Why didn't DD reveal Voldemort's identity?

[sistermagpie]

No: HPFGUIDX 186907

> Magpie:
> 
> > But to be honest, even the facts about his parents hardly indicate some deep, dangerous investigation on Dumbledore's part that must mean he knows about the Horcruxes. Tom Riddle's named after his family. They're not hard to find. And terrorizing the country is reason enough for people to look into your biography. In fact, if I were Voldemort I'd find it far more suspicious if Dumbledore was never saying anything about who my parents were. I mean, come on, they're painfully easy to find given they share all of my names, and the wisest Wizard ever hasn't ever been interested? (Granted, that's far more logical than Voldemort usually is.)
> 
> Carol:
> He might have been suspicious that DD never revealed that he was Tom Riddle or revealed what was generally known about Tom Riddle at the time of his disappearance (though I don't know why he would since he would have thought that the lack of information was to his own advantage), but I don't see how you can assume that he'd regard not revealing something he didn't even know that DD knew was suspicious.

Magpie:
I didn't assume it. I said that if *I* were Voldemort I would imagine I would assume that Dumbledore would know easily-discovered facts about my past. After all, he's super smart Dumbledore, he's known for profiling his enemies, he likes to know stuff, and this information's easy to find. So I might wonder why he was being so helpful as to continue to talk me up as a mysterious monster. I don't think Voldemort would have been the least bit surprised to learn that Dumbledore knew who his parents were. That's Dumbledore's thing. 

Just saying he took him from the orphanage etc. that's still more than he did.


Carol:
> Dumbledore kept quiet about that for two reasons, IMO. First, by the time he got the Ministry to look at Morfin's memory, proving Morfin's innocence, Morfin was dead (the same thing happened later with Hokey). With the sole witness dead, he couldn't prove that Tom was guilty. Apparently, the memory alone wouldn't hold up in a court of Wizarding law. And, second, he didn't want Voldemort to find out too soon that he, DD, was investigating his past and remove all the traces.

Magpie:
Who cares if he could prove Tom guilty of anything or not? This has nothing to do with Dumbledore telling anyone that Voldemort is Tom Riddle or even saying that he believes that this Tom Marvolo Riddle is the son of Tom Riddle and the daughter of Morvolo.  

> Carol:
> I think it *is* a huge deal. If DD knows who Tom's parents were, he knows or can find out that Tom murdered his father and grandfather and stole Morfin's ring. He can also discover the hiding place for the ring, even if he doesn't know that it's a Horcrux. And if he's investigating that murder, he may be investigating another unsolved murder, that of Hepzibah Smith, as well. After all, he would know that Tom Riddle resigned and mysteriously disappeared just before that murder was discovered.

Magpie:
If you work backwards from the endpoint of the plot and so assume that deviating at all from the stuff that happened in the book ever would lead to Voldemort's victory, then it's a big deal. In the scheme of things, starting from where Dumbledore would have been in the first war? No, I don't think it's a big deal. Things might have gone a lot more smoothly had he done it. We wind up with the country relying on the Chosen One to take out the Dark Wizard (despite Dumbledore claiming he doesn't believe in prophecies). To me that seems clearly just as much Dumbledore's plan as the actual destruction of Voldemort.
 
> Carol responds:
> IOW, Dumbledore must have been investigating Voldemort's past for years before Godric's Hollow and probably long before the DADA interview. ("You call what you have been doing 'great', then?"). And the DADA interview would have alerted him to Riddle's changed appearance, a hint that he was making Horcruxes out of those stolen objects.

Magpie:
And, as per his usual MO, doing nothing about it but waiting and watching and knowing more than anyone else, collecting his little bits of info and hiding them the way Tom collects his totems.

Perfectly understandable in terms of Dumbledore, but not, imo, motivated purely by efficiency or the protection of others. He's acting the way he always acts, keeping others in the dark, because this is between him and Tom. Tom could always count on Albus to keep his secrets until he had to grudgingly share some with Harry. (And even then he hid as much as he could so he could speak in riddles from beyond the grave.) 

-m