The McGonagall/Riddle Ship Explained

[meriaugust]

No: HPFGUIDX 115695


--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Erin" <erinellii at y...> wrote:
 snip
> Tom needs a girlfriend to make his twisted life seem normal. A
> Slytherin girl would hardly put Dumbledore off the scent, so he
> decides on Minerva McGonagall, a Gryffindor prefect nearly as
> brilliant as himself, and one of Dumbledore's star transfiguration
> pupils.
> 
> An alternate scenario is that Tom needed something from Minerva,
> something only she could provide. Perhaps something to do with 
skill
> in transfiguration, or the fact that she is a Gryffindor, or (if 
she
> is a year or two older) access to somewhere that an older prefect
> could provide.
> 
> In any case, Tom needs to get close to Minerva.
> 

Meri now: Interesting theory. And also interesting how you seem to 
think that there was no legitimate attraction involved. I am not 
much of a shipper myself (except for a serious desire to see 
Hermione and Ron married with ten red haired kids) but this one I 
could actually see happening. The bad boy and the good girl. But 
IMHO there could be an actual thing between them. Nothing so shallow 
as "he just needed a girlfriend"; I think there may have at least 
been attraction, if not real love. No canon to back this up, mind, 
but speculation is just as good, right!) 

> "If I say it myself, Harry, I've always been able to charm the 
people
> I needed."-- Tom Riddle, CoS Ch. 17.
> 
> Minerva is completely taken in by Tom's good looks and charm.

Meri: I don't really see McGonagal as someone who would be taken in 
on something as superficial as good looks and charm. (Like Hermione 
after her, it would probably have taken her less than a year to see 
right through them to who a person really is!) This, to me, is an 
arguement that the relationship began before Tom's killing spree 
with the basilisk. I can just picture them meeting as eleven year 
olds on the train, becoming friends and then, eventually, boyfriend 
and girlfriend. As the relationship goes on McGonagal gets more and 
more suspiscious of what Tom's doing, and where he's going at nights 
when there are basilisk attacks. But perhaps she trusts him enough 
to take his word, and feels sorry for his plight, having to live at 
the Muggle orphanage at the end of term. 

Come to that, do we have any canon about McGonagal's family 
situation? Could she be a muggle born? Who was also raised in an 
orphanage? Wild speculation, I know, but this perhaps could account 
for her and Tom having something in common, and for her not wanting 
DD to leave Harry on the steps of the Dursleys - why abandon this 
boy to the Muggle world when so many in the WW would want to raise 
him as their own? 

 And
> for his part, Tom discovers that it's easy to say and do all the
> right things when there are no messy feelings involved. He can be
> smooth and secure in his role of the perfect boyfriend.
>

Meri: I do see one problem with all this speculation. IIRC, JKR said 
in an interview that LV was never loved by anyone. But then again it 
is possible that she makes a distinction between Tom Riddle and LV. 
 
> And for whatever reason, things go too far. Perhaps Tom continues 
to
> make use of Minerva's skills at transformation and is loathe to 
give
> them up. Perhaps he is unable to think up a reason to dump her that
> will allow him to keep his "good guy" image. Or maybe he thinks
> she'll continue to make a good cover for his evil activities even
> after Hogwarts. Soon after they finish school, the two are married.
> 
> And then it happens. Tom is careless and Minerva gets an inkling of
> the sort of man she is really married to. She is horrified, there 
is
> a huge fight, and she tells him to "Get out!!".
> And he does. In fact, he leaves that very night to go on his long
> journey around the world, the one where he "traveled far and 
wide...
> sank so deeply into the Dark Arts, consorted with the very worst of
> our kind, underwent so many dangerous, magical transformations...".
> 
> Minerva wants to divorce him, but is unable to find him (and 
anyway,
> divorce is not *done* nearly so often in those days), so she goes
> back to her maiden name and tries to forget him.
> 
> When Riddle does surface again, he is calling himself Lord 
Voldemort
> and is unrecognizably altered in appearence. He doesn't contact
> Minerva, and she has no idea who he is. By the time she realizes
> Voldemort and her husband are one and the same, he is already 
Public
> Enemy #1, and she is terrified to reveal her connection to him.
> 
> This also explains why so few people know who Voldemort once was.
> Dumbledore figured it out, and he is protecting Minerva from the
> angry friends and relatives of the dead by keeping silent.
> 
> So... that's one version of McGonagall/Riddle. At all plausible, do
> you think?

Meri: Very plausible, though I hope we are not crossing into Star 
Wars territory here! That Tom Riddle might have once been a good 
boyfriend is clearly mitigated by the fact that he turned into the 
world's worst excuse for a once was a human being. That being said, 
I can still see MM and TR falling for each other. It is, as I said 
above, the classic good girl-bad boy syndrome. 

Meri - who would also probably have been guilty of a massive crush 
on Tom Riddle had she known him in high shcool.