Harry Potter question, what if Voldemort...?

hi

interesting question

i think voldemort would be a normal kid - slightly rude/bad because of his arrogant and horrible father, but since his father must still be with them, he would be under the influence of love potion and would be too in love with merope to have capacity to be mean and a snob.

merope would be a bit messed up because her husband doesnt actually love her - shed be guilty all the time - and plus she had a bad childhood....but i think voldy would be loved - and he wouldnt be called voldy...tom works fine i guess....hed still be a parselmouth and the heir of slytherin, but with his muggle father, i doubt hed still want to purge the school.

added to the list of why voldy went bad - he was left to be brought up by muggles and perhaps his strong sense of magic alienated him from thhe other children.....then again harry was in the same situation until he was 11....harry was also unloved until eleven - well he didnt know about it.....

also when he found out about his powerful slytherin ascendant who hated mudbloods - his hate must have intensified as he aspired to be like his messed up dude.

i think being in slytherin and mixing with the wrong crowd helped - what im wondering now is - harry was also unloved for a while he thought....what was the difference between him and riddle../?

perhaps that harry at least had reassurance his family existed at all....he knew that his parents had died and not abandoned him...knew that his mother died - not given up on life despite having a son.....perhaps that was the main evil turner for voldy as it was the core

sorry if none of that makes sense.

i really feel sorry for voldemort.

btw - i think youd like this - on y!a someone posted this link - its a harry potter musical and its hilarious; its in parts on youtube

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wmwM_AKeMCk

I guess he would have a "Draco Malfoy"ish character. But highly ambitious and bold too. Always aspiring for more (but since he has loving parents he would aspire for more grades, more friends, more poularity, be an auror, get a top position in ministry, but not aspire to dominate muggles or loathe them. He would just look down on muggles with a smirk). Hogwarts would no longer be his home, because his home is with his parents. Therefore, he wouldn't come back looking for a job in Hogwarts. He would simply concentrate on becoming a top auror, or a minister of magic or something. He would be selfish, handsome (Tom Riddle is described as handsome), arrogant, ambitious, an intellectual, greedy for more power, maybe even married to a daughter of an influential guy to make his future secure. He is a parselmouth, so he might use that to spy on others (this is useful as an auror).

He would also make a coldly effiecient minister of magic. His soul wouldn't be split into seven so he might even fall in love (have an affair too if he was already married).

And of course Harry, Dumbledore, Snape, Sirius etc would be alive.

I bet the above people will still be distrusting of Voldemort.

If Voldemort was loved, there would be no Harry Potter story. James, Lily, and Sirius woud have lived. So would all the other people he killed. The only way it could have been different would be if his mother lived, and if his mother actually loved, and took care of him he might have turned out normal.

He was probably so evil because he was simply never loved, and no truly cared about him.

Possibly, he would have had friends and had a normal life.

Tom's mother was mentally unbalanced at best, having suffered through years of abuse at the hands of her father. Tom's father was a muggle with little knowledge of magic, and who left his wife immediately upon being released from the effects of her love potion. Would that have been the best environment to raise a child in? While many of Tom's issues certainly stem from his childhood, I think there was likely far more wrong with him than that alone.

As you said, he never new his mother, and knew little of his father until he was much older. They're not the reason he was never loved (and it's possible that he would have been even less loved had he been raised by them). He was never loved because he was unlovable even as a child. There were other children in that orphanage who turned out just fine in spite of not having parents. It's very likely people at the orphanage DID try to care for him initially and he rejected that affection. Then later, when he became a bully, they stopped trying to care, and simply feared him. He fed on that fear.

Harry was not brought up by his parents and he didn't go bad!!

So I think Tom Riddle would have still turned evil - perhaps it was something to do with his parentage - his Slytherin blood may have made him evil.

However, if Voldemort had been brought up by his muggle father, and been treated well, then he may not have turned so against muggles - he hated the orphanage he grew up in and so if he'd had a nice house and nice family he may have been a nicer boy.

But nobody will ever know... :)

so this is a question of nature vs nurture?

if he were raised by either of his parents i think he still could have turned out the same way. his father was rich and better than you.. and his mom was an ancient pure blood and better than you.. so either way he would have thought he was entitled. i dont think he felt abandoned by his father. he did a lot of research on him and was Happy to believe he was the wizard and not his mom. Even when he was young he knew he could use his magic to punish.. that boy was inherently evil...

this also brings up the question of would harry have been so anti-dark magic if he wasnt an orphan by voldemorts hand..?

The image I got of Tom, even as a small child, was that the evil was present and very, very strong. Even I, someone who use to 'torture' animals by tossing them around or putting them in the washer (which I never turned on, btw), I wasn't quite that bad. It's my theory that, if his parents had lived full, normal lives and wanted to raise him (you know the scene- falling in love, getting married, blah blah), I'm pretty sure it would have happened anyway. Think about it... If his parents were loving and nurturing, but the evil presisted, he may have ended up actually killing them, too. In fact, the reason they thought him mad was because, all in all, there was no reason for him to be quite so evil. Look at how Potter was raised! I would rather be in the system than have to deal with Vernon and Petunia, to be honest. Maybe he really was mad.

Perhaps he may not have been quite as bad...Maybe he would have even gone into Gryffindor eventually. But it's my theory that he is just plain evil, no matter how you slice it.

-He never had friends because he didn't want them; he hated the other children at the orphanage since he was old enough to tell them so.

-People attempted to love him as their own...and he rejected them instantly because of it.

-He hated his father not only for abandoning his mother, but also because his father was not of magical birthright. He sees those of magic blood (pure magic blood) to be the highest class of species on Earth. And, since his father wasn't, perhaps him hating part of himself had a lot to do with it too.

-Knowing his mother, and knowing her tendancies, she would have probably made it worse. Like Bellatrix raising a child...Merlin help us all. And taking into consideration how stuck up and snotty his father was, I'm not sure he would have helped either... Imagine, Lucius Malfoy and Bellatrix Black getting together, having a love child, and -gulps- raising it? Haha. I'd love to see it, but the truth is, I'd rather the child be an orphan.

And...that's my very long winded opinion, haha. Hope you enjoyed it!

yes they are, but very distant indeed. JK Rowling discussed this in one of her live chats on mugglenet. an excerpt from the live chat transcript: Renee: From reading about the original owners of the deathly hallows, the peverell brothers, i'm wondering if harry and voldermort are distantly related voldermorts grandfather ended up with the resurrection stone ring ? J.K. Rowling: Yes, Harry and Voldemort are distantly related through the Peverells. J.K. Rowling: Of course, nearly all wizarding families are related if you trace them back through the centuries. As was made clear in 'Deathly hallows', Peverell blood would run through many wizarding families.

if he had been raised by his parents, or at least his mother, he probably would have turned out fine. voldemort didn't understand love because he never received any, but if he had, that would have been a totally different story.

about something that made him evil, Rowling said that being conceived when his father was under a love potion and not by love, had to do with him not understanding love and then being evil.

Voldy never felt accepted even in the orphanage, he was weird and the other kids avoided him so he started giving them reasons to avoid him. Even if he just had his mother, it never sit right with him that she let herself die. He knew he was different and special hence the beginning of arrogance. When he realized he was a wizard that made him feel special and the knowledge that he had power began his narcissistic behavior. It also made him even more angry that his mom was who gave him that power and not a strong and powerful male. Then she let herself die even though she had power to save herself. In his mind it was her who damned him to the orphanage because of her weakness that made her die. Weakness was not something he tolerated from himself so he was not about to show any weakness and he was most certainly not about to let himself die as his mother had. Then the icing on the cake was when he realized he was a descendent of Slytherin, he went completely maniacal then. He had a lot of unanswered questions going into hogwarts his first year so from day one he focused only on finding out where he came from and who he was. He was hanging on hope from every ancestor to see which one was the most powerful so he could assure himself he was the same. I think although he was narcissistic he had a good bit of insecurity until he realized he was from salazar then there was no coming back from that and releasing the basilisk helped affirm how powerful he was.

Hope this helped. :) Good question