The only one he ever feared?

[ginnysthe1]

No: HPFGUIDX 117310


Kim had written:

>And doesn't OotP show that only the ones about whom the prophecy is
written can open the prophecy sphere?  So maybe TR went to the
Ministry years before, found the "Dark Lord" sphere and opened it?<

Then Khinterberg added:

>If there was a prophecy about the coming of Voldemort and he himself
found out about it, how would Dumbledore find out about it? Did he
witness it?  Did someone tell him?  Or was his name involved as well,
so he could pick it up and touch it?<

Then Eustace Scrubb added:

>The rise of Voldemort may well have been prophesied, and perhaps
Dumbledore heard it.  But if Tom Riddle already knew about the
prophecy room at the MoM and had removed this prophecy from the shelf
himself, he wouldn't have needed to spend months during OoP figuring
out how to remove a prophecy, would he?  First he tried to have a
third party snatch it (was that Broderick Bode under an Imperius
curse?), then Rookwood eventually told him that only those mentioned
in the prophecy could do it.<

Kim here:

I'm still pondering Khinterberg's questions, but for now, to Eustace:

I thought that in OotP LV had to stay away from the MoM and sent 3rd
parties there instead because he was sure he would be intercepted by
the MoM authorities if he was found there.  Of course as you said, if
Rookwood had to tell LV about who could or couldn't remove a prophecy
orb (globe? sphere? -- anybody have the exact term handy?) from the
shelf, that implies that LV *didn't* know this already and that TR
hadn't been to the MoM years before as TR to find the "Dark Lord"
prophecy as I suggested.  Right now I can't even remember what I was
thinking when I suggested that...

OK, how about this:  How did TR find out that he was the last heir of
Slytherin?  His father didn't tell him.  Did his mother know and leave
some sort of message for him before she died?  But he'd have had to
wait some years before he could read or understand such a message and
he was in an orphanage pretty much right after she died, wasn't he, so
where would the message have been kept in the meantime?   Lately (like
the last few days) I've been spending time conjecturing to myself on
the details of TR's birth and childhood, the days before he came to
Hogwarts to study as a wizard.  How was he informed that he was
eligible to study there?  He was in a Muggle orphanage, wasn't he? 
Who, in a Muggle orphanage, would have received the owl mail from
Hogwarts and given it to him?

Then I started thinking about his confrontation with his father and
grandparents at the house in Little Hangleton when he was 16:  How did
he know who these people were if he'd never met them before?  What did
he say to them before he AK'd them?  Or did he just sneak up on them
and go "kabam!"? 

Am I missing something?  Repeating previously-asked questions?  Asking
too many questions...? (I know the answer to that one ;-))

Kim (who also asks many pardons for her inquisitive rambling, unless
of course you didn't mind it)