Tom Riddle; or, What did Ollivander know?

jsmgleaner jsmgleaner at yahoo.com
Tue Jul 29 00:41:12 UTC 2003


No: HPFGUIDX 73777

I've caught myself thinking recently about the order of events from SS/PS to 
CoS concerning Ollivander and the wands he sells.  In SS/PS, Ollivander tells 
Harry that he sold the wand that gave Harry the scar.  And in CoS, 
Dumbledore says that very few people knew that Voldemort had once been a 
Hogwarts student named Tom Riddle.  

Here are some of my questions for the group (with the obligatory apologies if 
this has been done to death; I just couldn't find it in the archives):

Did Ollivander sell the wand to Tom Riddle or to Lord Voldemort after Riddle 
went through his vaguely described transformation?  I know they're the same 
person in theory, but Rowling goes to great lengths to point to the fact that in 
many ways they are two different incarnations of that person.  What would it 
mean if this wand was bought by Voldemort not Riddle?  Or, conversely, what 
does it tell us about Ollivander if he knew Tom Riddle was Voldemort?  And 
how does his soliciting Dumbledore for phoenix feathers fit into this?

Any thoughts?

-- jsmgleaner (who doubts Ollivander's "An Evil Lord"; after all, how many 
times can Rowling get away with the anagram trick? how many Dark Lords 
can there be in one series?)






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