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SlytherinStudent, later the diary

Tom Marvolo Riddle

Born:
31 December 1926

The orphan who became Lord Voldemort. This entry is the schoolboy and the diary: brilliant, already murderous, sorted into Slytherin in 1938. The diary Horcrux opens the Chamber again in 1993 and is destroyed by Harry.

Same person, later entry: Lord Voldemort

Appears in

  1. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
  2. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
  3. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

On the timeline

  1. 1926-12-31

    Tom Marvolo Riddle is born

    Merope Gaunt gives birth in a Muggle orphanage on New Year’s Eve and dies shortly after. The child is named for his father and his grandfather.
  2. 1938

    Dumbledore fetches Tom, who is sorted into Slytherin

    Dumbledore visits the orphanage and brings Tom to Hogwarts. The Hat places him in Slytherin. He already frightens the other children.
  3. 1943-06-13

    The Chamber opens; Myrtle dies; the diary becomes a Horcrux

    In his fifth year Tom opens the Chamber. The basilisk kills Myrtle Warren. He frames Hagrid, and after the murder he makes his first Horcrux, the diary.
  4. 1942–1943

    “I am Lord Voldemort”

    Tom rearranges the letters of Tom Marvolo Riddle. The diary shows he was already using the name at school. The day he coined it is not given.
  5. Summer 1943

    The Riddle murders and the ring Horcrux

    In the summer between his fifth and sixth years Tom finds the Gaunts, kills his father and grandparents, frames Morfin, and takes the ring. He makes it a second Horcrux.
  6. 1945

    Riddle leaves school and Dippet refuses him

    Tom graduates, leaves the diary at the school, and asks Armando Dippet for the Defence post. Dippet says he is too young. Dippet, not Dumbledore, is headmaster.
  7. Late 1940s

    Hepzibah Smith is murdered

    While working at Borgin and Burkes, Tom flatters Hepzibah Smith, kills her, and takes Slytherin’s locket and Hufflepuff’s cup. Both become Horcruxes. Her house-elf is blamed.
  8. Mid to late 1940s

    Borgin and Burkes, and the search for the diadem

    Tom works in the Knockturn Alley shop, hunts founder relics, and will turn Ravenclaw’s diadem into a Horcrux after a murder abroad. He does not become headmaster of anything.
  9. Mid to late 1950s

    Dumbledore refuses the Defence post

    Tom returns, already changed, and asks again to teach Defence. Dumbledore refuses. On that visit the diadem Horcrux is hidden in the Room of Requirement.
  10. 1992–1993

    Second year: the Chamber of Secrets

    Ginny, Colin, and Luna’s year arrives. Lockhart teaches nothing useful. The diary possesses Ginny. Harry destroys it with a basilisk fang.