Tom Riddle's backstory

[ratalman]

No: HPFGUIDX 70377

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "corinthum" 
<kkearney at s...> wrote:
> --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "blaisezz" 
<blaisezz at y...>
> wrote:
> Ria wondered:
> 
> > I was just wondering how exactly Tom Riddle found out his 
own back 
> > story

<SNIP>

Why was Tom Riddle raised in a muggle orphanage, if he had a 
witch mother?  Aren't there orphanages in the wizarding world?  
To me, it would have made more sense for him to have been 
taken in by a wizard's orphanage, or the like, unless his mother 
had already completely disavowed her magical connections.  
Did she do that?  I had always thought that Tom's father 
abandoned Tom's mother when he learned she was a witch.  
Maybe he actually stuck around long enough for Tom to be born.  
Where did she give birth?  

And how did Tom receive his letter of acceptance to Hogwarts 
while he was living in a muggle orphanage?  I should think that 
that sort of thing would be very difficult to explain, having an owl 
making a delivery to a public institution, and would necessitate 
many muggles being let in on the secrets of the magical world.   
Wouldn't there be lots of difficult questions asked by the folks in 
charge of the orphanage?

How did he get the money needed to attend Hogwarts?  Did his 
father provide funds for him?  Perhaps the mysterious 
gentleman who paid the gardener for tending the Riddle estate 
all those years is/was Tom's behind-the-scenes benefactor.  I've 
wondered if that could have been someone in the Malfoy family..., 
but now I'm not so sure.

Many questions are percolating in my mind about all this!