Dumbledore and Voldemort's past (was: Alice and Frank/Legilimens and Memories)

[eloise_herisson]

Jen:
> Now another question: When exactly did Dumbledore begin his search 
> into Voldemort's past? He mentions visiting Morfin in prison in the 
> last weeks of his life, "by which time I was attempting to discover 
> as much as I could about Voldemort's past." (chap. 17). He didn't 
> start thinking about the Horcruxes until Harry brought him the 
diary 
> in COS--was he putting together Voldemort's life a long time before 
> this? 
> 
> Hokey sounded incredibly old at the time Voldemort murdered 
Hepzibah-
> -was it not long after, when Voldemort left B&B, that Dumbeldore 
> started his search?


Eloise:
That's a good question, Jen, and related to something I was thinking 
about earlier.

Dumbledore is very good at putting two and two together and asking 
the right questions. So what about the following evidence?

-He clearly held doubts about young Tom Riddle right from the start, 
as Diary!Tom himself attests.

-The MOM immediately recognised the *Riddle* murders as magical.

-Dumbldedore knew Tom's father's name right from the moment he 
interviewed Mrs Cole.

Why did he need to research Voldemort's past at all? Tom was 
exceptionally able, he was (without wishing to typecast) a Slytherin 
and Dumbledore, the Legilimens, didn't trust him. His Muggle family 
were suddenly murdered. Dumbledore is not one to take evidence at 
face value, so surely he must have doubted Morfin's testimony *at the 
time*.

Maybe he just knew that young Tom would wriggle out of it, that he 
could not prove his suspicions, or perhaps he felt there was some 
hope of turning him around but I can't help but feel that there 
should have been something that Dumbledore could have done at that 
stage to prevent Tom becoming Voldemort, otherwise at that point Tom 
was proving himself to be the greater of the two despite being but a 
fraction of the age of the one destined to become (if not already) 
the greatest wizard of his age. 

Of course, it would have mucked up the plot line terribly, but it's 
one of those nagging frustrations...

~Eloise