Tom Riddle - Riddle murders

[eloise_herisson]

No: HPFGUIDX 105484

"dawnflight1984" <victoria at m...> wrote:
> > I wonder if it really matters whether Tom was still a student or 
has 
> > already graduated. One thing was for sure, he wasn't an underaged 
> > wizard at that time, meaning he's probably at least 17 then and 
he 
> > murdered them before he was Voldemort. Right?

Wanda:
> The underage magic thing had occurred to me, too - they were killed 
in
> the summer, so wouldn't 3 AKs by an underaged wizard outside of 
school
> have been noticed by the MoM?  


I believe that Tom murdered his family in the summer *after* he'd 
left school. This is certainly the timeline supported by the Lexicon. 

http://www.hp-lexicon.org/wizards/voldemort.html

Tom wouldn't have been underage, and it's highly unlikely that his 
family's home would have been monitored by the MOM if there was no 
record of anyone magical living there. We know from Dumbledore's 
words in the Pensieve chapter of GoF that the Ministry were not 
interested in Frank Bryce's disappearance, because he was a Muggle. I 
imagine they would have the same lack of interest in the deaths of 
these three Muggles. In fact the lack of interest in Frank's 
disappearance *at the same location* rather reinforces that 
speculation, even if in retrospect.

One certainly might assume that he murdered his family before he 
disappeared, that the disappearance was in fact partly (although only 
partly) a result of his having committed the murders. More 
accurately, perhaps the murders might be seen as a rite of passage. 

We do know that he still had the appearance of a teenaged boy when 
the murders were committed, so he can't have embarked too far on the 
appearance-changing transformations that he underent during his 
disappearance.

~Eloise