Tom Riddle

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 117447


Catlady wrote:
<big snip>
> But then how did he [Tom Riddle] become so certain that his father
deserted his mother because he found out that she was a witch? Surely
someone must have told him -- who? 
> 
> As for finding out that he was the last descendent of Slytherin,
that probably didn't take MUCH research -- if he knew his mother's
maiden name, he could have looked it up in genealogy books in Hogwarts
> Library. If he didn't know his mother's maiden name, he could have
> found it out from someone who had known her or known of her --
someone who heard the name 'Tom Riddle' and said "That was the
loathsome Muggle that dear Marvella fell in love with" or heard the
name 'Marvolo' and asked: "Are you related to Marvolo Last-Blood?"

Carol responds:
Maybe Tom knew nothing about wizards (except for his own strange
powers) until he got his Hogwarts letter and whoever delivered it
(Dumbledore? the deputy headmaster or deputy headmistress?) explained
to him that his mother was a witch but his father was a Muggle. The
story about his mother being deserted by his father and even the
identity of his father could have been given to him by a sympathetic
Muggle employee of the orphanage--I don't think that Tom's power to
charm people into telling him what he wanted was limited to Wizards.

As for his mother's heritage, he could simply have asked Dumbledore or
his Head of House for information about his grandfather Marvolo,
including Marvolo's surname. (Surely Dumbledore would have encountered
Marvolo as a student at some point, or would be aware of him if he was
at all famous as a Dark Wizard, and maybe he felt both sympathy and
hope for the talented little boy from the Muggle orphanage.) Whatever
Tom found out would have sent him to do research in the library and he
could easily have discovered that Marvolo was a descendant of Salazar
Slytherin, which in turn would have led to information about the
Chamber of Secrets. (Being a model student, Tom could easily have
obtained permission for further study in the restricted section of the
library.)

Anyway, I agree that information about Marvolo would have been easy to
obtain, and if he sensed that any adult wizard (say Dumbledore) was
withholding information, that in itself would have triggered his
curiosity and sent him to the library, where he would have found out
everything he wanted to know and more. And once he realized that he
could speak Parseltongue, he would have realized that he was the Heir
of Slytherin and have begun his five-year search for the Chamber of
Secrets. Al this at age eleven.

Carol, wondering when Tom realized that he was a natural Legilimens
--or, if he wasn't one, who taught him and why