Why didn't DD reveal Voldemort's identity?

[Carol]

No: HPFGUIDX 186840

Alla wrote:
> >><snip>
> >>I do wonder why exactly Dumbledore did not scream at the top of his lungs the truth of who Tom Riddle really was. <snip>
> >
No.Limberger responded:
> > I suspect that the reason for the secrecy was that Dumbledore did not want Voldemort to know how much Dumbledore actually knew.   Dumbledore uncovered a lot of information about Riddle/Voldemort.  If that were to become public knowledge, then it would have made it that much easier for Voldemort to develop defenses. It would also have made Voldemort do even more to try and cover up his past, making it that much more difficult to uncover more important facts about him.
> 
> 
> Marion:
> 
> But that is silly!  What defences would Voldemort develop if Dumbledore
> gave an interview like,
> 
> "Oh yes, this newfangled 'Lord Voldemort' we hear so much of these days.
> Ah yes, I knew him when he was little Tom Riddle. Oh dear, yes.. such a
> scrawny little boy.. Poor boy, growing up as a half-blood wizard in a
> muggle orphanage must've been so difficult. Must be what caused him that
> tendency to wet his bed until he was sixteen. Hah, his housemates used to
> call him 'Tom Piddle' instead of Tom Riddle! Ach, children... they can be
> so cruel.. What did you say? Ah, yes this Voldemort business. No, I don't
> know why he feels the need to style himself as a 'lord' and give himself a
> new name. There's no shame in having a muggle father, after all, and Tom
> Riddle is a good name even for the brightest of wizards.. Lemon drop?"
> 
> If Dumbledore had given this interview on the Wireless and in the
> newspaper back in the early seventies, Voldemort would *never* have gotten
> the support he got, and what could Voldemort have done against it? Any
> grandstanding, any big threatening gesture would've been met with a barely
> suppressed giggle of 'Tom Piddle! Hihihihi!' and he would've been
> powerless.
> 
> I thought this was the lesson one was supposed to have learned in second
> year with the boggarts. Things that frighten you no longer seem half as
> frightening, indeed they seem downright silly, when you've cut them down
> to size and LAUGH at them.
>
Carol responds:

I don't think it's silly at all. In fact, I agree completely with No.Limberger. If Voldemort suspected that Dumbledore was investigating his past, he would never have hidden the Horcruxes in places important to him as scenes of his crimes or his happiness (Hogwarts) or his envy (Gringotts). He'd have probably sealed them all inside that tree in Albania where they could never be found by anyone but him.

But there are other reasons, one of which is that Dumbledore at first had no reason to reveal Voldemort's identity because Tom Riddle had been out of the country for years and no one but Dumbledore suspected that he was up to anything. By the time Dumbledore knew that Tom Riddle was calling himself Lord Voldemort and was gathering followers calling themselves Death Eaters (when he reappeared in Britain for the DADA interview after being who knew where for about ten years), many of them his "friends" from school, his face was already nearly unrecognizable, he had already killed at least seven people, and he had already made at least four Horcruxes (the diary, the ring, the cup, and the diadem). His source for that information was Aberforth, who had overheard them in the Hog's Head. (At that point, maybe it was still okay to call Tom Lord Voldemrot--er, Voldemort.)

Dumbledore knew that Tom Riddle was up to no good even when he was still at Hogwarts, but he couldn't prove that he had killed Moaning Myrtle. Tom had "proved" that Aragog did it. DD also suspected that Tom had killed his parents (he read the Muggle papers and possibly Morfin Gaunt's arrest was reported in the Daily Prophet), but by the time he got the memory from Morfin, it was too late. Morfin died before the Ministry could investigate. He knew that Tom had worked for Borgin and Burke's and disappeared and he suspected that he was responsible for the murder of Hepzibah Smith and the theft of the cup and the locket, but by the time he got the memory from Hokey, it was again too late for the Ministry to investigate. Tom Riddle, still known by that name, had disappeared. Dumbledore had no choice but to remain quiet and, presumably, continue his investigations and his memory collecting.

When Tom reappeared for the DADA interview, DD's suspicions must have been aroused by his altered appearance (I think that's when he first started suspecting that the valuable objects he was stealing were Horcruxes. Since Slughorn was still teaching Potions at that time, that may be when Dumbledore coerced the [altered] memory from him.) But he had no proof of anything. There was no point in announcing to the press that Tom Riddle, the former prefect and Borgin and Burke's employee had temporarily surfaced and was calling himself Lord Voldemort. Neither he nor the Death Eaters had yet performed any crimes that could be traced to them.

And by the time Voldemort surfaced again, having apparently been gathering followers in secret for some twelve years, it would have done no good to publicize his past even if Dumbledore could prove his crimes, which he couldn't do. Voldemort already had followers, and the terror of his actions and those of the Death Eaters far outweighed any unprovable claims that Dumbledore could make that he had once been Tom Riddle--who, BTW, was not a laughable creature like Gregory Goyle but a handsome and intelligent Prefect and Head Boy who had won an award for services to the school. That information might astonish a few people, assuming that they believed it, but it wouldn't make them laugh at him or scorn him. 

And worse, publicizing Voldemort's true identity might arouse Voldemort's suspicions that Dumbledore was investigating his past. Where the Horcruxes were at that point, we don't know. Apparently, he didn't hide them until he'd heard the Prophecy, but DD had no way of knowing that. Dumbledore didn't know how many Horcruxes Tom had made; he might still have thought that there was only one though I don't think so because he knew that both the cup and the locket had been stolen. He didn't know about the diary or the diadem, and Nagini wasn't a Horcrux yet (if LV even knew about her at that time). 

By the time the Potters were killed and Harry had acquired his soul bit, people were already too terrified to speak the name. Even the Death Eaters were presumably being Crucioed for daring to use it or they'd never have developed the habit of calling him the Dark Lord. (I've always suspected that the Dark Mark could sense the name being spoken around it, which is why Snape absent-mindedly clutches his left arm during the first Occlumency lesson and orders Harry not to speak the Dark Lord's name).

>From Godric's Hollow until the end of GoF, there was no point in bringing up Voldemort's name at all. As far as the WW was concerned, the Wicked Witch was dead, having been destroyed miraculously by a fifteen-month-old baby. And by the time DD was trying to persuade the WW that Voldemort had returned, the Ministry was busy suppressing that information and calling DD a deluded old liar.

Then Harry's story came out in "The Quibbler," and Harry would certainly have mentioned that Voldemort was really Tom Riddle since "bone of the father" played as large a role in the restorative potion as Harry's blood and Wormtail's hand, but that knowledge made no difference whatever in terms of either his follower's loyalty (Bellatrix, who either hasn't read the article or wouldn't believe it, anyway, screams at Harry for calling Voldemort a Half-Blood; the other DEs either know it already, having been present in the graveyard, or are unfazed by the information), and the rest of the WW quickly returns to "You Know Who" mode when Voldemort returns.

It seems inconceivable that DD has not told at least the Wizengamot and the high Ministry officials (e.g., Fudge) who Voldemort really is, but Fudge still calls him You Know Who. Surely DD has told McGonagall and the other Order members that Voldemort was once Tom Riddle, but they also say You Know Who (with the exception of Snape, who for reasons of his own says the Dark Lord). In other words, knowing who Tom Riddle was (without knowing about his early murders, which DD can't prove and also can't speak of without risking that LV will find out about his investigations) has no effect whatever on the WW at large, which is concerned with what LV was in VW1 and what he will become if he returns to power.

His followers, both before Godric's Hollow and after LV's restoration to his body, are impressed by his cruelty and power, including his power over *them*, and by whichever of his deeds they know about, those unspecified  "great and terrible" deeds that Ollivander mentions in SS/PS. Once he returns, the mere fact that he (apparently) can't be killed is sufficient to bring in new admirers, those who want to rise to power on his coattails or want to learn more sophisticated forms of torture. Some of them may still have the Pure-blood agenda of the Malfoys and are happy to act on it whether their leader is himself a Pure-Blood or not. He's not, after all, a "Mudblood," and he's authorizing them to murder Muggles and Muggle-borns, and, in Bellatrix's case, to "cleanse" her family of Half-blood "brats" who marry werewolves. (She'd probably happily murder her "blood traitor" sister as well.) Others, like Fenrir Greyback, just want the rewards he can give them for exercising their already extant bloodlust.

I forgot to mention that his earliest followers, his former schoolmates,  may have known or suspected that he wasn't a Pure-Blood, but it made no difference to them because he was the Heir of Slytherin--and both more intelligent and more powerful than they were, quite capable of keeping them under his control. His being Tom Riddle, far from a reason for laughing at him, was a reason to follow him.

IOW, knowing that Voldemort was once Tom Riddle, assuming that DD could prove that allegation to the satisfaction of the fickle WW public, makes no difference to anyone. It makes no difference to Fudge, who fears him regardless, or to McGonagall and Hagrid or Ron or anyone else conditioned to call him You Know Who. All of which hands LV and his followers a weapon after his return to power--anyone who speaks the name "Voldemort" is an enemy, either an Order member or Harry Potter himself.

Carol, realizing that parts of her post are speculation and just trying to figure out why DD didn't expose Tom Riddle and whether it would have made any difference