25 Things You Didn’t Know About Voldemort From Harry Potter

One of the most evil villains of all time, Voldemort, has a lot of dark secrets true fans of Harry Potter need to know.

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Who’s your favourite villain of all time? That’s a tough one, isn’t it? The fact is, when you consider, movies, TV shows, books, video games, comics, and everything else altogether, there’s just such an incredible line up to go through.

We don’t like to admit that we prefer the villains, of course, but it’s a fact that they just tend to be much cooler than their counterparts. For me, Crash Bandicoot’s archenemy Dr. Neo Cortex probably wins out. The guy just owned every scene of the games he appeared in, oozing charisma like Morgan Freeman (well, okay, maybe that’s hyperbole, but still).

Maybe your favourite is Darth Vader. Or Magneto. Or perhaps Commodus from Gladiator. It’s a super personal choice, and they’re all totally valid.

With the rise of the Harry Potter phenomenon, another iconic bad guy has thrown his hat into the ring: Lord Voldemort. This enigmatic wizard and his desperation for power led to two great Wizarding wars, and he left an endless trail of evil deeds and lost lives in his wake.

Megalomania aside, though, Lord Voldemort is far from a one-dimensional villain. Through the course of the series, JK Rowling presented us with an interesting glimpse into his backstory and childhood, painting a picture of a deeply troubled and conflicted character as she did so. A lot of this tends to fall by the wayside, so let’s do him the justice he deserves. Settle in for some real Voldemort revelations.

25 He Wanted To Teach At Hogwarts…

Let’s kick this party of the right way, with a curious fact that will have completely passed by anyone who hasn’t read the books. On first graduating from the school, Tom Riddle asked then-headmaster Armando Dippet if he could stay, applying for the position of Defense Against The Dark Arts teacher. Brilliant as he was, the young man was only eighteen, and Dippet wasn’t about that life at all. Instead, he suggested that Riddle reapplies in a few years.

Sure enough, a decade or so later, he returned to Hogwarts and made the request again.

Dumbledore was headmaster now, knew all about Riddle’s shenanigans and his spangly new ‘Voldemort’ alias, and wasn’t having any of that either. The two men exchanged half-baked faux pleasantries, and Voldemort left.

24 …And Cursed The Job Because He Didn’t Get It

I feel your pain, Voldemort, I really do. It always super sucks to be turned down for a job, particularly one you had your heart set on. True, you may have only had your heart set on it so that you could continue snooping around the school, hiding slices of your soul and other general d-baggery, but still. It’s a bitter pill to swallow.

You’ve got to take it with a little grace, though. Send a nice, polite no-hard-feelings-email, for instance. What you should not do, on the other hand, is place a curse on the position so that nobody else can hold it for more than a year.

As Dumbledore states in the sixth novel, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, “You see, we have not been able to keep a Defence Against the Dark Arts professor for more than a year since I refused the post to Lord Voldemort.”

23 He And Harry Potter Are Related (Somewhere, Distantly)

In the last installment of the series, Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows, Rowling drops the titular Hallows into the equation. These three super powerful magical items (allegedly crafted by the Grim Reaper himself) supposedly make one immortal. There’s the Elder Wand, the most powerful in the world and said to be unbeatable in battle, the Resurrection Stone and the cloak of invisibility.

Harry, as we know, owns the cloak, which was bequeathed to him by his father.

The Peverell family were the original owners of the Hallows, and this implies that Harry is distantly related to them.

Meanwhile, Voldemort is of the Gaunt family, who have been boasting of their Pure Blood status for generations. They have also been passing down the ring, which had the Resurrection Stone set in it.

What does all of the flim-flam mean? It means that Harry and Voldemort are cousins, very distantly.

22 NOBODY Can Pronounce His Darn Name Correctly

Thanks to the immense success of the Harry Potter franchise, Voldemort has become one of the most recognizable villains in recent history. He’s right up there with Darth Vader, Mr. Burns and whoever it is that keeps circulating darn haz cheezburger memes (I mean, come on, it’s 2018).

Interestingly, though, it seems that about 99.9% of us are pronouncing his name incorrectly. As JK Rowling herself confirmed on Twitter back in 2015, the T is actually silent. The name has French origins, you see, and in the French language, nobody seems to like the letter T. I don’t know if somebody dressed as a giant letter T roundhouse kicked somebody’s grandma in the face way back when, but the bias against the letter continues. It’s often silent (as in the pronunciation of the French name Robert), as it is here.

21 It’s A Pretty Darn Poetic Name, Though

Speaking of which, the author’s goal with Voldemort’s nom de guerre (I’m getting my French on in honour of that last fact) was to create an assumed name that was menacing and mysterious, but a little deeper. You don’t want your villain to call themselves something super hackneyed like Doom Man, Don Doomtastic or I Destroy Your Face, do you?

That’s the Marvel approach, and it’s not the most poetic.

As we know, then, the name Voldemort is French. Vol-de-mort essentially translates to flight from death or to escape death, a neat little touch by the author in regard to Riddle’s motives and ambitions.

With that being the case, though, the poor guy spends much of his time in the series being referred to as He Who Must Not Be Named. Which is a tough break, when you consider all the thought he put into it.

20 He Went Further Along The Road Of Immortality Than Anybody Ever Has

I guess that’s a tough one to quantify, all things considered. After all, immortality isn’t the clear-cut concept it may seem. For Achilles in The Iliad (a long, tedious book; watch the movie Troy instead, it’s got Brad Pitt in a hilarious wig), heading off into the Trojan war would mean his name would live forever, even though it would also mean his certain doom. It worked, after all. There’s a reason we still know that name thousands of years later.

Voldemort, on the other hand, decided to define the term entirely literally. In his desperate struggle to live forever, he warped himself from a handsome young man to a hideous snake-dude, and created more Horcruxes than (Dumbledore implies in the books, and movies to a much lesser extent) anybody in history ever has before.

19 He Was Born On New Years Eve

As far as I’m concerned, the holiday season is the greatest time of the year. There’s just something about this time away from work, with family you really don’t see as often as you should the rest of the year, that works my cynical heart. It’s like that last week of the year exists in an odd little bubble, where the days of the week lose all meaning as you just sit and feel your food-baby grow.

I’m really not the partying type, but I enjoy this precious time to cut loose.

Sadly, the Dark Lord being the all-round raging d-bag that he is, won’t even let us have that. He was born on December 31, 1926, just to ensure that nobody would ever have a happy New Years.

18 His Middle Name Is Pretty Darn Hilarious (In France)

If you’ve watched or read Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets umpteen times, as I have, you’ll be intimately familiar with that big reveal of Tom Riddle. Down in the chamber with Harry, he dramatically spells out his full name in flaming floaty magi-letters, flips them around, and they spell out the anagram I AM LORD VOLDEMORT.

He could have simply said, check this out for a revelation in your face, Harry: I’m Lord Voldemort, but that wouldn’t have been theatrical enough.

You knew that, of course, but did you know that Voldemort’s middle name had to be changed in other regions for the anagram to work? The only way this could be a thing in French, for instance, was to make his middle name Elvis. Which is a great name (I’m not bashing any Elvises out there by any means), but it just doesn’t quite scream Dark Lord.

17 After The First Movie, His Eyes Were The Wrong Colour

As an impressionable youngster way back in 2001, I loved the newly-released first movie, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone. It was our first introduction to the beloved books on the big screen, and it was one that actually seemed to care about the source material for once.

Going into the theater, there were so many things I was keen to see brought to life in full movie glory.

Most importantly, the creepy Voldemort face that lives under Quirrell’s turban.

The effects were, seventeen years ago, quite impressive, and those bright red eyes of Voldemort’s are pretty well scorched onto my retinas forever.

His red irises are, after all, an integral part of the character as described by Rowling in the books. After Sorcerer’s Stone, though, the movie adaptions changed this, giving Ralph Fiennes’ Voldemort the more natural eyes you see elsewhere in this article.

16 He And Bellatrix Lestrange Were More Than Just Friends

Right at the crux of Voldemort and the story surrounding him is one simple fact: he’s incapable of love. This stems from all manner of childhood trauma and such, and there’s some pretty heavy stuff going on here. I guess you can even say there’s something to sympathize with the guy for. Then again, director Ridley Scott said the same thing about Commodus in Gladiator, and he’s just a smarmy dude to me.

Still, never mind all of that. The important thing is, whether you’re able to love and be loved or not, groupies will be groupies. Throughout the series, it’s constantly reiterated that Bellatrix Lestrange is one of Voldemort’s closest, most devoted followers. Could there have been something going on behind the scenes, omitted to protect the series’s family-friendly rating? You’re darn right there could.

15 He Has A Daughter

That’s right, friends. Whatever it was that may have been going on between Voldemort and his super-devoted associate Bellatrix (once the guy was restored to a body, and a devilishly handsome Ralph Fiennes-shaped one at that, who’s to judge?), it must have been relatively serious at some point or another. The pair had a daughter together.

According to Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, Delphini was born in Malfoy Manor, sometime before the fateful Battle of Hogwarts.

We don’t know the specifics of this, as she wasn’t retconned into the series canon to any real extent, but it’s darn interesting. This means that, when Voldemort is finally defeated, she’s the last living descendant of Salazar Slytherin.

She sure followed in her father’s footsteps, too, creating a (short-lived) alternate timeline where Harry was instead lost during the Battle of Hogwarts. She was later incarcerated in Azkaban for slaying another student.

14 Tom Riddle Is A Real Darn Person

Now, of course, we all know that Voldemort’s real name is Tom Riddle. We’ve known that since 1998, for crying out loud, and we’ve no time for your twenty-year-old spoilers. Away with you.

So, yes. We’ve spoken about Riddle, a little of his origins and JK Rowling’s thoughts behind his assumed name, Voldemort. Another curious thing is that there actually was a Tom Riddle, two centuries ago, and he may have been the inspiration for the Dark Lord’s name.

In Greyfriars Kirkyard, Edinburgh, the grave of one Thomas Riddell lies. Fans have taken to places messages there, and Rowling herself has conceded that Riddell (who passed away back in 1896) may have been the inspiration for the name (the grave is in an area she frequented while writing the books).

13 When You’re Not An Animagus But You Just Don’t Care

Throughout the canon of the franchise, we’re quite specific about the rules of animal transformation. In most cases, this is performed only by an Animagus. This is a witch or wizard who has learned to transform themselves into one particular, very specific animal. They can switch between their human and animal forms at will, and they’re subjected to super strict regulations so that they can’t abuse this power.

On the other hand, we have werewolves. These are people who are doomed to briefly transform into a vicious animal at every full moon, against their will.

Neither of these cases involve ‘possession’ of another body.

This power is seen as exclusive to Voldemort, and demonstrated not only when he possesses Harry, but also Nagini, Ginny, Ron, and Quirrell. This can be attributed to a close emotional connection to his Horcruxes.

12 His Name Really Is A Curse

As I say, during the events of the series, Voldemort is referred to more often as He Who Must Not Be Named than by either of his actual darn names. This is due to the superstitious nature of much of the wizarding world. For much of the series, it’s only really Dumbledore that dares speak the name, beyond Harry himself.

The first Wizarding War was ending as the series’ timeline began, and so people around the world are still haunted by its events. Even when he’s believed gone, they still can’t bring themselves to speak his name.

Interestingly, in the final instalment, Voldemort’s name really is a curse. A Taboo Curse is placed upon the word, meaning that anybody who does dare speak it is instantly tracked by Death Eater. Which makes perfect sense, as only those who were serious about screwing with the noseless one would do so.

11 Playing Lord Voldemort Is A Family Affair

I’ve also touched on the fact that, as the series wore on, we were given more and more insight into Voldemort’s mysterious past. This is crucial from a plot standpoint, as memories of him are what eventually lead Dumbledore and Harry to the locations of his horcruxes. More than that, though, this also served to humanize him in an odd way.

He’s truly evil, but he’s not just evil, and that’s even more frightening.

To look into the young Tom’s schooling, then, it follows that we’re going to need younger actors to play him. The youngest incarnation of Voldemort we encounter is the one Dumbledore visits in the orphanage, where he invites him to Hogwarts. The eleven-year-old villain is played by Hero Fiennes-Tiffin, the nephew of Ralph Fiennes.

10 When A 100ft Inflatable Voldemort Drops By To Watch The Olympics

Now, I don’t know about you, but I have a little list of things in my head that will totally never happen ever. Ever. You know, McDonald’s delivering, say, or the UPS guy showing up at the time they’re supposed to and not while you’re in the shower.

I’m a cynical sort, and I’d happily tick some of these off if I’m proven wrong. That has been known to happen. For instance, until 2012, I had ‘thirty Mary Poppins(es) do battle with a giant inflatable Voldemort’ on there. But then the London Olympics happened.

Oh, yes indeedy. During the opening ceremony, in a segment dedicated to the villains of children’s literature, the world was treated to this glorious spectacle. It’s one of those things that you never knew you needed in your life.

9 He Was Educated At Hogwarts Throughout World War II

As Professor McGonagall once asked the so-called Golden Trio, “Why is it, when something happens, it is always you three?” Some people just have a mysterious way of attracting trouble, misfortune and general bad times, and nobody can quite like Ron, Hermione, and Harry. If they’d just learned to keep their distance from Harry, the other two would have lived quiet, blameless lives, but there it is.

The fact is, as often as trouble finds you, you go searching for it.

The two Wizarding Wars didn’t just happen around Voldemort as he casually went about his day, after all. Even so, we can’t blame him for the muggles’ World War II, which coincided with his years at Hogwarts as well as the fall of Dumbledore’s first great enemy, Grindelwald.

8 He And Molly Weasley Have Something In Common

For a lot of Harry Potter fans, the boggart question is an interesting one. I think this is because it’s such a personal issue, and one that can be darn difficult to pin down.

The boggart, you probably know, is a malevolent shapeshifter, which loves to hide in dark corners and such. When someone happens across it, it will instantly transform itself into whatever the unfortunate person fears the most.

So, that’s the question: what would your boggart be? For arachnophobes and the like, this is an easy choice, but if you don’t have such a fear? As we see in the books, Molly Weasley’s greatest fear is the loss of a family member, and so the boggart she encountered shifted between the forms of her loved ones’ lifeless bodies.

According to Rowling, because of Voldemort’s way of thinking, he would see a lifeless body too: his own.

7 He And The Kray Twins Have Something In Common Too

Back to the fountain of all Potter knowledge herself: JK Rowling. We’ve already seen the careful consideration she gave to certain aspects of her unmentionable main villain, but what led to his becoming unmentionable in the first place?

According to the author, the He Who Must Not Be Named Thing was somewhat inspired by the Kray twins.

These two British gangsters ruled the London crime scene in the fifties and sixties, and became so powerful and notorious that, Rowling has said, “the story goes that people didn’t speak the name Kray. You just didn’t mention it. You didn’t talk about them, because retribution was so brutal … I think this is an impressive demonstration of strength, that you can convince someone not to use your name. Impressive in the sense that demonstrates how deep the level of fear is that you can inspire. It’s not something to be admired.”

6 He Was The Ultimate Teacher’s Pet

Now, true enough, this one isn’t all that unusual. You know what they say: it’s always the quiet ones. Henry was a quiet, sensitive guy who kept to himself, neighbours will report, when Henry gets arrested and the police find a saucer full of human eyeballs on his coffee table.

It’s all part of the charade, I guess. Tom Riddle knew he was under close scrutiny from Dumbledore from the moment he arrived at Hogwarts, so he did his best to keep out of trouble and work hard. By so doing, he was able to influence most of the teachers with his insidious charm.

For all of the young man’s faults, he was always incredibly gifted. He left the school as one of the most accomplished students ever to study there.

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