Tom Riddle and the RoR - when

[Carol]

No: HPFGUIDX 181781

Carol earlier:
> >> The question is, when did he create the Ravenclaw Horcrux? 

Tal responded: 
> Thanks Carol, but as about "when" I agree with Meann here.  I do not
remember that TR had time to leave Hogwarts to go to Albania during
his school years (? I am not as detailed ?).
> 
> I got the impression that he did it after B&B (during the ten 'lost
> years of riddles!').
> 
> Nevertheless, your angle on TR's looks is impressive - I am always
> surprised to Carol's detailed knowledge.
> 
> As about the ROR location relative to DD's office, I do not think it
is a problem, as mentioned by Meann here, I am quite sure (no direct
canon quotation - sorry) that they are quite near.  And of course, TR
has to know the whereabouts (and maybe even usage) of the ROR during
his school years (I will be surprised otherwise! the founder of the
CoS does not find the ROR? JKR should not be that sloppy :P ).  As
about TR's bragging about the only person who knows ROR - I won't put
too much meaning there - it just what it is -- bragging (as is
'normal' for somebody in LV shoes).
> 
> So, I still believe the diadem is put in the ROR during that short
DADA visit - and it explains many other things as well. It also hinted
at the time -when DD is wondering what is TR up to, since he knew that
DD will definitely reject the offer, why the visit?  <snip>

(do I sense a slight greener / more poisonous tones from
> Carol's latest postings compared to earlier ?  Ahhh .. it must be my
increasing need for antioxidants!)
> 
> Tal


Carol responds:

"Greener/more poisonous tones"? Dear me! I'm not sure what you mean by
"greener" and I certainly wasn't aiming for "pooisonous"--I was
actually just trying to sort out my thoughts on the subject, so if you
sensed a tone of confusion, you'd be correct!

Anyway, you're probably right that Tom found the RoR as a schoolboy,
possibly when he was looking for the Cos, and it makes sense that he
used it to hide the diary until he was ready to give it to someone.
(However, he'd have had to come back to Hogwarts at some point to
retrieve it. Maybe he intended to do so when he first applied for the
DADA job at nineteen?) he could have hidden the ring there, too.

Someone (Bexa/) said that he obtained the ring between his sixth and
seventh years, but I think it was between the fifth and sixth, when he
was still sixteen. (Myrtle was killed and the diary created in June of
his fifth year.) Assuming that he made the diary into a Horcrux
immediately, he'd have had one Horcrux when he asked Slughorn about
Horcruxes, in which case DD was right that he was really interested in
multiple Horcruxes. (I don't like that reading, but it seems that Mike
was right and I was wrong.) He had killed the Riddles but not yet made
the ring into a Horcrux when he's talking to Slughorn. But he's not
wearing the ring when he talks to Hepzibah Smith and encounters the
cup and locket. So it's possible, and I think likely based on his
slightly altered appearance, that he had made both the ring (using his
father's murder) and the diary (but not the tiara) into Horcruxes at
that time. And I'm starting to think that he had indeed hidden both
the diary and the ring in the RoR at that time.

He steals the cup and the locket and uses Hepzibah's murder to make
the cup Horcrux. (I've forgotten whose murder JKR said that he used
for the locket.) If that third Horcrux sufficiently altered his
appearance to arouse Borgin's and Burke's suspicion (they were experts
in Dark Magic, after all), he would have fled immediately to avoid
being detected as both thief and murderer. And where better to flee
than to Albania, where the Grey Lady had told him he could find the
tiara? At which point, he resorts to killing an Albanian peasant to
make the Horcrux. Possibly he put the tiara back in its hiding place
in the tree, where it had been safe for nearly a thousand years, with
the cup and the locket for company and various forms of magical
concealment to prevent their being stolen, and went on his way,
"consorting with the worst of our kind" and perhaps meeting his dear
Nagini on his travels. What else happened during those "lost years,"
and during the second disappearance (after the DADA plan failed), I
can't guess. He may have hidden the ring in the Gaunt hovel after
retrieving it from the RoR, but he must have retained possession of
the diary. He can't have given it to Lucius Malfoy, who was only a
child at the time of the DADA interview, and there's no indication
that Lucius's father, Abraxas, was a Death Eater. The locket he could,
perhaps, have worn around his neck under his robes until he hid it in
the cave around the time of Harry's birth. The cup could have been
entrusted to the Lestranges, specifically Bellatrix, long before,
perhaps during VW1.

Anyway, that's the history as it makes sense to me now that I've
thought about it and considered other viewpoints.

Carol, who thinks that "green and poisonous" sounds more like the
Basilisk than her poor confused post upthread