wanted for the child.  Then the 
baby would have been shipped off to the nearest orphanage with no 
one the wiser about the baby being a wizard and the only remaining 
Heir of Slytherin.  It's possible that they might have tried to find 
her family or even tried to contact the Riddle family, assuming that 
she named the child that for a very good reason, but the Riddles may 
have disavowed any knowledge of her or her child.
 
> And will we ever get any clues as to how Tom got so evil so fast?
> He seems to have left Annakin Skywalker in the dust in the "get
> evil at an early age" race.  And would mum be proud of what her son
> has become or (as I'm curently imagining) appalled?

Oh, Anakin had an idyllic childhood, judging from Episode I.  Tom 
grew up in an orphanage from about 1927 to 1938, which covered large 
parts of the Depression.  This does not sound like fun.  I am 
reminded of the character of Homer Wells in "The Cider House Rules" 
who managed to behave badly enough every time his orphanage tried to 
place him with a family that he was repeatedly returned to the 
orphanage.  I could imagine Tom Riddle doing the same thing if he 
was carted off to live with people like, say, the Dursleys.  If they 
made him do anything he didn't like, he probably would have reacted 
strongly and performed some inadvertant magic.  Tom Riddle would 
likely have been returned to the orphanage more times than any other 
child.  You think that kind of rejection (if that's what happened) 
wouldn't have an effect on your personality?

--Barb