Tom Riddle's backstory

[bluesqueak]

No: HPFGUIDX 70652


> ratalman:
> > 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.

There doesn't seem to be such a thing. Even when Tom is a Prefect, 
there appears to be no alternative to his going back to the 
Orphanage to live. Which is interesting; Harry would be living with 
the Weasley's by now if it wasn't for the protection spell. Tom 
obviously never had close friends who's parents would take him in. 
Just followers, presumably.

ratalman:
> > 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?
> 
No, canon in the person of Tom Riddle describes his father as the 
person who 'abandoned me even before I was born'. CoS, Ch. 17, p.231 
UK paperback.

Ratalman:
<Snip>
> And why did she die shortly afterwards. 
> Not uncommon for muggles at the time but why Tom's mother?
> 

Childbirth isn't the safest occupation in the world. In the 1920's, 
deaths were about 5 per 1000 women giving birth. It may be that 
after being deserted by the man she loved, Mrs Riddle just didn't 
want to live. So when something did go wrong, the normal wizarding 
defence mechanisms didn't kick in.

Ffred:
> So who was Tom's mother related to, and where were they? Did they 
> chuck her out of the family line when she got involved with a 
> muggle? Maybe there's a cigarette burn on someone's family 
> tapestry where she used to be!

Possibly, but the way Tom is described as the last descendent of 
Salazar Slytherin suggests that his mother was the last of her 
direct line. 

There may well be cousins (not descended from Slytherin), who would 
ignore a half-blood. This could well explain his hatred of his 
father; his mother gave up everything for the swine, and then he 
abandoned her. Then Tom was rejected by his surviving family because 
his father was a muggle. Therefore everything wrong in his life is 
to do with that muggle father ... 

Ffred:
> Another problem here is how long after she gave birth did she die? 
> It strikes me as strange that she was able to
> 
> - tell the muggle authorities the father's name and insist that 
> Tom should have his father's surname - very unusual that
> - tell them what his first names should be
> - leave some means of telling young Tom what his ancestry was
> 
> before she died.

Depends what she died of, Ffred. With good old fashioned childbed 
fever it could be 48 hours before you showed symptoms; plenty of 
time for a last testament. If she insisted that she had married 
Riddle, the orphanage might well call the child by his father's 
name. Riddle Sr. probably argued that the child was not his - or it 
might have been a 'secret' wedding.

> Ffred:
> One possibility is that the scandal was "common gossip" among the 
> staff at the orphanage and it was used as another means of abuse  
> of Tom - taunting him with his bastardy. 

That would surprise me, since 'orphan' was very commonly a euphemism 
for 'illegitimate and abandoned'. I don't know the figures, but I 
would guess that probably up to half of the orphans might have been 
illegitimate. I think Tom would be more likely to be taunted with 
*having* a father, who didn't want him.

Ffred:
> Though why, if the authorities knew that Riddle was the father,   
> they didn't pursue him for maintenance? After all, Tom's not an
> orphan - his father is alive!

They possibly did. If so, Riddle Sr. may have insisted that Tom's 
mother was promiscuous; and the child not his. 

> Ratalman:
> > 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?
> 
Ffred:
> There would have needed to be some memory work done to make the 
> orphanage authorities not react with surprise at the fact that he 
> was
> - going away to school
> - coming back again in the holidays
> 
> but not impossible, I'm sure - possibly the same spell is used 
> when a child's parents would otherwise refuse to let them go.

Uh, Ffred, you are forgetting the *date* Riddle was offered a place 
at Hogwarts. September 1938? (According to the lexicon). Munich 
crisis? Plans for the evacuation of all London children to safe 
areas being drawn up?

I doubt that very many questions were asked at all when the London 
orphanage found that one child in their charge was being offered a 
scholarship to a school in a remote, safe area of Scotland. Except, 
possibly, 'are you sure you can't keep him over the summers as well?'

> Ratalman
> > How did he get the money needed to attend Hogwarts?  

We don't know that Hogwarts charges fees. It has been established 
for over a thousand years. If it was traditional for wizards and 
witches to leave a donation to Hogwarts in their will, then you 
could end up with an awful lot of money in 1000 years.

There is an equivalent in the Bridge House Estate, which started off 
with Londoners over several centuries leaving money for the upkeep 
of the (vital) London Bridge. The Bridge House Trust can by now pay 
for the upkeep of all five main London bridges and still have enough 
left over to give about £19 *million* to charity each year ...

<Snip>
> Ffred:
> Though it's also interesting to speculate as to how Tom was able 
> to get his robes, books, train fare to King's Cross, and so on.

There may be a 'poor scholars fund'. Or possibly some witch or 
wizard with contacts on the then London County Council persuaded the 
Education committee to grant Tom a small scholarship ;-)

Pip!Squeak