Riddle (was Re: Slytherin House / MALcolm BADdock / Eileen / Sorting Lily

[Ceridwen]

No: HPFGUIDX 185729

Potioncat:
> The Sorting Hat would know that he was a half-blood, but no one else 
> would. (Unless the magic quill gives the child's parents' names and 
> teachers have access to it.) He doesn't know it himself

Ceridwen:
How would the Sorting Hat know?  In the only exchange we have between
the hat and a student, ancestry isn't discussed.  That could be
because the hat knows and it just doesn't matter in Harry's case,
being as he has proper Wizarding antecedents, but it could just as
well mean the hat doesn't know, it isn't part of its job to know.

Potioncat:
> In the first moments of sorting, everyone would think he's a Pureblood.

Ceridwen:
Unless they read the Nature's Nobility and knew there was no Riddle
family listed.

Potioncat:
> Then as people learned a little more about him, they would think he 
> landed in a Muggle orphanage by some mistake. The fact that he does 
> such magic give Slughorn reason to believe Riddle is from good 
> wizarding stock--and Slughorn is a very tolerant Supremist.

Ceridwen:
Until after the Sorting, only Dumbledore knew the extent of Tom's
magical abilities.  Maybe he mentioned, but the way Dumbledore has
been presented, I'm just as inclined to think he didn't say a word,
preferring to let Tom make his own impression and hoping he would have
changed his ways, at least as far as his Wizarding peers were concerned.

Slughorn speaks from knowing Tom for at least five years when we see
them together.  By this time, too, Tom has traced his mother's family
and may have mentioned his credentials himself.  I'm not convinced the
hat knew his ancestry before he did, but equally, there's nothing in
the text to support that it didn't know.

Potioncat:
> What I wonder is, if Riddle was so good at charming people, why didn't 
> he weedle an invitation to someone's house for the summer?

Ceridwen:
Good question!  Why not?  All I can think of is, Tom was naturally a
loner and didn't want to get that close to people.  He had natural
victims at the orphanage that he could browbeat and intimidate.  Maybe
he liked to do that, or needed to.

But, yeah, you'd think he'd want to spend his time at someone's house
instead of the orphanage, if only to ingratiate himself with people
who could further his ambitions.

Ceridwen.