The Harry Potter franchise has spawned a wide array of memorable and brilliant characters. One of the most prominent and iconic of these is the evil Lord Voldemort, aka Tom Marvallo Riddle. Harry’s arch-nemesis in the series and the real “Undesirable No.1” of the magical world.
Voldemort did some truly despicable things in his life, some of the cruelest and disgusting acts that either the magical or muggle worlds will ever see. He was not ashamed of his evil, nor his use of dark magic, Voldemort was brazen in his use of it. Here are 10 of the most shameless things that Voldemort ever did.
HIS USE OF OCCLUMENCY AND LEGILIMENCY
Voldemort was an immensely talented and intelligent wizard and a master of many aspects of magic. One such aspect was occlumency and legilimency. Occlumency being the shielding of one’s mind from invasion and influence of those who practiced legilimency, the art of entering and influencing the many layers of one’s mind.
Not only did he use legilimency on Harry, leading to Snape teaching him occlumency, but he also used it on various other people, including his Death Eaters. His mastery allowed him to drive people to insanity, have them do his bidding, or even use it to uncover the dark secrets of people’s minds.
ATTEMPTED ASSASSINATION OF BABY HARRY
When Voldemort is told of a prophecy by Snape about a boy born at the end of July who will have the power to destroy the Dark Lord, he immediately sets out to kill the child.
This search led him to Godrics Hollow and the Potters (whose location is revealed to him by Wormtail). Voldemort chose to go after Harry over Neville, who also met the requirements of the prophecy, and proceeds to kill his parents, and attempts to kill Harry. It takes a complete lack of shame to so willingly try and murder a baby.
ABUSED ANIMALS WHILE AN ORPHAN
As an orphan, Voldemort, then known still as Tom Riddle, was just a boy who was capable of things beyond any muggle’s comprehension. Riddle did not use these powers for pleasant things.
He admitted to Dumbledore he can make animals do what he wants them to do. After Riddle got into an argument with a boy in the orphanage, the boy’s rabbit turned up hanging from the rafters. A cruel act.
OPENED THE CHAMBER OF SECRETS, THEN FRAMED HAGRID
Tom Riddle became obsessed with finding the Chamber Of Secrets. As the heir of Slytherin and wanted to release the monster (Basilisk) in his plot to rid the school and magical world of all muggle-born witches and wizards.
Riddle succeeded in opening the Chamber of Secrets and releasing the monster, who then went on to murder a young Ravenclaw girl by the name of Myrtle Warren, better known as Moaning Myrtle. Voldemort then proceeded to frame Hagrid for it all when it became clear the school was going to shut down, leading to Hagrid’s expulsion.
CREATED THE INFERI
The Inferi are dead bodies, reanimated via dark magic known as Necromancy. During the First Wizarding War, Voldemort had his army of Inferi, which he placed in the cave of Salazar Slytherin’s locket.
It is terrifying that Voldemort has an entire army of Inferi. The army consisted of people that Voldemort has killed. These were mainly homeless muggles, but also wizards who were deemed missing during the war, and possibly others. This army shows the scope of Voldemort’s evil.
COUP OF THE MINISTRY OF MAGIC
During the time of the Second Wizarding War, Voldemort came into control of the Ministry of Magic via placing members of his following in powerful places in the Ministry.
By puppeteering Pius Thicknesse (Minister of Magic), Voldemort was able to perpetuate his ideologies. These included declaring magic could only be inherited, meaning Muggle-borns must have stolen it, so the Ministry sent them to Azkaban. The Ministry under Voldemort also spread propaganda via the Daily Prophet and made Hogwarts attendance mandatory and blood status necessary to be given.
KILLED SNAPE
Voldemort sadistically murdered a lot of people in cold blood. Harry’s parents, countless other witches, and wizards, and ordering the kills of Cedric Diggory and Albus Dumbledore. Perhaps his second-most shameless kill though, is that of Severus Snape.
Unbeknownst to Voldemort, Snape was a double-agent for the heroes of the story, which we heartbreakingly find out after his death. But, Voldemort killed his most trusted confidant, brutally, to gain control of the Elder Wand. As cruel and shameless an act as any he had performed before.
KILLED HIS FAMILY, THEN FRAMED HIS UNCLE
Voldemort’s most shameless kill though is not Snape, not his most trusted ally and follower, but rather his flesh and blood. Voldemort killed his father and grandparents in cold blood.
Tom Riddle’s first mass murder was this event when he ventured into his parent’s home village of Little Hangleton and used the killing curse to murder his father and grandparents. He then framed the murder on Morfin Gaunt, his uncle, by using his wand and altering his memory. Gaunt ended up in Azkaban, where he lived out the rest of his days.
SPLIT HIS SOUL INTO EIGHT PIECES
The introduction of Horcruxes revealed that the key to defeating Voldemort was destroying them. A Horcrux is an object in which a Dark Wizard has placed a piece of their soul, seeking immortality. Horcruxes come to be from murder.
Voldemort split his soul into eight pieces: deliberately into six Horcruxes, with Harry himself being an accidental seventh Horcrux, and Voldemort himself is the eighth piece of his soul. Horcruxes were extremely rare, as was information on them, and they are incredibly evil pieces of magic, with Voldemort being the only person to succeed in creating multiple successfully.
STARTED TWO WARS
Voldemort’s despicable temperament and craving for power, alongside his shamelessness, can be summed up in his most significant acts. Those being the starting of two wars in the wizarding world.
The First Wizarding War officially kicked off in 1970. It saw Voldemort at the height of his powers, creating chaos and widespread panic as he amassed followers and permeated destruction. The war came to an end eleven years later at the hands of a baby Harry Potter. The Second Wizarding War began in 1995 with the return of Voldemort, as seen in The Goblet Of Fire. It led to another series of mass panic and immense power and control from Voldemort and ultimately culminated in 1998 with the casualty filled Battle of Hogwarts and Harry Potter’s second defeat of the Dark Lord.
