Chamber Opening; Riddle's Ancestry; James' Sacrifice; Lily's Rats; Traitor Peter

[Phyllis]

No: HPFGUIDX 58766

Tiger Queen asked:

> Why was Tom Riddle the one to open the Chamber of Secrets? It has 
> been around for nearly a thousand years: why did one of Riddle's 
> ancestors not open the Chamber before him?

Now me:

The ancestor would have had to have been a Parselmouth in order to 
open the Chamber.  Riddle tells Harry that he and Harry are "Probably 
the only two Parselmouths to come to Hogwarts since the great 
Slytherin himself" (CoS, Ch. 17).  In addition, according to 
Dumbledore:  "Of course, he [Riddle] was probably the most brilliant 
student Hogwarts has ever seen" (CoS, Ch. 18).  And even despite his 
brilliance, it took Riddle "...five whole years to find out 
everything I could about the Chamber of Secrets and discover the 
secret entrance..."  So I think it's the rare combination of needing 
to be both a parselmouth and brilliant enough to figure out where the 
secret entrance was.

Tiger Queen again:

> Because he was an orphan, Riddle would not have know about his 
> family's history learning that he was the heir of Slytherin and 
> that he was not of pure enough blood to belong in Durmstrang would 
> have started him on a path towards resentment of Muggles and his 
> own tainted blood that lead him to become Voldemort.

Me again:

This raises an interesting question – how did Riddle find out he was 
a descendant of Slytherin if his witch mother died giving birth to 
him?  Presumably he wouldn't have learned it from his Muggle father, 
who either didn't know or even if he did know, would probably not 
have told him (given his prejudice against wizards).  Perhaps his 
mother left him one of those interactive diaries!

Morgan the magnificent muggle asked:

> Why doesn't James's sacrifice count?

Me again:

I think the key to the Lily sacrifice is that Voldemort allowed her 
the option of staying alive and she chose to die to save her child.  
As Harry hears Lily say during his Dementor flash-backs: "Not Harry!  
Not Harry! Please – I'll do anything – " and then Voldemort 
says "Stand aside – stand aside, girl – " (PoA, Ch. 12).  Harry hears 
James say "Lily, take Harry and go!  It's him! Go! Run! I'll hold him 
off – " While we have very sketchy details of what exactly happened 
that night, it appears as if Voldemort was after James and Harry but 
Lily was optional.  So it doesn't seem as if James was given the 
option of staying alive, so he really didn't "sacrifice" himself. 

Celyse wrote:

> But if Lily was "turning teacups into rats", she would be violating 
> the Decree for the Reasonable Restriction of Underage Sorcery, by 
> doing magic outside of Hogwarts (CoS ch 2). So either she didn't 
> really do any magic and Petunia was just making that up, or Lily 
> somehow got away with it? 

Me again:

The only time when we've seen the Ministry enforce the Decree for the 
Restriction of Underage Sorcery was when Dobby dropped the pudding.  
When Harry inflated his aunt, and when Harry and Ron drove the flying 
car, there was no Ministry intervention (Arthur Weasely faced an 
inquiry at work about the car, but Harry and Ron got off scot-free).  
Since dropping a pudding would appear to be a lesser offense than 
flying a stolen car or inflating an aunt, I strongly suspect that 
Dobby rigged the letter that Harry received after the pudding 
incident.  Which, if correct, would mean that the Ministry has never 
really cited anyone for breaking this Decree.  Since turning rats 
into teacups probably qualifies as an even lesser offense than 
dropping a pudding, I suspect the Ministry wouldn't bother enforcing 
it.

Becky wrote:

> Of course Lord Voldemort has nothing but contempt for "Wormtail" 
> but I think the idea of betrayal was never an issue with Voldemort 
> or the DE's (at least once he was back at Voldemort's side).

Me again:

My theory is that Voldemort always refers to Pettigrew as "Wormtail" 
instead of by his real name to keep his identity hidden from the 
other DEs who would otherwise view him as a traitor.  Voldemort 
himself refers to Wormtail as "worthless and traitorous" (GoF, Ch. 
33).  He also tells Pettigrew:  "Wormtail, I need somebody with 
brains, somebody whose loyalty has never wavered, and you, 
unfortunately, fulfill neither requirement" (GoF, Ch. 1).

~Phyllis