Why didn't DD reveal Voldemort's identity?

[Carol]

No: HPFGUIDX 186844

Alla wrote:
> <snip> The bottom line to me is this :
> 
> I am yet to read convincing argument as to why it is not worth it that Voldemort followers who believe in the "purebloods rule" will know that their leader is not pureblood since they have nothing but absolute contempt for anybody who is not pureblood.

Carol responds:
But Lucius Malfoy and a number of the other Death Eaters must have known that Voldemort's father was a Muggle. They met at his father's grave in a Muggle cemetery. And, IIRC, Wormtail is present when Voldemort mentions his Muggle father to Harry. (I know I should look it up, but bad me! I'm supposed to be working.) And no one except Bellatrix responds with surprise and outrage when Harry brings up Voldemort's Half-Blood status in the DoM.
> 
Pippin:
> Voldie's original servants, the people from his Hogwarts days, already knew his real name and background. But that would be more than outweighed by the knowledge that he was the Heir of Slytherin and had proved it by opening the Chamber and being a parselmouth. Any DE incautious enough to imply the opposite would have been made an example for the others. If Voldemort wanted the name Riddle forgotten, they'd forget it -- anything to prove their loyalty.
> 
Alla:
> 
> Are you sure about that? Sure, they probably knew his name. But did they know his background? Somehow I doubt that Tom was going around advertising it. But if canon says so, that certainly would strike a hole in my argument. And wouldn't the fact that he opened the Chamber prove to them exactly that – that he is a Pureblood?

Carol responds:
We know for sure that they knew his name, and the Pure-Bloods among them (for example, Lestrange) would have known that there were no Riddles in "Nature's Aristocracy: A Wizarding Genealogy." However, they would have been impressed early on by his ability to speak Parseltongue like Salazar Slytherin himself. And once he had opened the Chamber of Secrets, proving himself to be the Heir of Slytherin and actually killing a "Mudblood" by controlling the Basilisk, they'd have been very reluctant to argue with him. Obviously, as they grin and nudge each other when Slughorn tells Riddle that he must be a Pure-Blood or something like that (sorry I can't remember the dialogue exactly), they obviously think he has a very impressive bloodline, Muggle father or not. None of *them* can claim ancestry from the great Salazar Slytherin himself. I agree with Pippin that they would understand why he wanted the name Riddle forgotten, but I think that they'd be proud to be in on the secret and probably called him Lord Voldemort among themselves. It was only much later, at about the time of the DADA interview (and Riddle's changed appearance would indicate that he'd been practicing Dark magic beyond their powers), that he would have renounced the name completely. He was still Tom Riddle when he worked for Borgin and Burke's.

In any case, Tom Riddle had been widely regarded as a charming, intelligent young man with a promising future. I fail to see how that knowledge, even if it entailed the fact that he was a Half-Blood, would have changed anyone's mind about him. To his followers and to anyone else (other than DD) who was aware of his existence at that point, he was a formidable Dark Wizard. (The DEs, who must have known that Harry Potter was a Half-Blood, were ready to rally around *him* as a replacement if it turned out that he had killed Voldemort when he was a baby through superior Dark magic. Unless they're insane fanatics like Bellatrix, Half-Blood status makes no difference if its outweighed by superior power and ability, especially by a link to Salazar Slytherin. And even Bellatrix refuses to believe the supposed lie that LV is not a Pure-Blood.)

Dumbledore could not, as I said in another post, provide evidence that Tom Riddle was a murderer. The only witnesses had had their memories tampered with and were now dead. And for DD to make such a statement would indicate that he was investigating Voldemort's past. All he could safely say was that Tom Riddle was a Half-Blood who had been raised in an orphanage. But who, other than the original DES who already knew Voldemort's identity, would believe that Voldemort was really Tom Riddle? DD couldn't prove that, either. And, given how well-regarded Tom Riddle was by those who knew him, I don't think that statement would have made any difference. Most people who had known Tom would not believe DD, and anyone who did would just think that a gifted boy had gone badly wrong. What mattered to both his followers and the WW at large was not that LV was a Half-Blood but that he had become, by the time he rose to power around 1970, the most powerful and dangerous Dark Wizard since Grindelwald.

People who learned that Hitler was part-Jewish didn't laugh, nor did they stop fearing him. He was, if anything, even more dangerous because of that connection. Had Voldemort not had a Muggle father, he would have had no reason to hate Muggles and want them exterminated or enslaved. He would merely think, as most Pure-Blood Wizards do, that they were beneath his notice. (IMO, of course.)

Carol, wishing she had time to look up Slughorn's memory