The murder of Tom Riddle Sr.

[Steve]

No: HPFGUIDX 125343


--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, chnc1024 at A... wrote:
> I was thinking. How is it that Voldemort was able to murder his  
> father using an AK, without the MoM becoming involved?? When Harry  
> was blamed for Dobby's hovering spell, ... almost immediately owls 
> were on their way.  ...edited..
>  


bboyminn:

For a quick overview of how I see Ministry Monitoring of Magical
Occurances, see ...

From:  "Steve" <bboyminn at y...>
Date:  Mon Feb 21, 2005  1:23 pm
Subject:  Re: Whither the Wand -Sirius & More
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/124942

...scroll down to my reponse to question #4.

I think we need to remember that Harry is being monitored very very
closely. His level of monitoring does not reflect the level of
monitoring of the wizard world in general, and the highest priority of
general monitoring would be for magic in the vicinity of muggles.
Underage or unauthorized magic in magical or secure spaces like the
Burrow would be a somewhat minor crime compared to magic in areas
where it was likely to be detected by muggles.


> Chancie continues:
> 
> ...yes I know it would be hard to monitor EVERY wizard and witch in 
> the WW, but why not at least monitor the suspected DE's.  
> ...edited...
> 

bboyminn:

The answer here is because those who were at one time suspected of
being DE's have now all been cleared of charges and responsibility. In
fact, people like Lucius Malfoy have actually painted themselves as
victims of Voldemort rather than as supporters. Since the remaining
DE's have been cleared of charges there is no logical reason for the
Ministry to monitor them.

On a more general scale, we must remember that there are many
thousands of wizards; conservative estimates are usually around 50,000
in the UK. That's far too many people to monitor in detail. 

In addition, as I have already implied, the Ministry's primary reason
for existing is to keep awareness of the Magical world from muggles,
so that is there primary area of monitoring. Individual wizards are
engaged in magic all the time and all over the countryside, that's far
too much magical activity to try and sort out every detail of every event.


> Chancie continues:
>  
> Oh and just one more thing, I say "underage wizard" referring to 
> Voldemort, because the murder was said to be 50 years ago. We know 
> Tom  Riddle was in school then because of the fact that "50 years 
> ago", was when  the Chamber of Secrets was opened and he was 
> obviously still in school.  ...edited...
>  
> Chancie


bboyminn:

I have always thought the books implied that Tom Riddle at the time of
his parents murder was about 16 years old. I suspected their murder
was in the summer between Tom's 5th and 6th year, and the release of
the Basilisk was during his 6th years. When Tom asked Headmaster
Dippet if he could stay at Hogwarts over the summer holiday, that
implied Tom would be back for the next school year. I'm assuming that
/next school year/ would have been his 7th. During his 6th year he
could have turned 17, but that seems like about the earliest it could
happen. Again, that's not all fact, that's my impression of the timeline.

Having said that, it's entirely possible that the Minitry did send
someone to investigate the magical event in muggle space in Little
Hangleton. But their concern is not to investigate the death of
muggles, but to determine if, do to these events, the muggles have
become aware of the magical world. Since the muggles seem to have
resolved the events as best they could and closed the case, the
Ministy's primary concern would be taken care of. 

Not to say that they wouldn't be concerned about muggles being
magically murdered, and I'm sure they investigated. But the person who
commited the magical murders was never seen beyond Frank Brice
claiming to have seen a mysterious teenage boy, and the village would
have reasonably had its own fair share of muggle teenage boys. So,
they had little or no clues to go on, so they closed the case just as
the muggles did. 

They muggles regarded it as a mysterious death, and the Ministry filed
it away as an unsolved murder.

Just a guess.

Steve/bboyminn