Speculation on Tom Riddle's origins

[Lissa B]

No: HPFGUIDX 57319

I believe Harry Potter and Ginny Weasley may be Tom Riddle's biological
parents.  I know how absurd this sounds, but I do have my reasons.

We already know from CoS that Tom and Harry closely resemble one
another.  We also know Rowling likes to give her characters names that
suggest their roles or secret identities. Potter, I suspect, may be an
allusion to the Latin word pater, meaning father.  Rowling also
emphasizes again and again during the graveyard scene in GoF that Harry
is literally tied to the grave of Voldemort's father.  Perhaps I'm silly
to interpret it this way, but I can't help but believe Rowling is
suggesting there is a direct and powerful connection between Harry
Potter and Voldemort's father--that he *is* in fact Voldemort's father.

This would, of course, go a long way toward explaining why Voldemort
could not kill Harry in his crib or successfully use Quirrell to kill
him in PS.  Killing Harry before he has a chance to create a son would,
effectively, destroy that son.

I believe Ginny Weasley was also given a symbolic name by Rowling.  I
assume Ginny is short for Virginia and I suspect this is a nod to the
Virgin Mary, mother of the Christian lord.  (Please understand I don't
intend offense to Christians or non-Christians in bringing this subject
up.)  Why is this relevant?  Because Voldemort is the 'Dark Lord'.  If
he is an inverse of the Christian Lord figure, it's fitting that his
mother be Virginia.

Is Tom Riddle a dark Christ figure?  I believe Rowling has drawn
parallels between the "Dark Lord" Voldemort and his circle of Death
Eaters, and the Christian Lord and his disciples. Not only does
Voldemort travel the land inspiring fear and performing cruel miracles,
he is worshipped by a core of devotees, betrayed by one of those
followers, and has his own last supper-esque scene at the end of GoF,
complete with a ritual that gives life using body and blood.  (For those
unfamiliar with the Christian practice: body and blood are the prominent
symbols in the Christian ritual of communion.)  The fact that Riddle has
literally taken the title of "Dark Lord" is another hint that he is an
inverse Christ figure.

Okay, I can feel people's eyes rolling.  We already know that
Voldemort's father is Tom Riddle Senior and that the baby Riddle was
born in 1927.

This is true, yes, but Rowling has established two key elements in the
Harry Potter universe that make the theory possible--and that would
probably *not* be introduced in a fictional world by an author that
didn't intend to make full use of them: time travel and memory
alteration.

The idea of altered or expunged memories was introduced in CoS and
reinforced in both PoA and GoF. The reality that there could be truths
and secrets that the characters may once have known--but which they
cannot now recall--makes any number of scenarios plausible. 

The introduction of Time Travel in PoA, however, is a big tip-off.  Few
authors would include such a powerful, destabilizing construct in a
fictional universe unless it was going play a necessary role in the
upcoming plot. Now some might suggest that the time-travel pay-off was
evident when Harry and Hermione saved Sirius Black and Buckbeak, but I
don't agree.

That concludes my textual evidence for this admittedly extreme theory,
but I do have a few pieces of "softer" evidence to back up my belief.

Ginny Weasley has been crushing unrequitedly on Harry Potter since the
first book of the series. Few writers are cold-hearted enough to let a
situation like this go on without offering the character some romantic
resolution.  I'm not saying I like this.  I'm not saying I don't. I
would just be surprised if some type of Harry/Ginny union didn't take
place at some future point.

I also know how easy it is, as a writer, to feel sympathy for your
villain. It's *especially* easy to care for him when he was once a
tragic, rejected little boy raised in an orphanage full of jerks that
mocked him. Such pain and woe just make you want to weep and rage and
pound the walls at the injustice of it all. They also make you want to
give the poor boy something to make it better. And like Harry Potter,
Tom Riddle's most painful childhood wish was probably to have parents
who loved him and took care of him.

Rowling could never give him that, of course. If she *did*, he wouldn't
become Voldemort. He'd just be--if my theory holds true--another sweet
Weasley with Potter hair and impish grin. No, but she *could* make up a
scheme to raise a specter of Tom from late boyhood then hand his parents
over to that ghoul for quality family time.  Harry Potter and Ginny
Weasley are the only characters that we see interact with diary-Riddle.
This may not be Rowling caving to Tom's pitiful needs to spend time with
the parents he never even knew and who would have loved him, but it
feels that way to me.  This aspect of the HP series, more than anything
else, makes me believe Ginny is Riddle's mother.  I admit, however, that
I may be wrong, wrong, wrong.

Final bit of nebulous evidence:

It seems to me Rowling has two main themes in the HP series.  The first
is that our choices, not our genetic heritage, determine our character. 
The second is, in the words of Draco Malfoy, that "some wizarding
families are much better than others" (PS).  This statement is cruel and
false in the way Draco intends it, but tragically true in a way he
surely does not. Some families *are* better than others in terms of
nurturing their children and bringing them to a secure and happy
adulthood. In order to really explore this theme and turn Draco's bitter
words into an ironic truth, however, Rowling has to show not only that
Malfoys are nasty and Weasleys sweet, but that a child from a
traditionally "good" family can turn monstrous when raised in a terrible
environment.

What better way to do this than to reveal the most despicable wizard of
all-time to be a Weasley and the son of the much-lauded Harry Potter?
(And imagining the gut-squirming horror the Malfoys would endure should
their Dark Lord be revealed as a Weasley is, for me at least, just
delicious.)

That concludes my excursion into absurd Potterly conjecture.  I
apologize for the length of this post. I freely admit my theory sounds
ridiculous and may be completely wrong.  (Some days I don't believe it
myself.)

Thanks for reading, nonetheless.  If you got this far, I commend you for
your patience and would love to hear your ideas--even if they include
the notion that I'm delusional.  (And kindly List Elf, if this post is
too long, please tell me.  I'll try to edit it down.)

~Lissa